On The Edge

At 9:00 A.M., I certainly wasn't in the best of moods.

We had been driving for at least two hours now, which meant, if you do the math, I had been up since roughly 6:00. As if that weren't enough, the absence of Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks in Australia combined with sitting stationary in a cramped Toyota on the side where the steering wheel should have been, well, I was pretty delusional.

My father had insisted that we visit Byron Bay, a beachside town in the state of New South Wales in Australia, before I was due to head back to the U.S.

"You're going to love it," he had said as we approached the town center, to which I had nothing to reply besides a loud yawn. He shook his head at my general lack of enthusiasm, but you can't blame a girl who lives for waking up post noon on the weekends.

I wasn't impressed at first sight, it looked like nothing more than a campground by a pond. There's plenty of those in Massachusetts. But as we continued on the bumpy dirt road, the scene began to change and my eyes widened with wonder. It was like going into Narnia, one minute you're in a boring wardrobe and suddenly you find yourself in a breathtaking place. Ok, maybe there's nothing mystical about Byron Bay but it was truly like nothing I had ever seen.

We drove up a massive, winding cliff in my dad's beat up Toyota that seemed to go on into eternity. After what seemed like forever, we were finally able to park and explore. Here we were, the most easterly point of the Australian mainland.

At the peak of this cliff, there was a white, weathered looking lighthouse. All around was vibrant green, an endless abundance of plant life that sloped down the sides of the cliff and intertwined with the small wooden paths created for tourists. On one side of the cliff was what appeared to be a town not too far across the water, and behind it, endless grayish-purple mountains partly obscured by wispy clouds. On the other side, though, was so many brilliant sights my eyes could not seem to absorb it all at once. Mountain goats were making their way up and down the cliff, stopping along the way to munch on grass and gaze at bystanders. The water was a dazzling shade of blue, a dark turquoise not unlike the waters of Capri in Italy. The waves crashed against the dark rocks scattered around the edges of the cliff.

"Look!" my dad pointed out, "Whales!"

There they were, about six of them, dark masses swimming beneath the sparkling surface. I had never seen a whale before. Scrambling to adjust my camera's zoom, I snapped several photos of the gigantic sea creatures.

The rickety wooden path encircled Byron Bay, we walked and walked, stopping now and then to watch scuba divers emerge from the water, looking at the surfers burst into the waves, although I watched that particular sight a little too long for my dad's liking.

As we continued, my dad explained that Byron Bay was part of the erosion caldera of an ancient volcano. It wasn't brilliantly sunny, but the weather was perfect. It was warm without the faintest trace of humidity. Cool breezes occasionally danced across my face. We stopped to get an ice cream, I got strawberry, my dad chocolate.

Our final stop was at a dark wooden sign placed right before a steep drop to the ocean that said "You have reached the most easterly point." Wow, I was standing on the edge of Australia, literally. I looked out into the vast distance and there was nothing but blue, nothing but water and more water. Not even a boat in sight. Far away, there were dark pockets of rainclouds thrown into the whitish hue of the sky. It felt more like standing on the edge of the world. For one blissful moment there was nothing that existed besides me and the ocean, going off into the unknown.

Photo c/o of Google.