AHHH BYRON BAY.....probably the only other place i decided i could call home besides Coogee. it is a small laid back town...a crossover mix of surfers and hippies. after leaving Surfers Paradise and arriving in town, Claire, Sarah and I decide to go to the Beach Hotel for a Sunday session...a huge bar with a band and outside patio. def could see myself here on Sundays instead of the Palace...what a traitor I know! Sarah left the next morning to go down to Sydney but Claire and I decided to go zorbing...if you ever wanted to know what it is like to a hamster, this is probably the closest thing you could do! Basically you get in a large inflatable ball and roll down a hill...not before being carefully strapped in with seatbelts all over you. There were only 4 of us...think we got the budget version! I was the last to go and apparently I rolled the furthest whereas Claire bounced the highest. Go us! I must say it was kinda violent on my head and neck, sky and then grass every other second. The driver drove us back to town but not before deciding to have a little fun with us...in the van on the way back into town speeding through the forest, we hear something like a gunshot. He goes on to say that the Aborigines have been shooting at cars that drive past...another crack! By this point, I am wanting to dive for cover in the van but then I see him start laughing...nothing more than the van backfiring! Ahhh cheeky dude....After zorbing, we decided to walk around the town and do a little exploring/shopping. That night we meet up with the boys from Surfers at the local backpacker bar...an unexpected good night out! The next day the boys, Claire, Siobhan and Cliona and I all were on the same tour of the hippie commune known as Nimbin. We get picked up on an old school bus that barely has enough room for us to sit by a longhaired stoner with the Allman Brothers blaring through the speakers...awesome! flashback of my early hippie college days...driver gives us speeches about free love/drugs/anti-war...you get the idea. upon arriving in Nimbin, everyone is on the hunt for the "special cookies"...were not too hard to find altho i argue they were fake. with stores called bringabong and a pot musuem, you get the idea of Nimbin. After leaving town, we arrive to a very odd yank hippie's house...an hour of my life i will never get back! we pull up and i feel like i am in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie set...junk all over the yard which was "art." We then walked into a little cabin where there was a dead possum carcass hanging from the roof, a disco ball and strobe light, a cat skull, and random cartoon character dolls in compromising sexual positions...did i mention the leech on the chair? after going on a walk through the forest on his property (with more cartoon dolls randomly placed in trees) and listening him saying the most random jibber jabber ever, we finally got back on the bus! whew. Minyon Falls was the next stop on the list...so pretty! so high we could not even see the bottom of the waterfall. Quiet night in tonight as we have to leave early tomorrow morning for surf camp and then back to Sydney...YAY!!!