Our weekend in Byron Bay was awesome! Not only did we get to spend lots of time with Bec and Tom but it’s a beautiful place too.
We hired a cabin for the weekend and planned to spend our time relaxing. It was officially the weekend after all!
We started off Saturday morning with banana pancakes, sweet, delicious and healthy, there is no better way to start the day! We headed into Byron Bay town centre for a quick coffee before buying a couple of tennis balls for the boys to play with (I kid you not) and then proceeded on our morning walk up to the Byron Bay lighthouse and the most easterly point of mainland Australia.
With the sun shining Bec and I had a lovely time chatting all the way through our walk. Rich and Tom enjoyed playing with their tennis balls and making up games. They also enjoyed the outdoor gym trail that accompanied the walk, taking it in turns to complete a challenge at each piece of equipment!
After an hour and a half of walking we reached the most easterly point of mainland Australia, clearly marked by a sign on the fence. It’s not the most epic of signs, but it was a milestone nonetheless.
Walking on up to the lighthouse we spotted turtles swimming in the sea below us and enjoyed sporadic breezes that refreshed us from the constant heat of the sun.
The view of Byron Bay from the lighthouse was beautiful. You could see the golden sand stretch out for miles along the coastline and swimmers and surfers enjoying the warm waters of the sea.
Our leisurely morning soon passed by and we opted for a quick light lunch before we hit the beach. During our lunch stop there was quite a commotion as people at tables started getting up and looking out over the balcony. We then realised that there was a brown snake on the path just outside the cafe we were in. Apparently they are quite rare to see and if bitten by one you have to seek medical attention at a hospital straight away!
As we left the cafe, the rangers were trying to find the brown snake to re-locate it to a more remote location. It seemed the snake had made its escape from the path before the rangers arrived.
We left the rangers to it and carefully walked down the path and back across to the main beach in Byron Bay. Here Rich and Tom enjoyed playing throw and catch in the sea for around three hours! After an hour of lying on the beach, Bec and I decided to head back into town and take a look around the shops.
Looking around the shops quickly changed into searching for a nice bar that served cocktails! After the most delicious lemon flavoured mojito’s, we thought we had better head back to the beach and meet up with the boys however it turned out that they had come looking for us. It’s amazing how time flies when you’re drinking cocktails with a friend!
It didn’t take much convincing to get them to try the lovely cocktails for themselves and it was the perfect excuse for us to have more too! As is usual with cocktail drinking, one turns into two, which turns into three and before you know it you’ve spent more money than you ever intended to!
As it was the weekend before Christmas, we decided to inject some Christmas spirit into our time in Byron Bay and so headed back to our cabin for a home cooked meal, copious amounts of alcohol and to watch the movie Elf.
Rich treated us all on Sunday morning by making bacon sandwiches, with brown sauce of course, not so healthy but certainly delicious! After another quick coffee in town (Tom and Bec like their coffee), at a coffee shop with a painting on the wall of an owl that I loved, we headed off to the beach to enjoy our last few hours in Byron Bay.
After we all went in the sea for a dip or paddle, Rich and Tom created new ball games to play, Bec strolled along the beach and I sunbathed on the beach listening to Christmas songs being sung by a man dressed as Santa at the Surf Life Saving Club. It felt Christmassy, just not as I usually know it.
After an hour and a half it transpired that Rich and Tom could play ball no more, they were sore from the previous days efforts and had no more left in them. We packed everything away and went looking for somewhere to have a quick bite for lunch before the drive back to Brisbane.
That place was Guzman y Gomez. I kid you not, I was starting to lose count of the number of burritos I had eaten, thank goodness there were different flavours to try for me. Rich went for his favourite shredded pork and chipotle burrito, again.
We drove back to Brisbane after lunch so that we had Sunday evening to continue the Christmas festivities. After telling Bec and Tom about how good the fireworks were the other night, they decided to see the Sunday showing of them and we weren’t going to miss an opportunity to see them again! Rich and I played Christmas music all the way back to Brisbane so we were ready to continue the Christmas vibe back at Tom and Bec’s.
I’m pleased to say that the fireworks accompanied by Christmas music were awesome the second time round too! It even put Bec and Tom in the Christmas spirit as they put their fibre optic Christmas tree up when we got back to their place!
We had a brilliant weekend in Byron Bay with Bec and Tom. Who knew two grown men could entertain themselves with a tennis ball each for so many hours?! For Bec and I it was time well spent with friends who had lived together at uni over ten years ago.
The good thing about great friends is that when you meet up, it feels like you’ve never been apart.
Lambs on the loose 