The End of a Chapter

Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start....

~It's 10:12 am, Thursday morning, April 19th. As we began together in Byron Bay, so we conclude: at the Why Not Cafe, with Plucky, our trusty link to the Internet.

*It has been a spectacular adventure full of exploration, fun, and absolute scads of delicious food. Still, we have to wrap in Australia sometime if we ever want to get our Paris trip. So, we are writing one last post together and kicking off one more day of togetherness and fun.

~In Byron Bay, anyway. Ben's bus leaves the Jonson Street stop, across from the Woolies, where we came in to town at 5am months ago, at 5pm today. Between now and then, we have oodles of fun to have (including doing our last blog post). We've been pretty woefully remiss on blogging these last weeks, being rather busy squeezing every last second of shenanigans out of the days, and we've skipped some pretty key moments; sunset frisbee on the beach, the Day of The Very Cold and Windy Swim (the water was warm. the air temperature - brrrrrrrrrr!), taking ourselves out for a fancy-pants dinner (literally) at The Petit Snail, the Dinner of Subway and Cider (there's a winter cider blend here with vanilla and fruits and YUM), spotting a surf stingray while swimming at Clark's beach (and very nearly accidentally petting it), the thing with the coconuts, and this breakfast, which we can both agree is the best croissant we've ever eaten.

*Yep, it's been a great week of doing the last few things we haven't done yet (and redoing the things that were so awesome we just had to 'em again). Yesterday was our last night at the Buddha bar, which I believe we deserve extra points for going to in the middle of a torrential rainstorm. Seriously, when they say tropical rainforest they really mean the rain bit.

~He's not kidding. There were actual river-fordings in our walk to Buddha Bar where yesterday there were no rivers of any sort, huddled under a small but very plucky tartan umbrella (which has gone through it's fair share of repairs), under jackets and ponchos and wearing flipflops and shorts, the only sensible choice. Galoshes would've gone under in some of these puddles.

*Anyway, we eventually did arrive. We got a couple schooners of New Zealand crushed cider...

~... which was a surprising clear color, with a light flavor and deliciously complex and lingering aftertaste...

*and sat (in mostly dry seats under the outdoor overhang) and prepared to fight the last few rounds of the gin-rummy war we started in the airport in Baltimore.

~It's been a long campaign, skirmished out in several decks of cards and played on decks and porches and bars and picnic tables, tarmacs and buses and bunk beds, we shuffled and dueled.

*Yes indeedy, pretty much everywhere we had chairs and some waiting time, there was rummy. Which brings us to the scores.

~LET ME JUST SAY...

*Drumroll please... After at least a couple hundred hands...

~HE HAD A WINNING STREAK THAT DEFIES MATHEMATICAL BELIEF. IT WAS LIKE A MONTH AND A HALF LONG.

*....and a champion opponent throughout, Karen ends the match with 5,639 points. Applause please.
  As for myself, in the final tally I had 6,221. "VICTORY!!!" oh, I mean well done old bean.

~Yes, yes, you win. Congratulations.

~UNTIL NEXT TIME. In which you will meet your DOOOOOOOM.

*The rest of the night at Buddha Bar was just awesome...

~Wait, wait, you skipped the most important part! Tell them what you sang.

*I had a grand old time singing "Anything Goes" and "Kiss the Girl" from The Little Mermaid. It was a boatload of fun and it was nice to end my time there on a chipper/silly note.

~(Hehe, note, get it?)

*After that, there was a fantastic line up of musicians and we spent the being entertained by calypso, pop, and didgeridoo music.

~Actually, those last guys claimed to be playing 'digi-harmonica' music. Seriously, they were singing, playing drums, guitars, digeridoos, and harmonicas. There were a grand total of two of them. They're playing at The Beachie on Friday at five, and in my first scheduled Australian plans without Ben, I'm going.

*Ahh, jealous.

~Yeah, well, SAD. You're the one leaving, doofus!

*Tragic but true. Even so, I am really looking forward to going home and catching up with everyone. Though, I shouldn't be getting ahead of myself. Before I actually arrive, I have the rest of the day here, a five hour bus trip, a thirteen hour train trip, lunch with the fam in Sydney, a bloody long fight to California, and then it's across the continental U.S. Nutty as it may sound, I'm really looking forward to the journey. Trains and planes, man. It's the way to go.

~Should be a great trip. LONG, but great.

*Well, chaps. It's been lovely sharing my part in this adventure with you. Thank you for coming along for the ride.

~It's been grand.

* Take care, and always remember to adventure.
   All the best, Ben

Buddha Bar

Ben walking on stage at Buddha Bar

The Walk to the Beach

The Great Coconut Incident

The Aftermath of the Great Coconut Incident

*"Smile!"
~I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts, badadadum badadadadum... 

Our Last Morning (with super tasty croissants)

~And so, farewell from Ben and Karen. My adventure in Oz continues for a few more weeks, at which point I'm coming to Maryland for a month for friend's wedding. Then, if all goes well, back to Oz for the whale migration, and from there, again, the world. Ben and I began this blog together, and, as he said, we'll keep it here; after all, we'll need someplace to put photos and stories of our escapades in Paris (and beyond). For me, the adventure goes on at Where in the World is Karen Eileen Carmen (at this moment, an empty blog.)

Right now, it's time to publish this, and head out for our last day of adventures together in Byron Bay.

*~Toodle Pip

Surfing and Sea Turtles - April 9th

This morning we woke up and had a light (post Easter feasting) brekky. We skyped home for a bit, then split up for exercise and sunshine, Ben for a run and me to the beach.

I grabbed my surfboard, put out the rest of the laundry (which practically baked dry while I was hanging it) and headed for the beach. The water was perfect, the sun so bright and the surf so calm you could see straight through the breaking waves.  The surf was “small and clean,” (little-ish waves with a clearly defined break that runs across the top of the wave parallel to the shoreline) which I’m discovering is my favorite. I paddled out past the breakers and hung out on my board, paddling around a bit, doing push-ups as practice for rising to my feet on breaking waves, finding the balance point of the board and developing the muscle memory. I also started playing with sitting on the board, which on a shortboard is way harder than it sounds, and also very fun. It’s a bit like one of those bucking bronco rides, and leads to a fair amount of somersaulting into the waves. The water was sparkly and blue, and I was in heaven. (Although the people dying of laughter a few hundred yards away might have been enjoying the free sea rodeo, I was having a great time and damn near in stitches myself.)

As will happen from time to time in the sea, especially when not surrounded by a school of other humans, sharks begin circling around the edges of my thoughts. I try not to worry about it; either you’ll get bitten or you won’t, and you probably won’t. Besides, I have this great protection over water amulet bought for me by a friend, and that’s surprisingly comforting. But, when sharks pop into my head I have a look around, as is smart to do.

I looked around, over my shoulders and into the surf and below through the feet and feet of clear turquoise water, left and forward and right, just in time to spot a brown head surface just a few feet away. My breath fled my chest in happiness. It was a green sea turtle.

I love sea turtles, but green are, at least right now, far and away my favorite. I’ve seen a hawksbill and a loggerhead in the wild before, a few out by Julian Rocks in Byron Bay and one in Isabela, Puerto Rico, and here, in the very same wave as myself, was a green sea turtle. I paddled full steam ahead for a better look, and freaked the poor guy out. He swam up a few yards, and I followed along at a more respectful distance, paddling parallel to the shore and lifting myself up on the board every time the turtle paused for a better look.

It was perfect and divine.

At length the turtle swam out to sea and I headed back in, catching a great wave on my way, bodysurfing like a rocket toward the shore and rising into a full crouch before sinking into the foam over the shallow water. I was on my way back home to meet Ben, as we had a plan to catch the 2:45 to Ballina, a nearby town, to check out the local KFC. Everything has been better here, and we’ve seen telly commercials for KFC have made our mouths water. So we reconvened at home and headed to the bus stop, where we had a very informative chat with a bus driver.

There were two flaws with our plan. One, it being Easter Monday, the buses were running a Sunday schedule, which meant there was no 2:45 bus to Ballina, and no return bus after the 5pm.

Also, the KFC in Ballina caught fire several weeks ago.

So we revamped the plan! We came home, chillaxed, wandered around town (at which point I bought a five dollar awesome wood carved fruit bowl, for which I’ve been scouting for ages, and the memoirs of a cetacean researcher that I’ve been eyeing for weeks at a used book store. To be clear, I bought both the book and the fruit bowl from the used book shop. The guy said it was on sale there because his family largely eats pineapples, and the bowl isn’t pineapple shaped.) We wandered around town for a while, stopped into the didgeridoo and hemp shop and saw a guy hawking amazing wooden flutes made from repurposed furniture and met a woman who said she’d seen a video on youtube of a whale surfacing near a boat on someone was playing a flute, and only swimming away once the guy stopped playing. We walked about town, Ben bought an apricot pie from the local bakery, and I stopped at the Green Garage to buy a tomato for my five thirty am breakfast sandwich tomorrow (I’ve happily got the opening shifts this week, and will have afternoons free for slacking and slouching and shenanigans).

I’m sure there’s more to say, but it’s very nearly seven pm here, and that means it’s time to chase down the last, and hugely important, objective of the day: Chicken Schnitzel. We were introduced to this fabulous food at our cousin’s birthday shindig, and have been in love with it since. We had it on the train on the way to Byron. We bought schnitzel patties from Woolies and made ourselves a barbeque of them. And tonight, it’s definitely schnitzel night again. The local dive bar opens at seven, so I’ve gotta run. Ciao! 

Hoppy Easter

*We began with the markets. Well…that’s not entirely true. We began with milkshakes. Then, we continued with the markets. Every year, on the Saturday before Easter, the artists of Byron Bay get together and put on a seaside festival. One can find everything from homemade chocolate, to paintings, to carvings, to pretty much whatever takes your fancy.

~It was awesome. As the weatherman said, Australia’s missing summer has arrived. The day was perfect, in a hot sunny blue skies over the seaside way, and the market was enthralling. Byron puts itself on parade around Easter, as the holidays collide with Blues Fest and bring a huge swarm of people flood the town. The market was an exhibition of life and color, recycled art and fine handcrafts and delicious samples, including one marinade vendor who introduced us to the wonders of finger limes. Finger limes are small lime-colored tube-shaped citrus fruits whose insides are bursting with delightful caviar-like bubbles of citrusy intenseness. We were so excited about this that he gave us one of his decorative display limes!

*Eventually, after oohing and ahhing over many spectacular wares, we meandered our way back home. Then it was Karen off to work and me off for a run.  Time passed. Karen got home. The clock struck midnight.

~And so began the chocolate.

*Yes, so began the chocolate. The epic quantities of chocolate.

~ Easter Sunday. We began with double-coat TimTams. And then went to sleep.

~I was supposed to be off Sunday, and we had planned an epic day of sibling slouching. It was going to be great. Then one of my co-workers fell victim to that classic Byron foible, and suffered a surfing injury during one of the busiest weeks of the year. Valiantly and stupidly, he tried to work anyway, and made it worse, so everyone worked extra shifts. As one of the other guys said, “Yes, we hope he is better soon. Then we break his other foot.” So, sadly, I worked Sunday. But I was off until nine am, so we got up early and began our slouchy shenanigans in a motivated sort of way. Chocolate bunny ears were the first to go.

*Also, one of our lovely roommates had left us a couple bottles of beer in the fridge labeled “The Easter Bunny.” We decided immediately that dinner was to be beer and kebabs on the beach. But first we had some time before Karen had to take off and we spent it in the most wonderful and least productive fashion imaginable, sitting on the couch and watching the Big Bang Theory. After a couple episodes and many laughs, she had to go to work and I had some hiking to get to. Group shenanigans were temporarily postponed.

~The Easter Bunny was actually very clever; as well as leaving us fabulous bottles of Australian booze – The Beez NeeZ (my new favorite, a honey pale ale) and Fat Yak, he hid two Cadbury chocolate eggs in our eggs carton. This brought our Easter chocolate total to: two bunnies and two packages of TimTams that we bought each other, two bars of Lindt chocolate from our parents (mailed from the States), and two secret bunny eggs. A mighty task, but we proved ourselves more than equal.

~Work finished for the day (and my colleagues supportively telling me to run out and be free in the sun while there still was), I raced home. A bite of bunny, and it was Easter again. We headed up for a dip in the beach, then back home to prepare for dinner. This dinner, long in the planning, was actually a repeat of one of our favorite Australian dinners, an invention from our days at the Main Beach hostel. It consists of a giant block of Kraft tasty cheese (phenomenal), two kiwi fruits, a shared Kebab from AbraKebabra (home of “the Magic Kebab,” I swear, that’s what the sign says) with sweet chili sauce, and booze. Previously, it was a bottle of cider. Today, it was Australian Easter Bunny beer. (Get it? Hoppy Easter? Hehe.) The moon was nearly full and enormous and yellow as it hung low over the lighthouse and cast its warm light on the sea, reflecting off the shiny interior of the kebab wrappers. Our pocket knives carved up the kiwis over the sand, and it was perfect.

~Utterly happy, we washed kebab and kiwi juices from our blades and hands and went back home to finish slouching; we sprawled out with season three of The Big Bang Theory, a carton of Norco milk, and slaughtered a herd of TimTams. It was perfect.

Happy Easter, Everyone. 

A Date With Cheese

Yesterday we went swimming, had another crack at surfing, and saw some astonishing fish before running to the lighthouse. We adjourned to the theater to see the Lorax (one of the best pixar films yet). Today Karen went to work, then ate sushi takeaway on the beach. Ben went running in the rainforest. We planned by telephone, divided the grocery stores, and met back at home with ingredients to make apple pie. We stuffed dates with double Brie as an appetizer (we've been talking about it for weeks), carved palm fronds on the deck while the pie baked, and ate apple pie for dinner. Now we are going to Buddha Bar for chess and beer, and good live music. Life is sweet.

Writing, Hiking, and Hot Chips

~Today was Saturday. Hot and dry and sunny, the weatherman said yesterday. YES! Thought I. I have the weekend off! Bring on the surfing!

~Well, this morning was rainy. It started out pleasant enough – I went to the Green Garage and bought two apples and used the wireless (which we JUST found out they have, one block away), and it drizzled. I wore jeans and a jacket, I was fine. I came back, we made breakfast, and it RAINED. One of those pouring, drenching, hang around all day sorts of rains.

~Ben can tell you, I was totally cheerful about this. Damn it, thought I, I don’t like feeling grumpy. I’m going surfing come hell or high water, and I’ll get all tired and sandy and happy.

*Surfing sounded lovely. It really did. It’s just… well… that rain looked awfully cold and wet.

~Undaunted and resolute, I donned my bathing suit, picked up my surfboard, and marched out the door. I don’t know exactly how warm I’d figured a rain which had required me to wear a jacket and pants and closed shoes a moment before was going to be, but DAMN it was COLD. I got less than a block from the house when the more reasonable part of my brain asked, “Do you really want to do this now?” Oh, hell, no, was the answer. Happily, I turned back toward the nice warm and (relative) dry of inside. “How about Twisted Sister instead?” I asked. To Ben’s credit, there was no mocking.

*Twisted sister is a charming café we have been meaning to go to. It was a warm color scheme of yellows, reds, and oranges and sells some thoroughly enticing baked goods and smoothies. We decided, given the dampness of the day, that sitting with a smoothie called “Jamaican Dream” and working on our book was the perfect way to spend the afternoon. So we sat and drank our smoothie (a tasty combination of banana, mango, coconut, and pineapple) and it kept drizzling.

~Uh, it was clearly raining, not drizzling.

*Well, it was rain/drizzling. Right until it started pouring.

~Anyway, it was pretty to watch. We sat at the streetside tables ensconced by warm fun paint and delicious smells and watched the rain and wrote our story. It was pretty excellent. Eventually, Plucky’s battery died...

*NOOOOOOOOO!

~... drama queen.  And we repaired for lunch.

*Oh, that’s alright then.

~As we lunched, the sun returned, and we returned in turn to our original plan: hiking. We were seeking out the trails by Tallows beach.

*We had been told that if we followed the road up to the lighthouse, rather than taking path across the beach,  we would find some trails through the rainforest.

~Retrospectively, these rumored trails (which we never actually found) are probably hippie trails in defiance of the bush regeneration effort, but let that pass;  at the time, all we heard was ‘trail’ and ‘rainforest.’

*Quite. Anyway, while we totally failed to find the trails we were looking for, we…

~…found something way cooler!

*Oy, who’s telling this story?

~Just because I’m letting you type…

*Trouble. Anyway, we found a footpath that, within a few hundred feet, took us to  a ramp which hang gliders were launching from. It was a wooden platform that extended from the path and sloped down towards a sea of trees a very long way down. One of the local hang-gliding  companies was there with a small group of thrill seekers. One by one a guide and tourist would hitch themselves together to a glider and hurl themselves off the edge. It’s a little trippy to watch two grown men chuck themselves off a cliff. A little crazy, but totally sweet.   

~It really is a sight to behold. We stood for a while, mesmerized by a pair of fliers in the sky, two people in sacks that looked like narrow sleeping bags hanging from a nylon strap to a kite, humans with wings soaring on the breezes. The launch platform led straight out to the sea which rolled a dizzying distance below even the path under our feet, much further for the hang gliders overhead. We stood and watched and rejoiced in the flight, and realized why people would hang glide. Then we watched a guy strap himself in to a set of flimsy wings with wheels on the bottom and totter to the top of the domed ramp with two men on either side fighting against the winds trying to pick him up and pitch him off the end unready, and hearts in our throats we remembered why we’re NOT hang gliding. Eventually, through design or accident, the tottering man jumped, or fell. Either way, he dropped like a brick, and then was suddenly airborne. As he soared up onto the higher winds, a pair of enormous raptors, some kind of eagle we think, took to the air from the trees atop the rainforest and joined the fliers, making graceful arcing circles, scanning the surf and sea below for their prey. It was a sight to see.

*At length, we decided to see what lay further down the trail. It was a beautiful forest path that sloped up and down several hills, through myriads of tropical palms.

~The path was muddy and the vines and the boles of the trees were wet with the day’s rain, but the sun dappled through the palm fronds and tree leaves overhead. Wooden slats made steep stairs in the path where it curved and sloped dramatically, and the littoral rainforest extended to either side. Beyond, there were occasional glimpses of the sea and bay glittering in the hot afternoon light. In the cool of the rainforest, all was peaceful. We trekked through, seeing fronds and ferns and mushrooms, looking for swamp wallabies and thinking of dinosaurs roaming and spotting and hearing Australian birds all around. The path wound around the land mass that peaks by the lighthouse and continued to descend. Just as it began to flatten out, we came to a trail map. We’d made nearly a full circuit, and exited the forest by the parking lot over The Pass, a surf break at the end of Clark’s beach, only a few blocks from our house. We walked down to the beach and watched the sun and sea and surfers for a moment, then turned our steps toward home and dinner and more writing. Which is where we were when we were waylaid by hot chips.

*So there was this great eatery we had been meaning to go to for a while… yes, this does happen to us a lot. Anywho, this time it was the local club. Clubs are interesting in Australia. Pretty much all of the more built up communities have one. They all have a bar, a restaurant, and pokeys (what the Aussies call slot machines). Our club is no more than a block or so from our house and every time we pass by the big windows we have seen people eating fried potato wedges from big paper cones.

~We presented ourselves at the front counter, signed in, went to the café area, and described the paper cone in question. The woman behind the counter smiled and nodded, and handed us a beeper thing. We took a table, and explored the wonderful kiosk of Australian condiments. I’ve never been in a place that does condiments so well. The tomato sauce is fruity and divine. The barbeque sauce is a revelation. This club also had a mint jelly that was AMAZING, two kinds of mustard, one of which was horseradishy enough to bring tears to the eyes of the unwary, and a kind of vinegar I didn’t recognize. After an interval of time passed in which we can only assume they were making our hot chips to order, our beeper buzzed. A tray appeared at the counter, metal rungs making a stand for not one but TWO enormous paper cones of chips. We’d died and gone to potato heaven. It came with a condiment described as “sour cream.” Sour cream in the States is certainly sour, and was at some point cream. This smooth white delicious stuff had probably seen the inside of a cow earlier today, and was hardly sour, but totally cream.

*After finishing what I’m pretty sure was three or four potatoes, we went back home where one of our housemates informed us that in two minutes, Earth Awareness Hour was going to begin. Apparently it is an annual event where people all over the world turn off their power for an hour. We were just about to start cooking, but what hey, save the earth, protect the whales. These are good goals. Postponing dinner, we sat down to engage in chess by candlelight.

~Earth Awareness Hour is definitely going on my annual calendar. It was very cool to sit in darkness by candlelight in solidarity with people all over switching off their electricity. I don’t know if there are enough participants (yet) to show up on the powergrid, but it’s a gesture, and wonderful. Also, this time at chess I very nearly gave Ben a run for his money. The hour passed in the locking of mental horns, and by the time it had ticked over we were ready to turn our groceries into dinner. We started with a plan. It turned into purple goulash, but was surprisingly delicious all the same. 

The Highlight Reel

Friday 16/3: We earned our Nerd Frood Stamps, and had an Aussie BBQ complete with beets

We busted out our new snorkel masks, and explored The Wreck, two off-shore shipwrecks that can be swum from the beach. The boats are pretty destroyed by this point, in many pieces, and home to schools of silver fishes. We came back in from the beach, showered off, and headed out to the library to Get Our Library Cards. We attempted to do this a few weeks ago, and were sadly told that we needed some kind of proof of residency, in the form of valid ID and ANYTHING – a lease agreement, rent receipt, anything. Having paid our first rent at the Westpac, we walked up to the library and presented ourselves at the library desk and announced that we had a permanent address and would like library cards, please. At which point the very nice librarians regretfully told us that the receipt lacked our address, which we needed. I looked at the wall clock behind her head, saw it was twenty to five (the library closes at five, and we live a twelve minute walk away), and sighed, and said, “All right, we’ll come back in the morning.” Then I looked at Ben, who glanced at the clock and at the door with a grin. Damn. I know that face. We agreed to run for it. We sprinted to our house in flipflops, raced in through the back door, grabbed our lease agreement, and sprinted back to the library. It was a hot afternoon, and we’d been swimming all morning. We showed up dripping with sweat, panting and clutching our lease agreement in triumph. The librarians saw us come in through the door and pulled out forms and our new cards before even looking at the paper (which, admittedly, only had our address hand-written in to a fill-in-the-blank spot in the paperwork generated by the leasing agency for a whole group of housing). They kept the library open for us five minutes late to let us check out our books. Five minutes later, still dripping with sweat, Ben carrying a novel and me carrying a book on the Great Barrier Reef and an update of Origin of the Species, we headed out and across the street to L’Ultime, the local French patisserie and chocolaterie, to buy fresh bread for our beach barbeque. We went back home, dropped off our books, picked up our condiments and a spatula, and went to the Green Grocer for a beet (Aussies put beets on their burgers. We were determined to find out why.),  salad greens, and an orange. Over the block between our house and the grocer, we saw the biggest, brightest, most perfectly arched, most complete rainbow either of us have ever seen. It had the full ROYGBIV, and ended beyond the lighthouse in one direction and into the sea in the other. Given a boat or a plane, we actually could have followed the rainbow. We took our supplies back to the house, Ben made some home-made orange-ade with fresh fruit, and we headed back to the beach, stopping by Woolies on our way to pick up the Australian Beef Patties we’d been eyeing earlier, and had ourselves a barbeque. It was tasty.

This weekend the fruit of the banana trees between our house and the neighbors has begun to ripen. The temptation of fresh bananas right off the vine, creamy and flavorful and delicious, is too much to resist. Having stolen a banana (or three – they were over-ripening and about to fall off anyway! I told myself…) I stopped next door to introduce myself to the neighbor. He turned out to be a very nice elderly  Australian gentleman named Peter, who told me that he’d planted the trees in his yard ages ago and they’d run wild and colonized. Anything on our side, he said, we were welcome to pick, and “have a feed, love.” And so there was a banana cream pie. I tried to take him a slice, but he wasn’t home. We we, and our roommates, ate it all. Then there was a banana oat custard tart, first for breakfast, then later chilled with white chocolate. Happily, Peter did indeed get a slice of this before it vanished. Then there was oatmeal banana breakfast, and banana white chocolate pancakes (YUM) for breakfast, and leftovers for dessert still in the fridge. That’s pretty much done it for the first bunch, between us and all three of our roommates eating the bakeables and snacking off the tree. Three more bunches wait out there, still green on the vine.  Again, Yum.

This weekend was St. Pattys Day. We ran through a tropical rainstorm to procure bottles of beer after I got off work late at night, and puddle stomped our way home to toast with Australian beer.

Sunday was a rainy morning, so we hung out and read our new library books all morning. It cleared up at night, and we hiked ourselves out to Cooks Lookout. There was a huge storm swell coming in this week, and massive waves broke over the rocks under the stars. Which was beautiful, and completely arresting, until we got hungry, and hiked ourselves back home for Italian home cooking for dinner and Cool Runnings, which may be the best movie ever made.

Tuesday we learned to surf! On ten foot long foam boards, in a three hour lesson (which went a lot like a tutorial, followed by being pushed out onto a few waves – the surfing equivalent of training wheels- then pointed to the good waves and told to go for it!) we both managed to stand a few times. It was a huge feeling! There is more surfing in my future. That night, after having an early dinner of pizza leftovers and a later dinner of chocolate and forest berry sorbet from Bella Rosa Gelateria, we found ourselves hanging out at the Beach Front Hotel, hanging out with a guy we’d met last week at Buddha Bar’s open mic and two Dutch girls. It was another of Byron’s open mic events, Gary sang and played his guitar again, and the music all night was good. We finally stumbled our sleepy selves back home, and watched the end of an episode of Top Gear before crashing off to sleep.

This morning it’s a rainy Thursday, so we’re catching up with the internet and the world at the Why Not Café. Ben had a croissant with vanilla cream and fruit, I had the sweet special – profiteroles with dark chocolate and macademia nut ice cream, and an LSD (Soy Dandelion Latte, and my favorite local drink). We’re just about out of here, though, off to do a bit more surf-board hunting, then go for a swim (hey, it might be raining, but we’ll be wet anyway), and pick up our free burgers from the Byron Corner Store, a deli that rewards customers for booking the surf lesson. The board of ingredients looks promising. 

Buddha Bar

*Our very favorite place for frothy drinkables.

~Yessir, home of the $3 Schooner of Byron Bay Premium Ale Happy Hour from 4-6 pm every day, and host of the Wednesday Open Mic Nights.

*The Buddha Bar is a large indoor/outdoor bar attached to a very nice hostel/resort/brewery/theater/spa/backpacker tent city called the Arts factory. Right from the entrance you know the place is going to be cool. Walking in from Skinners Shoot Rd

~Over the grassy, disused railroad tracks behind the Woolies

* you come to tan-brick path and follow it past  massive twelve foot tall pillars of stone , beyond a mass of well kept but still pleasantly wild vegetation, and right into the inner bar.

~The entrance to the bar lies just beyond doorways which lead to the spa and cinema. Up three steps, and promisingly nestled just behind the indoor tables are huge steely cisterns of local brew. Through the interior, which is booth seating and very nice, but why on earth would you sit inside when the stone patio out back beckons, you walk by a double door to the left which leads to a very cool stage show room. The bar passes on your right, and of course you stop for a schooner of happy hour, frothy foam at its finest, and head out backHuge statues and carvings of various Buddhas are nestled into the slightly tiered rock patio, tall bar tables and stools liberally scattered among picnic tables, a huge tree festooned with a string of multicolored track lights, cavernous tin roofing that covers part of the patio closest to the building, the few steps descend to a stage. . It’s wild out there. Literally. While waiting for the open mic to start last week, a girl was having dinner at one of the round bar tables when a kookaburra the size of her head divebombed her plate, stole her steak with its beak, and flew off to the leafy canopy of the enveloping trees to happily dine on her dinner. The bar patrons, after ensuring for a moment that the very skinny girl who had leapt from her seat was all right, cheered the bird. Wildlife dinner theater at its finest. This lasts until dark, at which point the tables are turned. Literally. For in the leafy canopy that hangs over the Buddha Bar, a huge colony of fruit bats come to roost. Flying Foxes, as these fruit bats are, are ENORMOUS, red furred heads and necks (that do indeed look quite foxy) give way to black leathery five-foot-wingspans. They land in the trees by the dozens and begin a very messy meal indeed. Ben and I decided, sitting under a rain of damp green boluses, that it was definitely bits of fruit they’d bitten off and begun to chew that had been stolen away by gravity and brought down upon our heads, and definitely not bat guano. This decision was arrived at not so much through certainty, although it is probable, but because the disgustingness of the alternative doesn’t bear thinking about. Luckily we’d finished our beers by this point, and repurposed the cardboard coasters for brushing off the table every few minutes, and the chess went on.

*Recently we have made a weekly habit of coming for the happy hour and playing chess until the open mic starts at eight.  The stage they have set is wondrous. It is wooden stage with a matching overhang and is surrounded by the branches of nearby trees which stretch over and around it. Hanging from it ceiling are three round flower-like lamps which change color at a sedate pace and glow with deep blues, purples, and forest greens. The actual music which takes place on the stage is equally grand. Everything from harp music, to blues, to pop, to mandolins. It’s all there and the music loving crowd cheers for them all.     

~It does indeed draw quite the cast of musical characters. Given the nature of Byron Bay, the entire eclectic crowd are top-notch performers, ranging from amateur-good to professional, and no two acts are alike. There’s a fair sprinkling of hippie classics, performed by classic hippies. One of the first acts we saw was by a tall, lean woman wearing panel-striped corduroy pants with a pleasantly husky voice, strong guitar skills, who did a number, and then leaned into the microphone and said, “And this is my anti-war song.” She sang about being a woman, and how peace began with her. Utterly authentic and talented, it was an original number that sang the song of an entire generation. Last night, a Latin American woman (who cried when Ben sang “The Impossible Dream” from “the Man of La Mancha”) got up and wrapped her body around her guitar and said fiercely that her song went out to all those who’d been in prison, because yeah, she was a jailbird herself. She sang the blues, and it was how the blues were meant to be sung. She sang her own blues, defiant and hopeful and strong. As a performer, she was arresting. After she finished her set, she stood up laughing, betraying nerves that hadn’t shown even in shadow a moment before. She brought the house down.

*They were all amazing. I think my favorite act was the final one in yesterday’s performance. It was a little Argentinian guy playing the mandolin and he had a great sound. It was not big or powerful but was completely his and just a joy to listen to. Another chap I would be remiss not to mention is the master of ceremonies. He is a local named Mario and absolutely the right pick for the job. At the beginning of each night he gets introduces the open mic night, collects names of the people who wish to perform, and does a couple of numbers to warm up the crowd before the first singers go on.  And the itself crowd is phenomenal. They are so much fun to sing for. Made of other performers and bar patrons they are incredibly supportive and appreciative of whatever people decide to do.  These last couple of weeks I have been performing show tunes from White Christmas and Man of La Mancha and have had a grand old time doing it.

~And he’s been AMAZING. You should hear the hush that falls over the bar after the first few bars of acapella in Ben’s showstopping voice hits the air. Almost everyone who plays at open mic uses a guitar, although there’s a smattering of other instruments. No one else does acapella. And while (almost) all of the performers are stellar quality, Ben’s voice is something special. And these music-lovers know it. The first night he sang, Mario took the microphone and gave one of the highest complements Byron Bay knows how; “Wow! How different was that? Let’s give him a big hand, Ben from Maryland, everyone!” The second night Ben sang, last night, a guy up to him after, and introduced himself as a local musician. He said he comes to play every week and listens for pitch quality, and that performances as pitch-perfect as Ben’s last night “are just scary.” He told us to stick around, since Ben was very likely to be one of the night’s prize-money winners. As his sister, I’m very proud. As just me, going to The Arts Factory weekly for the cheap beer and great music, it’s just good listening. My little bro’ done great.

*Mario has a certain amount of glee when it comes to his weekly role of giving out the prize money. A great musician himself, he takes seems to take pleasure in acknowledging other performers. And I got my first Australian paycheck!  There is something special about the Arts Factory. It is set in a beautiful tropical forest and the people who go there are special breed of travelers and adventurers. I am already looking forward to next week.      

~Ditto! I have to beat this kid at chess. We’re zero and… um, well, who’s counting, anyway?