Side note from Alexa: I have never experienced so many time changes in my life! First Boston to Phoenix, then LA, then our plane to Fiji was an hour early due to daylight savings in Fiji, then we had to fly there, then nearly every city in Australia had a different time zone (including a half hour difference in Alice springs...how does that work?!) Then there was daylight savings back home, then the bus, now new Zealand...I officially give up trying to figure out what day or time it is and I'm going back to Fiji time where it doesn't actually matter what time it is!! So my apologies for emails and messages that come in the middle of the night :-)
Ok back to Karina!! We arrived in Byron bay and in search of our hostel had a very nice introduction to the area. Multiple groups of People playing music on the sidewalks, other people dancing to that music on the sidewalks, free BBQ in the park, dreadlocks and hippie attire everywhere (shoes scarce). We realized we were going to like this place.
The area is very small, just like 3 main streets but a lot of shops and bars/pubs. For such a laid back hippie place the food was sadly still very upscale and expensive. So back to a diet of noodles and bread.
We stayed at nomads which is another big hostel chain in Australia, very nice! When we arrived our room was empty but it had a balcony! Yes!!! So we went out to find dinner and explore the town for a bit. When we returned the room was still empty so i thought it was going to be pretty dull in there. We left to shower and change and returned to the party in our room! Woohoo! We had already bought a box of goon and a group of 3 Australians arrived with their "eskie" and when we asked if we could out our goon in it they were very impressed with our assimilation to the lingo! Our new family also consisted of a nice girl from Montana who had never seen the ocean before and 2 crazy/hilarious Irish doctors! (who we later realized werent actually stayinh in our room...took Alexa 24 hours to realize this and she kept thinking the Australians were Irish and just met today. It was a very confusing night!!) This is why I love traveling! After some drinking on the balcony, trying and failing to teach the group a few different card games we decided to hit the town. We suddenly went from a group of 2 to 8! I almost forgot how much Aussie and Irish like to drink and share and was the victim to a few too many Jäger bombs (will help explain what's next)! The music was great tho and we danced it up till closing! Then someone (still not sure who) had the great idea of hitting the beach! It was still pretty warm out and the water was calling us so Alexa and I ran into the water to get our toes wet which was great fun. The Aussies took it one step further by stripping down to undies and running in... So, when in Rome right?! We had the best swim which wasn't too easy between the big waves and strong current but it is definitely a night and experience I will never forget :)
Alexa here -- don't worry parents, no jellyfish! Or sharks! Well maybe there were but we survived. Also, they aren't kidding about the rip and current...solo strong! Not necessarily a rip that pulls you down but you have to swim really hard to stay in one spot.
Anyways, we then brought most of the beach back to our room via sandy clothing (still finding sand everywhere a week later!) and had a well deserved nights rest.
Sat: the night before we discussed with our newly acquired Aussie friends a day trip to Nimbin and they wanted to go too, and, even better, had a car to take us in!! Felt like real people (vs backpackers) for a change :)
Ok family...to the dismay of our friends, this blog has thus far been pretty PG. So, to give the people what they want, we're about to spice things up a little here. We figure were old enough to share these stories with our parents without getting in trouble and you all lived through the '70's so why not. Stop here if you don't want to hear!
To be honest, the whole point of Nimbin is that it's this little hippie village lost in time in the middle of these hills and you can buy cannabis cookies there. (alexa here...weed!!) We thought it was legal (Amsterdam style) but turns out its not, they just don't care! When police do enter the area everyone yells out "bicycle" and the illegal activity is paused. So we got there after a long winding drive, had some lunch, and wandered. It's basically one street, not very long. We passed a sweet older woman knitting who said "cookies! Cookies!" when you walk past. We showed interest and she said "come to my office it's behind this tree!!" and we each got ourselves a $5 cookie. The town had all kinds of marijuana paraphernalia and decorations, pretty cool! Bringing out our inner hippie!!
After our adventures in Nimbin, we headed back and took a much needed nap. For our last night in Australia (it's bringing a tear to my eye just thinking about it!!) we went out with our new friends to a place called Cheeky Monkeys and danced the night away on a dance floor made out of picnic tables!! We finished the night back on the beach finishing the last of our goon. Unfortunately it was too cold to swim that night so we huddled on the beach instead and retold our stories of our Australian adventures.
The next day we checked out nice and early and wandered around the town some more. We finished the last of our food and headed to the beach to test out our cookies. They weren't as strong as everyone said they were but nonetheless Karina and I enjoyed some life discussions and went for a swim in the ocean. We realized just how strong the current was...guess we hadn't noticed the night before! I learned how to blow water out my nose instead of having to hold it every time I dunk, thanks Kar! In Byron there is a lighthouse that is the most eastern point of Australia and the first to see the sun each day. We were too lazy to walk to it but we could see it from where we were, pretty cool! We've now been to the most western, southern and eastern points of Australia. Sweet as!
Our bus back to the Sydney airport didn't leave until 11pm so we spent the rest of the day showering, packing and running last minute errands. It rained on and off all evening of course...why should our last day be any different!
Our bus was fine, slept on and off most of the way and had some strange drug-induced dreams but we made it to the airport safely and killed a day there before boarding our flight to New Zealand!!!
We had an amazing time in Oz...met some incredible people and saw some amazing places...hopefully we'll get back there someday! Thank you to everyone who helped make our journey unforgettable!!
Next stop: Christchurch, NZ!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment