Advertisement
Published: September 10th 2011
Edit Blog Post
On Tuesday I headed out of Sydney with Oz Experience - a bus company that I'm doing all my travelling with here in Australia. We set off pretty early and there were lots of lovely people on the bus. We travelled up the Pacific Highway, stopping in various tiny towns along the way. My first overnight stop was at a surf camp just up the coast from Coffs Harbour (a small town known for growing bananas). The surf camp was a pretty cool place, full of surfer dudes from all over the world who are working there, and heaps of backpackers getting in a surf lesson. I went kayaking that afternoon and then chilled out with a few beers around a camp fire in the evening. The atmosphere was great, and we played lots of different games to get to know each other.
Wednesday morning I hit the beach with a pretty nice hangover, but they do say that a great cure for a hangover is a good surf and it's very true. I actually managed to stand up on the board a few times, and have some pictures to prove it! The hardest bit (apart from actually getting out
'Bring-a-bong'
A shop in Nimbin through the waves) was timing when to catch a wave, and I spent a lot of time being dragged under because of bad timing. It was so much fun though, and I was determined to stand up and stay standing up. After our surf lesson we chilled out on the beach until the bus came to pick us up in the afternoon. It seems that the East Coast is pretty quiet in terms of travellers at the moment as the bus arrived that day with no one on it. I've met a few really nice people though, and we're sticking together for the time being.
We headed on to Byron Bay, a hippie town that hosted the Aquarius Festival in the 70s and then all the hippies decided to stay and make it their home, and I can totally see why! We spent the night in a bar opposite our hostel and had such a fun night - full of games, competitions and lots of free beer for the Oz Experience gang. I managed to win a free trip to Nimbin, another hippie, pot-filled town a couple of hours from Byron, by running around the bar 9 times before
a song finished. Needless to say, there are some highly unattractive pictures of this that hopefully will never see the light of day!
I managed to get on the bus tour to Nimbin the next day; the trip I'd won included lunch and dinner and a trip to a waterfall as well as to the actual town of Nimbin. The town itself was pretty cool, with lots of random people wandering around whispering, 'You want cookies? Some weed?' at any likely-looking tourist they could see. All I will say is that I enjoyed a thoroughly chilled afternoon by the waterfall and got very hungry! The bus driver was hilarious, but clearly absolutely loved his job and has been doing it for years; he had a song for every bit of the journey, including Monty Pythons' 'Every Sperm Is Sacred' when we were passing through a Catholic town set up by lots of Irish immigrants, and a song that lasted 5 minutes and 11 seconds - the exact time it took to go down a road that was very much like a rollercoaster. That certainly deserved the round of applause he got at the end for timing it so perfectly.
That evening we headed out to the bar again, and had planned to have a relaxed evening and get an early night. We were all persuaded to take part in the wet t-shirt contest to try and win $300, and managed to get lots of free Jagerbombs and champagne to keep our energy up! That night was pretty messy, but a whole lot of good fun. The atmosphere in Byron is so relaxed and friendly - everyone there is just there to have a good time and meet lots of people.
Getting up the next morning was painful, but we were off to Brisbane and I was pretty sad to leave Byron behind. On the way we passed Surfers Paradise; a town that grew as the businesses followed the surfers there, and it's full of high rise buildings pretty much right on the beach. It seemed quite tacky to me, so I wasn't bothered that we weren't stopping there. We arrived in Brisbane at about 11am yesterday, but it was raining very heavily and we were in no state to go wandering around in rain, so we gave in to our hangovers and went back to bed! We
did manage to surface for the New Zealand rugby game and watched that in what seemed to be quite a typical Aussie bar - very similar to Walkabout back home.
Today I went to a koala sanctuary and managed to cuddle a koala and get a photo. They are unbelievably cute, and so soft, but their claws are seriously strong. I was holding a female called Tinkerbell who was about 2 and a half years old, and the keeper said I clearly made a great tree as she didn't want to let go when I'd had my photo. I've therefore got a couple of lovely scratches on my arms, but they're not too painful. I got the ferry back into the city which was very relaxing but also very windy! I did manage to get a look around Brisbane, but I have to say that other than South Bank, I'm not all that fussed on the city; it's just another city.
Tomorrow I'm going onwards and upwards to Rainbow Beach, and from there I've got a 3 day trip to Fraser Island, complete with camping and 4WD, which I believe I have to drive too!
Love to
you all xx
Advertisement
Tot: 0.058s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 14; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0282s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Susan Rawes
non-member comment
Just to let you know
Sounds like you're having a fabulous time, Hannah - you lucky thing! Just wanted to let you know that I spent 2 years of my teenager-hood living in Surfers Paradise. It was in the early 1970s so completely different to today but we stayed for a week about 5 years ago and I tend to agree with you that it is now quite tacky. However, the beach is still lovely and you can walk for miles and miles on amazing sand. Brisbane is a city lacking in spark but I am sure it is nice in it's own way. I am sure you will love the trip further up the coast. I am really enjoying your blog - take care. Susan x