- A Year, A New State -

On New Years Day we wasted no time to hit the road and set off down the coast. Driving through Coolangatta - Tweed Heads marked the cross over into New South Wales. After some exploring we decided to head inland and camped at Mount Warning, which is very similar to the volcanic cores making up the glass house mountains on the Sunshine Coast. It rained over night and after drying out a little in the morning we pushed on to visit the Hippie or "Alternate Lifestyle" Capital of Australia.

Nimbin was an eye opener. After finding a park for the car we called in to a cafe, ordered coffee and sat a while to take in the atmosphere. The main street of town was a buzz with activity, bright coloured clothing, people with their hair in dreads, marijuana leaves on posters, pet dogs following their owners. Even though we were expecting this scene, it was still quite surreal being amongst it. We waked around, calling into the local museum, complete with Combie vans and posters promoting the right the use marijuana, the benefits of smoking the plant and free postcards warning users of police tactics at road stops. Next we called into a souvenir shop, wanting to pick up a bumper sticker for the car...upon handing the lady the money she says to me... "cookie or chocolate?" it took me by complete surprise... i have to ask her to repeat.."cookie" i hear myself say. Before i know it i am paying $15 dollars for 3 "cookies". It was quite amusing being handed a brown paper bag.. and back on the street passing fellow tourists with their "brown paper bags". We continued to check out the other shops in the main street soaking up the atmosphere.



(I wanna be a hippie.....)

We decided to push on to Lismore, a small country town about 30 mins from Byron Bay. It was here we decided to look for work. The caravan park was reasonably price and a town of 30,000 we thought it wouldn't be too hard to pick up work. So the search began... almost 2 weeks later, after applying for almost every job in town, we still hadn't secured an interview let alone getting work!

We soon decided it would be best to hit the road and continue our trip through its entirety back to Perth. We planned a rough route and soon set off to Byron Bay to begin the last leg of the journey.