Byron Bay, Gold Coast & Coolangatta

The Great Outdoors

For as much as I love talking about adventure travel, the best times are when the ISV meeting script starts to parallel my real life. "Guys, you will be staying in a range of places - from bunk houses to four star resorts, homestays to even camping under the stars. You can go cave exploring, visit dense jungles, white sandy beaches, and go surfing in beautiful turquoise water."

Jake and I woke up Saturday morning, and decided it would be that weekend. With no plan beyond breakfast and coffee, we checked out of the hostel and threw our backpacks into the mess that is our car. (We've been living out of it for a month now, so you can imagine what it looks like with all of our luggage + old today flyers + sign up sheets + water bottles + remnants of various lunches and dinners on the road. Even with weekly cleanings, the poor thing has suffered some serious abuse.)

So with everything packed up, our chef friend suggested that we check out the tea tree lake across the street, which we didn't even notice on our way in because of all the campers and tents surrounding it. Wandering only a few hundred feet from our hostel, we were shocked to find a gorgeous tree-enveloped lake, hidden between campsites and practically sitting at the sand line of the beach! But even stranger than the placement of the lake was the water: reddish-brown, the color of Coca Cola, and it felt like olive oil when we jumped in and let it soak into our skin.

We went for a long swim, enjoying the spa-esque experience of being in a Tea Tree lake, and eventually concluded that we would continue our day by driving back up to Byron Bay.

Notorious for being a beachy backpacker hippy town, I remembered Byron Bay as my favorite spot on the entire ISV adventure tour. We showed up there after a short drive, and before we even got into the city I remember why I loved this place so much - the lighthouse up on the hill, perfect white beaches with sand that squeaks when you walk on it, women in flowy dresses hosting Saturday morning Yard Sales, endless handmade jewlery shops, juice bars, and healthy cafes with fresh baked muffins and sweets. Yep, it was everything I remembered and better, after spending a day at the beach and hiking to see the eastern most point of Australia and the Byron Bay Lighthouse right around sunset.

I told Liezl we were going down toward Byron for the weekend and her response was something along the lines of: "lucky you guys - that's about as close as you get to heaven." With the picture below, I don't know how anyone could disagree. Often pictures can't even capture but a sliver of the real beauty, but the panorama feature on my camera does a great job of trying it's best.

After hiking, swimming, surfing, going on a beach run and having a night out at Cheeky Monkeys, (infamous backpacker bar where table dancing is encouraged) we were exhausted and ready to head back up to paradise #2: our beachside resort on the border of Tweed Heads and Coolangatta.

Coolangatta/Tweed Heads Resort: COOLest Accomodation Ever

Okay, so it wasn't exactly in budget - but we couldn't resist. Jake and I found an amazing deal on the Tweed Head Outrigger Resort, with a full buffet breakfast included. Every day that we woke up and looked out our 13th story window at the beach or returned to the lap pool and steam room after a long day of work, Jake and I felt like royalty. For this reason, I began writing down all the reasons I love this place so that next week when we're inevitably back to budget accomodations, we can look back and remember how awesome this week really was.

1) The sun rises at 5:30am over the ocean, right outside our window, so I don't even need to use an alarm.
2) Our room has an instant hot water boiler and they give us a fresh milk carton daily to use for our tea.
3) Down the stairs and a few hundred feet away is one of the best surfing beaches in the world, and the water is currently 73 degrees.
4) No need for air conditioning, because we can sleep with the sliding glass door open out to the balcony.
5) Lap pool, steam room, BBQ, free internet cafe.
6) Breakfast buffet with museli, yogurt, pancakes, baked beans, stewed tomatoes, and bananna bread. Enough said.