Arts Factory Lodge Byron Bay

After Brisbane, I took a bus to Byron Bay, just south of the Gold Coast in northern New South Wales. Byron Bay is a very cool town. The main way to categorize it would be as a hippie town/surf town. It has lots of cool shops and restaurants. Needless to say, the place is getting gradually spoiled. It's beautiful water and atmosphere has attracted not only backpackers, but also the yuppies. However, I believe it remains for the time being a hippie and new age haven (when I got there, there was...

at the opposite to surfers..evrybody told that byron is really cool...and bla and bla... but sorry for me nothing special (except skydive)and all the hippies stuff is nmore for tourists than anything... At least i stayed at Art Factory the best backpacker to stay in byron..where evrybody say is good to stay but where nobody went!! So i went.... And it's really good..but not in winter...because evrything it's a open space, so in winter when the sun disappear and the cold arrive..it's freezing!...

BYRON BAY Rental Kia Vans, 3 Story Bunk Bed Hostels, 7 Mile Beaches, Old Hippie Towns, & Rock Pools Paradise. 15 of us decided to take a trip to Byron Bay last weekend (Feb 3-6). Byron is about a 1 hour drive from Surfer's Paradise where we live. We rented 2 Kia mini vans cost about $60/day. EuropeCar was very friendly and we have used them numerous times. The cars were quite full of bags, pillows, surfboards and bodies...and everyone knows Kia's aren't world renowned for their spaciousne...

our hostel advertised and hyped up a fab Christmas Eve dinner with a masquarade ball, entertainment, prizes, etc. It cost $25 Aussie dollars, and at first I thought I would skip it, but made a rash decision and bought a ticket. There were 6 rows of tables and benches set up in front of the stage for us 200 backpackers. I sat down with a really nice couple from the UK who had been transfered over to Sydney 3 months ago. There were some other, younger people about from Canada, Brazil, the US an...

The only thing open on Christmas Day in Byron Bay was one tour agent oftering a morning sea kayak with the dolphins... perfect! I had been wanting to do this. We were a group of 20 people and I got paired up with a cute Frenchman named Jean who spoke with an amazingly good English accent. The tour guides, Kurt and Chris were quite nice. The sea was very calm. And after being outfitted with lifevest and helmet, we went to the beach to learn the kayaking techniques. Kurt gave a great demo on ho...

We finally got to the coast... WE are feeling great about our car, it made it the whole 2 hour ride with NO problems so we're feeling confident! It was a nice drive, we stopped in a cute town for lunch, very much HIPPIE so neat to people watch. We arrived in Brisbane and found the Arts Factory Hostel right away, it's cool!! We set up our tent... which wasn't easy to find a spot for, we were expecting a site but it was more like... find a little piece of land to fit your tent in... We took a d...

Based on my previous travel experience, I had 3 goals for this trip: 1) Dont miss any flights 2) Dont hurt myself 3) Don't get kidnapped So far I've managed 2 for 3 in a single day! I spent my last day in Sydney watching the Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade and then proceeded to roll my ankle and miss my flight out to the Gold Coast. Check and check. I was going to sleep at the airport and catch the first flight out but I was so pleasantly informed at midnight that I was being kicked out a...

>>>Hey all. I made it to Sydney! I have now had more than my fill of the greyhound bus-line. We stayed in 4 different cities in 5 days on our way from Brisbane to Sydney. The first stop was Surfer's Paradise. This is a great place to surf, shop, and drink...I recommend you go in the summer and not the winter because it's quite cold here right now. It's a busy holiday city, with many high rise old hotel buildings, painted in a multitude of 1960's version tropical colors, i.e. pink and...

I've been in Byron Bay for the best part of a week now, its a cool little town, by the beach, with quite a large hippie population. The first few nights were spent in the van before Stu headed off to Melbounrne, taking the camper with him. First of all we parked in the carpark to The Arts Factory hostel, which we had been told loads of people do, and you can get away with staying there and using the facilities for free! (Well if we're gonna travel like pikeys we may as well live like them as ...

Thought I deserved a little holiday after my six weeks of hard work watching movies and eating pizza, so me and Clare from the Pink House had a bit of emotional goodbye from Sydney, and headed out on the twelve hour overnight bus journey to Byron Bay. Here we mate up with my mates Cara and Polly, who were chefs at the cinema and had decided to spend their entire earnings from the last six weeks on a mad week of fancy dining, drinking and lots of things I wont even mention here. Byron was pret...