After another great flight back accross Oz with virgin blue we spent our last 5 days in Oz down at byron bay. We picked up a cheap car near brisbane airport and drove the 2 hrs into new southwales to byron.
We managed to get agreat contact from mandy at the no.14 hostel in katoumba for a small self contained studio apartment in byron, so we called ahead and booked it....oh the luxury, our own kitchen ,ensuite and main door.
It turned out to be ace!, and really cheap, we were delighted, no more backpacker hostel hell for a few days anyway!.
We'd read quite a lot about byron and its history as an old hippy colony and surf town, but im afraid after spending a few days there, it wasnt quite what we thought.
In reality theres very few hippies there now, they've all moved inland to Nimbin and byron is yet another backpacker resort now sadly. Off they hop, off their packpacker bus straight into the backpacker hostel, eating in the backpacker restaurant and drinking in the backpacker pub and booking all their tours in the backpacker tour agent offices......its so sad !
Anyway...enough of that, yea its now a dedicated tourist town, but not a bad place to spend a few days.
Its got some cracking beaches with good surf and really clear water, we thought the beaches were much better than up at Noosa where the water was a bit murky. We took a wander up the lighthouse which gives some awsome views of the coast.
We were lucky our studio was a bit out of town so we werent traumatised too bady by the backpacker brigade......or backpackages as we now call em.
We took a ride up to nimbin to check it out and also the sunday market, it was quite cool and friendly, comedy to watch them all dancing about on the village green dressed as fairies etc..
Before we even got the car parked in nimbin we were offered grass!!...amsterdam doesnt have a look in here!...lol. We were only there for an hour or two and must have been approached about 10 times with offers of "smoko"...
All in all a great chilled last few days in oz. On the way back up to brisbane we took in dream world on the gold coast, a coupla good rides but not really up to that much, def not worth the 60 bucks!...it was funny to see the tackiness of the gold coast...kind of benidorm in Oz really Bizarre that its advertised as some kind of glam coast cause its concrete geometric blocks beside some surf beaches......really naff, glad we didnt spend any time there...
anyway off to new zealand we go...