Coffs Harbor by day was no more impressive than it was the previous evening.

Stopping as briefly as possible at the Big Banana on the way out of town (under protest from the driver), we headed towards Grafton. Our only real plan for the day was to go to the Easternmost point of Australia at the Byron Bay lighthouse.

We ended up having a big morning tea in Grafton – which is a very picturesque historical town right on the wide Clarence River. Memorial Park was a perfect spot to sit and look out across the river as we munched on our custard tarts and rock cakes.

I thought this tree looked a bit whomping willow-ish.

From Grafton, we took Scenic Route 22 along the river via Lawrence, crossing the river on the pulley ferry. Very picturesque, small, but productive-looking properties fill out the landscape, growing mainly sugar cane, cows and horses. Then we got back on the highway, stopping for lunch in Woodburn, where we spied this wall mural at the park.

There was a bad accident on the Pacific Highway just South of Broadwater, so we got a reprise of the scenic route along Riley’s Hill Rd, where an emu had somehow got between the sugar cane fields and the road, and was almost keeping up with the cars as it raced along in consternation.

In Byron Bay, we drove up to and around the lighthouse parking area, and spied it out the window, but we hadn’t left ourselves enough time to park down the bottom, and do the 4km roundtrip walk up and down the hill to get up close to the lighthouse and actually stand on the Easternmost point. There was also lots of traffic around, much of it coming into Byron at 4PM or so on a Friday afternoon, perhaps partly due to the Pirates of the Carribean filming that was apparently going on in the area.

We finished off the day by checking into our apartment at Xanadu in Main Beach, and heading out for a much needed walk to pick up groceries.