On the road again

Have I mentioned lately how great The Boy is? He still puts on the windshield wipers when wanting to change lanes and turn, but he has acclimatized magically to driving on the wrong side of the road. I'm still too scared to give it a go. After grabbing breakfast at a Hungry Jack's (the Australian equivalent of a Burger King, logo and all), we purposely took an offshoot to find Maclean, a little teeny Scottish Australian town where the telephone poles each have a tartan painted on the bottom. The nice man explained little histories of the town, told us about the sugar cane harvester at the roundabout, and we walked down to the river and hung out. We picked up some Australian fruit (the green apples taste like fuji, the lychee were incredibly fresh and juicy!) and a pack of dark chocolate Tim Tams. Then we visited a sugar refinery and took pics of the sugar cane fields. I don't even know why we turned off because there were sugar cane fields lining the Pacific Highway for AGES.

In Ballina we hit some serious traffic (The Boy says he's going to be a pro at these two-lane traffic circles by the time we get home) and saw the Big Prawn, this scary looking mad-eyed fiberglass shrimp on top of a souvenir store. We finally made it to Cape Byron in Byron Bay, got some ice cream (mango macadamia for me, and Mars bar for him) and hung out at Little Watego. We hiked around and saw a whole school of dolphins playing at the surface and a few little lizards. We saw some hanggliders and, on a whim, we decided to go down and see if there was any space. Wouldn't you know, there were two spaces right then and there? Without the time to even realize we were going to run off a platform atop a rainforest, Neil (my guide) and I were up 1060 feet in the air. What. The Boy and his guide, Ashley, weren't far behind.

Man, it was beautiful. Peaceful and not scary at all (although my left hand got a little tired from gripping onto Neil's harness so tightly) and I even got to steer! And halfway through the flight I realized "hmm. we didn't eat lunch. I'm .. STARVING." ....lol, this entire trip we have been hungry! After we landed, we made our way into the CBD and realized that Byron Bay is DBC (Douche Bag Central). Holy swagger! I'm so glad we weren't able to find private accomodation there! We ate at Bollywood, a little Indian resto that Neil recommended, and then got outta town. we went to Murwillumbah through the most beautiful tourist offshoot yet... lots of windy hills and beautiful rainforest and even a rainbow! It's been raining off and on lately, just teeny little showers, but the northern tip has been experiencing crazy floods. We hadn't seen any evidence of that, but did see that one roat was closed due to flooding, and the route we were on had just a little bit of water spillage.

Then onto the Gold Coast Highway (which The Boy likened to Carling Avenue) and to our little apartment in Surfer's Paradise, just a block from the mall, and another block to the beach. Surfer's Paradise reminds us both of Waikiki.. I know I said this when I went to Hawaii, but i REALLY want to have big splashy waves. Oh wait. I have been to the Pacific before. hmm. well. anyway, I went in again! We went for a walk on the beach to go the night market, open only wednesdays and fridays. Nothing good to buy there, but we did make out really well at the souvenir shop across the street. YAY!