Hangover Day

Sorry – we still have poor wifi reception so no photos again today.  We will add some when we have a better signal

Hangover Day should be an official holiday in Australia, the day that follows Australia Day and allows Aussies to gently recover from the excesses of the previous day.

After a wet drive up Pacific Highway 1 we arrived in Byron Bay to see the rain stop and the clouds clear to allow the Aussies to enjoy the national celebration of their ‘birth’ (or as the indigenous people refer to it ‘Invasion Day’). 

From what we could make out Australia Day is based around beer and barbeques.  Oh well, what the heck, we thought we had better join in, ‘when in Rome’ and all that.  After a leisurely lunch and a quick check out of the favoured haunts we settled on ‘The Railway Friendly Bar’ as our venue of choice: less beautiful posers and more beer swilling locals – just great!  

We boogied along with the band, talked to the locals and drank beer, and then some more beer, and then more beer, and then finally home. 

Needless to say the bed in Muriel was not made to our usual standard that night.

After a much needed lie in (10am is now late for us!) we set out our plan for the day, to walk to the most easterly point of mainland Australia.  It looked easy on the map, all the ups and downs hidden and with a somewhat dodgy scale applied.  However, after some mumbling, some grumbling and some stumbling we made it to the most easterly point.

Apparently this is a favourite place of pacific dolphins with over 800 supposed to frequent the waters of Watego Bays, so we settled down for a little dolphin watching (and to give our legs a breather!).  It would appear that dolphins and koalas share a common characteristic: they are elusive little buggers and would appear not to want to ‘put on a show’ whenever we are around (unlike our friends the kangaroos who are currently leading our ‘animals of choice’ competition).

Having given up on the dolphins we made our way back to Muriel (some more mumbling, grumbling and stumbling) and arrived back six hours after we had set out, having covered c12 kilometres and with a little bit of pride for not just sitting on our backsides on Hangover Day.

A quiet night in playing Trivial Pursuit and early to bed as tomorrow we return to a big city, Brisbane.  Night night.