When we left Brisbane, it was cloudy, and it got dark fast. Then it started to rain. Then it started to POUR. Tim called me and told me that there was severe flood warnings for the area, and the roads were pretty dangerous, so we only drive for about two hours before we pulled over in Southport and decided to stay at a hostel for the night instead of camping. The hostel we found was one of the dodgier hostels we’d stayed in, mainly because the sheets were a little gross and the room smelled quite badly of mildew and stinky feet. But we cooked some pasta and ate on the porch with the rain and wind outside, and got a good night of sleep.
In the morning, it was sunny, and Eva drove south through Surfer’s Paradise. The landscape had definitely changed from Queensland. The area was more developed and looked much more Westernized. We didn’t stop. We started driving West to go to Nimbin, a town famous for marijuana and other such substances. Anders had spent a few days there during ISP and was offered to buy drugs three times during his first hour in the town. (He didn’t, of course.) It was a long, windy drive to Nimbin, but it was absolutely beautiful. The landscape was much different from North Queensland, but in some places the vegetation almost reminded me of home. It was very hilly, and there was a lot of forest and many farms. Everything was the wet new green after a rainstorm. Parts of the road were a bit flooded (Nimbin had been evacuated a couple of days prior due to the flooding), and we literally had to ford some streams with the good old station wagon. It was pretty bizarre. When we finally made it to Nimbin, we parked the car and got out to walk around. The town was basically just one main street, lined with hippie shops: hippie clothing stores, spiritual bookstores, organic food and supplies stores, a bong shop, music stores, and arts and crafts galleries. Almost every shop had a colorful mural or painting above it. We all did a little bit of souvenir shopping, checked out the art galleries, and then had veggie sandwiches and pancakes at a little café. We also checked out the Nimbin Museum, as cluttered as it was colorful. The museum was about eight rooms, and everything inside was painted from the floor to the ceiling with murals and quotes. Newspaper clippings covered some walls, artifacts others, and just plain weird shit covered the majority of the museum. We were offered pot several times outside of the museum, as well as pot cookies outside of the public bathrooms, but we declined all offers and got back in the car.
I drove out of Nimbin. We found a much easier road to leave the town by, so we didn’t have to cross anymore streams, and those in the backseat weren’t getting carsick anymore. However, I drove in about one million directions because every road we took to try to get back onto the Pacific Highway was closed because of flooding. We wasted so much time trying to get on the closed road that we had to completely bypass the Gold Coast, Byron Bay, and all of the other beaches in that area. (Byron Bay is where the abroad program I originally applied for was held. It’s also the eastern most point on the continent.) I was getting fairly stressed of passing through the same roundabouts one million times to try to find a place to go, so Steve took over. We determined that we had to head West in order to head South to get to Sydney by 3PM the next day. We drove past nightfall and ended up camping in Uralla. It was our last night of camping, and it was COLD. It was late Autumn at this point, and we were heading closer and closer to the South Pole. We could see our breath in the starry night, and we put on as many layers as possible to cook our last campside meal before we headed into our tents. I pulled my sleeping bag completely over my head, but was still shivering all night. I was very happy to wake up in the morning to put away our tents (for the last time) and get in the warm car, with the sun rising over the New South Wales landscape.
No comments:
Post a Comment