Kingscliff

The rest of the afternoon was spent meandering our way north through the many little townships along the way. We arrived at the hotel in Kingscliff about 3.30 & kicked back for a couple of hours before going for a walk along the beach.

The sunset over Mt Warning from out hotel balcony was quite the sight. The smoke from the sugar cane fires turned the sky orange.

We managed to catch up with some of Kerri's relatives at the local Thai restaurant for dinner. They live in one of the near by rural communities.

Byron Bay & Brunswick Heads

We finally dragged ourselves away from Cape Byron & checked out the Byron Bay township (above). It was just a bunch of shops & restaurants. Not what I'd call overly spectacular. Depends on what you're into I guess.

Next stop was Brunswick heads. We had lunch at the Hotel Brunswick Heads (above). Nice place to chilax over a feed & a beer. Apparently it can be very popular on the weekends, particularly Sunday Afternoons.
After lunch we checked out the beach & heads just near where we had lunch. The weather had turned pretty windy & unpleasant by that point.

Dolphins & Humpbacks

The first thing that caught our attention in the water at Cape Byron was a pod of dolphins going about their business. I found out later that this pod is a regular sight around the cape.

Not long after we were watching the dolphins I spotted the tell tail water spout of a humpback whale. Mum had mentioned she had seen some the previous weekend off Stradbroke Island (due east of Brisbane) & that we should look out for them.

It wasn't just one whale either. There must have been at least 15 that we saw in less than half an hour. It was a steady procession. Unfortunately the whales were at least a kilometre off shore, but with the bright sunshine, binoculars & my zoom lenze, we could see them well enough.

I did manage to get a couple of shots of tail flukes, but I promise to try to get some better ones when these ones Western Cousins pass by Perth in a few weeks.

Cape Byron

Monday - Northern New South Wales

Monday morning we nicked off with mum's car and headed South toward the New South Wales (NSW) border. We did organise a hire car replacement for her & dad. Hire cars have charges for high mileage so we left the hire car with them.

The Gold Coast Highway is now a multi lane carriageway all the way south of the border now. The latest section now cuts out from Tugan south to Tweed Heads allowing us to cross the border under an hour & fifteen (with peak hour traffic in Brisbane).

Cape Byron was our first target for the day & we managed to get there in well under 2 hours. I can't remember ever being there, although I may have as a youngster.

For those not in the know, Cape Byron is the most Easterly peninsular of Australia and the photo above is the most Easterly point on the most Easterly peninsular. I guess you could also say that the Cape Byron Lighthouse is the most Easterly lighthouse in Australia.

Cape Byron has great views in all directions including looking North to Brunswick Heads & Mt Warning (above) South to Lennox Heads (below). The Northern Rivers area of NSW has some absolutely magnificent beaches and awesome climate. If I didn't have to work I think somewhere along this hundred or so kilometre stretch of coast would be pretty high on the list.

There are also some great views across Byron Bay & back to the Byron Bay township.

Northern New South Wales

So after a bunch of big cat diary entries, on to more of the trip.
After the day at Dreamworld, we stayed down at Kingscliffe. Nice part of the world. Great beaches & it hasn't been used & abused like the Gotham City (Surfer's Paradise). We stayed in a nice hotel (Mantra on Salt) for a discount rate. Nice place.
The next morning we had breakfast with Kerri's Auntie Susan. It was the second time I had met her, having spent time at the Art Gallery a couple of days previous. After that we took the coast road down as far as Cabarita then headed to Susan's place. One of those catch up with relative things that we seem to have done lots of recently.
After a bit of a catch up session, we headed up the valley into the Border Ranges. Really pretty part of the world. Lush & green, and interesting. (I guess you miss that kind of thing living in Perth for a while).
We were in Brisbane just in time to have dinner with friends of mine that I hadn't seen for a year & a half. Caught up with a bunch of others on Thursday night at a pizza shop in Park rd Milton (delicious & cheap!) & a few more at the Royal Exchange Hotel in Toowong.