Byron Bay - 2nd Jan

Today we headed to Bryon Bay. We stopped off on route at a lookout of Lennox Heads bay - this time thankfully in sunshine. This involved a climb up a hill past web after web of really large spiders. We don't think they were any of the dangerous varieties but their size was certainly intimidating (to me).

Lennox Heads

Scary Spider

After days and days of visiting long stretches of near to deserted coastline with beautiful beaches and plenty of parking we found Bryon Bay very busy. We had to queue to get into the town, queue through the town, queue for parking spaces and for the first time the van felt big and cumbersome. We drove (crawled) up to the lighthouse at Cape Bryon – which is actually the most easterly point in Australia – but couldn't find a parking space so I had to jump out and take some quick snaps and Andy had to wait in the van.

Busy Byron Bay



Cape Byron

On a positive note when we finally parked and made it to the beach we found it really appealing with long stretches of sand, crystal clear sea and no high rise buildings.



Byron Bay Main Beach

To get to the sea we had to walk through a small natural pool which people were paddling or sitting around in. As we walked through I spotted a small purple jellyfish. We thought this must just be a one off and went on into the sea. Whilst jumping the waves I noticed a girl next to me clutching her arm in pain and realised that she must have been stung by a jellyfish.

We soon decided to get out and whilst sitting on the sand we noticed someone else in the little pool clutching his arm in pain and then we saw a small boy crying as he came out the water. When we looked over to the lifeguard's tent we could see a queue of people waiting for ice to ease the stings on their arms, legs etc.

Regardless of this Andy decided to go for one final dip and my parting words were “don't get stung”. Five minutes later Andy comes out the water stung around his belly. He'd been caught while jumping the waves but fortunately the sting didn't hurt as much as for people who'd been stung on their arms. We too went over to the lifeguards for some ice for the belly. It turned out the jellyfish were blue bottles which had been carried in on a northerly wind. Fortunately they weren't poisonous but just gave a nasty sting.

The sting - ouch !!

On the way back to the campsite we again called in to Lennox Heads. We headed to the beach and spoke to the lifeguard who said they'd also experienced jellyfish but only a couple of stings so we decided to risk it and went in the water and fortunately were both sting-less when we left.

On balance we both preferred Lennox Heads to Bryon Bay – it was just a lot calmer and more civilised.

Deserted Lennox Beach

We decided to have pizza for tea but were told there'd be a 60 minute wait so we opted for fish and chips instead. It turned out that this ended up being a 55 minute wait due to its popularity with hoards of people, locals and tourists alike. We weren't convinced it was worth the long wait but after all the fish and chips we were eating during this trip we were becoming rather professional in telling an optimum fish platter from a mediocre one.