byron bay sucks

We woke up to gray skies and heavy clouds. It was chilly and felt like rain. After going to the supermarket and buying yet more food, we set off for the famous lighthouse and the cape walk.

Byron Bay IS pretty, but I was not entirely impressed with it. It is a surfer's town. It is like Huntington Beach, or Venice Beach, or any number of small coastal towns like it in the world. None of these places are very fun when it is cold and rainy. We saw a number of people surfing, or heading to the beach to surf, or taking a surf lesson from an orange-suited instructor. Everyone else was either doing the same walk we were, or listlessly hanging out in cafes or stores.

The walk was strenuous and the beaches pretty, but not the garden of eden that Lonely Planet makes it out to be. There were a lot of rocks that looked tide-pool worthy, but it was so damn cold there was no way I was going to walk down there and risk getting splashed by a wave. The headlands were covered with wild grass and wildflower plants (not in bloom) and variously placed tropical trees. We climbed to several lookout points and tried to spot Migaloo the albino whale. S/he is known to hang out around these parts. We made it to the most easterly point of the Australian mainland (and took a picture, of course). We saw the famous lighthouse and ate our tuna lunches beneath it.

That was when it started to rain. A light drizzle at first, which is when we started on the end part of the trail, through a tropical forest. I had my umbrella and Naomi had her bright blue plastic poncho, so we were fine. The tropical forest was awesome. It was shady and quite darkened because of the canopy of green above us. There were palms, eucalyptus, types of cacti, ferns, yellow bottle brushes, and other plants I couldn't identify. We were the only ones on the trail. You could hear the rain pitter patter on the leaves of trees, could hear branches shake in the breeze. Our path was on inlaid stone which gave way to sand halfway through. The jungle was thick and you couldn't see out.

When we emerged from the forest, the rain was coming down hard. We raced back to our hostel but shoes and jeans still got soaking wet. I was quite grumpy because we were staying in the worst hostel in the world which didn't have an inside and was as cozy as a bowl of ice. I tried to read in the reading room but it had no heat and the floor was cold and the lights were very dim. They were out of mugs in the kitchen so I could not drink hot tea. Byron Bay sucks. Lucky for Naomi, I found the TV room which was carpeted and be-couched. I watched an awful movie that I'm ashamed to admit I've already seen (Music and Lyrics) and then both of us returned to eat dinner in front of the Australian news.

We planned to leave early the next morning, which wasn't soon enough.

Australian thing of the day: Flavored tuna. They love their tuna here. Ten shelves at the market are full of various tuna flavors, the amount of space reserved for pasta in the US. Tuna is sold out of a can, with a pull-top lid, already flavored with spices or vegetables or tomatoes. You eat it straight out of the can and don't have to mix it with anything to make it palatable. I got sun-dried tomatoes and basil. It was seriously awesome. I am not a big tuna person, but I know it is good for me, and I would buy cans of this and eat it all the time if they sold this at home.