From State to State

Pauline writing her last blog entry

Before she starts, I just have to mention an ‘animal event’ from the other lunchtime – we ate by a village green, very tranquil, popped to the loo and on flushing disturbed two frogs hiding under the rim! One managed to hold on, all I could really see was a leg coming and going, the other however ended up in the bowl looking slightly surprised though unhurt as it crawled out and back under the rim! For some reason B decided taking photos in the loo was not on, so no picture I’m afraid!

Well, it’s my last full day and the price to pay, apparently is that I do the blog.  Yesterday was boiling hot.  We went to an openair craft market.  I could have spent loads of money on loads of unique clothing and reverted to the hippie I never was.  Poor Brian, clothes stalls on a Sunday morning really isn’t his thing, but he bore it manfully.  We tasted everything going.  Pity we’d had breakfast; we could have eaten more then.  

One of many live bands at the market

We felt like real locals as the first stall was manned by one of the ‘charm offensive’ men from yesterday. So having done well yesterday Mum didn’t do too badly today – she bought B some Stevie smartiepants hot sauce and was given some mandarin and cinnamon marmalade for being my mummy, as it is his mummy’s recipe (Oh yes, and $2 off!)

The lighthouse at Cape Byron

Then we moved on to Cape Byron, moving as quickly as possible through Byron Bay, which was Brighton on a bank holiday.  (This weekend is a public holiday – it’s the Queen’s birthday.  Bet you haven’t been celebrating that).  But we had a nice walk because we had to go to the most easterly point in Australia, and then on to (another) lighthouse.  

At the most easterly point

Just to prove...

I’ve climbed up more steps in the last 3 weeks than in the previous year, I should think.  You’ll see a photo of a snake – we encountered it on the way down.  Man in front stopped the traffic saying he thought it was a brown snake (poisonous).  Along comes another woman – “nah, it’s a tree snake”, so off we all went again.

Hissing Sid

Today started overcast and we went to Burleigh Heads and had another nice walk by the sea, watching the surfers of various standards and felt slightly envious.  Full of people though.  Then we went up the steepest road ever to Tamborine Mountain to look for waterfalls.  What did we get?  Water out of the skies and waterfalls running down the roads.   

So after a visit to a distillery and a spot of tasting (very nice!) we headed off to find a bed for the night and getting the kettle on for tea and cake.  (J says B can’t have cake after I’ve gone! Only coz it gets dark at 17.00 ish and cooking and washing up in the dark is no fun, so we’d never fit tea and cake in before that! He can always have it as pudding!) The other thing I have to add is about the spiders we’ve seen today, horrible. I don’t think the first couple are dangerous, but I’m not so sure about the other!

The Gold Coast on a grey day

Free BBQ and boiling water provided by the beach!

Liqueur tasting in North Tamborine

My only addition is about Captain Cook and his naming of Cape Byron. On 15^th May 1770 he sighted the Cape and named it to honour British explorer Captain John Byron who circumnavigated the globe in the HMS Dolphin from 1764 to 1766. He recorded people walking on a straight white beach south of the Cape and wrote: ‘A tolerable high point of land bore NWBW distant 3 miles – this point I name Cape Byron. It may be known by a remarkable sharp peaked mountain lying inland NWBW from it…’ 

Captain John Byron was the grandfather of Lord Byron, a famous English poet and, in the mistaken belief it was named after the latter, European settlers named streets in Byron Bay after other famous poets, so there are streets such as Browning Street, Keats Street and Kipling Street. The original name of the Cape was Cavanbah, a local Aboriginal name meaning ‘meeting place’.