Different parts of Australia have different time zones, as you would imagine in such a big country - ie Alice Springs is 90 mins behind Sydney. However, driving roughly North to South, we didn't expect to cross any. No one told us that Queensland is an hour ahead of New South Wales so we spent the first 3 days (that's right, 3 days!) out of synch with everyone else. Luckily, we had no appointments to keep during our time in the twilight zone. We did grumble about the shops shutting early though.
We entered the 'Rainbow Region', an area rife with alternative lifestylers and ageing hippies. In 1973 the dairy village of Nimbin hosted the Aquarius festival - 10 days of swaying non-rhythmically and tambourine jangling - and some people never left.
Before we turned on, tuned in and dropped out, we stopped at a National Park to climb the venerable Mount Warning. We arrived in the area just as dusk was gathering and saw the mountains rising up on the horizon. Angie wondered aloud which one was Mount Warning, and it was at this point that we saw an odd nobbly shape rising sharply above the tops of the billowy clouds that hung over the peaks. What is that? Is it a strange shaped cloud? With shock we realised that this was indeed the summit of Mount Warning and we would be attempting to climb it the next day.
The peak is so much higher than surrounding peaks because Mount Warning was the central magma chamber of what was a huge volcano. It is surrounded by a roughly circular rim of lower mountains that formed the outer flanks.
Lots of people do the climb so they can see the dawn from the top (and be the first on Australia's mainland to welcome the new day) but that all seemed a bit unnecessary to us. By the time we rolled up at 10.30am loads of people were just finishing the climb, emerging from the end of the trail and laughing at the fact we were already out of breath - and that was just doing a short detour to a lookout near the car park.
At 1157m this, our guide book assured us, is the best summit walk on the New South Wales coast and should not be missed. The joy of walking for us, at the end of our travels and therefore funds, is that it's free. Much to Angie's delight, Darren has slowly and almost imperceptibly begun to complain less about taking walks for pleasure, will not blink at anything under 5km and has even started to suggest going on them! Still, this was a 9km walk which involved a steep climb for the majority and a rock scramble for the last 200m. With much sweating we slowly started to ascend and thankfully felt the temperature drop as we got higher. When we finally reached the last section we used the chains provided to pull our weary bodies up the steep rock face. As promised there were great views from the top of green rolling hills, dark green forests and the coast in the distance. However, as we've found at a lot of lookouts or viewpoints in Australia, trees have grown up to obscure some of the views - a little bit of trimming wouldn't have gone amiss since we hauled ourselves up here especially for the vista!
The next day was a Sunday, which happily is market day in the rainbow region and a time when the freaks come out. Excellent! Our first stop was a little place called Uki which is where some people moved to when Nimbin got overcrowded with backpacker buses. It is overshadowed by Mount Warning, which we couldn't believe we had been on the top of when looking up at it from the street. The market was an ecelctic mix of tie-dye clothes, home-made jams, bric-a-brac and even a farmer walking round showing off his prize bull. We noticed there were quite a lot of people with bare feet and beards. It was to become a common sight.
Heading on to the capital of the rainbow region - Nimbin - we made straight to the market to get a flavour of this infamous place. Suddenly, we were transported to the green fields at Glastonbury. There was a live band, stalls selling veggie fare, juice bars, beads and bangles sparkling in the sun and, to Angie's delight, rainbows everywhere - even their community hall is painted in rainbow stripes. Before long we got offered 'special' chocolates and thought we'd go with the flow. From nearly all the stalls in the market, people walked away with brown paper bags - probably more hash cookies, fudge and chocolate is sold than jewellery we think!
Nimbin is actually a one street town with a permanent population of about 350. The main street houses the local museum which is the most chaotic museum ever! It is just piles of eclectic junk arranged in a haphazard, slapstick manner (although they did claim to have themed the 4 rooms). It was very funny though and we spent a good half hour marvelling at the 'displays'. The street also has a Hemp Bar, Hemp Embassy, herbal high and head shops, numerous hippy shops and a police station that looks like your Granny's bungalow in Patcham. Nimbin hosts the Mardi Grass festival 'every year until the war ends' (the war on drugs that is) as part of the campaign to legalise cannabis. The festival includes joint rolling competitions and a marijuana harvest ball!
On the down side, the main street is crawling with dodgy looking dealers asking if you want some 'super strength weed' and they obviously suffer from severe short term memory loss as even when you have declined their kind offer they still ask every time you walk past. Unfortunately the relaxed attitude to drugs combined with the hippy peace loving mentality has meant that hard drugs are becoming a problem here. You can feel a slight edginess in the 'vibe' despite the residents best attempts at living an alternative lifestyle.
Some of the old hippies here are textbook classics. It's like they went to a shop and chose the perfect uber-hippie look straight off the shelves. Maybe someone should tell them you don't have to have long hair to be alternative, beads are not symbolic of enlightenment and faded tie-dyed trousers do not and have never looked in the least bit 'cool'. Bless 'em. Still, this area is one of the places that we could imagine living though not necessarily in Nimbin itself. The surrounding countryside is green and rolling and there are lots of other alternative lifestyle communities in the area.
Our next stop was Byron Bay and we stayed here for a whole seven nights - it was lovely to chill for a week, visit the various beaches, do jigsaw puzzles(!), pootle into town and go to the cinema. Byron Bay is a surfing mecca and continues the alternative culture theme of the area, although with the addition of million dollar houses on the hills. It attracts loads of backpackers and dreadlocked surfers. Accomodation is expensive and was mostly full - we were lucky to get the last site on the campground. It was a beautiful location under trees and right next to the beach. Having been really lucky with the weather since left north Queensland, it rained a lot in Byron but that gave us a good excuse for taking afternoon naps!
We walked around Cape Byron (named after the poet Byron's father) up to the lighthouse, past the most easterly point of Australia, and along beach after beach, the waters of which were heaving with surfers. At one beach there is a viewing plaform on top of a big rock. We lost track of time up there watching the activity in the crashing waves.
(Darren:)
With so much surfing going on, I decided that I should take a lesson. I joined 8 others and we went to the 'beginner's beach' to learn the basics of surfing. Our instructor was trying to get us gee'd up as it was still a bit early in the day and we weren't too lively. He kept saying '...and hey, guys. Remember to smile. You're surfing. In Byron Bay. It don't get much better than this!' How true. The surf school I learnt with guarantees that you will 'stand up and surf or you money back', hence the lesson was all geared towards that goal. Once in the water we were pushed into the waves on our 9ft boards while instructions were shouted at us. It was a lot easier to stand up than I thought and I could have stayed in the water all day.
On our last morning in Byron, I hired a board for a couple of hours. It was much harder without the instructor helpfully shoving you into the waves but I splashed about for a bit. I have decided that I much prefer snowboarding and have shelved my plans to retire to Hawaii.
Byron is also a party town with some funky clubs and loads of bars so we were looking forward to going out as we've been starved of decent nightlife. We read about an outdoor party in the hills behind town at the weekend. After a bit of investigation we managed to buy tickets and it looked perfect. An outdoor area with tech house music and an indoor area with hip-hop, going on until 10am Sunday morning. It was themed 60s/70s space age. Darren even bought a pair of silver shorts from a charity shop. We stocked up on booze and herbal energy sweets and started to get excited about going to a decent all night party.
We went out on Friday night to a nice little club in town, but didn't want to go too mad as we were saving our energy for the big day. On the day we were checking the website and found to our dismay that it had been cancelled. We went to the ticket outlet and they confirmed that because of unwanted publicity in the local press (a music journo had thought they were helping by writing about the party) the council had forced the organisers to cancel. We thought it was strange that it was mentioned in the local paper seeing as it appeared to be semi-legal. To say we were gutted was putting it midly. On refunding us our money we were told 'shame, because it's usually Bryon's best party'. OK, don't rub it in!
We sank into a trough of depression and debated whether we should drive out anyway and see if something else was going on. In the end we decided to make a headway into our stockpile of booze, have a Nimbin chocolate and go down to the beach. Angie twirled her glow poi and we attracted some young Canadian travellers who thought they were fireflies. Then we started signalling to another group of ex-pat Sydney-siders who had glowsticks and attempted to have a small party of our own (minus the people, music, lights etc). We ended the night slumped in our van watching music videos on an ancient B&W portable TV that Darren 'borrowed' from the communal area. Not quite the wild night out raving we had planned.
As the next day was unexpectedly free we took a drive to an inland town where there is a Koala hospital. Arriving on a Sunday aftenoon in a heavy downpour, the only place that was open was the tourist information centre and they informed us that the koala hospital was closed. Boo. That was a wasted 90km round trip then. Driving back to Byron we were determined to do something with our afternoon and reluctantly headed to 'The Crystal Castle'. Being reduced to this particular tourist attraction was ironic as previously we'd had much fun laughing derisively at the leaflet and at people who go there. Luckily we got there late so didn't have to pay to get in. Giggling at the aura photos, vibromassage bed, tarot reader and crystal displays is much better when it's free!
Something we've forgot to mention until now is that Australian banknotes are waterproof. We've heard various reasons but the best is that ozzies have a habit of jumping into swimming pools/the sea fully clothed and the banks decided to take preemptive measures.
Our last day in Byron Bay (it was a sad moment stepping out of the warm clear sea and off the soft sand for the last time) was also our last day with the van. It's hard to believe we've done 33 nights in it and it's become our protective shell. It will feel very strange to hand back the keys and be on foot again. Having a vehicle to keep things in we got carried away with buying 'stuff', which is not too clever. We now have an entourage of carrier bags that accompany us wherever we go!
Byron Bay Hotels
21 votes 
