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Published: December 23rd 2006
Byron Bay
Byron Bay, New South Wales.Wednesday 20th December - Friday 22nd December
The same Japanese girl woke me with the the buzzing of her alarm clock at 5.00am. Mine was set for 5.45am so I sat on my bunk waiting for her to finish in the bathroom thinking, like myself, she'd that she must checking out. It was forty five minutes before she emerged, hair still dripping wet, God knows what she was up to and when I entered the lift she was right behind me with no bags. I slowly asked if she was leaving today and she disjointedly replied that no, she was going sightseeing. It was 6am for heavens sake !!
My train arrived at the connection station for Byron Bay of Casino forty minutes early and, with my ipod rendering me oblivious to the pa announcements it was fortunate that I was awake. I asked a passing gaurd if we were early and he raised an eyebrow as though I was being sarcastic before replying curtly "no, we're late". Confused and feeling a slight panic coming on I pulled out my ticket and showed him the due time of arrival listed as 10:10. "Yeah, and it's 10:30 now" he snapped.
Byron Bay
Byron Bay, New South Wales. No one had thought to inform me that New South Wales time is for some God forsaken reason an hour ahead of Queensland time, it's due south.
The landscape of this part of Australia is very reminiscent of home, gone the brown mountainous regions of the far north or the pineapple fields of the Brisbane area replaced by rambling hills of green fields and as we entered Byron Bay the number of bronzed, beautiful people strutting around with surf boards tucked under their arms told me we were smack bang in the middle of the surfing Gold Coast. The town seemed small but busy, full of surf and travel shops and so having been told be the information desk that they didn't arrange accommodoation I set off on foot in search of a bed and luckily found one at the second port of call, the Aquarius Hostel just one block from the beach. I got the last available bunk and thanked my lucky stars. I was in a dorm of eight people, all Scandinavian, Dutch and Germans, all of them beautiful and only one male amongst them. I threw my sack on the bunk and went in search of
Byron Bay
Surf school Byron Bay. The waves were about a foot high this day. a haircut.
Only three days earlier I'd sat waiting in Rodney's Salon in Hervey Bay but had panicked at the last minute and fled having studied Rod's shearing technique's for at least five minutes. The red and white rotating pole, the spectacles and the grey caretaker's jacket Rod wore should have given me a clue as should the fact that Hervey Bay seemed to be essentially a holiday retirement town, crown green bowls being the most popular past time, and I got the distinct impression Rod was more used to being asked for a spit and polish as opposed to a nice trim. So as I took my seat and told Dani what I required I secretly crossed my fingers under my gown. Only one person other than David Bailey had held steel to my locks in over twenty five years and that was for a small trim of my mullet in Macclesfield many moons ago so I don't think Dani had any idea of the importance of what she was taking on. The girl did okay, even if there did seem to be an increase in the grey ones dropping to the floor and she certainly couldn't be
Byron Bay
Keeping watch. held responsible for my foolishly asking to take "just a little more off" which resulted in me taking a quick step from trendy Matt to Teddy Tefal !! Never mind, I told myself as I handed over my seventeen bucks, it'll grow back.
Feeling like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders (it had, five weeks worth) I headed for the beach, a huge expanse of white sand and rolling waves, and returned just before nightfall for another enjoyable run. There was a beach party at the hostel bar from 5pm onwards, you know the sort of thing, Karaoke, games, beer etc etc and surprise surprise it was just Brits and Yanks there. I had no interest whatsoever in joining in and neither did I have any interest in heading to the bars in town so after I'd eaten I walked/sat alone on the beach with nothing but the waves and wind for company. Having been on the road for over a month now I've found myself recently becoming more introverted as opposed to the opposite, accepting the fact that I'm alone and dealing with it rather than desperately seeking company. Just Byron Bay and me would do
Byron Bay
People are telling me to get a good meal in me. Margy'll feed me up when i get to NZ. nicely for tonight I thought.
After a good sleep Thursday was spent doing little other than waiting for the 5pm shuttle bus and as we pulled up at the station the voice of the driver informed us that the train was currently broken down in Grafton and that we'd be staying an extra hour and a half on the bus to rendezvous with it and when we finally arrived we had almost an hours wait before it departed so I took the opporunity to call home. I only spoke to Margy and she sounded as though she needs and is looking forward to New Zealand. Me too.
I started chatting to a scruffy geezer on the platform during the wait. He was equipped with gold ear sleeper, outback beard, half full plastic booze bottle (containing what looked meths, petrol or something similar) and a joint. He asked me where I was from and told me upon realising I was a pom that he was born in Illford, Essex had moved to Aus when he was six and that he now lived in Byron Bay. I'd looked in several estate agent windows in Byron and, with properties averaging around
Byron Bay
With Dani after my first cut. She certainly smells better than Bailey. half a million dollars apiece, it seemed unlikely that he lived in one of these. When I asked him whereabouts he replied "on the beach" adding that "me pension pays for me booze 'n weed".
When the train eventually left at 9pm I observed my surroundings and when I glanced behind me a man was cracking open a tin of beer. The contents must have become agitated on his previous journey because as it fizzed open beer ran down the sides of the tin and over his dirty fingers and I watched agasp as he licked every inch of the tin and each finger as well. I was sat across the aisle from a typical Aussie couple in their thirties, the only noticeable things about them being that his head resembled a pineapple, that he laughed at everything he said and that he liked farting into his hand and throwing it, grenade like, into her face. In front of us were a relatively normal brother and sister (aged 27 and 26) with her young son and a 34 year old single mother who just happened to be well on her way to being arseholed with her twelve year old
Byron Bay
I told you these critters are everywhere. And I still don't know what they're called. son whose confident nature lead me to believe that he'd been in this situation many times before and that he knew exactly how to look after himself.
I kept myself to my newspaper for an hour or so during which time they had swung the seat around to face each other (I've never seen this in a train before) and during which time the single mum had downed at least four half bottles of buffet car red to add to what she'd consumed before boarding. although she certainly couldn't walk a straight line I could half sense she was eyeballing me wanting to involve me in the conversation when all of a sudden she asked me aloud what was in her stars. This then started a chain reaction of me reading everyone present's star signs to them with them all listening intently. Fortunately and quite spookily all their signs were all different, things could have got nasty if two of them shared the same one, before the lights were dimmed and the party ended. Almost.
A hard looking girl in a short dress had flitted past on a number of occasions, bumping into me accidentally on purpose a
Byron Bay
Easyrider. An angel from hell, Byron Bay style. couple of times with the excuse that it was the movement of the train, before stopping to chat to the group and she was now sat next to the brother as the young independent twelve year old was flat out on the floor between seats and before long their chat had progressed to some heavy petting. This was all within two metres of me so when her hand disappeared into his shorts, dress hitched up and she straddled on top of him I was off. I found a small patch of carriage floor, made my self as small as possible and enjoyed three hours of deep, deep sleep.
When I returned to my seat the brother was well and truly in the dog house, his sister finding his exploits in front of his sleeping nephew repulsive, and the single mum sat slumped in her seat looking like she'd just gone five rounds with Tyson and had another five to go. The pineapple was still laughing.
We arrived in Sydney at 6.50am and at 7.10am I was on the XPT to Melbourne with only twelve hours of my journey remaining. Thankfully I had a seat to myself so I
Byron Bay
I didn't believe he lived in Byron Bay until he told me he didn't exactly have a place there, that he lived on the beach. dozed for an hour or so before a smiling, I thought unnaturally so for such an early hour, girl indicated that hers was the seat next to mine. We chatted and got along well, her name was Ntasha, she was 32 and she passed the ipod challenge with flying colours. She also told me she wrote poetry to which my initial reaction was "oh no, here we go again", but she recited a poem she'd written about a tree in her garden ten years ago and it was really quite clever. She said she'd been to drop her two sons off at their fathers and she was returning home to Cootamundra, s mall town in the middle of nowhere six hours from Sydney and the birthplace of Donald Bradman, before spending Xmas and New Year with friends in Sydney. She gave me her number when she got off and said if I was stuck in Sydney to give her a call.
There was six hours to go to Melbourne, a length of journey that would fill me with dread in the UK but which over here felt like a trip to the shops and as we neared Melbourne my
excitement grew. I would have over a week in the City including spending Xmas Eve and Xmas Night at Steve and Lynn Pritchard's (Paul and Carol Lacey's bro and sis in law), who'd very generously invited me to have dinner with them and this would be my longest spell in one place since leaving the UK. It was going to be nice to relax and forget about hoisting that sack onto my back for some time.
As I walked through the station the City was feeling it's first rain for three months and the locals made no attempt to shelter from it, it was almost as though they'd forgotten what it was and that they wanted to remind themselves. I too made no attempt, in the past week I'd spent 56 hours on a train and 9 hours on a bus not to mention the hanging around and I was just glad to be walking.
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waymo
non-member comment
I bet dani did'nt give you a bald patch. Unlike another hairdresser who shall not be named!