You hear so much about Byron Bay so I decided I had to check it out on my way up the coast...

When you arrive the first thing that strikes you (apart from how busy it is!) is that everything is so low rise and sooo chilled out - hippy heaven. The local residents have been successful in keeping out all th big food chains, so you won't find a MacDonalds or a KFC in sight no matter how hard you look,. It's very much a place for local businesses and local people, although there's apparently only about 10,000 residents, the rest are all tourists!

On my first afternoon I took a walk up to the lighthouse, which I was told was a 'must do'. It was a slightly more strenuous activity than I had first thought. It's about a 7km round trip, but up a very steep hill (funny that seeing as there's a lighthouse on the top!). On the way you also pass the most easterly point in Australia - photo opportunity! From the top you can see right down into the clear blue ocean. And it was so clear that I could see huge manta rays swimming around - probably about as near as I'd like to get to them as well...

The other thing people also tell you when you say you're going to Byron Bay is that you have to do a day trip to Nimbin - a small town about an hour away. I decided to go with Jim's Alternative tours as I'd heard some good reports and it certainly was 'alternative'. The guy himself is a real character and spends half the day trying to convert you to the whole hippy way of life with some pretty extreme ideas. On the bus he has a piece of music for every stretch of the road you go on, and it is seriouly so well timed. We went down one road that was a huge downward hill, winding around and he pretty much drove flat out while playing a particular Pink Floyd track (sorry can't rememeber which one) only for it to end right as he applied the brakes at the t-junction at the end!

Nimbin itself is a really bizarre place. Although cannabis isn't legal here you can buy it pretty much as if it was. Everywhere you go it's on sale and funnily enough everyone is pretty laid back about it. There's a hemp museum and a hemp embassy to visit as well as a few cafes and restaurants for some lunch - just be careful what you order off the menu if you don't want to spend the whole afternoon asleep! It's a really interesting place though, I don't reckon there's anywhere else quite like it. The villagers kind of rule themselves with their own newspaper and festivals etc. A couple of hours is enough to get a general feel for the place although it would be a great place to come when they were having one of their celebrations...

On the way home we stopped off to see Paul's hippy camp. This guy bascially arrived here about 25 years ago, bought the land and has turned it into his own little territory. There were just a few cows grazing on the 35 acres of land and not much else, no trees or plants or anything. Anyway his background was in horticulture so he set about transforming the place and now it's a recognised ecological area. He even has his own small lake outside his shack where you can laze around in some big rubber rings if you're brave enough to swim alongside turtles and eels!

We also stopped off at Minyon Falls on the way home, but there has been so little rain here recently that the falls have completely dried up, so not too much to see there!

The next couple of days it was back to the beach and the surf. The first day there really were no waves at all so had to make do with working on the sun tan and dolphin spotting instead - two dolphins swam right past in front of me. The next day the waves were pretty big, so after watching some spectacular wipeouts I got into the water myself. At one stage a huge wave broke right on my head, the board smacked me in the face and went one way while I went under and in the opposite direction. I seriously thought I'd broken my nose, it really hurt(!) but after a few minutes I realised I was overreacting and actually fine, so you just pick up the board and head back in for another go! I mean if a dog can stay on a surfboard then surely I can - yes honestly there was a guy there with his dog on the board!