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.