Wednesday, January 04, 2006
End of the East Coast
Amy
and I arrived in Brisbane to meet up with Katie, prepared to only stay
for 4 days, as we've really only heard negative things about it. 4 days
stretched out to 8 once we realized we absolutely loved the city.
Funny, growing up in Toronto I always thought I'd like to get away from
the city one day and settle down further into the country. Well, turns
out I'm a city girl after all! Getting away from the beaches and into
the mix of florescent lights and concrete, I felt this deep warm glow
in my stomach that was undeniably happiness. One mystery about Brisbane
that I never did figure out is that everyone calls it Brisvegas. I do
not know why. The only things Brisbane and Los Vegas share are a few of
the same vowels. If anyone knows the answer to this, I'd like to know.
Anyway, we had a blast. We spent each day going from one market to the
next ....to the next and shopped till we dropped. I shouldn't have been
spending a cent considering I'd lost my bank card two weeks earlier.
All was good though as my card was found and was in the midst of being
sent to me. Was a bit of a nightmare but turned out fine. For two weeks
however, I had to get my cash from a bank by the name of Amy. Times
like this I can't imagine not having friends over here.
Once we left
Brisbane we also left Queensland, which was a bit of a relief knowing
the weather would get a bit cooler further south. Queensland officially
has the highest skin cancer rate in the world, so there was a constant
undertone of paranoia the whole time we were there. So back to New
South Whales, out of the tropic of cancer and therefore out of
jellyfish territory. NO MORE stinger suits! Only shark suits for now
on....
Next destination, Byron Bay.
On our way to Byron
is a little town called Nimbin. Stop me if you've heard of it. For
those of you who haven't, I was once just as ignorant to such places
that exist in this world that have the potential to be world famous.
Let's start by saying there is nowhere else like it. To call Nimbin a
Hippie town would be an extraordinary understatement. Driving into
Nimbin is like driving onto a movie set. You really can't believe your
eyes. Let me back up and explain how this town came to be. Nimbin used
to be a dairy farming town that slowly died off and was left deserted.
In the meantime, a bunch of hippies in the late 60's were trying to
find a place to settle. Having been kicked out of every town they'd
attempted to make their home, they finally came upon this deserted town
in 1973 and thought, "Groovy". Ever since, the town has not only
remained a hippie town, but has flourished! The flower power there is
so incredibly deep rooted (ha! mind the pun) that no paint remover
shall ever attempt to remove one peace sign, rainbow, or marijuana leaf
painted on each and every surface of the entire town, top to bottom,
one end to the other. In a word - Fascinating. Stepping out of the bus
in Nimbin, the air is potent with the freshness only found in marijuana
fields......(or Toronto), as Nimbin is also the proud owner of the
worlds largest joint. Also are the annual LOVE fests and the annual
Cannabis games, where people flock from all over the world to compete
in such games as joint rolling, pipe smoking and the annual bake-off
(can you imagine?). I have to say though, most disturbing was probably
the Hemp museum, which makes you feel stoned just walking through it.
So that's Nimbin, where you will be offered weed or ganja cookies from
a sweet, middle aged clothing shop lady (which was, by the way only one
of 21 times we were offered something in the 2 hour span we were
there). I know what you're thinking - Is this legal? Well no. In fact,
there are 5 cameras located throughout the town, capturing street
activity. So say when I stop to look at the bags some lady is selling
on the street, she tells me to move a little to the left to block a
camera so she can pull out 2kg of marijuana to show me. What a rip off!
She wasn't even selling those bags! I can't say whether the town was
all very cool or just incredibly messed up. I actually left questioning
my own sanity because it is not possible for so many weirdos to all
live in one place. I was thinking, "It MUST be me". Okay, save your
comments.
So Byron Bay....sigh.... . Also a hippie town. On
a far smaller scale than Nimbin, but nevertheless still a hippie town,
where bras are out of fashion, and you are looked at funny if you don't
have dreads and Volkswagen minivan. Oh, and apparently wearing
deodorant is also a major faux pas. Byron Bay has one of the most
beautiful beaches I've been on. White sand, mountains in the distance
and great waves to body surf on. Amy, Katie and I spent days throwing
ourselves onto the incoming waves only to have ourselves spit back out,
battered, bruised and scraped from being dragged across the bottom of
the ocean by the undertow. Over and over I'd be thrown into involuntary
somersaults under the water, be dragged onto shore completely
disoriented and have Amy come sputtering up right beside me with a huge
grin on her face, saying "Fancy seeing you here". Byron is the type of
town that no matter who you are, you'll love it instantly. The never
ending bohemian shops and live music everywhere force people who
intended on staying a week into staying for months or years. It's not
only a cool place to hang out though, it is also home to the most
easterly point of Australia. Yes, I did learn something there...
Of
all the memories of Byron, my favourites are once again sitting on the
beach at night, with a bunch of our friends that we've now accumulated
along the way, just watching the beam of the light house sweep across
the sand and below it, the little fishing boat with the lantern
floating off shore under the full moon. Did I say I was a city girl?
Having
the major parts of our trip over we were a bit melancholy leaving
Byron. If we didn't know it would be a massive reunion in Sydney with
everyone we'd met down the coast, it would have been far more
upsetting. we still had 3 amazing days ahead of us though. Up until
this point we were all pretty disappointed in the lack of Christmas
spirit we'd seen down the coast. The only way we knew it was Christmas
at all was because Amy, Katie and I were asked by some staff members at
one of the hostels to be their dates for their staff Christmas party.
Once again, good to be girls. We hit the first little town out of Byron
called Tamworth, the country music capital of Australia and famous for
the longest line dance in history (1654 people long). yee ha! Onto
Bingara where nothing has changed since the 1930s, including the
swimming hole at the end of the street equipped with its own
overhanging tree and swinging rope of course. We spent hours perfecting
our Tarzan impressions on it. Our last night together was in Barrington
and what a way to end the east coast. We stayed on a ranch in cabins in
pretty much the middle of no where. The place was run by 2 men and
several staff who were all pretty much drunk when we got there.
Wouldn't normally be a problem except that we were supposed to be going
night water rafting down the rapids by the ranch and these were our
guides. Yikes! Talk about laid back! At around 10pm once it was pitch
black out, we grabbed our suits, helmets, head lamps and personal rafts
and drove up to the top of the river. I cannot tell you the unsettling
feeling you get walking through the bush in the pitch black. We could
hear the water nearby but couldn't see a thing because moth season just
started and if we turned our head lamps on we'd instantly be attacked.
This area is also infested with brown snakes (third deadliest in the
world) and every kind of spider you can think of. There's a fine line
between exhilarating and terrifying. Next thing we know we're on the
black water under a billion stars. Remember we couldn't use our
headlamps so it was almost impossible to see upcoming rapids or other
people around us. We were all just ghostly figures flying down this
river, trying with all our might not to flip, hit a rock, hit each
other, get trapped in a tree on the edge of the bank or get turned
around. I've learned that trying to steer a raft backward down a rapid
in the dark doesn't work nearly as well. Overall, I must say I did
pretty well. Katie did not. Remember how I described how bad Katie and
I were at kayaking? Well, turns out it wasn't me. Katie hit every rock
in and out of the river, got caught in every tree, flipped her raft
twice, and was going backwards about 60% of the time. All I could hear
were these distant distressed comments coming out of the dark. Bang! -
"Oh Crap!", Boom! - "Bloody 'ell!", Splash! - "Bullox!". If I could
actually see her, I probably would have fallen out of my raft laughing!
Our last night together was sad, but unforgettable.
On our way
back to Sydney we went wine tasting in the Hunter Valley..... if you
can call it that. The man just kept walking over filling our glasses
without a word. I said "um, shouldn't we be swishing it around the
glass, smelling it while you tell us the history of the wine?" He
looked at me blankly and said "Naw, just chuck it back." Ah Aussies....
All class.
So back to Sydney and I couldn't be more excited to
start this new chapter. Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and
Happy New Year!
