A Year of Work and Exploration in Australia: Byron Bay, Grafton, Coff's Harbour

Byron Bar, Grafton & Coffs Harbour

It's been a busy few days this week, lots of moving around and very little in terms of internet access so haven't been able to update this as much as I'd like to as I went along.

The last update we did was at our last evening in Coolangatta. Well, in the morning we headed down south towards Byron Bay.

At Byron we checked into a camp site about 5 minutes drive from the centre of town, before heading into the beachside to have pizza, explore and generally chill out after the drive. We caught sunset and watched the surfers surfing around the local shipwreck as the sun went down.

Byron Bay

Byron Bay Lighthouse

Sunset from just below the lighthouse

Sunset from the lighthouse

The most easterly point in Australia - a place we were at almost 3 years ago!

Charlotte also being easterly!

Charlotte spent the best part of half an hour with this bird - it made a mouse-like squeak and decided to live on our van for a while.

Byron Bay has a very hippie vibe - it is very much the Glastonbury of Australia, and there were more travel vans like ours there than we had seen anywhere else.

In the morning, we went and checked out Arakwall National Park, which, after 20 minutes spent trying to find the access path, we discovered was only a 30 minute walk back and forth from the car park. We did, however, find this:

Yup. That is a 7-8ft Lace Monitor lizard. Just ambling across the path. It then climbed a tree and scared Charlotte.

After the venture down the lizard path, I went for a surf at 2 spots - The Pass and Tallows. Dolphins are often at these spots, and I missed out on surfing with them again as when I was at The Pass, the dolphins were playing with surfers at Tallows!!

Lennox Heads

After Byron, the next day we went down to Lennox Heads, a world-class and legendary right-hand point break that ranks amongst the best waves in the world. I went for a quick surf before slicing my feet up on the rocks. With bleeding feet and in a slightly sharky area, I came out of the sea...

...and straight into this. An eastern Brown snake. Only the second most venomous terrestrial snake in the world.

GRAFTON

After Lennox heads, we went inland to Grafton. Grafton is an old colonial village with some very old (for Australian standards) buildings. The camp site we stayed in was amazing - 5* accomodation for $22 a night, $11 each.

The main reason we came to Grafton was for the famous Platypus colony we had there. We had hunted for Platypus in Maleny on the Sunny Coast before, to no avail, so we tried here.

Also known as the middle of nowhere.

And for the 2nd day in a row, we came across a snake. This one, we believe, is a python. It was very long and quite fat. This thing stretched more than halfway across the road. I almost ran over it.

After a few hours fruitless searching, we went and sat by the riverbank at sundown and hoped the Platypus would pop their heads out. They didn't.

*sadface*

However, we did find a bug making concentric circles in the river. So we took a photo of that instead.

Coffs Harbour

After Grafton, we drove down to Coffs Harbour. This is where we had seen dolphins last time we were in Australia. It is also the home of a Banana plantation and (as the signs assured us) "The world-famous Big Banana".

Apparently it doesn't take much to be world-famous in Australia. But here we are. With a giant banana.

After having a delicious banana split dessert, we headed on down to Coffs itself.

Coffs Harbour is a very picturesque port town, with an abundance of wildlife as it is sat inside the Solitary Islands marine reserve.

Here is Charlotte on Muttonbird Island. That's her in the middle. Muttonbird Island is a wildlife reserve which, apparently, is one of the few places in the world where the wedge-tailed shearwater bird nests. The more you know.

Aaand here I am at the top of Muttonbird Island. I ran to the top to catch the sunset, Charlotte stayed lower down.

On the way down, we were walking across the seabreak and we saw a pod of wild dolphins! Obviously we got quite excited. Here are two of many, many photos we now have of fins in the sea:

Oh, and I went surfing at Macauleys Beach:

Emerald Beach

If my never-ending quest for fun surfing beaches has any positive side-effects, it's this. We have come across a few amazing little bays and coves by following the surfing guidebooks, and even if it's not surfable that day, we have a good explore over various headlands and beaches. Emerald Beach was a stop-off on the way down to Coffs, and it was where we came across the first wild kangaroo of the trip. And it was blocking our path.