Byron Bay

During the second week of May, Corey and I decided to celebrate Mother's Day by taking a weekend trip to the infamous Byron Bay. (Mom - I know you would have wanted it this way!) I say "infamous" because it seems that Byron Bay is the favorite Australian destination for Hollywood stars!

Located approximately 1 hour south of the Queensland/New South Wales border, Byron Bay is situated on the eastern most point of the mainland Australia. The town centre itself is actually quite small, and we were able to walk around it in about 1 hour - including window shopping time.

Corey and I took a snorkel day trip out to Julian Rocks, a marine reserve just 2.5km offshore. It is the remains of a volcanic eruption that occurred approximately 20 million years ago.

I was a bit dubious as it was advertised as home to the "grey nurse shark" - allegedly harmless, but nonetheless a "shark." The snorkel itself was quite incredible! I have never seen such a large variety of fish, and schools of them swam around us as if we were in a fish tank of some sort! In addition to the variety of fish, we also saw a black spot tusk fish, a few green turtles, and a wobbegong - a carpet shark that was also allegedly not dangerous.
As we took a break from the snorkeling, we observed that the rocks itself was home what seemed like 2 dozen or more of our favorite bird - the cormorant!

Before heading back to Melbourne, we took a quick drive up to Surfer's Paradise. We passed beach after beach on our way there - in fact, the entire area from Byron Bay to Surfer's Paradise was essentially one big beach!

There wasn't anything particularly unique about Surfer's Paradise. It was yet another awesome Australian beach with great sand, blue waters, and waves for those active in water activities. We did notice a lot of these odd looking birds along the boardwalk though.