Smoke On The Water, Fire In The Sky!
Travel Location: Byron-Bay,Australia
Stepping off the bus at ‘Byron Bay’ was like stepping into a ‘blue marijuana hazed flashback to the seventies’. If we could use music to describe it, it would be “Smoke on the Water, Fire in the Sky.” It is the one place where people come, and forget to leave. The place where you can tell how old hippies are by the black, grey and white rings in their hippie dreads. Where shirts and shoes are not required and where peace and free love reign! Where tie dye clothing is reinventing itself and where hemp in any form runs rampant! Not exactly sure why me and Trina felt right at home? Could very well be reminiscent of ‘Vermilion Fair 2005′, and mom’s shock at finding out her baby girls are no longer ‘gangi virgins…’
It was a great place to chill out… Not really a place where much goes down but a place to see non the less. Some highlights:
Sea Kayaking
Thinking we needed some adventure in our lives, Trina and I decided that sea kayaking was the way to do it. As always we made it into an experience to remember! For one, having missed our pick up, (do not blame it on the wine, and do not blame it on the table dancing at Cheeky Monkey’s) we had to walk to the club a good 20 minutes from the hostel. We arrived fashionably late and donned our helmets for a quick 5 minute demonstration on how to run a kayak. How hard could it be? True to form we made it into a party! We liked to think the guides loved us…Of the 20 people in the group the only names they knew where Trina and Pam! It went like this…
1. Trina and Pam you are going the wrong way!
2. Trina and Pam you are going to far out to sea!
3. Trina and Pam pay attention!
4. Trina and Pam don’t bump the other boats!
5. Trina and Pam are you ok? Are you Tired? Do you need help? (Trina’s black lung kicked in)
The real fun started shortly after it was time to’ ride the wave into shore.’ They made it look so easy. Simply lean back, and ride it in! We rode it alright. And ride it hard we did! It started out simple enough… We caught the wave… We leaned back…. And then…It all fell apart…The wave was bigger than we thought. We couldn’t control it… Our boat was going sideways…We could see the wave on our right…It started to close in on us…The boat tipped…We plummeted to the floor of the ocean where we both hit our faces to sand…The boat hit our helmets and knocked us down again….We had skinned knees… We surfaced short of breath from laughing and to the sound of, “TRINA AND PAM ARE YOU OK!” Why do we always end up in situations like these?
The Lighthouse
It all started with Trina getting it into her head that it was extremely important for her to view the famous Byron Bay Lighthouse at sunrise… The only thing is that in order to accomplish this we had to wake up at 4:30am. We took a white van up the winding roads to the base of the lighthouse, where we still had to walk 20 minutes to the coast. It was cold….The waves were crashing…. It was windy….. And Mom was dizzy! The light house itself was beautiful, but having to spend an hour and a half in the cold air left us completely chilled and cranky. Once getting back to the hostel we couldn’t warm up and spent the majority of the day in bed, under the covers, watching movies and eating…You could really feel the love. It was at this point we all felt like we had been spending to much time together…
Other Memorable Moments:
These last 2 should speak for themselves…
1. Trina getting a ‘licken’ from mom for being a smart ass. Still proves that you ain’t to old to get a ‘licken’. Amen to that…
2. Mom’s accumulation of the nickname ‘Bulldozer’
Things are definitely looking up…
More to follow…
.
