Byron Bay and Nimbin

The bus to Byron was an overnighter but sadly just a regular bus. Not like the ones in asia where you got a sleeper bus. Thus there wasnt much a hope of sleep. I arrived in Byron Bay in the early hours of the morning on a Saturday so nothing was open. I found one coffee shop that had just opened so I sat there until Peter Pans opened up and I could use their internet. I wanted to check if I had gotten a reply from my Couchsurf request. As it turned out they hadnt so I went in search of a hostel. When I found one and gotten told the price I nearly fell over, nearly $30 a night! A far cry from Asia. I paid it begrudgingly and moved into my dorm which it turns out I would have to myself for two nights. Having done this I went for a walk up to the lighthouse. This took me the entire afternoon and was the best exercise I have had in ages. It was a good hike up the headland through a park. It was good hard, work in good weather but it was extremely rewarding as some of the views were spectacular. I could see for miles out to sea and south down the coastline. In the middle of this I made a call to book my trip to a place called Nimbin the following day. After my hearty exercise I went shopping. Oz hostels are equipped with decent kitchens for backpackers since its so expensive to eat out. For the first time in about 6 months I was going to cook for myself. It was a bit odd but I managed to cook something pretty edible. While I was in the kitchen slaving away I got chatting to a few fellow travellers who were planning a night out. I had been planning a night in since I hadnt slept the previous night but they twisted my arm. Before we went out we watched a belly dancing show in the hostel (?), then went to Cheeky Monkeys. The main attraction of this place is the tables to dance on..... cool huh?

Next day I was up early for my trip to Nimbin. To fill you in on this place it is known as a haven for drug users. This came about when many moons ago a hippie festival was held in an old deserted town called Nimbin. Essentially they liked the vibe of the place so much they decided not to leave. Since then drugs are readily available (and produced) here and the police have been unable to do much about it. When you have an entire town smoking weed on the streets its kind of hard for one or two policemen to deal with it. They can hardly bang up the entire town now can they? Anyway they seem to have an agreement to let that side of things slide and focus on other more important crimes. Thus it is pretty safe to buy or use drugs in Nimbin. As part of our tour we started with a trip to a market (selling hippie stuff) in the morning before heading to the town itself. While walking the street I was offered some of the local “herbs” by numerous people and apparently there were special cookies to be had too. It was an odd place, just the one street and almost looked like something out of a western. Minus the drugged up hippies floating around of course. Getting back on our bus it was pretty clear who had bought stuff and who hadnt, there was also a particular smell coming off a few people..... The next stage of the trip led us on a rollercoaster ride to the middle of nowhere for an Aussie BBQ. It was some kind of park and we all had a walk around it while our driver cooked us up some burgers and sausages. Free BBQ facilites are common in Oz and once you clean the hot plate after anyone can use them. That clearly wouldnt work in Ireland. The walk itself was quite nice, there was a good view over a little lake. Lunch was awesome and then we were off again. We went to a waterfall as our last stop and a few people were given the all clear to jump in. It was around about now a few people began reacting badly to the stuff they had in Nimbin and the journey back to Byron wasnt a pleasant one for them. But everyone got back safe and sound, just the people feeling poorly went straight to bed!

For the rest of the evening I had dinner and watched one of my movies before heading to the tv room to watch the England Germany game. The room was packed, mostly with Germans or people cheering for Germany with a few English scattered around. It was great fun watching the Germans tear the English to shreds. Then I was off to bed and up early to catch the bus to Surfer's Paradise on Australia's Gold Coast. There I would get my first chance to Couchsurf and I was looking forward to it!


P.S. My Aussie number is 0424812913, plus whatever the code is for Oz.