WOW what a phenominal time i have had so far in Byron, i dont want to leave it if im perfectly honest. So as you know i started which a very interesting visit to Nimbin, things went up hill from there.

The following day i tried to get a few things sorted such as the scuba diving which i did eventually manage to book. After that i went for a surf with some friends id made, it was kind of sketchy waves ranging from a ft to maybe 3/4 ft so not too bad took me a little while to remember how to surf and also had to use a smaller board than im use to but i managed to get some good rides in towards the end. To finish the day off me and two of the friends decided to enjoy a nice 2/3 hour walk up to the light house and to the most easternly point on the Australian mainland. This is when the magic started.

On the way along the beach i noticed in the corner of my eye something unusual out to sea, when i looked, it was a whale more than 3/4 of its body out the water, making a huge splash. He proceeded to stalk us as we walked up the coast, firstly to the most easternly point which was pretty cool and from there could see our whale friend but also lots of his friends as well! We then ventured up to the light house again some amazing views of sunset and saw many more whales in the distance making splahes.

The next day i was to start my adventure diving course, a relatively early start took me to the dive centre in order to complete some classroom work before i went out to start doing new skills and drills such as navigating. It was just a short but very bumpy ride making our way out to the rocks over the waves and swell, as we arrived though we were greeted by a pod of dolphines feeding and showing us that there were at least 10 of them. Shortly after we entered the water and as i descended i was met on the bottom by 2 grey nursery sharks less than 2m away... what a welcoming party! Swimming not too far and there were plenty more but also Wobbegong sharks aswel who looked pretty dosile but i wasnt going to challenge that!

Swimming around it became apparent that you could hear whales calling to each other in the distance, what an experince. It wasnt long before a pretty big sting ray decided to glide past as wel. While i was performing some of the navigational drills i nearly missed what was disguised as a big rock, but no... it was a GIANT turtle, i wouldnt have been able to reach my arms around its shell it was so big! Almost exactly the same thing happened in my second dive saw everything again, only made better by hearing even more calling whales. Also venturing slightly further had alot closer encounters with alot more sharks at one point getting very nervous with how close they were coming especially from head on directions with very few options of escape from us.

What an experince! Tomorrow iv got to look forward to trying deep diving and feeling the symptoms of Nitrogen Narcosis which should be interesting and fun!