Psychedelic Nimbin

.
Nimbin!!! Nimbin was this psychedelic town about an hour from Byron Bay. In the 70's, a major Australian student union threw a huge folk festival called the Aquarius Festival. It was reminscent of Woodstock...Free love, anti-war activists and the consciousness movement. Anyways after the festival, all the hippies caught on that the land was cheap so they moved into Nimbin and started a community.

Anyways, that's how the quirky little town that it NImbin came to be famous for hippies and pot. You step off the bus and there's people asking you if you want "cookies" ;). Haha. We went into this shop and the dreadlocked shopkeeper says to us "have a pipe of this. it's friendly, I promise". Haha. There's also a really cute museum there that is really awesome. Paper mache and murals throughout twisting hallways, low lighting, egg beaters and ties on the ceiling, covered in cob webs. Really interesting town! Heaps of crystal healing shops and stores like "High Happy Herbs". Haha. Anyways yeah Nimbin was a really really cool place! It's worth the hour drive.

Ummm well I don't wanna ramble on too much about Nimbin so that's it.

<3

More Noosa then to Brizzy and Byron

So we ended up spending an extra night in Noosa after having met these really cool people! Zenith and Curtis have been some of the nicest people I've met on this trip. We just kinda walked up to them on the street while Zenith was busking, playing guitar with his dog, Roxy wearing a nappy. The dog was wearing a nappy, not the guy. Haha so we struck up a conversation and ended up hanigng out with them for aw hile that night, and again the following night. Noosa was quite nice but I never did get that surfing lesson in. Also, the hostel was super expensive and there were SIXTEEN people in our room. THE RAIN IS FOLLOWING US.
So we did Brisbane next. We stayed in this hostel called the Yellow Submarine which was this ramshackle little house with creaky stairs and writing all over the walls from people who had stayerd there and fell in love with the place. It was an okay hostel. We met some nice French people (There are so many french people in Brisbane) who we played cards with most of the night. Brisbane is cool because the town is built on a river that snakes through the city sdo there are lots of beautiful bridges (that I can't take photos of because I forgot my damn charger in Sydney). It's also really cool because the museums and art galleries are all free. Every backpacker I spoke to said that Brisbane was boring and I know why they said that. They said that because it's nightlife is a bit more relaxed than say, Sydney's. Personaly, I don't consider Brisbane boring at all. IN fact, I quite liked it! While we were there we also went to the movies and wandered all around the city. We must have walked 20km. We got lost heaps of times but yeah we got to know the city just a little bit.
So now I'm in Byron Bay for a night at this groovy (huge) hostel called the Arts Factory. It's got a cinema and restaurant and recorrding studio - yeah, it's that big. Then tomorrow I'm headed to Nimbin (the Woodstock of Australia) and then taking the overnight bus to Sydney tomorrow night.
So I guess that's my trip of the Australian east coast. What's next??? I dunno!!!! What I do know is that nothing will be next if I don't get a job. My account balance as of today is $150.00 which is part of the reason I'm only spending a night here in Byron. EE! Anyhow I guess that's it. I'll make another post once I get to Sydney about NImbin, which should be really interesting (read: psychedelic).

SEND MOTHER NATURE YOUR RAIN RAIN GO AWAY VIBES.

Thanks,

Stooph <3

Wooosa Noooooosa

So here I am in Noosa! It's nice here. It's kinda like Oakville though. Really rich and everybody seems pretty pretentious. The main shopping drag is full of boutiques that no backpacker could ever afford and apparently the guy who started Google has a summer home here somewhere.
Yeahhhh.
Wre spent yesterday praying for sun and checking out the town. It wasn't much of a day...
Today was a bit more interesting.
I went for a hike in Noosa Nation Park. It took about 4 hours to do. We saw a goanna, a koala, and lots of penises. Ahaha. We were walking along and decided to tak e alittle detour to a secluded-looking beach. We got down there and noticed that there were some naked people, which was fine. I'm cool with nakedness. But then I noticed that they were all men! which was alittle disconcerting only because we were the only women on the beach and everybody had their weiners flopping around. So we decide to peace out of there after poking a couple of jellyfish and so we're walking, trying not to make eyecontact with anyone and talking about cous cous when a man approaches us and askes the time completed in the nude. I'm fumbling around in my purse trying to find my phone so that this interaction can end but I can't find it lol. It was pretty hilarious. It's not every day that you get asked the time but a fully naked man.

Haha.

Anyways that it for today. I'm trying to get a surfing lesson in if the weather holds up but its not looking good. I think we're headed to Brisbane tomorrow. It will be weird to get to city again.

<3

Fraser Island: 1, Stephanie: 0

Sooooooo wow.
Hervey Bay was alright! We took at 28jkm bike ride along the seashore the second day we were there which was pretty awesome. We saw all these little soldier crabs. Like, hundreds of them and they move in formation which is pretty cool! But on to the cool part:

We decided to go on a three day, two night stay on the world's largest sand island, Fraser Island. It's a world heritage site and the only way to access it is using a 4 Wheel Drive becaus ethere are only dirt tracks on the island. REALLY BUMPY dirt tracks. So we assembled a group of 5 people that we met at the hostel to go over with on a self-drive tour. It was myself, Sarah, a lovely German couple, Angelika and Fabian, and a German guy, Marcel. So we took a ferry over to the island. The weather wasn't looking too good but we didn't get our spirits down....YET. The island is really nice, it's got a number of different kinds of forest ranging from tropical rainforest (think Amazon), to subtropical forest (Eucalypts and stuff?) and GORGEOUS lakes with white sand beaches and crystal clear water. There is so much I could say about the Island!! We drove around the first day and passed Moheno Shipwreck, a huge, rusted out shipwrecck on the beach. It was really eerie to be there and wonder what must have happened to it. We saw heaps of wild dingoes, which the island is famous for, and we were constantly warned by signs and brochures that they can be dangerous and we should NEVER approach or feed them. But it was really cool to see some new wildlife.
The first night was rather interesting. We were camping but it was SO SO windy and rainy. Wind and rain like i've never ever seen. I decided to sleep in the 4WD because I didn't like thel ook of the weather, and the tents that were provided to us were canvas (thus, not at all waterproof). In the middle of the night, the German couple come into the 4WD and tell me that their tent has blown away. I'm like WTF! ANd I look, and their tent is pretty much gonezo. So they slept in the truck with me. THREE of us sleeping inthe car lol.
The second day, the weather was worse. It didn't stop raining for a second. Camp that night was better since we camped illegally in a more sheltered area. I slept in the car again though because we were now down a tent lol.
The third day was alright! THe highlight of that day was seeing a HUGE, gorgeous sea turtle on the beach, making her way down to the ocean. She must have weight 150lbs and been 100 years old. She was so beautiful. Turtles are my new favourite animal.
When we got back to Hervey Bay, we were informed by the 4WD guy that that was the worst rain that the area had seen in 8 years, and the the winds were 90km/hr. And we were camping on the fucking BEACH PEOPLE! WTF!?
Needless to say, EVERYTHING I owned was drenched and smelly from being wet for 3 days.
Also, a huge pitfall of Fraser Island were the bugs. The minute you stepped out of the vehicle, you were legitimately AMBUSHED by sandflies and viscious mosquitos. It really made it a lot less enjoyable. I am so uncomfortable right now. I counted, and I got 98 mosquito bites on my arms, legs, ankles and feet in 3 days. How outrageous is that?! I even went to the chemist today to find out wtf I can do about the itch.
Anyways I"m out of time.

I hope you enjoyed living Fraser Island vicariously. At the time, I really wans't having all that much fun on account of the weather and bugs, but in retrospect, it was such an adventure and we lived through something that most Australians havn't even lived through which is cool. But I really do wish I could have seen Fraser in all it's sunny, blue-skied glory.

The End.

Love!

WTF TSUNAMI??

Soooo we rolled into Hervey Bay after a really uncomfortable 13 hour bus ride from Airlie Beach to a phone call from my sister saying "There's a tsunami warning in effect for the east coast". So I naturally shit myself and when i got to the hostel I asked about it. They said they didn't know what to expect but just to stay away from the beach. Okie dokie, done eand done. As far as I know, nothing happened so meh.
Anyways I don't have much to say about Hervey Bay because we havn't really done anything yet. Just hung out at the hostel mostly. Swam in the pool, played some tennis with our newfound German friend. Anyways, we have a group of people set to go on a self-guided Fraser Island tour which is kinda exciting. There are five of us so yeah it won't be too crowded nor too expensive. Fraser Island, I hope, will be really cool. It's the largest sand island in the world and it looks like it has some really beautiful lakes and stuff so I'm pretty stoked. BIG HOCKEY GAME TOMORROW!!!! WAHOOOO. I'm soe xcited to watch it!!! Anyways When I have more to write about i guess I'll do it then because this blog sucks.
LOVE

Whitsunday Islandsss and Airlie Beach

Sooooo from Mission Beach, where Sarah went skydiving (and where I was painfully bored), we hopped a bus to Airlie Beach which is a cute, albeit uber touristy beach town. Wew didn't stay long here, but we caught a ferry over to Long Island, an island in the gorgeous Whitsunday islands to stay there. We stayed for two nights. It is GORGEOUS there and is probably my favourite place so far on this trip. The beaches are gorgeous white sand, the water is blue and crystal clear, and the islands rise up like lush forest covered moutnains all over the place uot of the ocean. It really is a beautiful place. The beaches are lined with palm trees and banyan trees. I really never watned to leave. The place we stayed at was a big resort with a hostel in the back (out of sight from the tourists who paid ilke $500/night to stay there). So we stayed back there but we had access to all the awesome resort amenenities! Sweet! Sarah's friend Alyson works and lives ont he island so the first night we stayed with her. The island is untouched aside from the resort, as are the other islands in the Whitsundays so it really is a gorgeous sight to behold. There are bush turkeys that are everywhere, as well as heaps of wallabies, cockatiels, lorakeets and all kinds of wacky animals. Seriously just beautiful is the only way to describe it. We didn't do much while we were there. I had a bit of a headcold so it was more like R&R time, especially since it rained the entire second day! We played some scrabble, trivial pursuit, and trivia with other people on the resort. We also met some nice people from Whitehorse!!!

Anyways this is long enough.

It's off to Hervey Bay and Fraser Island, the world's biggest sand island tonight.

PEAS <3

I HATE LEECHES

WELLLLLL the last couple of days have been mindblowingly busy and filled with waterfall swimming, mountain bking, rainforest walking, platypus spotting and all kinds of fun stuff. We booked a tour with "On the Wallaby" Adventure tours where they took us up to a rainforest mountain town called Yungaburra. From there, we went and visited the most incredible strangler fig tree. It was really impressive and had these long, strong, beautiful roots. That day we swam in a waterfall that was SO COLD but so beautiful. There was a catfish called Wanda that kept biting everybody's ankles. That night, after a lot of bushwalking and swimming and learning, I was tuckered out. The hostel we stayed at was BEAUTIFUL. It had the cutest little dogs running around (big dogs) and some really quirky people.
So that night I didn't sleep very well as we were sleeping in the rainforest and there are HEAPS of mozzies in the rainforest. I woke up with a swollen half face, dunno why. So that day I was pretty busted and it was a pity because that was the more active day of our tour. We went mountainb iking through the rainforest which was absolutely spectacular. It poured rain that day but biking through the rainforest in the rain actually had some great charm to it. Our guide taught me a lot about Aboriginal culture here in Australia which was wonderful, as well as a lot about the general environment and our surroundings. BUT, as I found out, in Australia there are these sticky litle creatures called Terrestrial Leeches. Thats right. Leeches that live on the ground. There was the most beautiful bit of rainforest that we wandered through and I ended up picking up a leech or two on my feet. GROSSSSSS. Anyways yeah. The last two days have been pretty good. Tomorrow, we're headed down to Mission Beach where we'll stay foor one night basically only so that Sarah can do her skydive which she has been waiting for. Anyways, I'm out.

PEACE AND LOVE,
Steph