Gold Coast - day 3

17 June 2018

Byron Bay, a beachside town in New South Wales was never even in my list when I was doing up the itinerary because I had not thought outside of Queensland at all. It was Viv's colleague who highly recommended that we drive down to Byron Bay. So we did.

There were glowing reviews of the place at sunrise, so we decided to start really early and reach before sunrise, which was supposed to be at 6.35 am. We woke up at 4.15 am, got ready and bundled a still fast asleep Xena into the car by about 5am.

However, we had a little issue — we kept getting an alert about the air pressure in one of the tyres and it didn’t seem wise to embark on an out-of-town journey without fixing it. We had tried to fix it the night before at a petrol station, but the air pressure machine was not working. So in the wee hours, we went to BP, Caltex and Shell, but what rotten luck we had! Either the air machine was missing or out of order!

So we decided to wing it and drove on. Luckily, there were no problems with the tyre, but Viv was feeling bad that we had woke up so early to see sunrise at Byron Bay, but ended up wasting time going from petrol station to petrol station.

Well, we did witness a gorgeous sunrise on  the way, so I didn't mind it at all. 

Xena also woke up after a while, bundled up in the many many layers I had put on her to keep her warm. 

It was actually a good thing that we reached late, because as soon as we stepped out of the air, the low temperature hit us right in the face. Xena absolutely refused to exit the car, and even after she did, she was reluctant to go on the trail. She was literally shivering. So I bundled her up using a cardigan, a hoodie jacket and wrapped my shawl all around her till she resembled a cocoon, and told her that once we started walking, we'd feel warm. She finally agreed and we set off.

Our starting point was the Byron Bay lighthouse, built in 1901.

All bundled up

The views from the Byron Bay lighthouse were stunning!

We set off on the Byron Bay lighthouse trail, which involved more steps than I had possibly imagined. 

I had read on TripAdvisor that people had recently seen dolphins and whales while doing the trail so I had an eye out for them. Imagine my delight then when we spotted not just a whole bunch of dolphins bounding in the water, but several large whales too! You just had to stare at the water for a long time and suddenly you’d see a big spurt of water coming out of a blowhole.

That's a whale's blowhole!

  

You can see the whales coming up several times in this video. I couldn't believe we were looking at dolphins and whales while hiking. I always thought you needed to go on a special cruise to see them. 

The lighthouse trail was absolutely gorgeous with the most amazing views. I'd highly recommend it. 

This is the route we followed. 

From the lighthouse we headed to the Easterly Point lookout, which is the most easterly point in mainland Australia. However, we missed the sign because some people were standing in front of it, so decided to check it out on our way back. There weren't many tourists, but we sure did run into a lot of early morning joggers going up and down the steps. 

And of course, our old friend the brush turkey. We saw many, many of them, foraging among the bushes. 

We stopped along the way to take photos. The sun was now out and the layers of clothing were coming off. 

Timer shot -- Viv was slightly late running to us and it shows!

On and on we walked...

The next major stop was Little Wategos Beach, where we spent quite some time walking around and taking photos. It was very strange to see such a pretty beach so completely deserted.

It was cold and windy, even though the sun was out. 

Xena running to Viv

Viv wanted to get a photo of him throwing Xena up in the air, but she was terrified. This is him, talking her into it. Finally she agreed. 

Up in the air!

He then convinced her to repeat it for a slow-mo video!

All of us then took turns to do jump shots from a rock by the beach. 

Me

Viv

Xena

What a colour!

Time to get back to the lighthouse. As you can see from our faces, the steps were killing us!

This time, we managed to check out the easterly lookout. 

Xena wearing a goofy hat she made by stuffing her jacket AND my shawl into my woollen cap!

We had not had any proper breakfast because of the super early start, so by the end of the hike, all of us were quite hungry. We went to the cafe near the lighthouse for a quick bite. 

A vegetarian quiche, a soya milk shake, a cup of mango macadamia ice cream and a slice of vanilla cake

Xena posing happily with her ice-cream; too bad she ended up not liking it too much

But between the two of them...

...they managed to finish it. 

A black and white magpie came to visit!

Parting shot of the lighthouse

Obviously, I still couldn't get over the colour of the water!

We got back into the car and set off towards Snapper Rocks, a beautiful rock formation at Coolangatta beach. 

Car selfie of the day!

What a sight greeted us! 

Coolangatta beach

Snapper Rocks is famous for surfing, and also for these small saltwater pools right next to the beach, which offer a much safer water body for kids to play in. 

But of course, Xena refused to get into the cold water even though we had taken her swimwear along. Luckily, we had also taken her sand digging tools along, so she settled down to some heavy-duty construction work. 

Viv helped with the building...

...while I preferred to just stand around joblessly.

The final product

And it came with a warning — 'The thin tower. Do not touch.'

We saw a very unusual sight near the beach — a big owl being chased and pecked at by some very aggressive magpies! People around had also stopped to watch this. 

By now, we were quite hungry for lunch, and Viv, knowing my love for Hungry Jack's found the nearest outlet. I had first encountered Hungry Jacks during our last road trip in Australia and fallen in love with their veggie burger and frozen Coke. 

Ah Hungry Jacks, when will you come to Singapore??

Our next stop was Elephant rock, a rock formation that resembles an elephant sitting at the beach and looking at the sea. 

Can you spot the 'elephant's back', just behind the Currumbin Beach Vikings clubhouse?

You can climb up the stairs to a small platform...

...that overlooks Surfer's Paradise beach to the north and Coolangatta beach to the south. 

I saw this when I was on my way down from the platform. Mamu music had me thinking of 'Subah ho gayi mamu!'

We went down to the beach, and I was amazed again at the beauty of it.

I showed her the barnacles on the rocks, and the hardcore Tintin fan went, "Mama! Blistering barnacles!"

Viv was trying to get some spectacular shots of the waves. I still can't believe he dangled our precious DSLR so close to the water. 

We spent a very long time playing at he beach. Check out how isolated it is!

Running away from the waves

Viv even managed a nap, while Xena sat down to build more castles. 

This time I helped her. The 'castles' were made by her, while the 'pool' (which looks more like an Indian-style toilet, I know I know) was made by me. 

When Viv woke up, I asked Xena if she'd take a nice photo of us. She was very excited at the prospect of being given the serious task of handling the heavy DSLR. So she took this rather nice shot...

... but then she just went on clicking... and clicking... 

There was no stopping the woman!!

We had to literally snatch the camera back from her! She still kept clicking! 

We still had time till sunset so we decided to tick off all the 'if time permits' miscellaneous items in my itinerary. One of them was Laguna Park, a very big park with a lake and a nice playground. 

The Sophie Purcell playground was named in 1999 after a local 8-year-old girl who died that year from a rare genetic disease. She had spent a lot of time playing in Laguna Park. 

The playground was built around a nautical theme, complete with a pirate ship, a lighthouse, a bridge and various other equipment. 

I found out later that apparently the playground also has a swing that is designed to be used with a wheelchair. That is just amazing. 

Xena was quite terrified to go on this rotating swing. 

Xena loved riding on the pedal-car monorail. 

Ibises were all over the playground. 

She also fed seagulls and ducks in the lake along with a new friend she had made at the playground. The seagulls were rather unaffected...

...but the ducks really went for the food!

She watched the fish and the ducks fight it out for a long time. I guess this kinda made up for her not being able to feed Eeliza and family in the morning as we had whisked her off while she was still sleeping.

We had seen many places and walked a lot. In fact, the entire time were there, it was really easy to clock about 10 km of walking every day. As usual, it had started getting dark around 5 pm, but it was too early to have dinner. So we packed dinner from a pizza place called Pizza Capers and had it at home later. 

Click here for Gold Coast - day 4.