Byron Bay and Nimbin

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From Surfers Paradise to Byron Bay, we arrived in the evening, enough time to check in, shower and walk to the main bar in town, 'Cheeky Monkies' where through 'Oz Experience' we got a reserved table with free beer, garlic bread and a $2 plate of carbonara which was a bargain. It heaved there, lots of games where prizes were won, table dancing throughout the entire bar and more. I stayed there until the early hours then went home while Lee ended up going back to a group of posh Australians holiday home where he went swimming and had cheese and champagne. He arrive back around midday without sleep.

I wandered around town that morning waiting for the return of Lee, soaking up the relaxed surfers atmosphere and typical Australian seaside architecture. It was a beautiful day, sunny, don't remember any clouds and being the weekend it was pleasantly busy. I had been told by some that Byron Bay was too quiet for them so i had pictured just one small strip along the beach promenade but although it was small, just a few roads it had a pleasant buzz with variety.

We had arranged the dasy before to walk up to the lighthouse which is also home to the most easterly point of mainland Australia. So when Lee returmed sleepless, we did just that, taking a coastal walk up the hill where the lighthouse stood, the views were spectacular. Two beaches, one filled with seemingly hundreds of surfers waiting in anticipation for their ride to shore, wooded hills on the height of the coastal point, with a small hangliding bay and below was the whole of Byron Bay itself.

NIMBIN

The day started out on a bus like many others had before, but this was different. We were headed for Australia's hippy town Nimbin which first appeared in the 1970's after a hippy festival and the people never left.

To get the bus in the mood we had a crazy South African driver which said made him perfect for the job of acting like a responsible adult. The journey to Nimbin was broken up by brief pub stops where we drank beer and ate macadamia nuts in the morning and the driver named Ivan played hippy music suitable to the type of road conditions we were driving on at the time. A memorable couple were a song slagging off Catholics whilst driving through a Catholic section of a small town, windows down. Another was a track on a windy, up and down road, like a rollercoaster on which the track started when the road started and finished when the road finished, perfectly, and of course the msic suited the conditions of the road.

It was cloudy by the time we reached Nimbin which seemed to suit it. We headed to the hippy museum which was very clourful and home to cut up VW vans, hippy slogans, signs and memorabilia. It also had a video in one of the rooms showing the place being raided for drugs. We walked around a few shops and ate potato wedges at a cafe while we people watched. After a few hours it was time to move on and visit a rainforest and a hippy blokes house originally from New York, while on the way listening to more music and stories from the driver as well as learning alot about the hippy movement in the area.

At the rainforest we saw some waterfalls, a wild Koala, some Kangaroos on the roadside and ate some strange fruit.

Of course the hippy's home was also in the rainforest, secluded, living with nature, built by the man himself. We rolled up, by this time it was raining a ridiculous amount. There was a pile of electrical goods, furniture and a cactus piled up although it were a rubbish dump, there were cars overgrown with grass, weeds and trees and they looked unmoved for years. We ventured down the overgrown lane and arrived at a small shack. Downstairs in an area no bigger than a standard bouncy castle was a living area/kitchen and upstairs (the stairs were a wooden ladder) were two bedrooms without doors or inside walls, all open plan, everywhere accessible in seconds, no house tour needed. It was decorated with weird pictures, old, worn furniture, a glitter ball and alot of christmas lights dangling loosely and randomly at about head height and i guessed that these were permenant features. At the back of the house was a big pond or small lake, probably close to 20 times the size of the guys indoor floor space. It looked amazing with the heavy rain pounding on the surface. We ate more nuts and headed back to Byron where one of my most random trips ever ended.

For my final night in Byron Bay myself and Lee met a few friends from our Oz bus because they had just arrived. We met them at a bar, formally owned by Crocodile Dundee along the road just back from the seafront and then to a bar called 'The Railway', which is actually a bar on a railway station. I think it was disused although there is still an active track running along the outside.

The night ended and we slept, ready for our continued trip south to surf camp the next day.

I loved Byron Bay, i could have stayed much longer. On sunny day it was amazing, not too busy, not too quiet, a unique vibe which i really liked.

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