Bushfires, Byron Bay, and Baking

Not to worry friends, family, and fans… all of the rescuers are safe. I noticed the bushfires going on in Victoria, Aus were the top headline on cnn.com for a while and since the people reading might not know – I thought I’d fill you in. Victoria is a different state here in Australia and thus the brushfires are quite a ways away from us. There are something like 50 separate bushfires going on in NSW as well (New South Whales, where Sydney is), but this state is enormous and that’s not really out of the norm apparently during the summer months. We are safe here in Rose Bay especially because we are so close to water. If it came down to it we would just have to sprint for 15 seconds and make a jump for the bay. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that…

In other news… our time is winding down here, and we are all very excited about that. It’s not that we don’t like it in Sydney or anything like that. We’ve just been here for long enough. And we’re all getting a little bit tired of working 4-6 days a week. Personally, I’m happy staying here for another couple weeks because I am making a good amount of money and I love this city. That said… I can’t wait to get out of here and see other things.

I’ve been recently looking at things we’ll be doing in Byron Bay. If I haven’t already mentioned it… Byron Bay is the first place I’m heading post-Sydney. Erin and I are flying there March 9th and we will return to Sydney on March 17th. Taylor and his sister will be there for a few days at the beginning of that stretch and Lindberg may be there for all/some/none of those days. It has quite a lot to offer and we are keen to see the sights. It’s known as one of the best places to surf in Australia (and by reasonable extension, the world). The best part about the surf is that there are numerous locations for newbies, like us, where we can ride the waves and not die. Dozens of surf schools are clamoring for tourists to take part in their lessons and as a result the deals are pretty sweet. We plan on taking a half-day lesson and then using the skills we learned for the rest of time we are there. It’s nice because we can rent surfboards and wetsuits (if we need them) from hostels or the surf schools for really great rates after we know what we are doing. That means hours of surfing fun, I can't wait. Hopefully none of us get eaten by sharks.

Other things we might do in Byron are as follows…
- Take flights on an ultralight glider. I understand that it is kind of like a hang-glider, but sweeter. The flights terminate at the lighthouse, which sounds very intriguing to me. Maybe I can fly over the lighthouse and release my harness and land on the the top of it or something.
- Stay in a teepee at the Arts Factory Backpackers Lodge
- Learn to play the didgeridoo for free at the Didgeri-U-doo workshop
- Get certified (or renew our certification) as a scuba diver or just choose to snorkel at any of the great sites
- Take the 10-day certification course for hang-gliding. Not a reasonable possibility, but it’d be so sweet to be able to hang-glide whenever I wanted (assuming I bought a hang-glider and lived on a cliff or mountain or something)
- Rent (or get one free from our hostel) a bicycle and travel around to see the sights
- Kayak with dolphins/whales. I hope I don't see any whales - they're too big.

As you can see there is quite a lot for us to do. And that’s just during the week we are there. Maybe we won’t sleep.

Anyway – the timer for my cake in the over just went off so I’m going to finish this up and post it and go make some peanut butter icing. Wish me luck. Thanks.

You guys are the best.

- Jesse “Little Betty Baker psyched for Byron Bay” Meredith

Also the office once again knocked it out of the park... great episode.