The Mojo bus dropped us at the Byron Bay bus station - which is actually only one bus stop on one of the main streets!
I heard so many mixed reports about Byron Bay - Ozzies hate it cause its so commercialised but i fell in love with it before i even got there. We stayed at the Byron Beach Resort, about a 15 min walk to the town centre. All of the hostels run courtesy buses at certain times daily so we walked over to the car park and jumped on our wee bus straight to the hostel! Ideal since we arrived quite late at night.
We were staying for 5 days. We all loved the hostel the minute we arrived, it was a beach resort style hostel so the rooms were like proper beach dorms and had hammocks and benches outside the doors for everyone to sit, sort of like a communal area. It had a massive BBQ area, big kitchen area, ensuite rooms (we had a 6 bed dorm and the toilet/shower was shared with the room next door) but it also had recently refurbished communal showers - doesn't sound very exciting but when you're a backpacker this is a big thumbs up, haha!
The 1st full day we were there we walked to the beach and it only took us... 5minutes? Beautiful Belongil beach... No words for it. Beautiful white sand and blue seas partnered with scorching weather - we were so happy! It took about 15 minutes to walk to the Town Centre from Belongil.
Byrons town centre is full of hippies, buskers, all sorts. They encourage people to busk because they believe in creative arts like music and painting so theres always musicians of some kind around. Everyone walks in their bare feet. They have a big Woolworths and Aldi so we got some shopping in to save us money on food and good old goon!
Theres a few decent clothes shops and nice bars, clubs but the backpacker friendly Cheeky Monkeys club was where we had been recommended to 'party' haha.
Byron bay also homes the most Easterly point in Australia, which is a beautiful coastal walk and further round it has a lighthouse. We went on a scorching day so it was a beautiful walk (got a good tan) but its quite hilly so wouldn't recommend cycling like our group originally wanted to do!! We walked along the beach to a part of the coast called "Captain Cook Lookout" which is a big staircase and look out point - get beautiful views of the coast. Then from there you can get to the walking track to take you to the most easterly point, pose with the sign (by this point we didn't think we were going to make it, so tiring and we were so unfit!) then walk further uphill to eventually reach the lighthouse. You can see the lighthouse pretty much anywhere in Byron Bay but standing below it is awesome, plus theres an awesome little cafe next to it that sells THE BEST ice cream EVER! Highly recommended!!
We decided to go out one night and check out Cheeky Monkeys so we got gooned up in the hostel and walked along. It was so so busy when we went, it was famous for people dancing on the tables and partying and thats exactly what was happening when we arrived! The bar staff and some customers had their chest painted with flags - the flag from their home country. There was a competition to see who had the best chest haha yeah it was painted on to their skin so 10/10 to the female bar staff for having the balls to do that! An Oz girl won of course (fix!). After CM we got a kebab - the best i have ever eaten! Abrakebabra introduced me to sweet chilli and sour cream mixed together.... Mmmm! Haha!
We were in Byron on Valentines Day so we booked our Nimbin day trip (see Nimbin blog) for that day, the Thursday. I had broken up with my ex on the Monday previous so to have woken up to a Valentines card from my 3 travelling buddies who had only known me a week completely took me by surprise. They slagged him off inside and reminded me i'm LIVING THE DREAM and he wasn't :) it just made me realise how easily you can make friends and look out for each other. Theres some bloody amazing people on this planet! Everything happens for a reason xx
Theres a Greyhound office in Byron who were super helpful showing us how to use the online booking system for our Ozexperience bus (Greyhound and Ozexp are owned by the same company) so we booked our 1st Oz experience bus from Byron to Surfers Paradise for the end of the Byron trip. We were only staying in Surfers for two nights then heading to Brisbane.
We had spoke to staff in the hostel who were travellers. They had been there for months doing 'work for accommodation' which is quite popular in hostels. You can get work like pot washing in the kitchens, reception work, changing the beds when people check out etc and you are required to do so many hours a week (normally 12-14) and you can stay in that hostel for free. The girl in our hostel cleaned the rooms 3 mornings a week and loved it, she had been in Byron for 5 months and couldn't imagine living anywhere else! It was quite scary thinking we were heading back to a bigger city after being in Sydney and not enjoying it as much as i had thought.
Leaving Byron Bay was so sad. Arriving in Byron to be single and realise the previous 3 months of my life i had been miserable and then being let loose in a beautiful town with BEAUTIFUL people... Wow!!! Felt like the luckiest girl on the world, Byron Bay hands down my favourite place in Oz so far! Like i say about everywhere... Its not goodbye its see you soon :)