Ballina is a nice town on a large inlet of water.
We have decided it's about time we actually did something! We seem to spend our days getting in and out the camper, having a quick walk on a beach and moving on. Six weeks is definitely not long enough to do the route from Sydney to Darwin at a leisurely pace!
So today we are going to hire some bikes from "Tranistion Cycles and Fitness"! For those of you who don't know me very, when I was 12 I came off my bike going down a steep hill and ended up in hospital overnight, so to be honest it is not really my favourite passtime! Matt assures me we will not be off-roading!!
It's saturday and the shop closes around 1 p.m. The guy says we can have the bikes for the morning for $20 for both. (A baragin!), I think 4 hours will be plenty of time to do a good portion of the cycle track Ballina has.
It's all pretty flat and some of it is coastal. We have a great morning and the good news is, I could still walk at the end of it, albeit with jelly legs!
Sunday 1st July, we make our way to Australia's most easterly point. Cape Byron, (named after Lord Byron, poet and renowed navigator in the 1760's!) It is a lovely sunny morning as we walk up to the lighthouse. It's really busy here, as the migrating whales can be seen from here too.
From here we continue up the 'Gold Coast', basically it's a surfers paradise. To be honest it's really not overly pretty. There are a lot of high rise buildings along the coast and it just feels a little fake.
Tweed Heads is a nice town where New South Wales and Queensland meet.
We have decided to drive 40 minutes west (inland) to walk Mount Warning. It's the first place in Australia the sun touches in the morning. It's a sacred Aboriginal mountain and they don't really like people going up it, although they can't actually stop you!
Now, the idea is that you get to the top for sunrise! Our camp-spot for the night is at the bottom of the mountain in the carpark almost.
From 4 a.m. I hear cars start arriving. I talk Matt into getting up at about 4.30 and we start our trek about 5,(by this time there are already 5 cars in the carpark!)
It's a steep, but well defined footpath. As the sunrises the views just get better and better. We don't actually make it to the top in time! We are probably 30 minutes to late! I really doesn't matter, we have had a lovely 'steep' walk, the last 15 minutes or so, is so steep, they have had to fix a chain to the rocks to help you up, and more to the point, down!
We are back at the car park for 9 a.m. A 4 hour walk complete! (Our legs are stiff for about 4 days!!)
