The Age of Aquarius

After 5 incredible days of music at the Blues and Roots Festival in Byron Bay, I decided to follow a troop of Irish musicians that came all the way to play a gig on St. Patrick's Day up to Nimbin to check out the local hippie scene that started in 1973 with the Aquarius festival. The Festival was an experiment to spread the knowledge of alternative living styles that was scheduled to last about 6 weeks. According to our bus driver, Alan, he said that it lasted about 3 to 4 months, but from what I've seen, it's still going on today. Unfortunately, the village main street has sort of lost the spirit and fallen prey to it's own success. Large numbers of tourists come in on day trips from Byron to buy drugs and go home a few hours later after smoking copious amounts of dope, eating marijuana cookies and/or mushrooms. The museum is now full of kids and other dealers selling all of the above. The vibe in there is sketchy at best and it's a bit annoying that everyone is either asking you to buy pot or space cookies. Fortunately, thats just the scene at ground zero. If you walk a bit out of the way towards the end of the street, you'll find the Sound Lounge where chilled out hippies are happy to give you a choice of several local varieties and some killer hydro. Even if you walk across the street from the Museum, you'll find Dave at the Hemp Embassy who can help you out with a vaporizer and some gourmet cookies. The vaporizer is a beautiful invention that doesn't burn the hemp, but only heats it to a temperature that is just enough to release the THC. All you get is the cool vapors of pure THC instead of all the harsh smoke and carcinogens. I met a pretty cool Spanish girl from Barcelona that wanted to try some cookies so we got a few to experiment. The problem with cookies is that the effect is well delayed. It can take up to an hour to digest and absorb the THC instead of the almost instant absorption through your lungs. Most people end up eating far too many cookies for their own good because they don't feel anything after eating one cookie and then after 3 cookies they are completely wasted for the next 8 hours. Although I warned her of this delayed effect, she still ate another cookie when she didn't feel anything. Needless to say she didn't enjoy her cookie experience very much and gave her last one away.

Sydney Riot Squad Field Trip

For the most part the people of the town seem very friendly and haven't yet become too jaded by the sheer numbers of tourists coming into town just to score some weed. I've only been here for a couple days, but it's so much nicer than what I've seen so far in Australia that I might end up being here for awhile. Doug, the owner of the Rainbow Retreat, needed some help with his computers. When I helped him fix his machines and secured his wireless, he let me stay the whole week for free. This helped out with my completely blown budget from my first week in Oz. What I spent in my first week here was equivalent to my most conservative 3 months in Thailand. The retreat was about a mile out of town so it wasn't very convenient to head in twice a day for lunch and dinner. So, I finally gave in and bought some groceries to "cook" dinner instead of eating out every meal. Fortunately, a couple girls from Perth came that knew how to cook and helped me out. They were pretty cool, but I started to have my doubts when they told me that the best dumpsters were behind Woolies and what days you could find good things to eat. Like I said, Nimbin attracts a different kind of people, but different can be good. It was pretty strange that most of the people that were staying at the retreat were Japanese. The sound engineer from GOCOO came up with me on the same bus so we added another couple Asian faces to the all Japanese "mix". There were a couple Japanese Djs there that would play some chilled out music for a few hours each night or when they felt like it. On the weekend, they had a chill out party and even let me spin for an hour or so. I was supposed to go on early in the day, but I ended up spinning right when everyone showed up. I had never seen the DJ program before, but I just plugged in my hard drive and with a couple minute tutorial from DJ Sej, I was off spinning some of my chilled out tunes on 4 virtual decks. It could have been a disaster, but it turned out quite well. Most people stayed through my entire set and didn't go off to smoke until after I finished. They even asked me to play again the next night so I guess I wasn't too bad.

Mardi Grass

Unfortunately, the air around Nimbin was full of pollen and ragweed and was wreaking havoc on my hay fever and asthma. I had the worst asthma attack of my life and literally couldn't breathe. I almost couldn't take a puff off my inhaler. Between Bluesfest and a week in Nimbin, I almost used an entire inhaler. I didn't have a backup so I had to get another one, but I realized this on a Sunday and the chemist is closed on Sundays. It's pretty funny because just a couple days earlier I watched Michael Moore's Sicko movie on how horrible health care is in America. When I went to the hospital to get a new inhaler, she asked me a few questions and just gave me a new one without a prescription and didn't charge me anything either. When I asked her about it, she just said that I have no way to bill you, so I just have to give it to you. Now that would never happen in the States.

Would You Prefer I was a Legal Drunk

Goa Hut

Love Shack

This Sh*t is Bananas

Peace Kombi

What's Wrong with Nature

Nimbin Museum

Chillout Loungers

Chilled Out DJ

Chillin Japanese Style

Gypsy Wagon

Samui Cabin

Smorking Area