Ballina

What a great week we have had!  We went to the k.d. lang concert on Tuesday night in Brisbane at the outdoor RiverStage venue in the botanic gardens.  It was a perfect night to sit out under the stars and hear k.d. and her beautiful voice.  It was fantastic!  On Friday we drove out to Ballina for a long weekend, so we had a nice short work-week, which is always a bonus.

Ballina is about 2.5 hours south of Brisbane, in New South Wales.  We originally booked Ballina because we couldn't find accomadation in Byron Bay.  What a lucky accident for us that we "settled" for Ballina.  We absolutely loved it!  Unlike Byron Bay, it is not right on the ocean but sits in an estuary with the Richmond River, much like Brisbane does with the Brisbane River.

The Ballina Richmond River walk

When we got there on Friday afternoon we decided to check out the beach, which is about a 7 minute drive from the town centre.  While we were walking to the beach from the parking lot we spotted a few dolphins in the bay (we actually thought they were sharks at first, but that might be from the fact that the movie "Jaws" is on TV here every couple of months).  Once we figured out what we were looking at, it was pretty exciting and we felt much safer about going in the water.  The waves were MASSIVE so we stayed very close to the shore but it was very nice to get out for a swim.

The beach at Ballina

Lighthouse at Byron Bay

On Saturday we went to Byron Bay to see the town and do the Lighthouse walk.  The town was pretty full of kids on "schoolies" (high school grads having an absolute drunken blow-out) so we didn't spend too much time there.  The Lighthouse walk was very impressive.  It takes one to the most easterly point on the Australia mainland, and has an exhausting number of steps.  As we were whining to each other about how hot and tired we were, a lady ran past us on some kind of crazy circuit that involved running up and down stairs when it is +30ºC!  Not for us though, after the walk we went back to Ballina and sat by the river for a lunch and a glass or two of wine to close out the afternoon.  The highlight of the day, however, was JB losing her hat from a gust of wind blowing it off her head and into the river and JT risking his life (not really) to fish it out.   The hat was about 2m down from the boardwalk and floating in the water.  JT had to search through a nearby park until he found a stick long enough to reach.  There was talk of JB standing on JT's legs while he hung down over the water's edge and risked his life to get the hat back...it didn't come to that, but he was willing. What a hero!

JB at Australia's most easterly point