Byron to Brisbane
Hi all!!! firstly, thanks everyone who posted/emailed happy b-day, it was indeed a good one.I reached Byron Bay on the 6th after leaving the blue mountains. Byron is my new favourite place, (for the last month anyway). Its basically a smallish town with two maaaaaaaasive beaches, onwhich i've been a resident for the last week. I'd like to go into all the cultural details of the area and explain some the horizon broadening, mental epiphanies (spelling suggestions on message board most welcome) i've experienced over the last week but sadly there weren't any. My life has pretty much consisted of beach to bar ping pong, (my intellectual side feels most ashamed). Byron bay was named by captain cook, the guy who named practically everywhere round here. Between the two beaches lies a rocky outcrop with a large (and impressively bright at night) lighthouse. From next to the lighthouse,you can look down into the waters below and see dolphins, turtles and sting rays swimming around what is the most easterly point of austrailia. In a mad turn of activity one day, myself and a couple of guys took bikes and rode around the coast to broken head nature reserve. This was an obvious misadventure from the point of conception and inevitably on the way back the chain on my bike broke. I was stranded at a junction and left to contemplate traffic whilst waiting an hour and a half for a pickup. Some spectacular nights out occured in Byron but somehow they all seemed to end in the same place, a particularly cheesy club named 'cheeky monkeys' The place has no dance floor, prefering tables for this purpose, greatly increasing the chances of breaking ones neck or being hit by bottles hurled across the room by some big drunkards flailing limbs. By the 9th everyone was pretty worn out but we still managed a day trip to nimbin. I had to drive unfortunately because i'm now 25. This new age of responsiblility is becoming a burden already. Nimbin is austrailia's answer to amsterdam, a hippy colony consisting of one street where the use and distribution of 'canabis based products' is ignored. If technicoloured buildings, unwashed stumbling locals and being offered 'special cookies' by people old enough to be your grandparents is your bag then this is definately the place to go. We drove back, accompanied by giggling, mime bands and animal noises, making it to byron in time to see an amazing sunset over the town.Travelling north on Monday I reached Surfers Paradise. How any city can retain any self respect with this name i have no idea and duely 'Surfers' fails. The golden beach without end, flanked by highrise builings makes this look like miami, whilst retaining the feel and ambiance of blackpool with sun. We braved the beach for an hour in a sand storm but were almost buried alive.The next day heading north again i reached brisbane, from which i write. I have to say its a jolly nice place having a good collection of victorian buildings, parks and river.
posted by justplainnigel @ 1:56 PM
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