We arrived in beautiful Byron and we were very excited to see our friends, but first we had some time to kill before they arrived. We set up camp in the Discovery caravan park on a powered site before riding our bikes into town to have a look around, this was the easiest way to get around in Byron with the expensive parking and traffic jams caused by all the people coming to town for Splendour in the grass.

The next day I headed out on a solo shopping trip visiting all the Byron Boutiques I had been waiting a long time to visit in real life with before only being able to purchase online. I had received some extra cash from family for my birthday (you know who you are). I was very thankful as I could get some new outfits for splendour and treat myself.

Come Thursday the drinks were on ice as our friends arrived just before midday. We spent the afternoon catching up on the last 6 months before heading into Byron the beach and bar. After a BBQ dinner, it was an early night for all as we had a big 3 days ahead of us.

 

Day 1 of Splendour did not disappoint, with 5 stages, too many to count food and beverage outlets and many stalls. It was a great first day watching Willow beats, Vera Blue, Tash Sultana, Vance Joy, San Cisco and with my favourite of the night being Peking Duk. Day 2 we woke ready to do the same thing again after a bacon and egg breakfast. We saw bands and artists such as Bernard Fanning, Dan Sultana, All Day and another favourite Paul Kelly. Day 3 was a struggle but it was so worth it when we saw artists Amy Shark, Smith St band, Client Liaison, Thundamentals and then my favourite from the whole 3 days Meg Mac. It was an unforgettable 3 days, Monday morning had come around, and after a drive to Lennox heads it was sadly time for our friends to leave us to go back to Perth.

Our afternoon was spent washing and cleaning before it was time for us to hit the road again. Unsure of where to go from Byron as we had 2 weeks to get to Brisbane, we first headed north to the New Brighton Farmers markets to stock up on fresh local fruit and veg. After an afternoon spent at the beach we headed towards a free camp located in the town of Billinudgel where we stayed out the back of the pub which had a lot of history. We enjoyed the Tuesday night meal special of buy one get one free.

The next day we visited the strange town of Nimbin, which used to be a sleepy diary town and now well known as a high use area of Marijuana and the alternate lifestyle locals.

Spending a short time in Nimbin we continued to head inland which lead us to Lismore, we stopped here for lunch however kept driving to the cheaper accommodation in Casino. We stayed just the one night here, and kept on driving to the Border Ranges National Park. Spending the day here completing the 6km beautiful rainforest walk filled with an array of plant life and waterfalls. With tired legs, we spent the night at the campground surrounded by the beautiful bird life and not to forget the resident monitor.

 

After a few nights without a shower we needed one which led us to the tiny town on Woodenbong with a population of 500. We stayed at the towns campsite for $10 with power and $1 for showers, it was a nice spot surrounded by farms with the sounds of cows and sheep. Woodenbong was where I ended up spending my 23^rd birthday, I enjoyed a relaxed day receiving phone calls from family and friends back home. We also did a day trip to nearby Bean Falls and Taloom Falls which we discovered you could camp there so that was our next stop.

This is where we stayed for the next 4 nights. A great free camp, where we could park up nice and close to have waterfall views. With no phone reception, we could unplug for a couple of days and that’s what we did as we watched the waterfall running all day long, went for quick dips in the cold water and bush walks along the rivers banks.

On our second last day here our neighbours came over to us asking for some help. They had snapped their key for the hired campervan and as there was no phone reception we had to drive them to the closest town to get reception which then lead us having to drive a 200km round trip to Lismore to get a new key from the locksmith. We didn’t mind as we were happy to help them out and, they paid us some money that covered a lot more than the diesel we used. After returning to the campsite late in the afternoon, our neighbours were off but we decided to stay just one more night in the hope to spot a platypus. After many hours of our time here and on our trip so far searching for a platypus finally on our last morning we got a quick glimpse of one below the waterfall. We were so happy with our sighting and satisfied we could leave the campsite to head towards Brisbane.

Read week to see what we get up to in Brisbane, where we stay with my beautiful cousin and her family.  Thanks for reading 🙂

	WEEK 22/23	TOTAL
Kilometres	1084km	24,194km
Sunrises watched	2	51
Sunsets watched	5	70
Beaches visited	4	124
Fish caught	0	22
Snakes sighted	0	6