Lord Byron

Friday 6th May

Ashton  and I arrived in Byron bay at around 6am and, assuming that the hostel's reception wouldn't open until around 9, headed to a cafe for breakfast. It was in this cafe that I had possibly the best bacon and egg roll I have ever encountered, with fresh spinach, aoli and relish on a soft muffin. While enjoying this epic brekky I also used the cafe's free internet and discovered that Nomads, the hostel at which we were to reside, had a 24 hour reception. So, breakfast having come to and end, we popped across the road to our new home for the next few nights. When we reached reception our rooms were still not ready, which was to be expected as most hostels don't have book in until around 11am and it was still well before 7am, so we dumped our bags and chilled on the sofas around reception, where I promptly fell asleep for the next hour. I awoke to a sympathetic face asking me if I was waiting to be booked into a room and, after a minute of figuring out where, who and what I was, replied that I was indeed waiting for a room. As luck would have it the sympathetic recepetionist had managed to get our rooms prepared and we were able to check into them by around 8 o'clock.
Ashton and I were in separate rooms so we went our separate ways with plans to meet after considerable napping. Oddly enough when I got into my room, and in sight of my bed, I no longer felt tired; I assumed the coffee from breakfast was just kicking in, and so got changed and headed down to the beach for a morning stroll and to check out what I would, undoubtably, be spending most of the next three days lying on. The weather was fantastic and the surfers were out in for, heading to the sea like clams lead by the walrus. I walked down to the end of the beach, where there was a lookout back along the coastline, and took a few pictures, including one of myself involving some very precarious balancing of my camera on a rock.
Shortly afterwards I met up with Ashton and Janna, one of the girls from port Macquarie who was also in Byron Bay, and we had a lovely first day at the beach. While we were down at the beach inspiration struck and I, for no apparent reason, decided to design a tattoo in the sand, and  got so engrossed in it that I spent almost an hour on it before completion. That night we all went on the pub crawl that had been arranged by the hostel, and by we I mean a few of the guys from my room, the Port Macquarie gang, Ben, a guy I had met in Sydney, and a few others that I had met that day. It was a fab night with much drinking of the accursed 'Goon' followed by much drinking of pretty much anything that seemed to be floating past. I met a Swiss girl that night called Florence and became immediately distracted by the fact that she spoke French, which appears to be my Kryptonite. Towards the tail end of the night I went down to the beach with a few people to consume some of the alcohol we had left at the hostel and then, taking half of the beach with me, returned to the hostel and bed.