Dolphins, a new apartment and some goodbyes

We drank it all!

Kitchen from the living room

Apartment and Patio from the kitchen

It has been about a week since our last update and although we are still in the same place, much has happened. The big news to start is that we have found ourselves a place to live for the next two months! We discovered a two bedroom apartment, 10 minutes biking from downtown Byron Bay which we will be moving into on November 11th with our current roommates Anton and Sandra. After searching online and on billboards for a while, we found this place through a friend of a friend who lives in the same area and we signed on for a 2 month lease to take us through the beginning of January. The place is fully furnished leather couches, a hammock on the patio, a BBQ and Wi Fi.  We do not yet have any set plans for afterwards, but we will figure that out as we get closer to the time. The apartment is a short 5-10 minute walk to Tallows Beach, although the walk is through estuaries and wetlands which are apparently prime brown snake habitat. However once arriving at the beach we realized the risk in the walk is worth the reward as there are kilometers of beautiful white sand in either direction and only the odd person walking about to share it with.

Tallows Beach to our left...

...and our right

After agreeing to take the apartment we spent the day on the beach hanging out, swimming in the waves and swimming with some dolphins! Well that may be an overstatement, we stood knee deep in the water while dolphins played in the waves and ate their lunch. We have learned that the best way to find them is to follow the seagulls which circle in swarms above where sharks and dolphins are looking for an easy meal. This does make for a scary moment figuring out which it is, but it was quite awesome to see them for the first time of hopefully many more. The whales are now mostly gone to Antarctica for the summer, but I think the dolphins will replace them nicely for our sightseeing needs.

Driving to Sydney

Tequila to wash down the steak

Delicious steak dinner

As much as we have loved all of the places we have seen, and are excited for all the things we have not seen yet, it truly is the people that we have met along the way which have made this experience so incredible. Since we have moved into the hostel a month and three days ago, we have had a consistent group which has stayed solid as a majority of the travelers come and gone. As wonderful as our time together has been, we are all on slightly different schedules and at different stages of our travels and visa's. Last Thursday we had to say goodbye to three members of our crew as Carla's visa expired and she had two return to Chile. This meant that Morgan, her boyfriend, and Roman (the two frenchmen) headed off to Sydney with her to say goodbye. From there they will look for farm work further down south. As sad as it was to see them go, it also gave us a great excuse to party all day and night Wednesday before they left. The daytime was full of games and music before transitioning to fantastic steak, fried onion and mashed potato dinner and everyone's choice of their favorite shots. It was a great night for everyone (even Becki, although she did fall off a table while dancing at some point at Cheeky Monkeys), and made for a very hungover goodbye when they left the next morning. It is great that with technology and social media it is so easy to stay in touch with people, and we hope to all meet up in the future. However, the next couple of days felt very strange not having such large personalities around the hostel at all hours of the day.

Emma, Carla, Anton, Roman, Sandra, Chris and Morgan

Life isn't all about partying in Byron Bay though, this past week Dave and I have been working lots, finally bringing in the money as well as spending it. Dave continues to work at the hostel driving the bus, and I have been working 40 hour weeks at the cafe One One One, due to a shortage of staff. Unfortunately all this hard work and lack of sleep has led me to catch the flu that is making its way around the hostel. I have pushed past and am becoming more myself yet again.

Even though we are in a HOT  climate (25-30+ C every day.... not rubbing it in at all), our minds still remain in Canada. Last week I was very happy to stumble upon real Canadian maple syrup, leading to a delicious breakfast of home made french toast with bacon smothered in sweet syrup. We have also become aware of the very temperamental climate in the US and leading to Canada soon, Hurricane Sandy! We hope that everyone stays warm and safe and enjoys a day or 2 off of work (hopefully). Baseball isn't really shown on TV here, but we have been keeping up with updates from the World Series. Our thoughts go out to Steve Zagrodny as he went to the Giants vs. Tigers game yesterday, and had to sit in the cold and rain watching his favorite team lose.

That is all for now, we hope to make these more regular, especially once we get our apartment with Wi Fi, but until next time goodbye to everyone!

Life in Byron

Thanksgiving dinner

Dave and Anton

Morgan and "Morgan"

Kooteney, Roman, Sandra and Morgan

Carla, Morgan, Roman and Robert

Wake up, shower, hit the beach, have a couple of drinks with new international friends, sleep, and repeat. This is how our last week has gone, including a few other fun activities, so here we go. Thanksgiving Monday Dave and I decided to celebrate together a long way from home. We kept it simple and bought a small rotisserie chicken from Woolworths (stuffing included), packaged gravy, and cranberry sauce, some delicious local veggies, as well as mashed potatoes that came from a local farm that we purchased from the Byron Bay farmers market. We invited a fellow Canadian to sit down and enjoy this dinner with us, and to be thankful for our experiences in Australia. It definitely wasn’t mom’s home-made stuffing, but it felt a bit more like home.

This past week has been filled with memories with new great friends from all around the globe. What do 2 Swedish people, 2 British, 2 French, 1 German, 1 Chilean, and 2 Canadians have in common? We all live at the Holiday Village in Byron Bay long term. We spend all of our waking hours together, and have the occasional visitors from Denmark and Holland. Our days are spent relaxing by the pool or beach, and nights are spent socializing around the picnic tables and at some local bars. We have learned a lot of new international customs surrounding the holidays (Christmas, Halloween, and the lack of Thanksgiving), and learned some new and interesting drinking games! Although we are pleased to say that games such as ‘bus driver’, ‘f*** the dealer’, ‘kings’, and ‘bull-s***’ are internationally renowned drinking games. Our mashed up little family is making the Holiday Village feel like a home away from home.

Last Sunday was one of the highlights of our trip in Byron Bay so far, as we celebrated our new friend Anton’s birthday with Swedish traditions. We had a BBQ and played many interesting games that covered us from head to toe with flour and egg, as well as some beer. It was a very full day of games, and we finished it off by surprising Anton with a decorated apartment filled with balloons, a new shirt, some cake, and of course his favorite: Jaegermeister.

This week hasn’t been all play, as Dave and I have both acquired new jobs. Dave is busy 3-4 days a week working at the hostel we are living in, while I started working full-time at a cafe across the street called ‘One One One’! It is nice to be now saving money and not just spending it. We will see how this week goes getting back into a routine. We moved in to Anton and Sandra’s room this week so it is nice to have familiar roommates, however we may be on the move again if we are put into staff rooms in a week or so. The hostel job is not permanent but a nice in between to live for free and make a bit of cash. Dave even leads the sunrise tour in the mornings when he works to make a couple extra bucks, and of course to see the sunrise from the most eastern point (he gets to be the first to see the sunrise in Australia!) and some whales while on tour. Although the work is easy and very relaxed it will be nice to get the next few days off to relax again and continue the job search.

Becki after the first birthday game

Becki's new work

Dave and the shuttle bus

The hostel, Holliday Village Backpackers

We are enjoying the sunshine, as I have heard how cold it has been recently in Canada! We are averaging 25-30 C every day which is great, but we also appreciate the occasional overcast day too. We miss our very good friends and family from back home, but we are making new ones quickly, and it will be nice to have places to stay around the globe for years to come. We have learned to look rights, and then left, before crossing the street, and Dave has even learned to drive on the left side as well! We learned to like Rugby and Aussie Rules Footy, but we are definitely missing the baseball playoffs right now (GO TIGERS!). Thanks to my dad, we are getting the play by play in all of our beloved sports (Thanks dad :)).  As requested by the wonderful Heather, I have uploaded some pictures of our daily lives and workplaces for you to all understand what we do day to day! We miss you and hope to talk again soon!

Dave and Becki

Anton and Marvin

Chris, Emm, Roman and Becki

Calamari Burgers, Whales and our First Snake!

It seems as though it has been an awful long time since our last post, apologies to everyone for the suspense. We are still in Byron Bay, at the Holliday Backpackers and are staying here at least until Wednesday. We are in our third set of roommates now, from a third different country (Germany, England / Ireland and now Denmark), but all have been really friendly and easy to live with. We had originally planned on staying only 3 days but have decided to look for jobs to try and live in the city. The town is just a fantastic mix of laid back surfer lifestyle with people from all around the world enjoying it. Our hostel feels like a UN meeting with what seems like every country in Europe being represented, as well as Chile, South Africa, South Korea and of course Canada. We have made many friends while here and even some potential roommates if we can find a 2 bedroom apartment in town (pending finding jobs of course).

Belongil Beach, minus the nudists!! haha

The weather has gotten better every day we can been here, it was 25-28 degrees and sunny from Thursday until Sunday and even this morning it is beautiful despite a forecast that calls for storms. We have noticed in general that when it calls for rain here, it means for part of the day and you can still enjoy the rest. With all of this great weather we have had many beach days, in fact every day has been a beach day weather it has been sunbathing, wave jumping or trying to surf. We walked about 2km down the main beach in Byron to Belongil, where we had an entire cove to ourselves for the day except for the occasional nudist walking by (haha) and enjoying the weather. 

Second attempt, little success

In regards to surfing, Dave realized quickly how much harder it is out on real waves, without an instructor pushing you and telling you exactly when to go. That, combined with a board half the size of the one the lesson was on, led to 2 hours of getting beaten and battered by the waves without any success. Going to have to meet some locals to pick up some tricks of the trade and then try again. We plan on buying some second hand boards if we do decide to stay in town, maybe from our surf instructor Scotty who we found out yesterday was actually telling the truth when he said he was also an actor (we saw him in a Yamaha boating commercial, so maybe the Jessica Alba stories are also true!!)

Cheeky Monkeys table dancing

It is very hard not to party every night while staying in Byron, as the hostel organizes events daily and each night everyone sits at the central picnic tables and hangs out before going. Last wednesday the bar across the street, Cheeky Monkeys, had their VIP night for the hostels which included $5 dinner, free entry, and from beer, cider and champagne for our hostel. We even won an extra schooner of cider for knowing the two sports in a Biathlon during bar wide trivial pursuit. This was likely our second favorite night, as on Saturday the hostel put on an all you can eat BBQ complete with salads and pastas, as well as free entry and a free drink at the local surf bar Woody’s, all for $10.  It was nice to take the day off yesterday and just relax and watch a movie, giving our livers and our wallets a little break from the chaos. As much as we enjoy the hostel lifestyle it is going o be very nice to have our own apartment or at least our own room somewhere that we can just take a day off an relax when we need to. 

Our most exciting day since the last post was Saturday, when we had a full day adventure with our friend Josephine from the plane ride to Fiji. She lives about 15 km outside of Byron and look us to see the local sights, away from the touristy areas. 

Calamari Burger, delicious!

Her and parents picked us up in the morning and we drove inland through the hills and farms to the town of Brunswick heads. There was a market on Saturday, right on the river, with delicious food stands as well as clothes (Becki bought her first clothing item, after a lot of self control over the past couple of weeks). We were then taken to a local Fish and Chips joint where we had calamari burgers which we had been told about. They were fantastic, and huge, and filled us for the rest of our days adventures. 

A whale in the distance

Saturday was filled with a lot of wildlife! As we walked down the beach to where the river meets the ocean, we were lucky enough to see more humpback whales, closer than we have been able to see them before! They were 200 meters from the shore, and it looked like a baby or two with a larger mommy whale. The babies were fluttering around the surface and would pop up every once and a while letting us snap a picture or two. We then took a scenic walk through a park to Josephine’s house, and saw our first snake! It was very big in our eyes, but probably one of the smallest one’s we will see all year. At least the shock of our first snake sighting is out of the way, and we will be ready to see more. As we walked through the harbor off of the river, we saw some huge pelicans! They must have been 3.5 feet tall with a huge beak able to scoop up many fish. We have found that all of the birds here look very tropical and are very colorful, much more interesting than our birds at home.

We headed down to a small beach on the river in the area to cool off from all of our walking and to catch some rays, and then around to another beach right on the ocean. There are so many beaches here that it is actually quite common to go find a beach with nobody else on it. It is a strange feeling to be so close to towns and cities and yet have the feeling that there is nobody else for miles away. Once cooled off and relaxed, we headed up to a local lookout where we could see Byron Bay in the distance as well as a great view of the surrounding countryside. Although much of the area has been converted to farmland over the past 200 or so years, there are still huge pockets of sub tropical rainforest on the sides of the hills, which are so green that they almost seem to blog when the sun hits them right. We snapped off some pictures and then Josephine drove us back to the hostel for the BBQ. It was great to spend a day with someone who knew the area well and not just the top tourist spots which we have heard all about. It seems like when we thought of Australia in Canada it was of beaches and the outback and the Sydney Opera House, but really there is so much more than that to this country and we are realizing how hard it is going to be to see everything while we are here. Who knows, we might have to stay for a second year to fit it all in! 

Sunday was a nice day off, we went to the Byron Bay market and picked up some avocado to make guacamole, and potatoes for tonights impromptu Thanksgiving dinner. There was lots of live music acts, local vendors and of course delicious smelling foods. It is so hard to restrain ourselves in the markets, we need to find jobs so we don’t feel bad about spending money when we visit them, everything just looks so good. 

That is all for now, a new update will come in a day or two, maybe after a job interview on Tuesday, hopefully with good news. Thank you to everyone for reading, any suggestions and insights are always appreciated. It is supposed to storm today so we are heading to the beach while the weather is still nice. Enjoy your Thanksgiving! 

Us and Josephine at the lookout

 Dave and Becki

The amazing Coolangatta and the beginning of our stay in Byron Bay

We have done so much since our last entry! It is hard to know where to start... The first night in Coolangatta we just relaxed and caught up on some much needed sleep, as well as indulged in some local fish and chips and Australian champagne! The following day was cool and rainy, but a perfect day to watch the AFL (Aussie Football League) finals; the Sydney Swans verses the Hawthorne Hawks! We went to the pub below our hostel and met some very friendly locals who were more than happy to teach us the basic rules of this very confusing game (there are more than 300 rules, and most players don't even know them all). Dave and I read the paper that morning only to find out there was a Canadian playing for the Sydney Swans, so we quickly became fans of the Swans. It was a very fast paced and rough game, leading the Swans to victory! It is too bad that we have to wait a few more months until the league starts up again to watch the next game. Following the game we strolled down the street and were in 2 different places at once! Coolangatta is built right down the middle of Queensland and New South Whales, therefore we found the boundary of both areas and stood between them! It would be cool to be there in a couple of weeks time, as Queensland doesn't have daylight savings, yet New South Whales does, and could have been in 2 different time zones!

Sydney Swans after winning

The next morning we set down to the beach to do some whale watching, as we had heard there were many humpback whales in the area. We were lucky enough to spot a couple of them off in the horizon jumping and playing in the water! They were very far away, yet still easily visible making it evident to us how large these mammals really are. It was a very relaxing afternoon lounging on the beach and starring off into the water realizing that there is a whole different world under the sea!

Look REALY closely you can see a whale in the distance

After we had washed off all of the sand, we headed back downstairs to the pub for the rugby final, with our friendly roommates, a British couple James and Laura. We met up with the same Aussies we had met the day before and enjoyed some afternoon beers with them as we watched yet another aggressive game that Australia loves to watch. The crowd was much bigger for the rugby finals with equal amounts of fans for the Melbourne Storm and the Canberra Bulldogs, so Dave and I stayed neutral and just enjoyed the game and great friends we had met. The Melbourne Storm took the win, and the bar stayed busy after the game with lots of live music and dancing to celebrate the victory. We felt very welcomed into the town of Coolangatta, as the locals gave us their contact information and told us to connect with them next time we are in town.

Becki in two places at once

The next morning we took a bus to Byron Bay and instantly loved this city. It is a small beach town that is bustling with energy, yet remains very laid back at the same time. Surf shops line the streets as well as small cafes and bars, all leading to the gorgeous beach and lighthouse. That afternoon we spent some time wandering the beach and embraced the hippie culture, and indulged in some fish tacos as well as fish and chips (so fresh and delicious). We knew right away that our 3 night stay had to be extended, and we are now eagerly looking for jobs to be able to stay more permanently. We met lots of friends in the hostel, and went to a local bar right across the street from us called Cheeky Monkey for the Full Moon Party they were celebrating.

Just a typical Nimbin store front

The next morning we took a day trip to the city of Nimbin, on a bright orange hippie bus. This town is unlike any city I have ever been to before, as if it were stuck in the 1970's, still celebrating the Age of Aquarius festival which caused a wave of immigration in 1973. The town is a commune of sorts, with local residents working only a couple of hours a day to survive. We sat down at a coffee shop and talked to some of the locals who shared their views on world politics, resource consumption and sustainable living. Our bus driver (who could have been the old hippy from That 70s Show) told us that in fact the whole area between Byron Bay and Nimbin was filled with people living a similar lifestyle only in a more rural setting. We visited many small shops and cafes, everything painted in fluorescent colours. It seemed like every where you looked people were selling cookies and local herbs to the tourists, and despite some odd looking individuals we never felt unsafe or like outsiders. The trip back was equally beautiful, taking an alternate route through macadamia nut and dairy farms through the mountains.

Beach art in Byron Bay

Once arriving back in Byron we went for a long walk up to the lighthouse and the most easterly point in Australia. Although the walk was only about 4 km each way the entire trail was up and down the sides of the hills and it felt as though we walked a thousand stairs over our journey. It was all worth it for the spectacular sunset over the mountains and the views from the cliffs overlooking the many bays along the coast. The lighthouse itself was pretty but nothing spectacular, however the scenes along the way made the trip more than worth it. We also saw some of the most spectacular houses one could imaging overlooking the water, providing dreams for if we ever win the lottery. By the time we were half way back it was completely dark which added to the challenge, luckily we had our phones to provide a bit of light to navigate the paths. We returned to the hostel, exhausted and made a delicious stir fry with left over chicken before watching a movie and getting a much needed nights rest.

Becki and the lighthouse

Our day so far today has been uneventful as we have caught up on laundry and been attempting to hook up our phones to a plan in Australia (which has 250 International minutes/ month WOO HOO), yet the process of connecting a Canadian Phone to and Aussie plan has been much more complicated that expected. We are currently sitting at a local cafe and using their free wifi, hoping that our phone will soon work, and writing our latest blog entry, sipping on some local mediocre beers. Once we have a working phone, it will be much easier to get a job, which will allow us to stay in the beautiful beach town for as long as we wish. Byron Bay feels like it may be our home away from home... as long as we find work soon :).

Dave and Becki