byron bay and big banana

we woke up a little early so that we could spend some time enjoying the sights of byron bay. first stop: the beach. the beach was just a couple of blocks from our hostel, and even though it was a bit overcast, it was great to be on the soft sand and see the rocks and waves. we walked along the beach a bit, and then hopped back in the car to head to the lookout point.

byron bay beach

(you can kind of see the lighthouse on the hill)

we drove up the windy single lane road, to the lighthouse. byron bay is the easternmost point of australia, and the lighthouse / lookout point is situated on a little peninsula that juts out into the south pacific. so from the lighthouse, we could look behind us and see the beaches on both sides of the peninsula - beautiful! the view the other direction was just as beautiful, and it was made even more spectacular by the dozen or so whales we saw playing in the water. the were mostly spouting water up out of their blowholes, but we saw a few whales breaching off in the distance. i started talking to the whales that were closer to us, and told them they should jump out of the water so that we could see them - and i counted down from 10. i promise you, i got to "one" and one of the whales breached! he was a second early, but i definitely forgave him! we stood at the lookout for a long time, enjoying the whales, and we even saw a few more as we walked back to our car - we couldn't stop staring at the ocean! it was absolutely incredible to be standing on the shore and still see so many whales!

byron bay lighthouse

sarah-mae pointing home

unfortunately, we did have to get on the road. and our drive was nice, and mostly uneventful. one of the highlights was seeing "the big banana" in coffs harbor. australia has a lot of "big" things - a big koala, a big mango (which we saw near airlie beach), a big boxing croc... and one of the most famous is the big banana. we hoped to try and see more, but it was hard to make it out to them, as a lot of them are a ways off the beaten path. BUT, the big banana is situated right on the freeway, so it was perfect for us.

we drove down to port macquarie, where we stopped at a delicious italian cafe for dinner - and it was "buy one get one free" pasta night - yay! then, we kept driving for another hour or so until we got to newcastle, where we found the local YHA. i went in, and not a moment too soon, because she said that they were about to close the office. but, we were able to get a room and we unloaded our bags (something we repeatedly referred to as "bag vomit") and re-packed them to be ready for our flight. it was hard to believe that our time in australia was coming to an end! we still had about two hours to drive in the morning, so we headed to bed as soon as our things were packed.