16 November – The road to Byron Bay

Robin was up early this morning and went to the beach to see the sunrise.

I, on the other hand, was sound asleep and missed the magic.

November is normally Jacaranda Festival time in Grafton. As we were heading north, and the blooming period is almost complete, we decided to take a detour to Grafton to have a look. It seems that the best of the show is behind us, however you can get an idea of just how magnificent it can be. Top tip from a Grafton local we met at Wooli, is to go to Pound or Turf Streets for the best showing.

We had a 11am catchup with friends of longstanding formerly from Balmain and now in Sunshine Beach, QLD. We are headed North and they are headed to Crescent Head. We made a plan to meet in Yamba.

Yamba is a great location. More about that in a few days as we’ll be checking in there for two nights on our return to Sydney.

We had coffee and a snack with our friends and made a quick stop at the Yamba Fishermans Co-operative for another 1kg of school prawns. From here we made way to Byron Bay with a quick stop in Ballina for some more fresh seafood. More on that later I’m sure.

We showed you the Big Banana just north of Coffs Harbour and now here is the Big Prawn in West Ballina. Just as Coffs Harbour is renowned for its bananas, Ballina is famous for its prawns, so here is the Big Prawn.

Byron Bay is heaving at the moment. It’s over 20 years since I’ve been here and the place looks very different. We’ll explore it over the next few days. We checked into the Clarkes Beach Caravan Park and headed to our. booked site. Frankly it’s pretty damn good. Nothing between us and the beach but a 30 metre drop.

We arrived mid afternoon, quickly connected our services and demolished the school prawns we bought in Yamba.

The beach at Byron has suffered from erosion from recent storms. Normally there is beach access from the caravan park, however not at the moment.

Byron Bay is beautiful. I’m just going to let the photos talk;

That’s it for today. Off to BBQ some prawns. Life is good.

Said prawns and my new friend;