East Side

Byron Bay is a small town, home to the most Easterly point in Australia (of this, they are very proud). It’s known in Australia as a hippie town, and I guess I might compare it to a less plastic surgery-obsessed Laguna beach. The colors here make any US beach look washed out. I can’t stop thinking that someone might have manipulated the green saturation in Photoshop. The Australians are smart since they have refused to develop on the beach. All you see at the beach in Byron bay is clear blue water and coffee ice cream-colored sand that leads into a green forest. I could definitely live here.

The wedding was beautiful, at sunset on the beach by the famous Byron lighthouse. After the cake was cut and the bouquet was caught (by me, of course, being the only single girl there), we spent the rest of the week beaching it up, eating really good food and taking full advantage of our amazing beach house.

At one point we found enough motivation to get up early and take a boat to Julian’s rocks, the favorite hangout of many turtles and rays. Thanks to my friend Mike, I had my own mask and snorkel. My friend Jennifer threw up through her snorkel, so it made me much more appreciative to have my own. Meredith and I found a ray that had to have been 9ft wide. We were able to follow it for a while, and each time it raised its ray eyebrow at us, we screamed “Steve Irwin!”

We spent New Year’s Eve on the balcony of the house, the entire family and the ocean breeze. It was amazing. We could hear others on neighboring balconies count down as well. The custom is to write your wish in the air with sparklers. I went through a whole box.
It’s 2009! I can’t believe it. It’s so weird how you dream of something for so long and then all of a sudden it’s there, it’s your life. So quick everything is.

Right now I am cramped in a phone booth in an internet café in Byron Bay. It’s jam packed with travelers speaking so many languages, all looking at Facebook. Australia caters to the backpacker. For the rest of the world, it’s normal to backpack around for a year or two and Australia seems like the most popular place. I can’t wait to meet everyone else in here. My bus leaves in an hour, and I will spend 14 hours to get to Sydney! That’s when the real adventure begins. I feel like I’ve been cheating up until now. Here I go….