The Byron Bay Blade Tour

I have never roller bladed before about 10 weeks ago...

Last year, Ben (my better/worse half, depending on who you're asking) was talking to his uncle who informed us that he and his partner had begun roller blading for health and fitness (Martin and Philippa own 

 http://www.rocgallery.com.au/ 

so I'm surprised they have time to scratch their noses let alone get in a good skate! But they do :) )

Roller Blading is a very good way of getting fit without realising it as, I have since learnt, you generally don't figure out how exhausted you are until you sit down and think "Crikey, I'm pooped". 

So back to the story - Ben and I invested in some roller blades. You can support the local economy by buying them from http://skatebiz.com.au/

 or cheat, like we did and get them from Amazon. The guys at Skate Biz in the city are amazing though. I would recommend heading down there to say hello either way as they will be the ones doing the maintenance on your blades. They are also Canadian, so I just love to hear them say "About". 

I bought K2 Andra blades Which look like this:

Note that they support the Breast Cancer Cause - and they're pink! Then we followed the wise recommendation of Ben's uncle and signed up for a beginner course with Monte from Planet Inline Skate School - http://www.planetinline.com/

 

Now, Monte's motto is that if you can walk, then he can teach you to skate and by gosh he had his work cut out for him with me. He is a very good teacher and needless to say that as of now, I can skate without falling on my butt (too often) and, while still falling way behind the group, I am getting less far behind each time I skate! 

So to the actual point of the story -  The Byron Bay Blade Tour!

The May Long Weekend (in QLD) dawned clear and bright and after completing my assignment (see the last blog) we hopped in the car and cruised on down to Byron Bay!

We booked in at Nomads - http://nomadshostels.com/hostels/australia/byron-bay-nomads-backpackers

I was very happy to hear that whilst you have the option to stay with others and share bathrooms, you also have the option to have your own room with your own facilities. Thank goodness for this. I did more than enough sharing in college. Speaking of college - if you are looking to go back to your wonder days, Nomads is a great place to do it. Its exactly like college except they don't cook for you. 

So we took out our blades and we began to skate.  The boys (and Kat, who is super fast) sped ahead while Bel (who is the wonderful "instructor to be" who keeps my spirits from dropping when the boys disappear on the horizen) bladed alongside me. I honestly couldn't tell you the route we took other than we went half way to the lighthouse then back down and out to Suffolk Park - I CAN tell you that the entire trip was well over 10k and I was utterly pooped by the time we reached halfway and stopped for lunch at the Suffolk Park Bakery. Google is telling me it was only 6km from where we started to this bakery but I have decided that google is a liar. It felt much much further.

 

The trip back was far more pleasant. I'm not sure if the boys (and Kat who is super fast) slowed down or whether I got faster but we more or less stayed together as a group and got back at Twilight (the time of day, not the novel)

 

We were standing at the top of our hotel carpark when we were accosted by a rather drunk lady who asked us whether roller blading was difficult. I immediately piped up to advise that yes. Yes it was. She wanted to know whether french champagne would help to which Bel replied that whilst it may not improve your skating, it does improve your confidence. This drunk lady then proceeded to hand us a bottle of bubbly, demand we open it and chug the contents before she wandered off into a pub. It was an interesting start to the night....

Dinner that night was going to be at The Great Northern however due to the influx of QLDers invading for the holiday they had run out of food. So we went to Sushi - I  have made special effort to remember the name Kinoko Sushi - because it gave me food poisoning. Rude. 

We followed this up by going to The Balcony Bar -

  http://www.balcony.com.au/ which was an AMAZING experience. They made the most wonderful cocktails and I immediately wished we had gone there for dinner and had cocktails and tapas! 

Sweet Dreams 
"Sweet dreams are made of this". Vanilla Galliano, Chambord, crème de cacao & cream served up in a martini glass doused in chocolate. Decadence at its finest!

and it was the most amazing cocktail experience I have ever had.

For Breakfast, I can only recommend The Why Not Cafe

 

The service is amazing, the food is amazing and they have lounges that you can laze back on while waiting for your breakfast to come to your table. 

It was with a heavy heart, after a lovely morning watching seagulls at the beach

That we headed home...

I have to say - I LOVE  roller blading. Its not only a great way to get fit but a great way to make friends. My New Years Resolution was to get out and meet new people, have new experiences and get out of the "Work, Sleep, Study" Rut. I'm definitely on my way! 

A Big Thanks to Monte for organising and running this tour and being such an amazingly supportive instructor and Bel for blading alongside me, putting up with my whining and generally being awesome - you will make a great instructor!

To check out more pics and video's of the tour - or to sign up for a skate class - check out http://www.planetinline.com/

(Left To Right) ME! Bel, Ben, Monte and Kat