We headed to the 'Alternative' hippy town of Byron Bay for our second stop up the east coast of Australia....and we had an amazing time. The beach was beautiful, the people so friendly, a lovely relaxed, chilled out town. Needless to say we spent most of time sunbathing on the gorgeous beach and working on the tan (coming along nicely now!!). We did however pack in a few activities along the way. One evening we ventured up to the Byron Bay lighthouse perched on the cliffside at Australia's most eastern point on the whole coast, and watched a perfect panoramic view of the spectacular sunset. We were however too early for the whaling season which starts in a couple of weeks where hundreds of whales migrate up north, passing this point on there way....so we were a bit gutted about that. This was however more than made up by the spectacular views of the beautiful dolphins we saw!! Byron Bay has about 300 resident dolphins, which are easily seen on clear, still days. Dan was sunbathing on the beach one day when a dolphin came up to the shoreline and gathered a huge crowd! Having missed this i was determined to see one too, so i booked on to a dolphin kayaking tour to see what i could find. We headed out at about 10 am in the morning in a small group of 4 boats and headed for the middle of the bay about 20 mins out where they are usually found. We were lucky and by a stroke of luck we ended up (quite rare apparently) in the middle of a huge bait pool, where all the dolphins were happily feeding!! The water looked black from all the thousands of tiny bait fish and the dolphins were swimming around in their pods with their little babies, diving in and out of the water, and even jumping out of the waves with the surfers....it was absolutely amazing!! After the guy on my kayak with me being sea sick (Yuck!) i swapped boats and we paddled out to the most eastern point of Australia in the sea, spotting really cute loggerhead turtles who kept popping their heads out of the water for a look around at who was watching them!! After this we headed back to the spot where we had first encountered the dolphins in the bait pool, and waited in our boats to see if any would come again. And they did!! Loads of them!! We saw them heading towards my kayak in about a group of 8, and they kept coming and suddenly they were right next to our boat, popping their heads out of the water, rolling around and swimming under and around our boat, even the cute baby one!! You could hear them breathing and everything, it was absoultely unreal, i was sooo excited!! We could have touched them they were so near, but off they went and we just sat in awe and watched pod after pod, pass through before we headed back to the beach and a spot of surfing in our kayaks. Whilst i was gone, dan had again seen a dolphin in the sea and climbed into the water with it, before it swam off. Other highlights of Byron included a slap up OZ bbq with friends at their campsite plus a few OZ style drinking games!! One of the main highlights for us however was a tour that we went on to Nimbin on our last day. Nimbin is known in Australia as the Ámsterdam'of OZ, and it was quite possibly the most random, hilarious little town we have ever had the pleasure of visiting! We went on the annual Mardi Grass festival, and it was so funny. Basically this tiny town of Cannibas smokers is campaigning for the legalisation of Cannabis, so you can only imagine what they were like. It was full on hippy stlye festival, and quite an experience. The bus ride there was quite possibly in the oldest running bus in Australia, painted in rainbow patterns, and driven by Doug, the local 50 or so year old hippy....we laughed the whole day!! So after a fab time in Byron Bay, with some very fond memories, we headed to Surfers Paradise....... xxxx