Matt is a musician who can cook. It is a great combination. He has a little recording studio in his house that is full of guitars including a homemade wooden one that he used to play in shows. His band-mates named it The Caveman. We did not get to hear him play but he did make us a great breakfast.

We all decided to go to Byron Bay for lunch and meet up with a friend of Matt and Narelle's who is in Australia for a wedding. On the way there, we passed The Big Prawn, so naturally we had to stop and take a picture. The big stuff is cracking us up. We also stopped at Tea Tree Lake. This lake looks the color of tea but is actually purplish when you hold up a handful of water. It turns this color from the oils in the eucalyptus tree leaves and tea tree leaves that fall into the water. The water is very silky to touch and is believed to be natural healing waters.

I was very excited to go to Byron Bay. We had read about it before leaving the States and it was on my to-do list. Byron Bay was really crowded. We have been spoiled by doing all of our tourist stuff during the week and avoiding the major crowds. Not today.

Our first stop in Byron Bay was the Lighthouse. The Cape Byron Lighthouse is Australia's most easterly light which is situated on the most easterly point of the mainland. It is also Australia's most powerful Lighthouse. This was a beautiful spot surrounded by a nature preserve filled with walking trails. We arrived there around noon so it was too hot to much hiking but we did walk to the most eastern point of Australia. The waters surrounding the lighthouse were full of dolphins and turtles. I tried to get some pictures but we were about 100 meters up on a cliff so they did not turn out very well.

We then drove into town to meet up with Matt, Narelle and Sarah from Germany to have lunch. Byron Bay is known for its organic, healthy eating so we were very excited to try the food. We picked a sidewalk café in the middle of town and had a beautiful lunch, watched the people and got to know Sarah a bit. After lunch we decided to move on rather than walk around town. We finally found the Australian Summer and it was hot today and town was crowded so off we went.

Today’s drive was extremely scenic along the coast and through small villages. We stopped along the way a few times to stretch our legs and enjoy the ocean breeze and take in the views. Our next and last stop today was Tweed Heads/Coolangatta. This is a City which is half in New South Wales and half in Queensland. Tweed Heads is on The New South Wales side and Coolangatta is on the Queensland. The dividing line runs right down the center of a street. We went out to Danger Point to the Captain Cook Memorial and stood half in NSW and half QL.

We only drove 273K today but it seemed like three times that for some reason. We were ready to get to Lesley’s Niece’s house. We plugged her address into the Navman and proceeded to drive in circles for the next hour. Every time we started making any kind of progress we would get to a road we needed and it would be closed. It was so frustrating. At one point Lesley was actually driving the wrong way down a road. We finally got around all the construction and made it to Angela and Andrew’s house.

Angela and Andrew have two kids April and Austin who are charming. We relaxed on their deck overlooking the garden and had a well deserved beer. Angela served nibblies (Australian for snacks) and then dinner. We have decided not to spend too much time in the car tomorrow. We need a break. I think we are going to go see a couple of local markets in Brisbane in the morning and then relax by the pool in the afternoon.