Salta is a pretty cool place and a welcome retreat after the carnage of BA. It´s quite close to the Bolivian border, about 7 hours I think, and the first thing we noticed was the change in climate as it was bloody roasting hot. Not a lot was achieved in Salta but I just took the time to chill out for a while after finding the main square, 9 de Julio. The square was smattered with cool little cafes and restaurants surrounding a leafy square with monuments and water features. Most cafes had wifi so I spent most of my time drinking coffee, catching up with my emails and skpying some of my friends and family that I hadn´t spoken with in ages. I didn´t exactly party too much in Salta, Kev did and he found a vibrant area of town with a good party scene, but I couldn´t be arsed. I found a gym and a decent supermarket and had a healthy few days although we did manage another couple of massive steaks and bottles of vino tinto too! But it was just what I needed, some time to relax and take in the town just like a local would. I got up early, headed to the square and watched the town kick into life. I really enjoyed Salta and I would love to go back, I could have easily stayed there for longer but we had to move on to Bolivia.
Towards to end of our Salta visit, Kev and I had to make plans to go separate ways as Ol had decided to come to visit us for Christmas. We were planning to be in Cuzco, Peru for Christmas and New Year and the only way we could work it would be if I went straight to Cuzco to meet Ol while Kev ticked off some of his things to do in Bolivia. My plan was to spend some time in Cuzco and go back to Bolivia to visit the salt flats, Sucre and La Paz although my plans have changed loads now and I´ll have to come back another time to tick Bolivia off my list although I did manage to pay the most mental country a flying visit. So we had a bus ticket bought to get us to La Quiaca, the border town with Bolivia and from that point on we didn´t really know what to expect other than expect anything, it is Bolivia we´re talking about. To be honest, I was a bit nervous about Bolivia after a hundred horror stories from other travellers such as muggings, kidnappings, stolen luggage on trains and police corruption. Fortunately, just like most of the horror stories about South America, these claims proved to be unfounded. Maybe we were just lucky or maybe most of the horror stories come from really unlucky people or dimwits taking too many risks.
After a 7 hour bus journey, we were in La Quiaca, 1km away from the Bolivian border and about to cross into a different world, Bolivian territory!
Tuesday, 13 January 2009
Buenos Aires
At 10.50am on 24th November we flew to Buenos Aires, arriving at 11am on 24th November - mad shit! We´ve been travelling for a while now and we are typically unprepared and have removed adequate planning from our list of things to do. Thinking that we´d save money by buying a South America Lonely Planet in Argentina, we didn´t get one from Australia and arrived in Buenos Aires guideless and pretty damn clueless on what to do next. Having heard of loads of horror stories about taxi drivers in Latin America, we were pretty nervous about getting to the city centre but we took the risk and jumped in an unmarked cab with a ´porteno´, a local Argentinian. Fortunately we didn´t get mugged, murdered or set up by the police and the taxi driver turned out to be pretty cool and dropped us at a pretty rustic hotel close to the centre of Buenos Aires in the Congresso.
First impressions were mixed. The hotel was a dive but that wasn´t a problem as we were used to that by now. The area that we were staying in was, according to the taxi driver, central of BA but I wasn´t too convinced as it was a bit run down and all I´d read about BA suggested that it was a pretty cosmopolitan city. BA is made up of about 7 main areas, all which are considered to be BA centre and we discovered that the place to be was the micro centre, so on day two, after acquiring a BA guide, we found a hostel called Portal Del Sur which was a lot more central. BA is a massive city and its streets go on for miles, literally. I´m generally good with orientation but BA confused the hell out of me and I got lost a few times, the first time for about 2 hours, in the early hours after using the internet, guideless and to be quite honest shitting my pants. The streets are criss-crossed, like a huge grid with long streets, some pedestrian areas and other streets heaving with traffic. On top of that, there are a few streets which traverse diagonally across all of the others, like ´Diagnol Norte´ and those are the ones that threw me every time.
We were in Buenos Aires for about a week and there isn´t that much to mention. It´s a city, just like any other city, same same but different and all that. There were a number of highlights such as some world class steaks, Pacha, La Cabrera restaurant, Pablo and Juan-Pablo and the Argentinian coach experience. I didn´t take in a lot of the normal cultural delights that most travellers go for but instead opted for soaking up the atmosphere, talking to locals, drinking vast amounts of coffee and trying to get by with the minuscule amount of Spanish I´ve picked up. That was what I was after really after the whirlwind travelling we´d done since Thailand and apart from the amount of money I spent, I would say I really enjoyed BA and I could have stayed there longer.
On some of the highlights..... We met Pablo and Juan-Pablo the second night we were in BA while looking for a club called Tobacco. The club was closed but but over the road there was a little art studio with a couple of heads protruding from the door trying to work out what we were looking for. Pablo owned Club Tobacco and Juan Pablo was the owner of the art studio and was preparing for an exhibition that weekend. Pablo couldn´t have been more Argentinian unless he wore a Che Guevara hat, dribbled like Maradonna and carried a perfect medium, head sized steak in his pocket. He was dark haired, husky voiced, passionate and a bit crazy. At 30 years old, he was 7 years Juan-Pablo´s senior who was from Chilli and had more talents than just about anyone I´ve met before. Juan-Pablo played perfect guitar, sang pretty well, had travelled the world to help film a documentary amongst an array of other activities to support his main love, art. That night turned out to be a memorable one. Our South American friends could speak just about as much English as we could Spanish, but courtesy of my pocket sized dictionary we managed to get by. We got drunk, talked cod shit and listened to Juan-Pablo play guitar and sing into the early hours. We went back to see them a couple of days later and met another few of their friends and it was a pretty good start to our time in BA.
La Cabrera restaurant is supposed to be one of the best in BA and was introduced to us by Kev´s friend Tom who I had never met before. Tom turned out to be a legend and helped us out loads during our stay in BA, he´s best mates with Danny Humphries from back home and you can tell that they´re from the same ilk straight away. We had dinner at La Cabrera with Tom and his colleague Mandy who also turned out to be an absolute legend, a really interesting character who is very well travelled and can keep up with us in the cod shit talking department. The dinner was awesome. Tom just ordered a load of food and top quality vino tinto. For starters we had easily the best chorizo I have ever had accompanied with some fine provoleta amongst some other sundries. The chorizo was different than what you normally get in spain as it was really succulent as opposed to the usually hard-ish version. Provoleta is essentially grilled cheese, hardly healthy but absolutely unreal. For the main course we had the biggest lump of steak you could imagine, not flat like you would get in the UK but a long, thick cut about 2 inches wide, 2 inches across and 10 inches long. Unreal steak up there with the best ever. It might sound a bit strange to list a restaurant visit up there with one of the highlights of the BA trip but the food, atmosphere and company really made it just that. I´m not going to say much about Pacha other than it was a club of the international standard that you´d expect from the Pacha brand. Courtesy of Tom we got full VIP treatment and partied pretty hard before heading back to Tom´s flat afterwards. Awesome night!
After about a week we decided it was time to move on and booked a coach trip to Salta in Northern Argentina as we were planning to cross the border in Bolivia shortly after. BA was an experience. It´s a city, not dissimilar to some of the other cities we´ve visited - it was fast paced, unforgiving, diverse and incomprehensibly massive. You could easily stay there for longer, just as Tom has, but it may or may not be for you. If you´re planning to make a go of living outside the UK then BA could well be somewhere to set up base but that depends on what you want. I guess after coming from the paradise islands in Thailand and the glorious East Coast of Australia it was a bit of a culture shock for me. I like the sunshine, a beach and the sea and it´s difficult to lift your head up out of the BA madness to get a piece of any of those things, even though if you look hard enough you can find them close by. That´s been a theme throughout the rest of my time in South America as I´ve struggled to really find somewhere that I could truly say has captured my heart as much as Thailand. All cities are different, but they´re all very similar too. They´re all made up of concrete, traffic, busy people and carnage. Pretty stressful after a while to be honest.
The coach journey from BA to Salta was about 20 hours, not long enough in my book as the first class coach treatment you can get in Argentina is exceptional. For next to nothing, we booked the best seats possible, ´super cama´ which offered fully reclining leather seats, blanket, pillow and an onslaught of rom coms on the overhead TV. The food was shit but the journey flew by and I didn´t really want to get off. That experience had to be savoured as the first class treatment in Bolivia was sub standard to say the least. Salta was the next port of call and we checked into a pretty rustic hostel close to the bus station and stayed there for a further 5 days or so while we chilled out for a but and planned the next stage of our trip.
First impressions were mixed. The hotel was a dive but that wasn´t a problem as we were used to that by now. The area that we were staying in was, according to the taxi driver, central of BA but I wasn´t too convinced as it was a bit run down and all I´d read about BA suggested that it was a pretty cosmopolitan city. BA is made up of about 7 main areas, all which are considered to be BA centre and we discovered that the place to be was the micro centre, so on day two, after acquiring a BA guide, we found a hostel called Portal Del Sur which was a lot more central. BA is a massive city and its streets go on for miles, literally. I´m generally good with orientation but BA confused the hell out of me and I got lost a few times, the first time for about 2 hours, in the early hours after using the internet, guideless and to be quite honest shitting my pants. The streets are criss-crossed, like a huge grid with long streets, some pedestrian areas and other streets heaving with traffic. On top of that, there are a few streets which traverse diagonally across all of the others, like ´Diagnol Norte´ and those are the ones that threw me every time.
We were in Buenos Aires for about a week and there isn´t that much to mention. It´s a city, just like any other city, same same but different and all that. There were a number of highlights such as some world class steaks, Pacha, La Cabrera restaurant, Pablo and Juan-Pablo and the Argentinian coach experience. I didn´t take in a lot of the normal cultural delights that most travellers go for but instead opted for soaking up the atmosphere, talking to locals, drinking vast amounts of coffee and trying to get by with the minuscule amount of Spanish I´ve picked up. That was what I was after really after the whirlwind travelling we´d done since Thailand and apart from the amount of money I spent, I would say I really enjoyed BA and I could have stayed there longer.
On some of the highlights..... We met Pablo and Juan-Pablo the second night we were in BA while looking for a club called Tobacco. The club was closed but but over the road there was a little art studio with a couple of heads protruding from the door trying to work out what we were looking for. Pablo owned Club Tobacco and Juan Pablo was the owner of the art studio and was preparing for an exhibition that weekend. Pablo couldn´t have been more Argentinian unless he wore a Che Guevara hat, dribbled like Maradonna and carried a perfect medium, head sized steak in his pocket. He was dark haired, husky voiced, passionate and a bit crazy. At 30 years old, he was 7 years Juan-Pablo´s senior who was from Chilli and had more talents than just about anyone I´ve met before. Juan-Pablo played perfect guitar, sang pretty well, had travelled the world to help film a documentary amongst an array of other activities to support his main love, art. That night turned out to be a memorable one. Our South American friends could speak just about as much English as we could Spanish, but courtesy of my pocket sized dictionary we managed to get by. We got drunk, talked cod shit and listened to Juan-Pablo play guitar and sing into the early hours. We went back to see them a couple of days later and met another few of their friends and it was a pretty good start to our time in BA.
La Cabrera restaurant is supposed to be one of the best in BA and was introduced to us by Kev´s friend Tom who I had never met before. Tom turned out to be a legend and helped us out loads during our stay in BA, he´s best mates with Danny Humphries from back home and you can tell that they´re from the same ilk straight away. We had dinner at La Cabrera with Tom and his colleague Mandy who also turned out to be an absolute legend, a really interesting character who is very well travelled and can keep up with us in the cod shit talking department. The dinner was awesome. Tom just ordered a load of food and top quality vino tinto. For starters we had easily the best chorizo I have ever had accompanied with some fine provoleta amongst some other sundries. The chorizo was different than what you normally get in spain as it was really succulent as opposed to the usually hard-ish version. Provoleta is essentially grilled cheese, hardly healthy but absolutely unreal. For the main course we had the biggest lump of steak you could imagine, not flat like you would get in the UK but a long, thick cut about 2 inches wide, 2 inches across and 10 inches long. Unreal steak up there with the best ever. It might sound a bit strange to list a restaurant visit up there with one of the highlights of the BA trip but the food, atmosphere and company really made it just that. I´m not going to say much about Pacha other than it was a club of the international standard that you´d expect from the Pacha brand. Courtesy of Tom we got full VIP treatment and partied pretty hard before heading back to Tom´s flat afterwards. Awesome night!
After about a week we decided it was time to move on and booked a coach trip to Salta in Northern Argentina as we were planning to cross the border in Bolivia shortly after. BA was an experience. It´s a city, not dissimilar to some of the other cities we´ve visited - it was fast paced, unforgiving, diverse and incomprehensibly massive. You could easily stay there for longer, just as Tom has, but it may or may not be for you. If you´re planning to make a go of living outside the UK then BA could well be somewhere to set up base but that depends on what you want. I guess after coming from the paradise islands in Thailand and the glorious East Coast of Australia it was a bit of a culture shock for me. I like the sunshine, a beach and the sea and it´s difficult to lift your head up out of the BA madness to get a piece of any of those things, even though if you look hard enough you can find them close by. That´s been a theme throughout the rest of my time in South America as I´ve struggled to really find somewhere that I could truly say has captured my heart as much as Thailand. All cities are different, but they´re all very similar too. They´re all made up of concrete, traffic, busy people and carnage. Pretty stressful after a while to be honest.
The coach journey from BA to Salta was about 20 hours, not long enough in my book as the first class coach treatment you can get in Argentina is exceptional. For next to nothing, we booked the best seats possible, ´super cama´ which offered fully reclining leather seats, blanket, pillow and an onslaught of rom coms on the overhead TV. The food was shit but the journey flew by and I didn´t really want to get off. That experience had to be savoured as the first class treatment in Bolivia was sub standard to say the least. Salta was the next port of call and we checked into a pretty rustic hostel close to the bus station and stayed there for a further 5 days or so while we chilled out for a but and planned the next stage of our trip.
Thursday, 8 January 2009
Cairns
3000km and 11 days later we had made it to Cairns from Sydney. What a mission that was and I have to say it was worth everything and has been one of the highlights of my trip so far. Cairns is a beautiful city, it´s hot, popular but unfortunately it´s rammed with Australian´s who have just managed to evolve into humans from one of our primate ancestors. We checked into The Serpent Hostel shortly after saying our goodbyes to Marge and, after dropping our gear into our prisoner cell block H style room, we headed into town for an explore and a few beers. Cairns is lively, but not in a good way. It´s full of dick heads and it´s got a vibe which makes you think it could kick off at any time. It seems to be quitye popular for the young fellas to shave their heads but leave a few inches at the back in proper red neck stylee!
The highlight was chatting to a couple of Christians trying to recruit from the back of a van, with ´Jesus saves´ plastered on the side, by giving out free coffee and cookies. I couldn´t help myself and after about half an hour Kev and I had completely destroyed them, in the best possible way of course. If you know me, you know I´m an atheist but an atheist with a great interest in religion. It´s not that I´m looking for a religion to subscribe to, I´m just interested in it and I´ve being doing a lot of reading on the subject since I´ve been travelling. I believe in evolution, I believe in the big bang too and for those reasons I believe that most popular world religions are flawed to a certain degree. Some religions are less flawed than others, in particular Buddhism, but for me Christianity has to be the most flawed of them all for loads of different reasons.
One example is that Christians believe that god created the universe 6000 years ago and that he created every living creature as they are now. Popular science has gathered evidence to suggest that the universe is about 3.7 billion years old and that humans have existed for about 100,000 years. Now I´m not narrow minded enough to say that I´m 100% sure that there is no god, but I´m pretty sure that the universe wasn´t created 6000 years ago. So when I questioned these two lovely Christians on this I got a typically weak response, something on the lines of ´that´s the leap of faith you need to take´. Bollocks I say, get a grip and stop wasting your time trying to tell fairy stories to people on the side of the road and bribing them with coffee and cookies to try to get them to conform to your ridiculous beliefs. Anyway, loads more was discussed and we parted company with good faith, to pardon the pun!
The next day we flew back to Sydney, stayed one night and took a 12 hour flight to Buenos Aires.
The highlight was chatting to a couple of Christians trying to recruit from the back of a van, with ´Jesus saves´ plastered on the side, by giving out free coffee and cookies. I couldn´t help myself and after about half an hour Kev and I had completely destroyed them, in the best possible way of course. If you know me, you know I´m an atheist but an atheist with a great interest in religion. It´s not that I´m looking for a religion to subscribe to, I´m just interested in it and I´ve being doing a lot of reading on the subject since I´ve been travelling. I believe in evolution, I believe in the big bang too and for those reasons I believe that most popular world religions are flawed to a certain degree. Some religions are less flawed than others, in particular Buddhism, but for me Christianity has to be the most flawed of them all for loads of different reasons.
One example is that Christians believe that god created the universe 6000 years ago and that he created every living creature as they are now. Popular science has gathered evidence to suggest that the universe is about 3.7 billion years old and that humans have existed for about 100,000 years. Now I´m not narrow minded enough to say that I´m 100% sure that there is no god, but I´m pretty sure that the universe wasn´t created 6000 years ago. So when I questioned these two lovely Christians on this I got a typically weak response, something on the lines of ´that´s the leap of faith you need to take´. Bollocks I say, get a grip and stop wasting your time trying to tell fairy stories to people on the side of the road and bribing them with coffee and cookies to try to get them to conform to your ridiculous beliefs. Anyway, loads more was discussed and we parted company with good faith, to pardon the pun!
The next day we flew back to Sydney, stayed one night and took a 12 hour flight to Buenos Aires.
Airely Beach and Whitsundays
Airley Beach is an awesome place and Whitsundays is absolutely breathtaking. On Airely Beach, the town immaculate, there are loads of cool bars and resaturants and our hostel was really lively and rammed with travellers, not all of whom were tossers! We didn´t have long in Airely Beach as we got there wuite late in the afternnon and had a really early start to start our trip but we managed to get a few beers in an catch up on emails and what not. We checked out of the hostel at about 7.30am the next day and took Marge to her resting place for the next couple of days while we took our tour.
Whitsundays are a group of islands off the barrier reef, I´m not sure how many there are but there´s shit loads and they´re all uninhabited, with the exeption of one oe two, and they´re all beautiful. The standard trip usually entails about 20 guests being assigned to a sail boat and working alongside the crew to sail around the islands with one or two nights on the boat. I was surprised that there are two groups of islands called Cumberland Islands and Northumberland Islands with loads of islands being named after some places in Northern England. We were assigned to The Hammer which was a trquoise sailing boat which used to take parrt in competitions around Australia - I don´t know anything about boats but it was pretty cool.
The first destination was Whitehaven Beach which was pretty mad considering that Whitehaven is about 9 miles away from my home towm in the UK. I have to say that the Whitehaven Beach in Oz is slightly more attractive than that in Cumbria, it is absolutely stunning and the fourth most photographed place in Australia. There were hundreds of baby sting rays and the odd sand sharks swimming around the shallows and the sand was almost pure white and as soft as cotton wool. Unfortunately the weather started to change early afternoon and we got back on the boat and had a sail to our spot for the night.
On the boat, the crew were awesome and the rest oof the guests had degrees from the university of cock end! The crew were three, Mick was the skipper and Zak and Angie were the deck hands and Kev and I spent most of our time chilling at the back of the boat talking cod shit with them and ignoring every fucker else. Mick was nuts and just wanted to sail which meant that for the most part the boat was at a 45 degree angle with the sail dipping into the waves. Pretty scary shit but it was awesome fun. When The Hammer was a race boat it had a crew of 18 so to keep us going we had to help out the crew putting up the sails and all that jazz which was good crack.
That night we had dinner and proceeded to get pissed up and after a while Kev and I accosted the iPod situation, at least for a short while. To give you an idea of what we were up against, our iPod tunes were replaced by Kylie´s greatest hits, I mean for fuck´s sake some people shouldn´t be let out of the house let alone have iPod rights! Apart from that we had a good night and retired a little worse for wear in the ealry hours ready for another day of sailing and sunbathing. Next day I had a dive booked and I have to say I was very exited at the prospect of a dive off the great barrier reef. Unfortunately it was the worst dive I´ve had to date due to poor visbility and a dick head instructor we put me witha group of non qualified divers and never really took us deeper than 3m. I got about 5 minutes on my own with him and took in some decent swim throughs but the fat waster ran out of air before me so I surfaced a pretty pissed off chappy!
Post dive, we sailed back too the dock at full speed and experienced some of the best sailing of the trip for about 4 hours while Mick tried his best to capsize the boat, which incidentally is supposed to be almost impossible. We had a pretty uneventful evening after that in the hostel before we had yet another early start to drive to Cairns to drop off our beloved Marge. Two points to note were that for the first time ever I was pulled over by the cops and breathalised and I was very close to smashing a little dick head 20 year old´s face in for stamping on a rhino beetle that I was trying to photograph. Fortunately, somehow, compassion prevailed and the young man escaped unscathed. At about 4am it was time to set off again and after yet other challenging time trying to wake Kev up, we were on the road again.
Whitsundays are a group of islands off the barrier reef, I´m not sure how many there are but there´s shit loads and they´re all uninhabited, with the exeption of one oe two, and they´re all beautiful. The standard trip usually entails about 20 guests being assigned to a sail boat and working alongside the crew to sail around the islands with one or two nights on the boat. I was surprised that there are two groups of islands called Cumberland Islands and Northumberland Islands with loads of islands being named after some places in Northern England. We were assigned to The Hammer which was a trquoise sailing boat which used to take parrt in competitions around Australia - I don´t know anything about boats but it was pretty cool.
The first destination was Whitehaven Beach which was pretty mad considering that Whitehaven is about 9 miles away from my home towm in the UK. I have to say that the Whitehaven Beach in Oz is slightly more attractive than that in Cumbria, it is absolutely stunning and the fourth most photographed place in Australia. There were hundreds of baby sting rays and the odd sand sharks swimming around the shallows and the sand was almost pure white and as soft as cotton wool. Unfortunately the weather started to change early afternoon and we got back on the boat and had a sail to our spot for the night.
On the boat, the crew were awesome and the rest oof the guests had degrees from the university of cock end! The crew were three, Mick was the skipper and Zak and Angie were the deck hands and Kev and I spent most of our time chilling at the back of the boat talking cod shit with them and ignoring every fucker else. Mick was nuts and just wanted to sail which meant that for the most part the boat was at a 45 degree angle with the sail dipping into the waves. Pretty scary shit but it was awesome fun. When The Hammer was a race boat it had a crew of 18 so to keep us going we had to help out the crew putting up the sails and all that jazz which was good crack.
That night we had dinner and proceeded to get pissed up and after a while Kev and I accosted the iPod situation, at least for a short while. To give you an idea of what we were up against, our iPod tunes were replaced by Kylie´s greatest hits, I mean for fuck´s sake some people shouldn´t be let out of the house let alone have iPod rights! Apart from that we had a good night and retired a little worse for wear in the ealry hours ready for another day of sailing and sunbathing. Next day I had a dive booked and I have to say I was very exited at the prospect of a dive off the great barrier reef. Unfortunately it was the worst dive I´ve had to date due to poor visbility and a dick head instructor we put me witha group of non qualified divers and never really took us deeper than 3m. I got about 5 minutes on my own with him and took in some decent swim throughs but the fat waster ran out of air before me so I surfaced a pretty pissed off chappy!
Post dive, we sailed back too the dock at full speed and experienced some of the best sailing of the trip for about 4 hours while Mick tried his best to capsize the boat, which incidentally is supposed to be almost impossible. We had a pretty uneventful evening after that in the hostel before we had yet another early start to drive to Cairns to drop off our beloved Marge. Two points to note were that for the first time ever I was pulled over by the cops and breathalised and I was very close to smashing a little dick head 20 year old´s face in for stamping on a rhino beetle that I was trying to photograph. Fortunately, somehow, compassion prevailed and the young man escaped unscathed. At about 4am it was time to set off again and after yet other challenging time trying to wake Kev up, we were on the road again.
Hervey Bay and Fraser Island
Hevery Bay does everything it says on the tin, it´s a shit hole, just like everyone says! Fortunately it´s more of a meeting place for the Fraser tours so you don´t have to get too attached to the place. The drive from Byron was long but it was a piece of piss with feet up, cruise control on, sunshine and tunes! We had to be there for 3pm for a briefing so, as it was a 500km drive we set off early doors as not to be late. On arrival we upgraded from a dorm to a double for free, not bad you may think but the double was pretty awfule to say the least. After we´d had a couple of beers, we met the rest of our group for the briefing and discovered that we had been put with about 7 girls, 4 of who were american! Fortunately they turned out to be pretty cool once we got passed the pre-madonnas.
To be honest, I wasn´t quite sure what I´d signed up for with this tour other than it´s the biggest sand island in the world and we were supposed to be driving jeeps! What that translated to was we were to tour Fraser island, without a guide, with a map and a rough itinerary, some cooking stuff and some tents! .... and 7 girls, DOH! So to put the right messages out there, Kev and I decided to do the shopping, well Kev decided it would be a good idea and I reluctantly agreed. So we got the list off the girls, did the shopping and rocked up the next morning at 6.30am ready for the tour. Pretty much all of the girls had signed up to drive, even the ones that hadn´t driven a manual before, so there wasn´t enough room on the list for me, which to be honest I wasn´t that arsed about. So Kev was designated driver for the first leg and I was navigator, chucks away and that!
After loading the van with food, beverages a plenty, camping gear and people, we set off for the pier to start our 3 day, 2 night adventure around Fraser Island. A short ferry ride later, we were in 4 wheel drive and heading for our first port of call, Central Station. There wasn´t a great deal to see there so a group decision was made to make our way to Lake Bimerjoom and after helping a 4x4 to get unstuck we were on our way down some pretty hairy sand roads. At the lake we unloaded an esky (a cool box to you and I) and made our way down to the lake through a small pocket of woodland. The lake was absolutely unbelievable. Fraser Island is all sand so its fresh water lakes are surrounded by soft white sandy beaches which perfectly compliment the crystal clear blue waters. The sun was out at full force so we all chilled out, drank beer and swam in the lake - pretty awesome actually.
We couldn´t stay for too long as we had a schedule to meet and if we were too far behind then there was a chance that we would get cut off by the sea and not make it down the East coact of the island to our camping spot. Luckily we had loads of time and reached our camp site before the tide came in and we picked a spot to stay for the night. We had loads of food and beer so we all clubbed in to get the feast going and put the tents up - to be fair, dinner was a pretty tame affair with pasta and sauce. One of the girls started to show how nuts she actually was asking stupid questions like ´do we have any fresh basil´, or ´did you boys get ginger from the supermarket´. Our standard response was Íf it was on the list we got it, if it wasn´t we didn´t´but that didn´t stop the retardedness coming our on a regular basis.
After dinner we sat round by our tents talking cod shit and getting drunk. It was a bit of a pisser that we weren´t allowed a camp fire as it took a bit away from the camping experience but we managed to have a laugh anyway. As it got a bit darker we were on Dingo watch and to be honest we were pretty much shitty our pants, we haven´t had the best of experiences with stray dogs so wild dogs surely wouldn´t be any better! We saw a couple but nothing major before a thunderstrorm started which broght a heap of shitty weather which would stay with us for the rest of the trip.
Next day, most things were piss wet through and it was still raining but we had to head off early doors again as not to get cut off by the tide. The thing with Fraser Island is that there aren´t many rubbish stations or places to wash your dirty crockery so you have to carry everything with you. Contrary too the advice given to us by the guy at the hostel, there aren´t many toilets or showers so our main objective that morning was to find somewhere which catered for all of these things. Happy Valley had everything including a hostel, a restaurant, a coffee shop, a shop, showers and everything else. So we stayed there for a bit, got cleaned up and found a spot to make some food.
No matter where you are in the world, when it rains it´s a bit shit, let´s be honest. Even though we were in one of the most beautiful places in the world, the rest of the trip was fairly shit and coupled with the fact that most of our gear was wet, we were constantly carry rubbish around and making food was a nightmare, I´ll have to be honest and say that I wasn´t exactly enjoying the Fraser Island experience. Post Happy Valley, we went to check out the wreck a bit further up the east coast in line wiith our itinerary and considered what to do next. By that time it was absolutely lashing it down and the prospect of heading back to our campsite wasn´t exactly a promising one. We decided to head back to Happy Valley for some home comforts, meaning coffee, hot water, food and beer and it was then I had what I tought to be a pretty damn good idea.
The hostel at Happy Valley was ver cheap at AU$40 per person and I suggested that we stay there. All but 3 of the group had no hesitation in voting yes and after a quick chat with the receptionist we were all booked in. The 3 girls who didn´t want to stay in the hostel simply couldn´t afford it so they voted to stay in the 4x4 rather than going back to the campsite. Because the tents were still up at the site and we had a few things to get, Kev and I took the girls back to the campsite so we could make sure everything was tickety boo bevore bedding down at the hostel. TThe drive there and back was a nightmare as it was starting to get dark and about 100 yards from the hostel on the way back we had a bit of a motoring disaster.
On the island there are loads of Dingo grids which are like cattle grids in the UK but electrified to give dingos a nastly little shock should they fancy a night in one of the build up areas. We crossed the last grid and heard a mighty crash, saw a flas of light and felt something ulling on the ground. On investigation, on f the shock absorbers has bust and was trailing n the ground and as we passed over the grid it pulled one of the electirc wires straight off and caused the electrical flash. Sweet as, we´d fucked the 4x4! Fortunately, it didn´t cause much of a problem although the Koala guys never turned up the folloowiing morning with a replacement 4x4 as they promised which meant we nearly got caught bythe tide and we had to have a brief encounter with a couple of local mechannics who were clearly cast in ´Wrong Turn´. We managed to get through all of that unscathed and we fortunately had to pay about $5 each out of our bonds for some unrelated minor damage.
Other than the first day which was glorious, the Fraser trip was a bit of an anticlimax with the highlights being a broken 4x4 and a stay in a pretty damn good hostel. The next day we had yet another early start and a ridiculously long drive to Airely Beach to join our Whitsundays tour. I was designated driver again so went to bed early and managed to set off about 2 hours later than planned as Kev was severly intoxicated and could only be woken by a mellay of banchy drums and rabbied dogs chewing at his nuts - I´ve never seen anything like it!
To be honest, I wasn´t quite sure what I´d signed up for with this tour other than it´s the biggest sand island in the world and we were supposed to be driving jeeps! What that translated to was we were to tour Fraser island, without a guide, with a map and a rough itinerary, some cooking stuff and some tents! .... and 7 girls, DOH! So to put the right messages out there, Kev and I decided to do the shopping, well Kev decided it would be a good idea and I reluctantly agreed. So we got the list off the girls, did the shopping and rocked up the next morning at 6.30am ready for the tour. Pretty much all of the girls had signed up to drive, even the ones that hadn´t driven a manual before, so there wasn´t enough room on the list for me, which to be honest I wasn´t that arsed about. So Kev was designated driver for the first leg and I was navigator, chucks away and that!
After loading the van with food, beverages a plenty, camping gear and people, we set off for the pier to start our 3 day, 2 night adventure around Fraser Island. A short ferry ride later, we were in 4 wheel drive and heading for our first port of call, Central Station. There wasn´t a great deal to see there so a group decision was made to make our way to Lake Bimerjoom and after helping a 4x4 to get unstuck we were on our way down some pretty hairy sand roads. At the lake we unloaded an esky (a cool box to you and I) and made our way down to the lake through a small pocket of woodland. The lake was absolutely unbelievable. Fraser Island is all sand so its fresh water lakes are surrounded by soft white sandy beaches which perfectly compliment the crystal clear blue waters. The sun was out at full force so we all chilled out, drank beer and swam in the lake - pretty awesome actually.
We couldn´t stay for too long as we had a schedule to meet and if we were too far behind then there was a chance that we would get cut off by the sea and not make it down the East coact of the island to our camping spot. Luckily we had loads of time and reached our camp site before the tide came in and we picked a spot to stay for the night. We had loads of food and beer so we all clubbed in to get the feast going and put the tents up - to be fair, dinner was a pretty tame affair with pasta and sauce. One of the girls started to show how nuts she actually was asking stupid questions like ´do we have any fresh basil´, or ´did you boys get ginger from the supermarket´. Our standard response was Íf it was on the list we got it, if it wasn´t we didn´t´but that didn´t stop the retardedness coming our on a regular basis.
After dinner we sat round by our tents talking cod shit and getting drunk. It was a bit of a pisser that we weren´t allowed a camp fire as it took a bit away from the camping experience but we managed to have a laugh anyway. As it got a bit darker we were on Dingo watch and to be honest we were pretty much shitty our pants, we haven´t had the best of experiences with stray dogs so wild dogs surely wouldn´t be any better! We saw a couple but nothing major before a thunderstrorm started which broght a heap of shitty weather which would stay with us for the rest of the trip.
Next day, most things were piss wet through and it was still raining but we had to head off early doors again as not to get cut off by the tide. The thing with Fraser Island is that there aren´t many rubbish stations or places to wash your dirty crockery so you have to carry everything with you. Contrary too the advice given to us by the guy at the hostel, there aren´t many toilets or showers so our main objective that morning was to find somewhere which catered for all of these things. Happy Valley had everything including a hostel, a restaurant, a coffee shop, a shop, showers and everything else. So we stayed there for a bit, got cleaned up and found a spot to make some food.
No matter where you are in the world, when it rains it´s a bit shit, let´s be honest. Even though we were in one of the most beautiful places in the world, the rest of the trip was fairly shit and coupled with the fact that most of our gear was wet, we were constantly carry rubbish around and making food was a nightmare, I´ll have to be honest and say that I wasn´t exactly enjoying the Fraser Island experience. Post Happy Valley, we went to check out the wreck a bit further up the east coast in line wiith our itinerary and considered what to do next. By that time it was absolutely lashing it down and the prospect of heading back to our campsite wasn´t exactly a promising one. We decided to head back to Happy Valley for some home comforts, meaning coffee, hot water, food and beer and it was then I had what I tought to be a pretty damn good idea.
The hostel at Happy Valley was ver cheap at AU$40 per person and I suggested that we stay there. All but 3 of the group had no hesitation in voting yes and after a quick chat with the receptionist we were all booked in. The 3 girls who didn´t want to stay in the hostel simply couldn´t afford it so they voted to stay in the 4x4 rather than going back to the campsite. Because the tents were still up at the site and we had a few things to get, Kev and I took the girls back to the campsite so we could make sure everything was tickety boo bevore bedding down at the hostel. TThe drive there and back was a nightmare as it was starting to get dark and about 100 yards from the hostel on the way back we had a bit of a motoring disaster.
On the island there are loads of Dingo grids which are like cattle grids in the UK but electrified to give dingos a nastly little shock should they fancy a night in one of the build up areas. We crossed the last grid and heard a mighty crash, saw a flas of light and felt something ulling on the ground. On investigation, on f the shock absorbers has bust and was trailing n the ground and as we passed over the grid it pulled one of the electirc wires straight off and caused the electrical flash. Sweet as, we´d fucked the 4x4! Fortunately, it didn´t cause much of a problem although the Koala guys never turned up the folloowiing morning with a replacement 4x4 as they promised which meant we nearly got caught bythe tide and we had to have a brief encounter with a couple of local mechannics who were clearly cast in ´Wrong Turn´. We managed to get through all of that unscathed and we fortunately had to pay about $5 each out of our bonds for some unrelated minor damage.
Other than the first day which was glorious, the Fraser trip was a bit of an anticlimax with the highlights being a broken 4x4 and a stay in a pretty damn good hostel. The next day we had yet another early start and a ridiculously long drive to Airely Beach to join our Whitsundays tour. I was designated driver again so went to bed early and managed to set off about 2 hours later than planned as Kev was severly intoxicated and could only be woken by a mellay of banchy drums and rabbied dogs chewing at his nuts - I´ve never seen anything like it!
The Sky Dive
The next day we had booked a Sky Dive over the bay. The night before, I started to panic a wee bit as I´m shit scared of heights, had a few beers and got an early night. After a bit of a messs around from the sky dive company, we were in the mini van with some other divers being escorted to the dive club. I´d been pysching muyself up for this over the last few hours because I knew that I had the chance of ruining it by worrying too much. So I decided that I simply wasn´t going to worry about it, I´d paid my money and I was defnitely going to do it so I took the decision just to enjoy every last moment. So that´s what I did, I just looked forward to it all the way until the end and it worked a treat.
We had to wait for the second plane and it was our time to buckle up and get a short saftey briefing. The briefing was exactly that, short and sweet. Something like ´shuffle to the edge of the dorr, legs under, head back, hips forward, arms crossed and we´ll do the rest.....´. Basically, you´re strapped onto the fron of a tandem master, he packs the shoot, breifs you, throws you out of the plane and pulls the cord. Piece of piss, they do it all for you. After the briefing, I was first on the plane so I knew I´d be last out, no worries! The plane was a tiny 10 seater with everything removed from the cabin and a plastic door which is easily pulled up and down. About 12 people crammed into the cabin, the divers, their tandem master and a few photographers.
Slowly we climed to the staggering 14000 feet over the bay.. It was such an awesome view, the sky was almost cloudless, the sun was shining and you could see the waves beloe crashing in. Still not worried! Climed to about 10000 feet after about 15 minutes, getting close but still not worried. My tandem master, Steve started to give me another quick briefing at this stage and told me to put me goggles on, still not worried!! Then it was time, message came from the pilot, 14000 feet had been reached and we were over the target. Onoe by one divers began to shuffle to the egde, ´cross arms, head back, legs under plane, SKYDIVE´! Then finally it was my go, still not worried at all I just couldn´t wait. Shuffle to the edge, feet under, arms crossed, head back, hips forward... Steve says ´do you trust me?´, then SKYDIVE....
Fuuuuuuuucccccccckkkkkkkkk me the first ten seconds were amazing. I had absolutely no idea where I was, I just felt ny stomach pass through my windpipe and out of my mouth while we accelerated to about 200kmph and spun as Steve pulled us in all sorts of directions. After a few more seconds I got a tap on the shoulder and I put my arms out in the skydive position and down we went, freefalling for about 70 seconds. Because you´re on the front, it feels like you´re on your own, falling like a bullet towards the ground, absolutely awesome. Then Steve pulled the shoot and thank fuck it opened, then we slowly made our way to the ground, taking in the amazing views with Steve pulling off some nasty arsed tricks to put the shits up me.... It was unreal, easily the best experience I´ve had while travelling and one of the best I´ve had in mhy life. I know it was tandem, and decision making was removed from the dive, but I don´t give a shit, it was awesome and worth every penny!
That afternoon we had a go at surfing and sorted out our next step. Byron Bay is an awesome place and I could have stayed there for much longer if I had the time. The town was lush with loads of cool shops, cafes and restaurants. The beach was awesome, you can surf, sky dive and use the gym. There´s healthy food everywhere and the hostels are cool, what else do you need? Well, the night life was a bit weird for such a cool place but other than that it was straight out of the top drawer, a must see place. Next stop Hervey Bay for our Fraser Island tour.
We had to wait for the second plane and it was our time to buckle up and get a short saftey briefing. The briefing was exactly that, short and sweet. Something like ´shuffle to the edge of the dorr, legs under, head back, hips forward, arms crossed and we´ll do the rest.....´. Basically, you´re strapped onto the fron of a tandem master, he packs the shoot, breifs you, throws you out of the plane and pulls the cord. Piece of piss, they do it all for you. After the briefing, I was first on the plane so I knew I´d be last out, no worries! The plane was a tiny 10 seater with everything removed from the cabin and a plastic door which is easily pulled up and down. About 12 people crammed into the cabin, the divers, their tandem master and a few photographers.
Slowly we climed to the staggering 14000 feet over the bay.. It was such an awesome view, the sky was almost cloudless, the sun was shining and you could see the waves beloe crashing in. Still not worried! Climed to about 10000 feet after about 15 minutes, getting close but still not worried. My tandem master, Steve started to give me another quick briefing at this stage and told me to put me goggles on, still not worried!! Then it was time, message came from the pilot, 14000 feet had been reached and we were over the target. Onoe by one divers began to shuffle to the egde, ´cross arms, head back, legs under plane, SKYDIVE´! Then finally it was my go, still not worried at all I just couldn´t wait. Shuffle to the edge, feet under, arms crossed, head back, hips forward... Steve says ´do you trust me?´, then SKYDIVE....
Fuuuuuuuucccccccckkkkkkkkk me the first ten seconds were amazing. I had absolutely no idea where I was, I just felt ny stomach pass through my windpipe and out of my mouth while we accelerated to about 200kmph and spun as Steve pulled us in all sorts of directions. After a few more seconds I got a tap on the shoulder and I put my arms out in the skydive position and down we went, freefalling for about 70 seconds. Because you´re on the front, it feels like you´re on your own, falling like a bullet towards the ground, absolutely awesome. Then Steve pulled the shoot and thank fuck it opened, then we slowly made our way to the ground, taking in the amazing views with Steve pulling off some nasty arsed tricks to put the shits up me.... It was unreal, easily the best experience I´ve had while travelling and one of the best I´ve had in mhy life. I know it was tandem, and decision making was removed from the dive, but I don´t give a shit, it was awesome and worth every penny!
That afternoon we had a go at surfing and sorted out our next step. Byron Bay is an awesome place and I could have stayed there for much longer if I had the time. The town was lush with loads of cool shops, cafes and restaurants. The beach was awesome, you can surf, sky dive and use the gym. There´s healthy food everywhere and the hostels are cool, what else do you need? Well, the night life was a bit weird for such a cool place but other than that it was straight out of the top drawer, a must see place. Next stop Hervey Bay for our Fraser Island tour.
Byron Bay
The drive to Byron Bay from Sydney was easily one of the most hairy journeys ever. We set off when there was still light and the first couple of hours were a breeze, heading up the coast on the Pacific Highway. We had been strongly advised by he hire company, and various other people, that the Australian police are very hot on speeding and due to the vast numbers of speed cameras we should take it easy. On top of that, any traffic offences would incur a $50 fine which would be taken from our bond so we decided to keep to the limits.
That in itself was very frustrating as we were in a 4 litre beast of a machine that just wanted more, and the roads were so dead that we could easily have topped 200kmph and no-one would have noticed. Kev decided that he wanted to finish the journey so I spent most of the time looking for kangaroos, sleeping or picking tunes off the iPod. The fun started when the sun went down and the weather turned for the worst as the heavens opened, reducing visibility and making the journey one of the most dangerous ever.
The speed limit for the most part was either 100 or 110kmph and we stuck to it religiously. The only problem was that the 7000 truck drivers on the road didn´t want to and as there were no other cars on the road except for us, we were sharing one of the most notoriously dangerous roads with shit loads of lunatic juggernaut drivers. I´m not joking when I say almost every driver in someway caused a problem for us. Some of them passed a bit too close for comfort, some beeped their horns, others tried to get as close as possible to our rear bumper and one or two actually combined all three. One or two literally tried to run us off the road!! Scary shit, especially in torrential rain with no visibility.
If you think about it, they had nothing to lose really. Two pommies in the middle of no-where, no witnesses, the open road - the police would have just put it down to a freak accident. Kev and I are both experienced drivers but both of us were shit scared. It got to the point where we called the local police, not once but three times to report different drivers, a couple of which where we had the chance to catch their registration number. The police hardly did anything to help and it continued until it got a little bit lighter and we got off the main drag. By the time we reached Byron Bay, we were both just happy that we made it in one piece!
We arrived at Byron Bay at about 6am, which meant we´d been on the road for over 12 hours with only one or two breaks. It wasn´t a great day in weather terms but the difference between the climate in Sydney and Byron could be felt. We were a bit early to check into our hostel so we took a drive up to the lighthouse and watched scores of surfers riding the early morning break. The waves were pretty big and they held a right hand break for ages, pretty much all the way into the beach so it was understandable why these boys were getting up so early to catch it.
Shortly after the we checked into Main Beach Backpackers hostel which to be fair was pretty cool. The rooms were a bit basic but there was a massive kitchen, a decent sized lounge area, a pool and the place was teaming with backpackers, most of whom were surfer dudes. We couldn´t check in straight away as were were far too early so I ended up crashing on a sofa as the 12 hour journey started to take its tole. Once we had checked in, we decided to go on a mission to find Nimbin which we had heard about on the grapevine as one of the places to see around Byron. What a mission that turned out to be!
I drove and Kev slept most of the way but what looked like a 10 minute drive on the map turned out to be about an hour through valleys, up mountains and windy roads. It got to the point where I thought we were lost when Nimbin appeared out of nowhere. This was a truly eye opening moment, well worth the lengthy drive. Nimbim was founded by a few hippies who decided to stay after a festival in the 70´s and it´s one of the weirdest places I´ve ever seen. It´s hard to describe, but it was like something you´d expect to see in a museum accolading butlins or some cheesy resort like that, it really was toy town. Everything was focused around cannabis, there was a cannabis cafe, a cannabis museum and even a shit load of people selling it, including a haggard old hippy woman who tried to sell us some hash cakes.
It was truly bizarre. There were shops, a pub, cafes and restaurants all will the same sort of theme. There was a sign post on one shop detailing its opening times and it went something like ´ I usually open at 8am, but sometimes 9 or later, or sometimes not at all. I usually close at 4 but sometimes 5 or even 6. Sometimes I don´t open at all but I´ve been doing really well lately....´. Crazy shit, I´ve taken a few photos so when i get a chance I´ll upload them onto facebook. Anyway, Nimbin turned out to be truly weird in more than one respect. At first I thought the place was awesome, a true find. But after a few strange encounters we decided it would be best to leave. The whole place is run on tourism and it has it´s own little capitalist system going on. But the people just don´t like tourists! And the people trying to sell you cannabis were proper pikies and there was definitely an air of unrest, it´d could have kicked off at anytime. So, just like I find hippydom strange at the best of times, this really proves it. The drug dealers are aggressive, the hippies hate tourists, which is irony in itself seeing as hippydom is supposed to be about peace and love but clearly its about having a little clique and building a little capitalist empire that every pretends isn´t there. Weirdos! We left promptly after a coffee but I would definitely go back to trumpton if I got the chance.
That in itself was very frustrating as we were in a 4 litre beast of a machine that just wanted more, and the roads were so dead that we could easily have topped 200kmph and no-one would have noticed. Kev decided that he wanted to finish the journey so I spent most of the time looking for kangaroos, sleeping or picking tunes off the iPod. The fun started when the sun went down and the weather turned for the worst as the heavens opened, reducing visibility and making the journey one of the most dangerous ever.
The speed limit for the most part was either 100 or 110kmph and we stuck to it religiously. The only problem was that the 7000 truck drivers on the road didn´t want to and as there were no other cars on the road except for us, we were sharing one of the most notoriously dangerous roads with shit loads of lunatic juggernaut drivers. I´m not joking when I say almost every driver in someway caused a problem for us. Some of them passed a bit too close for comfort, some beeped their horns, others tried to get as close as possible to our rear bumper and one or two actually combined all three. One or two literally tried to run us off the road!! Scary shit, especially in torrential rain with no visibility.
If you think about it, they had nothing to lose really. Two pommies in the middle of no-where, no witnesses, the open road - the police would have just put it down to a freak accident. Kev and I are both experienced drivers but both of us were shit scared. It got to the point where we called the local police, not once but three times to report different drivers, a couple of which where we had the chance to catch their registration number. The police hardly did anything to help and it continued until it got a little bit lighter and we got off the main drag. By the time we reached Byron Bay, we were both just happy that we made it in one piece!
We arrived at Byron Bay at about 6am, which meant we´d been on the road for over 12 hours with only one or two breaks. It wasn´t a great day in weather terms but the difference between the climate in Sydney and Byron could be felt. We were a bit early to check into our hostel so we took a drive up to the lighthouse and watched scores of surfers riding the early morning break. The waves were pretty big and they held a right hand break for ages, pretty much all the way into the beach so it was understandable why these boys were getting up so early to catch it.
Shortly after the we checked into Main Beach Backpackers hostel which to be fair was pretty cool. The rooms were a bit basic but there was a massive kitchen, a decent sized lounge area, a pool and the place was teaming with backpackers, most of whom were surfer dudes. We couldn´t check in straight away as were were far too early so I ended up crashing on a sofa as the 12 hour journey started to take its tole. Once we had checked in, we decided to go on a mission to find Nimbin which we had heard about on the grapevine as one of the places to see around Byron. What a mission that turned out to be!
I drove and Kev slept most of the way but what looked like a 10 minute drive on the map turned out to be about an hour through valleys, up mountains and windy roads. It got to the point where I thought we were lost when Nimbin appeared out of nowhere. This was a truly eye opening moment, well worth the lengthy drive. Nimbim was founded by a few hippies who decided to stay after a festival in the 70´s and it´s one of the weirdest places I´ve ever seen. It´s hard to describe, but it was like something you´d expect to see in a museum accolading butlins or some cheesy resort like that, it really was toy town. Everything was focused around cannabis, there was a cannabis cafe, a cannabis museum and even a shit load of people selling it, including a haggard old hippy woman who tried to sell us some hash cakes.
It was truly bizarre. There were shops, a pub, cafes and restaurants all will the same sort of theme. There was a sign post on one shop detailing its opening times and it went something like ´ I usually open at 8am, but sometimes 9 or later, or sometimes not at all. I usually close at 4 but sometimes 5 or even 6. Sometimes I don´t open at all but I´ve been doing really well lately....´. Crazy shit, I´ve taken a few photos so when i get a chance I´ll upload them onto facebook. Anyway, Nimbin turned out to be truly weird in more than one respect. At first I thought the place was awesome, a true find. But after a few strange encounters we decided it would be best to leave. The whole place is run on tourism and it has it´s own little capitalist system going on. But the people just don´t like tourists! And the people trying to sell you cannabis were proper pikies and there was definitely an air of unrest, it´d could have kicked off at anytime. So, just like I find hippydom strange at the best of times, this really proves it. The drug dealers are aggressive, the hippies hate tourists, which is irony in itself seeing as hippydom is supposed to be about peace and love but clearly its about having a little clique and building a little capitalist empire that every pretends isn´t there. Weirdos! We left promptly after a coffee but I would definitely go back to trumpton if I got the chance.
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