We were out pretty late last night and slept in a bit since this was a scheduled free day when there were not any particular plans for the morning or afternoon. I was up about 9:40 to head to the dive shops to try to get in on a trip since I wanted to do a little bit of diving. I found that
Dive Byron Bay had space on the next trip and just had time to sign in and get my gear together. We rode a jeep to the beach and assisted in launching the boat before wading to deeper water and piling in. We rode out to the Julian Rocks, visible as being in the middle of the bay, and tied into one of several mooring buoys. The water was cool, but comfortable enough as we swam around checking out the leopard sharks, wobbegong sharks, urchins, and other creatures.
Unfortunately, the dive guide was really quite unskilled as he was constantly kicking up the bottom and every time he stopped he would instantly go vertical and stand on the bottom. Most divers are never really trained that this is a bad, sloppy practice so they simply don't pay attention. I did see a diver that seemed to know what he was doing and had great form underwater and found out later that he was a technically trained diver out of Sydney, so it figures. After we got back I spent an hour or so in the Internet cafe to pay bills, check e-mail, etc and make a call home, though Kristen could not hear me (the staff at the shop had no clue about computers and claimed there was a 'Firefox' virus that was causing issues), so we ended up talking through Gmail chat.
In the evening we had a most excellent trail set by Rumple from the top of Byron Bay by the lighthouse (they had arranged for a van to pick us up from the hotel and take us to the start) all the way down back into town. We had a great circle on the RR tracks behind the hotel to end the week as this was unfortunately out last hash as a bus group. The bus driver was even named something along the lines of 'roller coaster driver', but I cannot remember the full name. The last group event was to burn off the rest of the food and as much as the drink as possible before we all had to fly to Perth in the following days. It was great to get to meet and learn about so many good folks; especially Dr. PP, Mr. X, SpareRib, Rumple, Hummingbird, Walkabout, Python, Rubberchoak, Mams, and Yarksucker. A lot of time and effort was put into this and it really showed by how smooth things ran and how much of a good time was had by everyone.
We were out pretty late last night and slept in a bit since this was a scheduled free day when there were not any particular plans for the morning or afternoon. I was up about 9:40 to head to the dive shops to try to get in on a trip since I wanted to do a little bit of diving. I found that Dive Byron Bay had space on the next trip and just had time to sign in and get my gear together. We rode a jeep to the beach and assisted in launching the boat before wading to deeper water and piling in. We rode out to the Julian Rocks, visible as being in the middle of the bay, and tied into one of several mooring buoys. The water was cool, but comfortable enough as we swam around checking out the leopard sharks, wobbegong sharks, urchins, and other creatures. 
Unfortunately, the dive guide was really quite unskilled as he was constantly kicking up the bottom and every time he stopped he would instantly go vertical and stand on the bottom. Most divers are never really trained that this is a bad, sloppy practice so they simply don't pay attention. I did see a diver that seemed to know what he was doing and had great form underwater and found out later that he was a technically trained diver out of Sydney, so it figures. After we got back I spent an hour or so in the Internet cafe to pay bills, check e-mail, etc and make a call home, though Kristen could not hear me (the staff at the shop had no clue about computers and claimed there was a 'Firefox' virus that was causing issues), so we ended up talking through Gmail chat.
In the evening we had a most excellent trail set by Rumple from the top of Byron Bay by the lighthouse (they had arranged for a van to pick us up from the hotel and take us to the start) all the way down back into town. We had a great circle on the RR tracks behind the hotel to end the week as this was unfortunately out last hash as a bus group. The bus driver was even named something along the lines of 'roller coaster driver', but I cannot remember the full name. The last group event was to burn off the rest of the food and as much as the drink as possible before we all had to fly to Perth in the following days. It was great to get to meet and learn about so many good folks; especially Dr. PP, Mr. X, SpareRib, Rumple, Hummingbird, Walkabout, Python, Rubberchoak, Mams, and Yarksucker. A lot of time and effort was put into this and it really showed by how smooth things ran and how much of a good time was had by everyone.
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