Animal Noninstinct

First off, everyone type in 'Byron Bay' in the googles and then click on images. I didn't take a single photo while I was there...but I only feel marginally bad about it because I spent most of the time in the ocean getting sand and salt water in places neither really belongs. There are some good pics in the google image library that should give you a pretty good idea of what the place looks like.

Byron is the most easterly land mass point of Australia. The beach is long and expansive and usually has really good surfing. However, it's a little low right now so boogey boards were the surf toy of choice. That, and kayaks. I took a 4-hour kayak tour around the cape about a mile and a half out to sea. The water was chock full of jellyfish the size of genetically-modified portabella mushrooms. They weren't the box jelly variety but still pack a stiff punch if stung. The wind was at a minimum so that allowed us to paddle further out to catch multiple whale sightings. Three male humpback whales were breaching about 1/4 mile away from us. You could hear them spout the water through their blowholes and watch them dive back in and slam their tails on the swells. That was followed up by two dolphins swimming about 40 yards in front of us as we paddled back into the beach.

Later that afternoon I hitched a ride back to Sydney with the guys I had been bunking with and yet another Finnish girl. Those chicks get around. During the drive I realized that I had yet to see a kangaroo, a koala bear, a wombat or a native-born Australian. I mean really, who goes to Australia and doesn't see a kangaroo? It was like when I went to Pamplona and almost missed seeing a bull. Well, as good fortune would have it I did see a kangaroo in the wild. And a wombat. Unfortunately for them, both were road kill on the Pacific Highway. The kangaroo was massive though.

Still haven't seen a koala. But heard the folklore of the Drop Bears. It's a widely circulated story of koala bears dropping out of trees on to cars or other forms of transporation and then attacking people. Apparently, this was told to kids to keep them from going into the scrub at night. The true story is that when koalas die they tend to fall out of the trees they live in. And sometimes, they drop on people and passing cars. Drop Bears. Australians aren't super creative when it comes to nicknaming things. They're pretty straightforward.

Needless to say, after seeing a dead kangaroo and wombat on the side of the road we began driving with the sunroof open in hopes of catching our own Drop Bear. It just seemed destined to happen.