Highlights of Nimbin

Wow. Nimbin…it seems like it was so long ago…and well, it has been over a week!! A lot happens around here in a week, you know! I go from full-on metropolis to complete laid-back hippie community to gentle-waved beaches where I learn to surf…to the world’s largest sand-bar island (fraser island) where I have a face-to-face-off with a dingo!!! But I am getting a head of myself as I haven’t updated my blog in over 10 days (yes, I know, I know!!) and there is so much to share!

So going back to Nimbin…the total hippie hangout about 70Km from Byron Bay where the selling and buying of dope is legal due to some precedent police behavior during the Aquarius music festival in 1973 (they didn’t arrest the 5000 folks that were obviously smoking marijuana at this festival and so I guess in Australia, there is some legal loop-hole that allow historical precedence to over-rule current laws (hey, law-folks, any “special” wording for such practice of law?—grandfathering??).

Tucked away at the north-western edge of NSW, the scenery around Nimbin reminds me of Spain or Vermont with rolling hills and occasional massive mountains standing like green giants against the blue-skies. This area is also known for the principle cultivation of macadamia nuts.

So in Nimbin, there are “lifestyle” folks that will offer you a variety of marijuana products, from bush-weed to hash to hydro (indoor and outdoor). The prices seem quite cheap all things considered (A$20/3.5g of hydro, A$50/10g of bush-weed).






At one point when I thought there was a reggae party going on in the back of the Nimbin Museum, so I followed the music and found myself face to face with a beat-up station wagon, pumping out the music! As I was taking photos of the vehicle, an older-hippie-lady whispered to me: I have some really “strong” marijuana brownies for A$7!

I had to laugh! I have never in my life gone anywhere where selling and buying and/or smoking of dope on the street was “legal”!!! I mean, Amsterdam is in a league of its own, but Nimbin really topped it all!

On the way back from Nimbin, we stopped in some fabulous gum tree forest (one of 30 varieties of eucalyptus trees)…these trees grow to enormous heights…as you can see for youself:


And probably one of the highlights of my wild-life sightings so far, was the ECHIDNA (one of two species of monotremes—half mammalian, half reptilian as it lays eggs and suckles its young!). his/her face can be traced with the beak-like snout…it resembles a porcupine with all of its spikes and it appears almost “cute”: