We headed out at about 9:00 am and headed with great pleasure to where else but…. Costco, just north of Brisbane. We got some cheaper gas – 121.9 (we are normally paying about 130.9 these days) and then we waited about 20 minutes along with about 40 other people for the store to open at 10. Who knew we could be so excited to go to Costco…..lol.
After that we took a roundabout way to the east of Brisbane as we wanted to go through the hinterland to get to Byron Bay. However I think some navigational lessons may be needed, or else there needed to be better road markers, not sure which is the culprit, but we got very frustrated trying to make our way east. After about 2 hours of driving and several u-turns later, we decided that our frustration level was too high to even enjoy any hinterland if we could actually get to it. So, we found the nearest major highway and about 4 hours later (5 with the time change), made it to our rainforest cabin. We settled in, changed and had a quick swim in the bay of the Byron Bay. We noted that the water seemed a few degrees colder than it had been on the Sunshine Coast. But once you are in, it seems warm.
While in the water, we noticed the the sun was getting ready to set so we boogied up to the lighthouse to try and get some pictures of a nice sunset. And while we were there, we stood on the most easterly point of Australia. Unfortunately, there were too many clouds to get a nice sunset picture. On our way walking down the hill to our car, we saw our first huntsman spider. It was about the size of our hand and was on a pole we were walking by. I had to get Alvina to take the pictures as I just couldn’t get close enough to get a picture.
We returned to our rainforest chin in the dark and let me tell you, it is a little creepy to walk along a path to your small dark cabin in the rainforest, but we did make it. The cabin was one large rooms with 2 beds, our kitchen area and the bathroom was in a small side room. The ceiling was really high and was just plain plywood. We had to leave the bathroom light on with the door just open a crack so we weren’t too freaked out when all of the lights were off lol. During the night we could hear different things hitting the roof and rolling down the roof. When we got up, we saw a wild turkey on the neighbours cabin, so that was probably some of what we heard.
Alvina and I both agreed that the stay may have been just a little too wild for us…..
kawierenga 