Candle Factory

We also visit a candle factory in Nimbin. They are extremely clever at recycling every little bit of waste here in very unusual ways. The candles made of the drips & offcuts from other candles are some of the prettiest ones.

Nimbin

On Monday we have a day trip to Nimbin. After the manufactured, consumer friendly hippydom of Byron Bay Nimbin feels like the real thing. We're lucky enough to have long-time Nimbin resident Alan as our guide for the day & a fine guide he is too. Originally from Streatham, he was working as an accountant in London when he decided he'd had enough of the rat race, cut up his suits & ties with scissors & went on the road. It wasn't too long before he reached Nimbin. That was over twenty years ago & he's been living & working around here ever since.

Although many of our fellow travellers seem to have come to Nimbin just to get blotto on the easily available weed here, there is a lot more to Nimbin than that. Paul & I leave the rest of the mob munching on their hash cookies while Alan takes us on a tour of some of the more interesting things going on in the hills around here.

In 1973 there was an Aquarius festival held in Nimbin & many of the revellers, attracted by the beautiful location & cheap land prices decided to stay on & live the kinds of alternative lifestyles that they were so intersted in. The hills are home to many permaculture innovators & practitioners who have been living communally & virtually self-sufficiently here for many years. The Nimbin hills are also home to the Rainbow Power Company who have been designing & promoting renewable energy sources around the world for over twenty years.

Nimbin gets a bit of a bad run from the press over here because of its lax attitude to drugs which is a shame because that's only a tiny part of what is going on here. It reminds Paul & I of our visit to Auroville in Tamil Nadu. It's so refreshing to see people who want to live their lives in a different way really go for it & make it work for themselves, their families & future generations.

Bongos on the Beach

After a few rainy days in Byron the sun finally comes out for us on Sunday & we get a chance to escape our pretty awful hostel & relax on the beach. On the grass verge by the shore a group of people are playing bongos & as the afternoon wears on people start to dance along to the beat.

A Wild Turkey Chase

Paul spent some of yesterday afternoon chasing a wild turkey through undergrowth trying to get a good photo. Bless him!

Byron Bay

We've settled in at Byron Bay for a few days. It's very pretty even though it's been a little cloudy & we've had some rain. Everyone seems to walk around barefoot here & rather than dogs on strings you get dogs on chiffon scarves.

Thank God we didn't have to drive arround in this!

Byron Bay is full of Wicked vans. I think we got off pretty lightly with our Jimi Hendrix van, don't you?

And throwing them down hills

When it's my turn I try to draw emus & koalas but they make Paul's kangaroo look good so I cheat & do patterns & insects instead.

Happily when we reach the designated egg rolling hill we're not the only people there doing something a bit odd with their Easter Monday. Two kids are using bits of cardboard to sledge down the grass verge & some older boys are body boarding down it so we get rolling without shame.

It's a close call but years of practice on the North York Moors must've paid off as my egg wins the day. Monday is the only sunny day of the holiday weekend so we spend the rest of it on the beach & tonight we get the overnight coach to Byron Bay for more sun & surf.

Decorating Eggs

It's Easter Monday & in Yorkshire what you do is boil eggs, decorate them, then roll them down hills till they smash up. Whoever's eggs stay in one piece the longest is the winner. I'm explaining because everyone in the hostel thinks we're mad. Even the English people. It must just be a Yorkshire thing.

Paul picks Aussie themes for his eggs. The first is a pink, day-glo version of Sydney opera house, the second is a map of Oz & the third a kangaroo (yes, really).

Hunter Valley

It's Easter Sunday and we decide to spend the day going on a tour of the Hunter Valley wine region. We don't have the van now so we join the minibus party & try a total of 21 wines & four liqueurs plus cheese, bread & chocolate. I think we could roll home or possibly fly. Here are some pictures of our favourite out of the wineries that we visited. It's called 'Hanging Tree' because of an urban myth about three bushrangers(read highwaymen)being hanged in the grounds.

Newcastle

We're staying in Newcastle for Easter. It's named after Newcastle Upon Tyne because it's the biggest coal-mining town in Australia. It's very strange. Nearby is a town called Gateshead & we spy buses for Wallsend & Jesmond. The weather is very 'North of England' too. It really feels like Easter. It's grey & blustery but we find a baker that has some hot cross buns left so we're happy.

Gnomes

They seem to like gnomes a lot in Katoomba. Who are we to argue?

Forest

The scenery around the Blue Mountains is just great. We loved it around here.

The Three Sisters

On our second day in the Blue Mountains we take a walk to see the three sisters, a set of three rocks jutting out of the valley.