Byron Bay, Clarkes Beach 2010
September: we all needed a holiday, and it did not start too well. The weather forecast was scary, even got a Qld Bad Weather Alert SMS announcing a hail storm + I twisted my knee en route for bush camping with three kids, my own two, and Josie's friend, Katelyn.
As soon as we arrived, we were rewarded by, in my opinion, one of most beautiful beach on earth: the bay allows for relatively gentle waves of ever changing mood and colours, but still 'surfable', and in the distance, 'if you look well' the sea meets Mt Warning National Park mountains in the background, offering a beautiful contrast.
Byron Bay is also the most westerly point in Australia, the 'end of the world' ... after that, you are in the Pacific Ocean until you meet America.
Here the nature demands respect at any time, as we found out on day two, when an army helicopter was circling on top of our heads in order to convince a tiger shark to leave the beach : and it did not work! Paul captured in a video two paddle boat rowers having a chat together as the shark was passing by between their two boards.
I was just reading this morning in the paper this comment from French Director, Julie Bertucelli, who fell in love with Queensland when she filmed 'the Tree' : 'It is not just the space I admire, it is the wildness that comes with everything from the landscape to the dangerous animals' with the typical focus of a foreigner to Australian shores. 'Australia is a country where everything can kill you, from spiders to crocodiles' ... 'It gives you a good lesson in life', she says, 'you are nothing in front of life'.
She summed it up nicely.
Camping surrounded by families felt homely. Two men came to ask the kids about basket weaving techniques as they were making a fruit wicker basket. We sewed scented satchels. Josie and Katelyn made two new friends and leisurely spent their evenings having a chat with them and their parents around a drink, watching the sun go down.
Two young boys were selling huge stones unshamelessly marketed 'crystals' in front of the toilet block. When I asked them: 'How do you know it is crystal inside', they replied in a tone that could not be challenged 'we just collected them from the beach'. Of course !
In the morning, young girls were flattening each others' hair, you would have thought you were in a salon.
Oscar improved his surfing skills dramatically, thanks to Katelyn's coaching. Paul got eventually convinced to visit the Crystal Castle 'a must' for the kids, who loved meandering among the semi precious stones laid out among Indian stone statue deities, in an heteroclite fashion, with a view over the teletubbies rounded green hills of Northern NSW.
Paul, dumbfounded, thought we were in the anti chambers of Science wisdom :)
Of course, I could not convince him to get a massage in Byron Bay, but I treated myself with one, which did wonders for my knee. In a way of saying thank you, I flatly said 'I feel much more relaxed now' and the guy replied 'you can never be too relaxed' ... which puzzled me, but which did not puzzle Paul who said to me immediately :
'yeah, plenty of time to relax when you're dead'.
No chance to make Paul a Byron Bay Boy :) !
Byron did it again for me. I am now refuelled.
Let the pictures do the talking now :
