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Well, it's been quite a few busy weeks for us. After Christine and Simon left us we stayed in Sydney for a further week job hunting. This wasn't as fruitful as we had hoped mainly due to the competition from other backpackers for short term work but also it was late autumn and the main tourist season in Sydney was over. We decided that over a long weekend to make our way up to Brisbane via Byron Bay and Nimbin. All the jobs we have seen seem to be in Queensland so we thought we would have better luck if we were actually in Queensland.
Over two days we made the 800km journey north to Byron bay getting there on the Saturday afternoon. Things were pretty busy here with it being a long weekend and we just about managed to get ourselves set up in a campsite near to town. A little expensive but we didn’t have a lot of choice so it would have to do, money was getting tighter so we were on a strict budget from the day we left Sydney to the moment we started work again. We also had to get used to being
on our own again and this took a little while to get used to, it was quiet without Christine and Simon.
Our timing in Byron Bay turned out to be perfect however as it was the annual Nimbin mardi grass festival. And Nimbin was but an hour from Byron. Sunday morning dawned bright and with our delicate heads from drinking too much cheap wine the night before we hopped on the hippie bus that would take us to Nimbin. The bus was awesome, easy on the pockets for a return trip, a double decker painted inside and out in full psycadelic colours. Groovy baby!
The day started a little ominously as we had our bus searched by some police sniffer dogs but once we had the all clear we were on our way. Nimbin is essentially just a small village of hippies. And today it was overflowing with them, us (the backpackers) and anyone else who wanted to join in. Our first stop was the hemp Olympics. We sat and ate what has to be the tastiest jacket potatoes we’ve ever had whilst observing the final of the bong throwing contest. The contestants were pretty
good, with bongs being flung over 50 metres. With that over we headed down the main street of the village for a look, and eventually settled ourselves in a good spot for the parade. The parade was very good; these people took the worshipping of cannabis to a new level with the giant floating splif taking centre stage. As they made their way down to the ground that held the Olympics we joined them and sat and listened to their huge protest rally for legalizing cannabis. It certainly was interesting and the free love, hippy, new age vibe emanated everywhere. There is nowhere else in Australia quite like Nimbin. But what a great day we had and apart from lunch and the return bus trip we didn’t spend a cent.
The following morning it was back to business and the task of getting to Brisbane to look for that elusive job. We were lucky, and two days later we found ourselves with a job in the outback town of Augathella, only a mere 745km's west of Brisbane. The job even came with a three bedroom house which we had to ourselves which was part and parcel of our
job, no extra charge. The job was the same as the one we had in Williams, working in the roadhouse and attached campsite. I cooked and took care of the restaurant, waiting tables and serving customers and Stephen worked in the building next door serving customers paying for fuel and we then took it in turns to clean the campsite facilities. It wasn’t the same as Williams but after three months in this small town we had saved up enough money to move on again.
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Rob
non-member comment
Just remember now guys, the remote is for the tv....you need to use the phone if you want to call anybody!