Our adventure continues with a our simultaneous arrival at BNE and departure for Byron Bay in our faithful hired Corolla . We had heard a lot about Byoron from friends and relatives and were looking forward to a relaxing week all to ourselves in a quaint artistic community. In normal times this might have been possible however, to our great surprise we arrived into flat-chat Schoolies Week in all its splendour. The only available place to sleep for the night was a 10m2 caravan in the Byron Bay Campground. As Paul put it so eloquently, "rather a week in Tora-Bora than a night in a caravan park". Needless to say we got straight back in the car and made our way back up to Southport where we ended up finding a clean and quiet motel room for the night.

As the now famous saying goes, "When all else fails, Mum will know what to do". To our very great fortune, Mum and Judy (encore merci mille fois) were able to track down a sensational unit on Straddie for the week. Better yet, Mum was able to meet us in time for the ferry thus saving us from having to track down bed linen. Better yet she was able to stay over for the first night.

The weather during our stay was a bit eclectic (a new meteorological term) and thanks to the Northerlies bringing the usual millions of Jellyfish (including some bluebottles) we decided not to swim for the first two days which was no big loss since the water was quite chilly. The tail end of the very violent storms that hit Sydney provided some pretty spectacular light and cloud shows and kept daytime temperatures down a bit. Notwithstanding our quite strange luck with the weather, we did manage to get in three days or so of beach before heading back to the mainland on Friday.

With the three and a half days we had in front of us before flying back out and not wanting to miss anyone, we were looking at quite a whirlwind tour. It was truly wonderful to spend some time with (almost) everyone and we were so happy to find Narnie in such great form (quelle force de la nature!). Even better, the family has become significantly bigger over the last two years and it was our first time seeing Indi' and the two most recent Lilly, and Oliver.

As usual, the hardest part is getting back on the plane...