We’ve now continued up, to the town of Byron Bay. There’s a couple of beautiful beaches, and a lighthouse on Cape Byron, the most easterly point of Australia. On our trip 10 years ago, this was the first stop we made on our trip north on the bus, after an overnight trip from Sydney. Then it was a surfers hippy hangout, with a bit of a backpacker scene. Now, its the same but on steroids – you can’t move down the street for the surfing dudes and hippies wandering around, and the backpackers tossing a few tinnies down their necks. So it’s not really what we remembered, nor a great family oriented place – we’ve found a campsite about 5km south of town, on a long, white sand beach, and we’ll stay there to avoid the crowds in town!

Today was an official ‘beach day’ in the Fleming family. The campsite at Suffolk Park is right alongside the beach, with a short path leading across the dunes. All morning, the girls ran around the beach, and jumped waves, until they were well and truly exhausted. Then we dragged them reluctantly back to the camper, to have lunch and for Charlotte to have her maths lesson, before we went back down the beach at 4pm, by which time the tide had turned back and the girls were jumping big waves. They both loved it, and Charlotte didn’t want to go back in before sunset, despite her shivering and blue lips!

When it came to bed time, they both crashed out at 8 o’clock, and we followed them pretty quickly. So it wasn’t a day of great cultural or learning experiences, but we all had a lot of fun!