Blog 13; Sunrise at Byron, Sunset at Noosa

Today we got up at 5.30 am to watch the sunrise at Byron Bay Lighthouse (what3words;railings.tucked.trolleys).

If we thought that being winter and the off season here would mean we were the only ones there, we were mistaken. The actual final section of the road to the lighthouse was closed off, and the last little car park was chocca, but people were parking as and where they could fit, regardless of if it was in a designated space. We copied and tucked our car out of the way, and we were just getting out when a local stopped and said, ‘don’t park there unless you want a $150 ticket – the cops come here at 6.30 every morning and just ticket all of the cars’ ….Hmmm, I chucked Emily out to go and take pics, and I drove back down the very steep hill to the next parking lot and walked (stopping on the way to catch my breath!) back up in time to see the sunrise – phew!

The view was glorious and we were just enjoying being there when we started seeing whales swimming past – such a treat! We saw two separate pods – actually we saw more whales today than we did on our whale watching trip in Vancouver last year! I was too busy watching them to remember to take pictures, this is the best one I got,

This is a pic of the lighthouse as we were leaving

And it is worth saying that that of all of the cars that were still parked haphazardly, not a single one had a ticket! Ah well, sods law is if we didn’t move the car WE would have got a ticket, and I needed the steps…..

On the way back down the hill we got an excellent view of the quieter beach on the other side of Byron Bay – I think it is called Tallow Beach (what3words;dreadful.silent.body)

I got a great pic of this little fella

Isn’t it wild that they are free flying here – and they make such a racket – more of that later.

Emily spotted some wildlife that caused us some concern – you can just see it in the water here;

She thought it was a shark, but it was far too close to the shallow waters – we watched it for a while until a local took pity on us and said ‘it’s a surfer…’

We stopped in at Twisted Sista (what3words; camped.mows.biding) for brekkie before we left Byron, it is an artisan coffee shop that also sells locally made goods. The coffee was welcome (I had hoofed it up the very steep hill after all) and the croissant was definitely fresh.

We headed north to Noosa, with a slight detour to Brisbane for a cuppa with the famalam who are still here from the recent celebrations, but really we wanted a cuddle with baby Eva who stole the show at the wedding.

Back on the road it was a smooth ride the rest of the way and we spent the afternoon on the beach with our books, just chilling – well deserved.

We checked into our digs for the next two nights, the Villa Noosa Hotel (What3words;defrost.foraged.fulfilled) and went out for dinner at Seasons Restaurant (What3words; sunflowers.graphics.hiss) where we both had seafood and it was incredibly fresh.

We have booked an adventure for tomorrow, but I will save that for tomorrow’s blog – today was all about the whales and the sunrise, and we finished it off watching the Sunset at Noosa

I have mentioned a couple of times how loud the birds are when they are getting ready to roost…. Tonight walking back from dinner, I recorded a short video, so you can hear how loud they actually are;

We are very lucky ladies to be having such adventures and we still have so much to do before the end of the month😊