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We arrived in Byron Bay after another night bus. We'd managed to sleep on this one on account of the many jumpers and make shift pillows we'd bought with us. When we turned up at our hostel early morning our friends were waiting there for us complete with another friend Claire who'd we met and travelled with in New Zealand.
Our Hostel the Arts Factory was this really relaxed hippy commune style hostel. It was really open plan with a small lake and hammocks scattered about the place. They also taught digeridoo lessons and did circus tricks at night. There were lots of different options for sleeping, such as a campsite, normal dorm rooms, or a tent-like creation they called a 'pentagon' which is basically like a glorified teepee. We opted for the latter and then spent the rest of the day lazing about the pool and catching up with our friends.
Byron Bay is a gorgous seaside resort, so we ventured towards the beach for sunset and beautiful views. Then went to a packed bar, bought drinks and sat out on the grass on account of there being nowhere else to sit / stand.
We went back to the hostel
later on and I to the room to hang up my washing. I was on my top bunk bed hanging a line out from the top of the tent when something caught my eye. And then that something caused me nearly to leap however many feet from my bed to the ground. About two inches from my face was a spider bigger than a man's fist, just calmly looking me in the eye. When I'd finished reeling off the many expletives that sprung to mind and freaking out the only other girl who happened to be in the room (a french girl who looked like she was about to smoke an entire pack of cigarettes at once). Bearing in mind as well that I don't usually have any problem with spiders (all though when I say 'spider' I refer to
actual spiders like the ones we have in England. Not like the ones in Australia that tend to have enough venom in them to take out a horse! I was still reading Bryson's book which had been happily explaining to me that there are more things that will kill you in Australia then anywhere else in the world...) I took
a picture of the spider on my digital camera, ran to reception and much to the guy at the desk's amusement asked with a shudder 'Will this kill me?'
He laughed explaining that it was
just a Huntsmen spider and that Australian kids play with them all the time, they're not dangerous at all. He then took out his phone and showed me a picture of his face next to another Hunstmen spider that happened to be about the same size of his face. Anyway I wasn't amused and he came to remove it. Unfortunately, for Laura who has a crippling phobia, she found out about said spider and refused to sleep in the room. So instead we invaded our friends dorm room and five of us shared a room for three. Needless to say we changed to an indoor room for the rest of our stay! We are whimps!
While we were in Byron Bay we decided to take a bus tour to Nimbin as everyone had been raving about it. It is a really small village in New South Wales, (population about 300-400) with quite a history behind it. It is where the famous hippy fest the Aquarius
festival took place in 1973. Many of the festival goers stayed to form communes. Since then, the area has attracted many writers, artists, musicians, actors, environmentalists, permaculture enthusiasts, small farmers etc.
It was a really cool place to visit and the stalls sold some really original pieces of jewellery and clothing. Our bus driver as well was hilarious. Originally from South Africa, but having lived in Australia for so long, he had the most peculiar accent I've ever heard.
We then stopped at a beautiful waterfall somewhere between Byron Bay and Nimbin but the water was freezing and only our friend Rach had the balls to go in.
Our bus driver also cooked us up a barbeque and then proceeded to make fun of all the English people for forming an orderly queue!
The next night we went to an extremely tacky club called Cheeky Monkeys (one of the only two clubs in Byron Bay, and the only one that happened to be open that night!). They had a Coyote Ugly night so there was lots of dancing on tables.
Our friend Rach also took part in the dancing competition and was robbed of first place by some smelly hairy
boy. We were unimpressed!
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