What an amazing place Byron Bay is! I stayed for six nights in the end and really enjoyed every minute of it. My hostel was located right on the beach, all you had to do was walk out the back, over an unused railway track and you were on the sand. It's hard to get a feeling for the place before you arrive. Everyone says it is a very relaxed place and it is exactly like that. There are loads of hippies everywhere and sort of hippy grafiti sprayed on lots of things. It's kind of like being back in the 60's, although obviously I didn't experience that. I didn't look too out of place even though my pretty pale skin didn't match all the heavily bronzed skin walking around the town!

The beaches and sea are absolutely stunning and I think I spent nearly every evening watching the sunset. I was lucky that wit didn't rain too much and there were some beautiful long days of sunshine. Byron is famous for its surfing so I knew I'd have to give it a go. I rented a board and wetsuit on my second day and just went for it. I thought I would be rubbish and lessons wouldn't help me much so I decided to just do it myself. I met a few Dutch guys who had a similar idea to me so we spent the whole day trying to stay up on the huge waves for as long as we could. By the end of the day we were all scraping past the novice stage and could catch a few waves. It was a really great day and we finished it off with a few beers overlooking the sunset over the mountains in the distance. The next day was sunny again so I decided to take on the steep walk to the top of Cape Byron, the walking track that weaves through the mountains to the lighthouse. It was well worth the climb as the views out over the whole of the Bay were incredible. The lighthouse is really nice close up and you could see all the way down to the clear blue water with lots of dolphins jumping from the sea. I was surprised at how rugged the mountains were around the bay, they added to the beauty of the place.

In the few days remaining I did a mixture of walking round the parks in the bay, reading and attempting to surf some more. I reckon by the end of the stay I was no longer terrible at it and was really enjoying it by the end. I definitely think it's a skill that takes a while to perfect. I generally have pretty poor balance so I was quite chuffed that I could ride some of the bigger waves ok by the end of the week. I was glad to have spent nearly a week in the town as I feel I got a much better feel for the place than if I'd only stayed a couple of days. I now have a long couple of bus journeys to get to Melbourne but I'm very excited about getting there!