NIMBIN and FRIENDS FROM ENGLAND

The next day the rain was torrential so we hired a car with our friends and drove to a place called Nimbin.It is a hippy town where the locals are trying to get cannabis use legalise. They openly deal on the streets and in the shops. The police are trying to crack down on their activities, but to no avail.

It is in the tourist book as a must see place. We thought it was very strange but well worth a visit. They kept trying to sell us "Cookies" as we walked along looking at the shops. We just kept giggling with nerves. There were a lot of sad looking aged hippies hanging around looking quite intimidating.

We only stayed there about an hour then headed off into the countryside exploring in the car. We ended up at some waterfalls.



Poor Sammie came here to Byron Bay to get some sun before she headed off home.


But they have had so much rain here that it is flooding in parts.
But we did manage to get in a few hours of sunbathing before the heavy rain reappeared.

I was in the kitchen of the YHA when I just could not believe my eyes, there standing at the other side of the kitchen was a very familiar face....Gemma Sterba from Radio Kent !!!!!!!
we just stared at each other for ages unable to believe that we had just bumped into each other like this at the opposite side of the world. It was great to see her. She is doing a three month tour in Thailand , Australia , New Zealand and China. We spent ages catching up on the gossip.

BYRON BAY

Just in case you all thought that I was the only one in this family getting the beauty treatments on this trip may I show you evidence of Sammie enjoying a well earned pedicure. She has been walking miles up and down the cliffs at Bondi and her little feet were killing her.
She then took over the responsibility of checking us in at Sydney airport for our flight to Byron Bay.(Well she does it so well and I have been thinking for myself for so long, it is nice to have someone to do it for me!!)
Both of us were blown away by just how beautiful Bondi beach looked when we arrived.



We checked into the YHA and got top bunks. Sammie just thinks it is hilarious watching me scrabbling to get up and down off the top bunks. But I do not see what is so funny!!!

We then went to a great fish restaurant on the edge of the beach called "Fish heads" and got a very tasty meal and the views over the beach were an added bonus.

The next day we went for a walk through the rainforest and up the hills to the local lighthouse with a girl called Sarah that we met in our dorm. We saw dolphins swimming off the coast at the most Easterly point of Australia on the way.
There was a thunderstorm just as we arrived at the top so we sheltered in the lighthouse museum. Unfortunately we did get drenched walking back down and along the beach ,but it was great fun.



Sammie and Sarah had a night out in Byron Bay and I stayed in and read my book.They were not particularly impressed with the nightlife.
The next day it was raining so hard that we were not able to do much. Sammie did some revision and I checked out the local market when the rain stopped.


It was full of hippie stores with handmade clothes and jewellery. And it had a very laid back feel to it. I had a nice time wandering around all the stalls.

It rained again on the Monday and we just wandered around the shops and bumped into some friends that we met in Sydney,Elly and Carolyn. They had rented an apartment and they invited us to go for a BBQ that evening.






It was torrential rain but thankfully the BBQ area was covered so we cooked the meal despite the rain.It then started to thunder and lighten and I was quite scared. But not a scared as Sammie was when she opened up one of the drawers and a big green frog stared back at her.
She just screamed and we all started screaming. When we checked the drawer a little bit later there were loads of them. And you can imagine how much we all screamed !!!!We then walked back to the YHA in the heavy rain.