Jess and I had booked a
tour of Nimbin for today, a small village near Byron Bay which is famous for
being the ‘drugs capitol of Australia’. It was supposed to be even more hippy
and quirky than Byron Bay.
Our ‘Grasshopper’ tour
didn’t leave until 10am, so I planned on having a bit of a lie in, but I woke
up quite early so I ended up walking to town early and having a look around
some of the shops. I could easily buy so many crystals if I had the space in my
suitcase!
I met Jess around 9.45ish
and we walked to the bus stop to meet our tour guide. You couldn’t miss the bus
as it was huge and really brightly painted as a rainbow. We met our guide Ivan
and headed towards Nimbin at 10am. There were loads of different people on the
bus including a bunch of really rowdy Americans who were at the front of the
bus.
We saw some amazing scenery
on our drive to Nimbin through the Byron Bay hinterland. On the way Ivan had a
reggae music playlist going so it really did feel very hippy. Before we got
into Nimbin, Ivan pulled over to give us a ‘safety briefing’. He told us how he
hated the police but took no responsibility if anyone got caught with drugs,
which was quite strange to hear from a tour guide!
As soon as we stepped off
the bus you were hit with the smell of weed. Jess and I walked down the main
strip and after around half an hour we had been offered cookies and joints at
least ten times.
The whole village was
painted really brightly with rainbow shops and quotes painted everywhere. We
went into a few shops, ‘Happy High Herbs’, the ‘Nimbin Bazzare’, the ‘Hemp Bar’,
‘Mad Hattery’, ‘Hemp Embassy’ and Nimbin Craft Gallery. I bought some jewellery
and a little dream catcher. There was a very strong drugs theme!
One of the places I had
been told to visit was the Nimbin Candle Factory, which was famous for the
bright multi-coloured candles it made. They were so cool so I ended up buying a
black and pink pyramid candle.
We carried on walking
through Nimbin looking in all the shops. They had a really cool rainbow painted
retirement home, and loads of quirky quotes and ‘street codes’ on the walls.
We grabbed some snacks
from the supermarket and then headed to meet the rest of the tour group. A lot
of people were definitely stoned!
We drove for a little
while and stopped at Rocky Creek Dam where Ivan cooked us a BBQ lunch. While he
was cooking, we went on the Platypus walk to the dam. We walked through the
National Park along the Rocky Creek and then walked across the dam wall.
By the time we got back,
Ivan had cooked us burgers and hot dogs. We had to be really careful and guard
our plates, as the Kookaburra birds were known to swoop down and steal sausages
from people. It happened to one of the German girls in our group who was
sitting near the edge of the table, which was quite funny.
After we had washed up we
got back on the bus and drove to Nightcap National Park, where we walked to the
Minyon Falls lookout. It was a really pretty waterfall!
We got back on the bus
after staying there for a while and made the journey back to Byron. It was
around 5pm by the time we got there so Jess and I went to Aldi for some snacks
and headed to the beach to watch the sunset. It was really lively as it was a
Friday night, so there were loads of people there dancing and playing bongos.
We stayed to watch the sun set and then were really cold so headed back to our
hostels.
I decided to have an
early night as I had to be up early to meet Kayla. I ended up chatting to Laura
in my room for a while, as well as mum on the walk home. I re packed my stuff
as I was meeting Kayla from my topdeck tour in the morning, which I was really
looking forward to.
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