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Well what can I say about Byron Bay apart from the fact that i absolutely loved it and never wanted to leave! I stayed at an amazing place called the Arts Factory - check it out on google if you want an idea of what it was like. I'd booked to stay in a Tepee but I think they'd then had a group booking for it so I ended up in the Pentagon which was very similar to the tepee but had a slightly different shaped roof and great big bamboo bunkbeads inside. It was made out of thick canvas stuff so waterpoof but not so soundproof! We felt at one with the animals there more than anywhere else i've stayed! A gecko lived on the shelf across from me and the hostel cat came in most days, she didn't help much with the spider population tho - one morning the girl in the downstairs bunk woke up to find a spider had weaved its web across the front of her bunk from top to bottom and she couldn't get out! God can you imagine if that was me! We had to run out and find a man to save her incase the spider was poisonous!
They have a great cinema at the arts factory that had sofa style seating for the first 5 rows so you could take a pillow and lie out across them - went to see the devil wears prada which was pretty good although very much a chick flick! On tuesday I met Gemma from London and Catalina from Germany on the Nimbin tour with Jims alternative tours. Nimbin is about an hour to and hour and a half away from Byron and is an alternative community where there are lots of hippy's who live off the land. Full of stoners who wander the streets selling you hash cookies and the like - the police dont seem to bat an eyelid and the whole town seems to be in a 70's timewarp with everyone in flower power gear and long hair. Was such an experience - on the way back we went to a fruit farm to meet a hippy guy called Paul from San Fransisco who'd moved over in the 70's. Got to wander around his lake house (will post pics as it was lovely) eating macadamia nuts and strange fruit for free (everythings a bonus when your a poor backpacker!
The next day we met a guy called Lydon who had a camper from Wicked Campers, and two english lads, Chris and Adam, we all went off to Cape Byron Lighthouse which is the most easterly point in Australia for a look and then onto some beaches away from the beaten track - found an amazing one down a dodgy track cut into the rocks to a place called Whites beach where we were the only people - amazing.
Had a barbeque on the beach one night - most beaches have Gas BBQ plated on them which people can go and use for free so we spread the word and headed down at sunset. Plenty of people came and someone bought sparklers which made some nice photo's (for those of us that could still see straight!) Byron itself is quite chilled out and hippified too - spent many an afternoon wandering the beaches and shops and sitting in the cafe's - Gemma was looking for work and got a job wwoofing nearby (willing workers on organic farms or something like that) so after a week I decided I really must move on to Sydney for my last three days in Australia!!
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