On the journey to Byron, the driver pointed out a load of huge Ozzie icons, including a Big Prawn and a Big Banana. Its a strange phenomenon that the Ozzies love, huge kisch objects.
I met up on the Greyhound some people I'd already met in Newcastle, which was cool. I tried to get into the same place they were at, but there was no room at the inn (or YHA). So off to Holiday Village I went, the place where you had to rent your utensils for $6 and they didn't provide sheets -stubbornly I didn't want to pay the $2 cleaning charge, so I went cold for a few nights, piling on all of my warm clothing.
Arriving at 10pm and a few minutes before the whole place shut up for the night (nice and early to encourage you to go and spend money at the clubs around the area) and much too late to try and say hello to anyone that had been drinking, so I went for a week on the beach 500m away. Watching the small billowing waves 15m away in the dark, I could see how the waves can be compared to white horses - the whitening water racing left or right looked a little like a race horse!
The sand was strangely cold, and made a strange squeeking sound when you scuffed your feet along it. I later learned (or believed, it could just be a guess) that the temperature and sound was due to the purity of the sand. The following day I saw that it was truly white, pure and soft sand, and the Bay was one of the best beaches I've been to so far.
Further up the beach were a load of sand balls surrounding holes. Funnel webs!! I thought, getting excited. Poking around to agitate the beast, I soon discovered that it was just tiny little crabs! Looking exactly like the sandballs they made, these little critters were all over the hard sand areas.
I met up with the Port Macquarie crew (Jack, Katey and Lea) later on and played frisbee until it was too dark, which was cool. Being a popular kid around town by now, I met up with my Newcastle buddies at the YHA for a while after some fantastic pasta, tomato paste and 'Tasty' Cheese, and met Ollie, who'd I'd end up travelling with for a while. I thought he was half black and looked a little bit like John Tickle for Big Brother a few years ago, but aparently he just tans well. Oh yeah, don't drink wine with a drinking game then have a cup of tea. Not good. Milk curdles! Feeling a little bit ill, I went beddy bies at 10.30. Which meant I could get up nice and early the following day and do a full day of fun stuff! I tried surfing, borrowing a free surfboard, but the waves were veeeery small. Plus the board didn't have any wax where you need it, so upon trying to stand up, I often when flailing. I gave up in the end and just sunbathed.
The Bar across from my Hostel, called Cheeky Monkey's, had a wet T-Shirt competition, where normal girls became different people in order to win $300. One of the people I'd met in the YHA won. It was a wierd event! Only cost $1 to get in, so it was all good. After the event, the club night started, where punters had to dance on the tables, due to the lack of real dance floor! Again, a little bit strange!
Byron Bay is famous not only for being Byron Bay, but for being the most easterly point in Australia. I took a walk up to this and the lighthouse, which was deceptively far away
(no one tells you that there's another bay between byron headland and the lighthouse! Walking with Ollie, Jack and Luke, the latter 2 who from Oakham (and have heard of Market Deeping!), we all found it a challenge. Luke and myself also decided to have a nachos night, which was awesome and the heaviest meal my belly has had so far.
That night was full of card games, shouting, swearing and sweat - mostly created through a card game I'd picked up from the Canadians in Port Macquarie: Horse Racing! A game of betting, drinking, winning and loosing, we had about 15 people screaming for their Ace to win. I, as the commentator had my work cut out keeping the punters orderly.
Following this, a little bit of beer bottle Jenga was played and the infamous Ring of fire (Aka Kings) back in someones room once we'd been turfed out at Curfew time. Goood times.
The Following Day...
Up bright and early! Oliver and myself had a bus to catch to the Nimbin "Mardi Grass" Festival, a big old hippy event where we 'all' protest against the prohibition of marijuana. After getting on the "Happy Bus", we embarked on the 1.5 hour journey to the remote town with a population of 320, made famous for being Oz's weed capital. The manager of the tour bus, a pasty 30 something year old with dreds and a penchant for non-PC jokes did what he did best and made us laugh nervously and heartily before handing over to the driver who just shook his head and appologised.
We were stopped at a Police checkpoint and sniffer dogs came on the bus, cute as anything. Nothing was found, unsurprisingly, though I was slightly worried that they'd find my stash of Anti-histamines, paracetamol and adrenaline. I could see the stoners getting the most worried about a little golden lab I've ever seen anyone do.
Getting into Nimbin, which reminded me initially of a Devonshire village in 'the hills', we were dropped off and started wandering to see what was going on, too see if we could find a programme or something that a normal festival would publish. But alas! They hadn't bothered with that.
Infact, there wasn't much going on beyond street musicians, hippy stalls selling stuff that veery few people would buy (including Tie-dye tees, rasta hats and hemp cloth clothing), and a couple of competitions (Bong Throwing and Spliff Rolling competitions, anyone?). Not really being into the whole getting stoned thing, we just wandered for a while longer and passed a few more interesting characters. One guy, who must have been 40+, was trying to raise money for the local skatepark's repairs by doing handstands on 2 skateboards, which was very impressive to say the least. There were also women dressed in green Fairy outfits wandering around. Asking someone what the deal was with these chicks, I found out that they were indeed Green Faeries, who could sell you 'special' Cookies. Why these ladies weren't pulled off of the street by the relatively large police (or Poo-Lice, as the hippies say) presence, I don't know.
After a cuppa in a cafe overlooking some awesome views of the Mid-east coast hinterland, we wandered back to the town, to find a huge mass of people. Some guy on a campervan started megaphoning stuff about why weed should be legalised and how the cops are crap and how the world would be better with legal weed and stuff like that, which I found quite entertaining.
As if to proove how serious this was, there followed a procession of numerous 'combis' (after a guy in a green outfit walked with his dog down the middle of the road with a plaque saying something political) - the generic term for Campervans, I think. Trying to count them, the comentator soon got lost and decided on a random final number of combis. An encouraging reason to legalise marijuana!
Back to Byron the longway (someone got killed in a motor accident on the main route), we got back to normality and reflected on how annoying some of the 'hardcore' hippies can be - I mean they're trying to be all unique and back to nature, but they all wear the same thing and smoke; hows that good for the planet?! Geez I'm getting old and moaney.
Bed nice and early again, we had Zorbing to look forward to the following day!
Zorbing is a very new sport which is only available at 2 places in Oz - the one we (Me and Ollie) were going to do it at was the longer one, aparently, with "16 rolls".
Getting picked up an hour late due to the driver's co-worker being pissed from the night before, we drove to a big hill in 15 mins from Byron, to be greeted by a 12 foot clear plastic ball! Volunteering to go first, I strapped in on the inside of the ball. It reminded me of some of the slightly claustrophobic play parts in Big Sky, the kids adventure place, being all plastic and having tight entrances/exits. Being able to see the field ahead of me, I was looking forward to being shoved off of the platform and tumbling 200m or more down a big field! And I started moving! My instincts first told me that I was going to fall, but obviously I didn't, instead I saw light, dark, blue, green and experienced some wierd G-forces. Getting faster, I could feel a sort of force that felt like I could have stuck to the inside withotu the straps, it was quite cool and the feeling of Up/Down had disapeared, my sensed focusing more on the alternating and increasingly blurry green/blues. Feeling myself slowing, I realised I was on the flat at the bottom. hanging like a fly in a web of strapping, I was hanging for a second before the ball made its last movements and I came to rest. In the boggy bit full of deep brown muddy liquid. Unstrapping myself and hamster balling around while Mr Man came to pick me and the ball up, I was looking forward to the next err.... 'Zorb'.
But no! Aparently we only got one go each... Oh well. Watching everyone else go with varying degrees of screams, whoops and laughs, I got roped into the job of the guy that was passed out at home for some reason. Probably thought I'd get a courtesy Zorb, but there was no return for my generosity at all.
Back to Byron, I think we just chilled out on the beach or went for a body surf or something.
The next day we got up at 8am to try and see early morning mantarays, dolphins and fish shoals - but by the time we'd walked to the lookout some 1.5km away, we only saw dolphins in the distance. Still pretty cool, and I'll see much better sights at the Great Barrier reef. More beach that day, oh yeah, I saw the most awesomest sunset ever, backed by people with didgeridoos doing the didging very well even with some sort of underlying pulse going on! There were so many subtleties of colour on the clouds that my white balance on my camera couldn't cope with it. Something just for the memory, I think!
The next day me and Oliver, my new travel bro, travelled to Surfer's Paradise, which we'd heard many tales of high rise hell about. Well I wanted to make up my own mind! So I went there.
(no one tells you that there's another bay between byron headland and the lighthouse! Walking with Ollie, Jack and Luke, the latter 2 who from Oakham (and have heard of Market Deeping!), we all found it a challenge. Luke and myself also decided to have a nachos night, which was awesome and the heaviest meal my belly has had so far.
That night was full of card games, shouting, swearing and sweat - mostly created through a card game I'd picked up from the Canadians in Port Macquarie: Horse Racing! A game of betting, drinking, winning and loosing, we had about 15 people screaming for their Ace to win. I, as the commentator had my work cut out keeping the punters orderly.
Following this, a little bit of beer bottle Jenga was played and the infamous Ring of fire (Aka Kings) back in someones room once we'd been turfed out at Curfew time. Goood times.
The Following Day...
Up bright and early! Oliver and myself had a bus to catch to the Nimbin "Mardi Grass" Festival, a big old hippy event where we 'all' protest against the prohibition of marijuana. After getting on the "Happy Bus", we embarked on the 1.5 hour journey to the remote town with a population of 320, made famous for being Oz's weed capital. The manager of the tour bus, a pasty 30 something year old with dreds and a penchant for non-PC jokes did what he did best and made us laugh nervously and heartily before handing over to the driver who just shook his head and appologised.
We were stopped at a Police checkpoint and sniffer dogs came on the bus, cute as anything. Nothing was found, unsurprisingly, though I was slightly worried that they'd find my stash of Anti-histamines, paracetamol and adrenaline. I could see the stoners getting the most worried about a little golden lab I've ever seen anyone do.
Getting into Nimbin, which reminded me initially of a Devonshire village in 'the hills', we were dropped off and started wandering to see what was going on, too see if we could find a programme or something that a normal festival would publish. But alas! They hadn't bothered with that.
Infact, there wasn't much going on beyond street musicians, hippy stalls selling stuff that veery few people would buy (including Tie-dye tees, rasta hats and hemp cloth clothing), and a couple of competitions (Bong Throwing and Spliff Rolling competitions, anyone?). Not really being into the whole getting stoned thing, we just wandered for a while longer and passed a few more interesting characters. One guy, who must have been 40+, was trying to raise money for the local skatepark's repairs by doing handstands on 2 skateboards, which was very impressive to say the least. There were also women dressed in green Fairy outfits wandering around. Asking someone what the deal was with these chicks, I found out that they were indeed Green Faeries, who could sell you 'special' Cookies. Why these ladies weren't pulled off of the street by the relatively large police (or Poo-Lice, as the hippies say) presence, I don't know.
After a cuppa in a cafe overlooking some awesome views of the Mid-east coast hinterland, we wandered back to the town, to find a huge mass of people. Some guy on a campervan started megaphoning stuff about why weed should be legalised and how the cops are crap and how the world would be better with legal weed and stuff like that, which I found quite entertaining.
As if to proove how serious this was, there followed a procession of numerous 'combis' (after a guy in a green outfit walked with his dog down the middle of the road with a plaque saying something political) - the generic term for Campervans, I think. Trying to count them, the comentator soon got lost and decided on a random final number of combis. An encouraging reason to legalise marijuana!
Back to Byron the longway (someone got killed in a motor accident on the main route), we got back to normality and reflected on how annoying some of the 'hardcore' hippies can be - I mean they're trying to be all unique and back to nature, but they all wear the same thing and smoke; hows that good for the planet?! Geez I'm getting old and moaney.
Bed nice and early again, we had Zorbing to look forward to the following day!
Zorbing is a very new sport which is only available at 2 places in Oz - the one we (Me and Ollie) were going to do it at was the longer one, aparently, with "16 rolls".
Getting picked up an hour late due to the driver's co-worker being pissed from the night before, we drove to a big hill in 15 mins from Byron, to be greeted by a 12 foot clear plastic ball! Volunteering to go first, I strapped in on the inside of the ball. It reminded me of some of the slightly claustrophobic play parts in Big Sky, the kids adventure place, being all plastic and having tight entrances/exits. Being able to see the field ahead of me, I was looking forward to being shoved off of the platform and tumbling 200m or more down a big field! And I started moving! My instincts first told me that I was going to fall, but obviously I didn't, instead I saw light, dark, blue, green and experienced some wierd G-forces. Getting faster, I could feel a sort of force that felt like I could have stuck to the inside withotu the straps, it was quite cool and the feeling of Up/Down had disapeared, my sensed focusing more on the alternating and increasingly blurry green/blues. Feeling myself slowing, I realised I was on the flat at the bottom. hanging like a fly in a web of strapping, I was hanging for a second before the ball made its last movements and I came to rest. In the boggy bit full of deep brown muddy liquid. Unstrapping myself and hamster balling around while Mr Man came to pick me and the ball up, I was looking forward to the next err.... 'Zorb'.
But no! Aparently we only got one go each... Oh well. Watching everyone else go with varying degrees of screams, whoops and laughs, I got roped into the job of the guy that was passed out at home for some reason. Probably thought I'd get a courtesy Zorb, but there was no return for my generosity at all.
Back to Byron, I think we just chilled out on the beach or went for a body surf or something.
The next day we got up at 8am to try and see early morning mantarays, dolphins and fish shoals - but by the time we'd walked to the lookout some 1.5km away, we only saw dolphins in the distance. Still pretty cool, and I'll see much better sights at the Great Barrier reef. More beach that day, oh yeah, I saw the most awesomest sunset ever, backed by people with didgeridoos doing the didging very well even with some sort of underlying pulse going on! There were so many subtleties of colour on the clouds that my white balance on my camera couldn't cope with it. Something just for the memory, I think!
The next day me and Oliver, my new travel bro, travelled to Surfer's Paradise, which we'd heard many tales of high rise hell about. Well I wanted to make up my own mind! So I went there.
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