Byron Bay Day 1

We arrived in Byron Bay around 7.30am following our marathon 13.5hr overnight bus from Sydney. The journey was fine all things considered.

We gathered our bags and set off on a short walk to our accommodation, another YHA. The hostel reception was closed, so we dived into a cafe over the road and had a coffee. To our suprise, the cafe was bustling with locals, many of whom appeared to have been for their morning surf/swim. As the cafe filled up, we finished our drinks and headed back the hostel to drop our bags.

We walked down to the beachfront and immediately felt the attraction of Byron Bay. It's a very cool and trendy town, with lots of boutique shops and cool cafes. We had breakfast at a Balinese themed cafe and headed to sit on the famous grass mound above the beach. It was a lovely spot to relax for the morning until our room was ready, and we were both happy to do so as we were shattered from the bus journey. We relaxed on the mound and watched the world go by. A loud siren interrupted our relaxation, and we quickly learned this was the shark warning, and people promptly evacuated the sea. I'm not sure whether we actually saw the shark, although we saw huge schools of fish moving around the bay with some activity on the surface.

After a relaxing morning at the beach, we headed back to the hostel and checked in. The hostel had a huge well equipped kitchen, so we decided to make some tea - budget/improvised seafood "paella" and a bottle of white wine, yummo!

The kitchen during mealtime was chaotic to say the least, but it was fun to cook again.Read more