During our mid-semester break in September, some of my friends (baes, hence the title) and I went on a road trip to Byron Bay. It was a 3-hour drive, but we stopped halfway to visit The Farm.

Byron Bay is a coastal town in the southeastern Australian state of New South Wales. It’s a popular holiday destination, known for its beaches, surfing and scuba diving sites. It’s also where Chris Hemsworth’s $9 million mega-mansion is. We walked around the artistic small town and ordered lots of seafood to share by the beach. The beach was pretty crowded considering that fact that we went on a Thursday but nonetheless we found a spot by the park which was just right beside the beach to enjoy the sights and the food.

 

After our lunch, we drove to the famous Cape Byron, which is the easternmost point of the mainland of Australia. It is about 3 km east of the town of Byron Bay and projects into the Pacific Ocean.

This is the Cape Byron Light, Cape Byron’s active lighthouse and also the most powerful lighthouse in Australia.

We hiked down to the beach from the lookout point for some photos and on the way, we managed to spot some whales since it was the migrating season for the whales.

We then waited for the sunset before starting our 3-hour long journey back to Brisbane. Hopefully, you’ve enjoyed the photos of Byron Bay, as you can tell from my previous blog post (Straddie), I’m really taking advantage of the beautiful weather and beaches that Australia has to offer while I’m here on exchange! I’m planning to do a 6-month recap on my exchange experience so far so I’ll see you guys then!

Love,

Joyce

 

This post is actually not about Brisbane City (as the header suggests) but about my trip to North Stradbroke Island (Straddie) last week! Straddie is the second largest sand island in the world. We took the train to Cleveland, followed by a 25 minute ferry ride which brought us to the island. The island is really big and since we were there for only a day trip, we decided to visit Amity Point and Point Lookout. Getting around the island was pretty easy as there are buses that bring you to both Amity Point and Point Lookout.

We then had brunch at a cute outdoor café, Seashells at Amity. The food was really yummy and the portions were pretty big so the three of us shared two dishes. The bus driver recommended us to go to the beach which was just down the road from the café so that was where we headed after brunch. On our way to the beach we saw a koala sleeping soundly on a tree (very exciting!). The beach wasn’t very big but it was really quiet since there weren’t many people around. We were also fortunate enough to see a dolphin that was swimming pretty close.

We then booked a sand boarding session as there are sand dunes at Straddie which made that possible. I was really reluctant to go at first as I’m not really sporty and could imagine myself falling over and over. But my friends convinced me and I’m honestly so glad that they did. I guess the whole point of studying abroad is to push myself out of my comfort zone and to explore more and sand boarding did exactly that as I had SO MUCH fun! I did fall a couple of times (as expected) but the sand was really soft and cooling so it was like falling onto a cushion. The view was great and we even managed to spot some whales!

Our sand boarding instructor and the friends that I went to Straddie with! 

After two hours of sand boarding, we were pretty much out of energy. I think we did one month’s worth of cardio 😛 We then headed to Point Lookout which has fantastic views and watched the sunset before heading home.

Hope you enjoyed the photos!

Love,

Joyce