Byron Bay Sat 17 April

Despite a night of heavy rain, we awoke to sunshine and went for a walk along the beach.
It was school holidays and the "schoolies" (children) were out in full force.
We watched dads and sons (and the odd daughter too) going surfing together.

Kids as young as 7 were out surfing away and having a lovely time. Great lifestyle i must say.
Fathers seemed very engaged with their children. Family values still appears to be prominent. Maybe I have only seen a subset of the culture...?

People had mentioned that Nimbin was an interesting place to visit with aging hippies even more odd than those in Byron.
We saw a number of physcadellic buses offering trips, so we had to go and check it out.

Very small community full of old hippies. Every second person offers you giggle twig and loads of "far out" types of artists who had licked one too many stamps in their youth created vivid art works and heaps of hemp paraphernalia.

Off to Mullinbimby! Nicole lead us down all sorts of off road trails and we rallied along in our little Toyota. When we got there found it to be a quaint little town and if we had blinked, we probably would have missed it.
We drove straight through and headed for Pottsville.

We had lunch at a nearby beach and watched as a couple of locals had a wedding...in the parking lot. Surfers dressed in suits and sneakers and bronzed girls in high heels stood around sweating in the midday sun waiting for her Majesty to arrive.
Very strange and quirky.

I went out for a swim and attempted to get to the backline through a farily sizey break and rip. I soon gave up and realised just how far i had come from the old days as a Surf Lifeguard back in SA.

We continued north and drove through Tweed Heads which was very pretty and then into Coolangatta and QUEENSLAND!

Headed for Surfers Paradise and were very underwhelmed! I was expecting a better beach and scene from what people had told me and what one reads about. Guess we were just not into tall buildings and loads of people and noise.

We went to a caravan park nearby and settled in for a nights rest.