Byron Bay - 15th October

ByronCar Kilometres: 182,624

Distance Travelled: 344km

Total Distance Travelled: 14,373km

We drive down to Byron Bay via the Gold Coast and Surfer's Paradise - it's like a Spanish resort town; full of skyscrapers, traffic, surfer dudes and bikini girls... we're glad that we're just passing through, although one of the reasons that it's so busy is because the Indy Car race is in town next week, and they're busy setting up for it - Dave has a computer game moment when he drives us through the streets laid out for the race - complete with advertising banners, black and white stripy bollards and chicanes.

We find a spot to park at Surfer's, dash into a travel agents to pick up our Japan Rail passes and make a quick getaway, with a hastily grabbed tuna nori roll (me) and cheeseburger (Dave) clutched in our sweaty paws to sustain us through a few hours of bumper to bumper traffic jam while we battle to get out of town and into the relative calm of Byron Bay - it's nothing like the M6 at rush hour, but we have been spoiled by months on lovely quiet two lane roads, and neither of us enjoy the drive.

We settle into a campsite at Byron, erecting the tent just in time for a bumper storm that lashes the seemingly fragile canvas all night.Luckily it isn't too windy, and apart from a bit of flooding the tent survives - we find out later that towns just a bit further north experienced giant hailstones, high winds and worse rain, so we're glad to be where we are!However, we have noticed since Brisbane that we've lost most of our steam on the tourist front, and it's a task to force ourselves out to explore once the sun comes out.We're glad we did though, and walk up to a pretty lighthouse, and then down some steps to Australia's most easterly point on the cost, which we can confirm is very windy but has a great view of the sea and surrounding cliffs. It starts to drizzle again, so we head back into town for a supermarket shop and back to camp for a nice cup of tea.

We wake the next day to a clearish blue sky, and decide to take a day trip out to Nimbin.It's a town that tends to polarise opinions, and we've heard very mixed reviews - some love it, others hate it.The town started as a commune of hippies, who settled there in 1973 and have grown a town up around themselves.The hippies are still there, albeit that they now have a school, medical centre, bowling alley and all the other things you would expect to pop up naturally in a small town, alongside some more unusual attractions: hand painted psychedelic shop fronts, a rickety museum dedicated to everything marijuana, and a hemp embassy.

In the time it takes to walk from the car park to a cafe around the corner, we've been offered "something to smoke" more times than at the average festival, and every person of every age that passes us appears to have some form of space cake for sale - by the time we reach an elderly lady in a shopmobility scooter, we're ready to be offered anything, and are surprised when she keeps quiet... although she does have a mischievous glint in her eye.She's probably running the show.

We decide to check out the museum first, and pay our $2 voluntary admission to walk down the rainbow serpent path, past the kombi van, through various small rooms cluttered with a mixture of spiritual, legal rights and psychedelic stoner displays. The warren of rooms also includes several televisions set up with videos on loop - one shows a police video of the museum getting busted, and another is blank - and surrounded by two very confused looking curators who are trying to get it to work - there is plenty of head scratching and going off the subject, mixed in with a bit of paranoia about what caused it to break in the first place.We're not sure about whether this was intended as an exhibit in itself or was a genuine mechanical problem, but it was entertaining either way.

Next stop is the Hemp Embassy over the road, where we browse a giant book of compiled newspaper cut-outs chronicling various marijuana related events, whilst listening to two of the most intensely paranoid people I've ever heard discuss local events; again, very entertaining.We also read about the local annual festival called Mardigrass - they have joint rolling competitions and a parade - it's quite established and very organised, leaving us to wonder whether they bring outsiders in to do it for them... seriously though, we're a bit bemused as to how it all works.The town has all the normal things that you would expect too - a school, campsite, shops, a healthcare centre, and an ageing bowling alley.How the town stays fully operational we don't know.

We get chatting to one of the locals to try and find out more - he's an ex-roadie from London who came over in the 70's and stayed, although he now lives in a neighbouring village.He tells us that although Nimbin has some promising newly elected councillors, there is a strong police agenda running in the town, with full CCTV coverage and regular raids.The feeling in town is that the local campsite is being purposely run down - possibly because the area would be very valuable to developers.There are also organised gangs of younger dealers coming into town from outside, selling harder drugs and causing trouble.Since Nimbin is now very reliant on the tourist trade for its income (the tour buses rock up at about 11am, and leave at 3ish, hence the welcoming committee at the car park), the police raids, CCTV and adverse media coverage have all had their effect, and this is already leading to long term financial problems for some of the small businesses: all of the shops are rented listed buildings, and although they are currently well looked after, it would be such a shame if they became unsustainable and were left to ruin.A

fter refusing the offer of some 'special biscuits' from our new friend, we wander back to the car.We have enjoyed our visit to this little pocket of hippy Australia, and it would be such a shame if such an unusual, characterful town were left to ruin or became overdeveloped and sanitised.However, we are unsure about how fast or far the legalisation campaign will go if everyone is as stoned and paranoid as they seemed.

Back to the campsite in Byron, we whip up a cheese and onion omelette with salad and enjoy the fact that it's not raining.An Irish couple in a campervan have moved in next door; they share their white wine with us and we share our whisky with them, sitting in the doorway of our tent chatting until 1am.We're ready for bed, but they announce that they're off out drinking - how they made it into town we're not sure, although when we speak to them in the morning they are a bit the worse for wear but very cheery, and wave us off on our way to our next stop, Coffs Harbour.