Byron Bay,

the legendary stop off on the east coast! We arrived in byron bay full of expectations accompanied by our close 'flash-packer' buddies Caroline & Barry. Byron seemed a very chilled affair whth lots of hippy'ish style to the people, shops and bars.

The first afternoon we had a stroll to the famous lighthouse where you can watch the humpback wales migrating from the cliff top. The lighthouse walk was supposed to be a short walk, and, this fact was backed up by one of our close backpacker friends from frazer island 'James', who we bumped into mid way. The walk took us what seemed an eternity and we were gasping for fluids once we arrived at the top. we didnt manage to spot a whale, not that we would of noticed, we were too tired.

Byron bay was described as a surf haven for beginners and intermediate surfers, so as usual I got excited and kept banging on to catherine about doing some more surfing.

That idea of surfing was blown out the water next morning when word quickly spread that a number of 'White Pointers' ( great white sharks, 3 to be exact) had been spotted and recorded in the bay!!! anyone who has been to byron will know its not the biggest bay and when they say there are sharks in the bay, it usually means around 50-100 yards off the beach, so surfing for now was a no-go!

To further back up the presence of the sharks, we were told of the local female surf hero who had her arm bit clean off by a white pointer just off the beach and still surfs, again, more reason to not go in!

We decided the next day to travel to the famous 'NIMBIN'.

Nimbin is a small village in the northern rivers area of the ozzy state of newsouth wales, 70km west of byron. We travelled to the rather strange hippy town on Jims 'alternative tours'!!! alternative to say the least! in the town we were amazed how many stonners we really there, backpacker stories are twisted throughout the globe but the stories of dope-heads in nimbin was spot on. People flauntin there love for the green stuff on every corner, cafes, museums and shops dedicated to the plant, heaven some would say but actually we found it funny and a poor excuse to be a drop out and smoke your life away! we visited the hemp museum and local cafe's, visited the excentric paul recher on his 32 hectre private eden estate, which was by far thee most unusual place i have ever been. Me and Barry laughed away as Catherine and Caroline were freaked out by his unusual behaviour and estate! dolls hidden in his jungle in bizzare sexual positions and talk about politics and the vietnam war eventually brought me and barry to a painfull laugh also. Nimbin has to be seen to be believed, a poor excuse for a town with nothing going on and no income apart from the money exchanged for drugs, rather sad really, but if drugs are your thing, then you would probably have the time of your life, or not if you react bad to the 'shrooms' ;-)

The next day we spent in byron again, round the beach and planning the next leg of the trip.

All in all not a bad place but nowhere near as good as it was supposed to be and we were glad to be moving on.