Byron Bay and Surfers Paradise

Location: some Auckland Cybercafe, New Zealand
Weather: Sunny and mild

The next stop was Byron Bay and the 'Backpackers Village'. There had been a cyclone a few weeks earlier and the surf was still huge, waves even bigger than at Pt MacQ. The dudes at the hostel said something about it being 'too dangerous' for us to use their surf-boards and boogie-boards! obviously the idiots didn't know they were dealing with Swiss Marcus and me, the Kings of wave-jumping!
Being world champions we spent about 4 hours each day in the water and got swept about 3kms down the beach because, in addition to the waves, there was a very strong rip-tide and current (the hostel also used this as an excuse not to let us borrow their boards). We had some wave-jumping competition one day from these 2 blokes, but they soon gave up after realising that they were no match! Has to be said Marcus was a total nutter on the last day and lept into a wave that must've been about 20feet high, I'm surprised he is still alive after this.
Anyways, being such superstars, we were very popular in Byron Bay. Especially with the hot Swedish, Dutch and German girls that happened to frequent the nightclubs. It was also really good when people kept walking up the next day and saying 'hello' and not remembering who they were exactly.

All in all Byron was a great place and so was the weather, even though I got a bit sunburnt. And at least the hostel let us hire a bike to go to the famous lighthouse...I must go back there one day.

After 3 days in Byron I finally moved onto Surfers Paradise, which is basically the Benidorm of Australia, skyscraper hotels, big sandy beaches and people everywhere. Central Surfers itself is a patrolled beach which meant that when I finally got to use a boogie-board I was stopped from going out to the best waves by a policeman on a jetski! oh well.

By JamesReed on 29.03.04 @ 06:10 AM GMT