Monday - Byron Bay to the Gold Coast (156kms) Happy Birthday Grandad Chorley!!

Back on the road today…we had a 6:30am alarm, which meant we were up bright and early, packed up and on the road by 7:30am.

We drove to Cape Byron, which was named after the Grandfather of Lord Byron (the poet), as he was a renowned navigator in the 1760s. We climbed up to the lighthouse, which was built in 1901 and is the most easterly and powerful lighthouse in Australia. Ben walked down to the point, and Nicola stayed at the top watching a small and very cute wallaby in the bushes below.

Next stop on today’s drive north was Brunswick Heads, a small fishing village along the coast from Byron Bay. Once back in the van and driving onwards we stopped in the twin towns of Tweed Heads (in New South Wales) and Coolangatta (Queensland), where we had a stroll around and caught our first glimpse of the glitzy Surfers Paradise….with it’s high rises protruding from the picturesque beach front on the horizon.

We toured along the length of the Gold Coast, where one beach and town merged with the next, all the time the high rises getting higher, and the tackiness getting ever so slightly tackier! We made a pit stop at Miami Beach for a walked along the white sand beach, before doing the inevitable and going to Surfers Paradise.

It was everything we thought it would be…Blackpool, but with sun! We had a walk around though and checked out it’s ‘sights’, and then got back on the road and called in at Paradise Point for lunch.

Our campsite for the next two nights is at a place called Helensvale, right adjacent to the Gold Coast, but far enough away to avoid the noise and prices. We parked up and chilled out for the evening.