The Enchanted Wizards of Byron Bay

Who knew that an overnight greyhound could take us to the wonders that were Byron Bay? Even with the continuous thunderstorms there was nothing that could rain on our parade.

We arrived at 4 in the morning, when the only things open were some very polite public toilets and a bakery. After watching the sun rise with our tea and hot chocolates we headed to our hostel to check in.

To Izzy’s surprise a friend was waiting at the hostel – After 8 months of silence Liam Fairweather sauntered into the hostel! We spent around 4 days with Liam, his girlfriend Anna and their friends Chiana (also an Exeter grad) and her boyfriend Nat. Basically – the wizards became a couple for a while.

We did a lovely walk up to the lighthouse (where we may have discovered a coffee addiction but will keep you updated) and then spent the afternoon trying to teach ourselves to surf! In this first surfing experience one wizard manage to stand up, and the other was kneeling and crossing their legs…but don’t worry, a stand up was to follow later on in the trip. The Australian team have not yet been in contact – but we think it’s only a matter of time.

As well as tripping to Watego’s Bay multiple times to enjoy the beautiful ocean and beaches, we also took some day trips to Nimbin and the nearby industrial estate. Nimbin was a town around 40 minutes away that is known for being stuck in the 70’s – lots of hippie shops to look around! We did this with a day tour that also took us to see the lovely Minyon Falls.

We know a trip to the industrial estate doesn’t sound too appealing – however we hired bikes and cycled down, and discovered an area filled with vintage shops, yoga studios and fancy interior design shops (which was waaay out of our budget but just so lovely to look around – fancy a new rug anyone?). The industrial estate is also home to the local beer brewery Stone & Wood, so we went there to have a look around and found that you can do paddle beer tasting which looked v fun. These day trips were also fab for when the weather wasn’t reflecting our inner sunny disposition. The weather was crazy – forecasting thunderstorms everyday, but then we would wake up to find blue skies, full sun and blistering heat. By the end of the day however, in a matter of minutes, the dark clouds would cover the sky and thunder, lightning and huge heavy rain drops would start! It just shows how amazing this place was, that even in this weather we loved every minute we had here.

That being said…we were supposed to stay in Byron until the 18th March…but we just felt as though we hadn’t had enough time on the beach??? How were we meant to leave without going to the Barefoot Brewery where the local coffee was?? How were the Australian surf team going to contact us if we moved on so quickly??

So…we extended our stay until Friday 22nd – making the executive decision to miss out the Gold Coast (a decision we have deffo not regretted!)

We spent our extra days discovering an amazing local jewellers, coffee tasting at Bayleaf Cafe, listening to the live music that covered the streets every night, trying our hand at surfing and, of course, visiting watego’s bay. It’s a hard life, isn’t it? These extra days also meant that we bumped into a Bondi Rescue fan from Sydney – we welcomed Chris back into the wizards team!

I think the wizards can safely say that Byron Bay has cast a spell on them. The whole vibe of the town was incredible – it was filled with small, independent coffee shops, packed with vegan restaurants and cafes, had amazing, quirky clothes shops, beaches that were gorgeous and not too packed at all, and every evening was buzzing with musicians and live music. We also discovered a cafe that had a happy hour on pastries (of course with an extensive vegan range) – everything $3 after 5pm? Yes please.

It’s taking a lot of will power to get on the bus and head out – but we have the excitement of Brisbane and the AFL game to carry us through!

Byron Bay you have definitely not seen the end of the wizards, you’ve turned two quite un-beachy girls into two sand and ocean lovers!♥️ but for now, thank you for contributing to our thunder down under through real life thunder storms and lightening, let’s hope we can take this magical energy with us to Brisbane!

Love,

The Wizards x