Nimbin

Nimbin is a strange place.....

On the surface its a small town/village in the heart of lush green mountains, but look furthur and things are a bit different. In the 1970's it was the venue for the Aquarius Festival, a gathering of uni students, alternative lifestylers and general hippies. So now its crowded with strange hippies, and you can't walk more than 5 meters without being asked if you wanna buy some weed/shrooms/hash etc.

Anyway, after staying a night in the strangest hostel ever (you could sleep in a teepee if you felt the urge), we drove into the mountains of NightCap National Park. It was such a horrendous drive that we got there mid-afternoon so just had time to visit Protestors Falls, which was beautiful.

The next day we drove way inland, to a place called Tenterfield. It was quite late and the accommodation options were quite limited so we ended up staying in a "cabin" in a trailer-park, how upmarket! The reason we were in Tenterfield (which is in the middle of nowhere) was to visit Bald Rock, a 200m tall lump of granite, sticking out of the ground....think small granite version of Ayres Rock.



Getting close to nature in Nimbin



We decided to build a dam in Nightcap National Park....for some reason!



Protestors Falls (it had been a dry week)



Sara was really proud of the cabin!

Murwilumbah and Mt. Warning!

After Springbrook, we drove to a place called Murwilumbah, a country town in New South Wales. Murwilumbah is the closest town to Mt. Warning (1,150m), apparently named by Captain Cook after he received a warning from the navy for crashing his boat in the area.

We arrived at the Murwilumbah YHA, a tiny hostel that offered free ice-cream every day and was run completely by just one guy, all year round. The hostel was right on the river and had been run by this guy for 26 years! We decided to spend the first day looking around the town and the second day scaling Mt. Warning. It is supposed to take about 4 hours to get up and down the mountain and we wanted about half an hour at the top. It gets dark at about 4:30pm at the moment so we needed to start the climb at about 12 if we didn't wanna be climbing down in the dark....unfortunately we got going a bit later than expected and arrived at the base of the mountain at about 1pm! So, we set off at a quick pace ready to conquer the mountain in half the time....and after 10 minutes we were dying for a breather!

But, although it nearly killed us, we got 95% of the way in about an hour. Unfortunately, we were now faced with a near vertical climb, up a rock face, with only a guide chain to hold on to! It was great fun though and the views from over 1km high were truly amazing! We got down just before it got dark and decided to spend another night in the hostel rather than drive to the next place!

The good thing about staying for a third night is that we were allowed to use the hostels canoes for free. We spent the morning paddling down the Tweed River through lush countryside, before driving onto a place called Nimbin....




The view of the Tweed River from the hostels balcony



Mt. Warning on the horizon



Some cool grafiti on a wall in the town



The views from only halfway up were amazing



The steep climb at the top of Mt. Warning involved pulling yourself up this chain!



The view across the mountains that divide NSW and QLD



The view inland



The view out to the coast



It was a sunny but cold afternoon at the top!

Springbrook National Park

We went to Springbrook National Park at the beginning of the week and decided to camp. What we didn't realise is that, due to the fact that the whole area is elevated about 900 meters, the temperature would drop to below freezing at night! Anyway, even though the nights were cold, it was nice and warm in the day and the area was amazingly beautiful.

On the first day we walked a 7km circuit to Purling Brook Falls, a dramatic 110m waterfall in the heart of the national park. Looking over the top was pretty scary as it was a long way down....and once we got to the bottom you could really see how the water had carved its way down the cliff over millions of years.

The next day we went to Wunburra Lookout, Canyon Lookout and the imaginatively named 'Best of All Lookout'. From Wunburra Lookout we could see all the way back to the coast and pick out the high-rise buildings of Surfers Paradise. Canyon Lookout had views of a huge canyon containing Twin Falls and Best of All Lookout was pearched on the highest part of the pleatu for breathtaking 360 degree views from the coast to deep into Queensland and even parts of New South Wales!

At the end of the day I walked round the Twin Falls Circuit, a 4km walk that took me past Rainbow Falls and under both of the waterfalls which made up the 'Twin Falls'. After two great days we left Springbrook National Park and headed for a place called Murwillumbah, to a hostel with free ice-cream, near Mt. Warning.....



The campsite



View from Wunburra Lookout



The top half of Purling Brook Falls



And the bottom half!



The view down from the top of Purling Brook Falls



View around the canyon



The view from 'Best of All Lookout', down to a town



The view back to Surfers Paradise from Canyon Lookout



More views of mountains from Canyon Lookout



This pic was taken from behind Purling Brook Falls



Rainbow Falls, can you guess why its called that?!



And again, took me ages to get a pic with two rainbows in!

Big Brother (again!), the Q1 Tower and Whale Watching!

I've been quite busy the last week or so!

On Monday we went up to the viewing deck of the Q1 tower, the worlds tallest residential building. The tower stands right by the beach in the heart of Surfers Paradise. The viewing deck is on the 77th floor so I thought it would take a while to reach....but it only took 43 seconds! The lift is so fast you feel like you're being pressed downwards while you ascend and has a digital readout of which floor you're on which climbs so fast that at one point we couldn't make out the numbers! The views from the top were spectacular, we could see to Brisbane on one side and Byron Bay on the other!

In the week a few of us went to Big Brother again. This time it was for nominations and instead of being in an audience of about 300, we were among about 50 people who managed to get tickets. We got to sit on the stage while the nominations were being made, and were only 5 meters away from the newly evicted housemates who were being interviewed!

Finally, I got to do one of the things I've been looking forward to the most since I came to Australia - go whale watching! Our boss at the hostel managed to get some free tickets so we hopped on a boat and cruised around the river to the sea in search of whales! On the way we were given commentary on buildings we passed on the way. This area has a lot of multi-millionaires with amazing houses right on the river. After seeing a load of houses with boats parked outside, the guide pointed out someone who'd opted for a different mode of transport...a helicopter!

Once we were out in the open sea we cruised around a bit in search of the whales. Suddenly, someone pointed out something on the horizon and we burned off in that direction. As we got closer we could see 3 shapes which got bigger and bigger, One of them spurting out a load of water from its blow hole! When we got near the whales, they swam over to the boat, dived and surfaced and even swam upside-down under the boat!

We cruised around and saw another few pods of whales, all humpback whales, and I was amazed at how big they were! After two hours I was feeling quite sea-sick so was quite happy when we finally headed back to land, but it was great to see whales!

I'm finally leaving Surfers Paradise today, gonna go to Springbrook National Park then head back to Sydney where I'll sell the car and hopefully make my way to Canada (not that I've booked anything!).




The view towards Brisbane from the Q1 Tower



The view towards Byron Bay from the Q1 Tower



Looking back over Surfers Paradise



These 'skyscrapers' used to rise above everything else



Sunset over the mountains



Me on the Big Brother stage!!



Surfers Paradise from a couple of miles out to sea



The first glimpse of whales!



A whale fin



The whale's head was huge!



The whale waved at us with its tail before diving down

Jo + Taylor's Birthday Pub Crawl!

This weekend it was Taylor and Jo's birthday so we decided to go on the mother of all pub crawls....in fancy dress! Everyone had to dress up as something beginning with their first initial. I decided to go as a smurf! As you can imagine, it was chaos.....



The two birthday girls, Jo (Jane Fonda) and Taylor (Tinkerbell)



Holly, Jo and Pav (Playboy Bunny)



Joel (Jamiriquai)



Sara (Snow White) and Ash (Air Hostess)



Me, Andy (The Amigo) and Dereck (Darth Vader)



Me and Holly (The Harlot)



Me and Nathan (The Ninja Turtle)



Me and Sara again



Nathan and Bevan (Bob Marley)



Most of us at the hostel



Everyone just before we got in the club!

Dreamworld!

The other day our boss managed to sort us out a couple of tickets to Dreamworld, a theme park with the 5 fastest rides in Australia! Its just down the road from where I'm living at the moment so was nice and easy to get to :)

The first ride we went on dropped us 120 meters in a couple of seconds, another shot us to 100mph in about 7 seconds and a third swung us all over the place! After all that excitment we spent some time watching tiger cubs & crocs at the wildlife sections, and finished the day off with icecream!



Me, Sara and Pav about to conquer the log flume...



...before the big splash...



...we got quite wet at the end!



Two big tigers



These two tiger cubs kept fighting with eachother!



The Claw!



A baby crocodile... the elastic band didn't provide much reassurance!



And some big 50 year-old freshwater crocodiles



Pav, Jen, Sara, Taylor and me with "Kenny the Dreamworld Koala"!