I have been to beautiful Byron Bay quite a few times already; the last time I was there it was with [ Cakes ], Lucia & Yao-Yang for Lucia's birthday and we had the most incredible time, so naturally I was really excited about being able to go there again.
We refueled and stocked up on caffeine and junk food at 7-11. Eddie slept in the car while I drove past huge freight trucks lit up like Christmas trees, and karaoke-d to some of my old R&B CDs.
We arrived at Ballina lighthouse at 3am NSW time (they've got daylight saving!), two hours before sunrise. It was pitch black except for the powerful beam of the lighthouse, which came around every ten seconds or so and sliced through the thick darkness above us. We wound down our tinted windows to reveal an amaaaazing galaxy of stars (I counted 3 shooting stars!!! :D) and dozed off under the constellations.
Woke up at 4.30 and groggily set off towards the lighthouse..
Lighthouse in background, taken with a long shutterspeed thus the brightness and blurness. It was actually still quite dark at the time.
And behold, the sunrise!
I can never get sick of sunrises.
The sky lit up rapidly and we could see little dots of people kayaking in the sea, surfing, and even fishing on the rocks in the distance below.
We decided to trek down and get closer to the water.
On the way down we came across this and made up some morbid stories about a missing child...
The sun was warming us up rapidly, and the waves at the edge of the deep blue sea crashing against the huge jagged rocks was pretty spectacular.
Me! :)
BTW I super ♥ this windbreaker we got from last year's NCG. It's so lightweight and warm and versatile! I just can't do without it, especially when we go fishing.
Speaking of fishing..
There were quite a few people fishing on the rocks with their humongous rods. I wonder if they caught anything. I wonder how they even got up there in the first place.
We clambered out on the rocks as far as we dared to towards the edge, and chilled for a while before we decided to hike back uphill. OMG I was so out of breath during the climb up that I could've gotten an asthma attack even though I don't have asthma wtf. And all along the way, these old men and women were breezing past us jogging up and down and running circles around us while we huffed and puffed and wheezed like a punctured set of bagpipes! *shame*
After the horribly tedious climb, we finally reached the top again YAY
View from the other side of the lighthouse..
The sun was starting to heat things up. It was time to tan!
We got back into the car, drove down to the beach and stripped down to our beachwear.
I brought along my new book by Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie which I bought yesterday (hooray for Borders discount vouchers!!)
I am going to sidetrack a bit and say that I loved this talk Chimamanda did a while ago about how important it is to know the different sides of a story before simply making cultural assumptions and stereotypes. I think it the video clip is almost 20 mins long but its well worth watching! [ CLICK ]
Apart from her writing, this book also captivates me because I've worked with quite a few lovely Nigerian refugee students during my prac year, and it kind of provides some valuable insight as to what the repressive situation must've been like for them back home.
Okay lah back to the beach...
Okay lah back to the beach...
The sun was gorgeous and the water deliciously cool! We splashed around in the surf for a while, and then while Eddie tanned and caught up on sleep, I alternated between reading and taking long walks along the waters edge.
By the time we decided we've had enough, it was only 10am. We walked around the little beachside town centre and checked out the shops, eating Baskin Robbins ice-cream which melted way too quickly in the heat and dripped all over my fingers and shirt.
I felt so damn sleepy driving home that I had to pull over at a resting spot. Tried to take a power nap with the engine turned off but it was too hot. Wanted to go to the loo but freakin hell there were like 5 humongous spiders hanging around the dodgy stinking shack waiting to pounce on me *shudder* so I held my pee in, splashed myself with some cold water from the tap to wake up, and hit the road again.
We stopped over at Anaconda and Eddie replenished some of his fishing essentials before we headed to Sunnybank for lunch. By then, Eddie had to take over and drive already because my brain wasn't functioning anymore.
Got home, took the nicest longest shower and scrubed myself down, and collapsed into bed happy.
I hope everyone's had a great Australia Day like we've had. :)
