Yet another four-hour drive northwards along the seemingly endless Pacific Highway, past  impenetrable Eucalypt bush, although it’s gorgeous in its vastness and emptiness. It’s a wonder how the early settlers traversed this unforgiving dense terrain – I mean, it’s fine doing 110ks an hour along a modern freeway in air-conditioned comfort, listening to Spotify playlists (Guy’s 70’s selection is awesome), but you have to wonder just how people managed to move across these enormous distances with nothing but horse and cart, yet with many spots already inhabited in the early 1800’s. 

It’s around the vast Northern Rivers area that you start to notice the climatic shift towards sub-tropical, where the cane fields stretch out into the vast low-lying coastal plains and the mighty Brunswick, Richmond, Clarence, Bellinger, Nambucca, Macleay and Hastings Rivers swell towards the Pacific coast and their respective coastal head communities and surfing hangs. 

As you get closer towards the Ballina / Byron region, the landscape changes again. Rolling green hills with Macadamia Nut and Banana plantations, ancient volcanic mountain ranges that extend into the far distance. It’s hot outside, pushing early 30’s. There’s a bushfire smell in the air (and in the car!) and there’s hazy white visibility on the horizon. 

But there’s Byron ahead… the ‘land of the lotus eaters’ or, as it’s more colloquially known, ‘Fortress Hemsworth’. For ‘Thor, and his merry band of Byron Baes’ have turned this once laid-back hippie town into a major resort destination. It’s still gorgeous, don’t get me wrong, but gone are the days of hanging in a sleepy beach town. It’s now packed with tourists, still some bare foot hippie types lounging around, but mostly young global backpackers and families – and there’s a lot of them! As with much of coastal Australia these days, there’s a noticeable number of foreign accents in the air, many of them Spanish speakers – both visitors and waiters in the cafes and restaurants.

So, onwards and upwards this morning as we make it for the Queensland border and up to Hervey Bay. There’s no turning back now! Our Paddington house settled yesterday afternoon, so we’re officially homeless until the 1^st November.