Byron has company for Christmas.
Famous for it's laid back attitude, that is perhaps somewhat ruined by all those pesky tourists, Byron Bay is still an excellent place to go for sun, sand, surf and an over all good time.
On that notion the Worcester girls managed to convince us all to join them on a trip to Byron and celebrate Christmas with some Greenhouse family, under the sun. Barbecuing on the beach on Christmas day and all the classic Australian Christmas plans were drawn up and we were in Byron for Christmas.
Our arrival in Byron Bay was roughly like planned. Nat, Tim Yves and myself rocked up in the hire car and Sean, Jodie, Rhi and James were already there and settled. Gorgeous weather enveloped our arrival and the first day mostly consisted of making jokes, setting up the big tent and having a few drinks.
Second day
The second day we were faced with the debris from the day before. Having spent the majority of the evening in the tent, making fools of ourselves, things had gotten slightly messy and needed to be cleaned up. The slight overcast weather did not aid to the situation but, we were still having a good time all round.
The general order of business kicked in and we spent most of the remaining day shopping for groceries and preforming other sensible tasks.
Wetter and more expensive than you'd imagine
The unfortunate weather change did not limit itself to the second day. It stretched onwards till Christmas day. Due to the rain we spent most the days up to Christmas off the beach. We were either in town having a coffee and some lunch, doing some shopping, going to the movies or keeping ourselves busy in the camp kitchen.
All this business in town was rather unsettling to our budgets I'm afraid. With all the rain there was very little we could do otherwise than entertaining ourselves with a nice lunch or spending a good length in the pub. We went to the movies twice, to see both "TRON: Legacy" and "Little Fockers". I don't want to turn this post in to a movie review so, I'll leave it at that.
Don't think that those days were at all unpleasant. While it was surely a little wetter and more expensive than we wanted it to be, we still enjoyed ourselves very much. In addition to this, we have had some days with a couple bright sunny moments on them, which we spent on the beach.
Christmas Day
In the spirit of Christmas we'd set up Secret Santa (or Kris Kringle, if you prefer) before we left for Byron Bay. Litterly by drawing names out of a hat we assigned ourselves a friend to buy for. Not having settled for sure whether the gifts were meant to be serious, funny or sort of half most of us went with the half thing. Others of course went for funny. When I say funny I mean singing mechanical Elmo dressed like a chicken and a Barbie on a horse. The latter being of course a gift from Sean to me.
I got up slightly earlier than everyone else to annoy the crap out of everyone else by connecting my phone to the speakers (that we purchased before) and playing Mariah Carey's legendary Christmas tune... rather loudly. The rest of the morning consisted of more Christmas music, unwrapping our gifts and enjoying the Christmas spirit that we forced down Byron's throat.
We'd done all of our shopping the day before and spend a good section of the afternoon in the kitchen preparing for Christmas Dinner. With the weather not being our friend, barbecue on the beach was not likely to happen. The kitchen, which has barbecues amended to it was our fall-back option.
Christmas Dinner
With a load of tomfoolery behind us, dinner was sort of on the go. A lovely prawn cocktail prepared by Rhiannon and father to us all Sean manning the barbecue, ensuring the proper cooking of all the meats and other food stuffs.
With the previously created box of sangria, tucked neatly under the table ready for scooping, dinner was well under way. And what a blessing the sangria box turned out to be. With it positioned where it is, when ever someone knocked over a cup, it dribbled right back in to the box. Lovely!
The after dinner shenanigans lasted well in to the wee hours and we had a pretty good Christmas.
Post-Christmas business
After Christmas we started planning to get out of Byron Bay. All fun aside, we were getting a little tired of the rain and constantly being damp and cold. With Pete having arrived, we started to rack up the plans for our East Coast journey. The idea was, after Byron Tim, Yves, Pete, myself and possibly Nat were going to do the East Coast in a camper van. This was however on the exact moment where the floods started peaking and it turned out we were going nowhere. The East Coast was shut... a lot of main roads were closed, towns destroyed, not a good place to be.
A travel agent, of all people, suggested the West Coast as an alternative. As strange as it might be, it sounded like a brilliant idea. Non of us had done the West Coast and Sean and Jodie were heading to Perth... we might as well go there too.
The plan was set, we were going to do the West Coast! We broke the news to Sean and Jodie, who were a combination of surprised and excited and our planning began. We booked our flights as soon as we could and hopped on a plane to sunny Perth.
And... I'll see you there.
