As already said, we had left Coffs Harbour with a night bus bound for Byron Bay; what we hadn't told you, however, is that this bus was really very nocturnal. In fact the distance between the two places is quite short, about four hours which are certainly not enough to cover the whole night. The bus left at 03:20 in the morning from the very isolated Coffs Harbour station, which however we reached at 9:00 the previous evening, the time of the last free shuttle from the hostel. Once at the station we got creative to find a decent place to take a nap while waiting for the bus. We thus spotted a soft lawn to lay our sleeping bags on and tried to sleep. The thing turned out to be impractical thanks to the abundant presence of mosquitoes and insects of various kinds.
Discarding this option we headed for the station chairs where we spent the remaining hours in the strangest and most disjointed positions in constant company of huge and arrogant cockroaches... maybe they too had to catch the night bus to save a bit of money!
At the first light of dawn we were in Byron Bay, the city of the "alternatives". Many people had suggested we make a stop in this place because besides being the easternmost point of Australia it's also the favourite destination for surfing newbies. Moreover in the past it was the mecca and refuge of the "flower children" who from all over Australia gathered right in this place. Too many reasons not to dedicate a week of our stay in the land of kangaroos to it!
The only drawback of this beautiful city was the prices, to say the least exorbitant... actually we were already aware of this and so we had opted to stay in a campsite and finally use our tent. No sooner said than done, got off the bus we headed towards the campsite area and luckily hit the bullseye on the first try. In truth the pitches dedicated to tents were very spartan and the place was completely devoid of trees and therefore of shade: incredible to think of spending an entire week under the scorching Australian sun inside a tent made of synthetic material! But as we told you we were lucky: the campsite also offered cheap newly built cabins, a sort of prefabricated blocks, with sheet metal roof and plasterboard walls.
Of course, hearing it described in these terms you might think they were a sort of prison, but inside the cabin turned out to be really comfortable, equipped even with a television and a fridge. What more could you want!!!
Once the accommodation problem was solved we headed towards the town centre to get an idea of the place and put something under our belts. Our first concern was to find a place where we could do our daily shopping; secondly, since our stay in Australia was drawing to a close, we had to think about how to spend the last week we had left. The idea that had been swirling in our heads for some time was only one: Fraser Island. With this conviction we headed to the travel agency to verify whether our budget was able to satisfy our desires. It wasn't easy to make the two things coincide and to tell the truth we didn't manage it; budget exceeded by a hundred and eighty euros: but how can you go to Australia and not visit Fraser Island? After long and exhausting negotiations, above all with our conscience, we bought the tour for the largest sand island in the world.
We must also thank Michele, the strapping young man who worked in the travel agency, because he offered us with the package the possibility of visiting Nimbin, a town/refuge for the last "flower children" left in Australia. Besides this the likeable Michele also gave us a meal voucher to be spent at the Cheeky Monkey, the place-meeting point for all the backpackers of the city.
Once the purchases were done with empty pockets and our tails between our legs, we went back to our cabin to admire the ocean and study the waves in view of the next surf session.
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