Nimbin
Trip Start
Nov 15, 2006
1
22
228
Trip End
Jul 15, 2008
Nimbin,
Australia
Friday, December 22, 2006
We spent last night in a caravan park in Nambucca Heads GPS coordinates 30 38.997S 152 59.910E. The manager parked us next to another Wicked van which had the TeleTubbies motif. Alan and Kathy, from Alberta were renting that one. They were a little embarrassed when they noticed the TeleTubbies were doing some naughty things on the side of their van.
Today we headed to our next Aussie tourist destination, Nimbin. If you haven't seen Nimbin you haven't seen Oz. It's the highest town on the continent, but not because of the altitude, which is at about 235 ft above sea level. It's the hemp. We're staying at Granny's Place which gives discounts to Wicked Campervans. We're camping on the edge of the Goolmangar Creek on the edge of Nimbin town. GPS coordinates 28 35.495S 153 13.239E. This is the Richmond Valley area and from the road we saw some very productive farms in a valley surrounded by mountains
12-21-06a
. On the edge of the great Mount Warning caldera the climate up here is like spring time for ever. Huge flowers bloom on huge flower bushes; the same ones Irina grows in little pots back home. In the shade of over hanging trees the Goolmangar Creek makes a bend in front of our camp site and widens into a pool. On the other side of the creek the topical bush begins. In the evening platypus swim in the pool and large opossums climb the trees like monkeys, which is what we mistook them for at first. This is our first night in the bush area, although we are just outside of town. The birds here make the most unusual sounds. They start their calls in the early morning, as they do all over the world, but what really surprised us here is the raucous they make just as the sunsets. The cacophony of chirps, whistles, ticks and howls make a wall of sound that continues until well after the light of day has gone. The bird calls had our heads craning, looking up in the trees, to figure out which bird was making which sound. But it was hopeless. Most Aussies seem not to notice the noise. A bird would start off with some strange loud call and we'd ask a local: what is that bird? The response is almost always: what bird? The Laughing Kookaburra is just another bird here, but you'll recognize its call from the Tarzan movies. On every movie sound track it's the auditory signal that you are in the jungle, which is strange because Tarzan was supposed to be in Africa. 
