From Billengen to Byron

Eager to get on up the coast, we left Billengen after a slow morning in one of the town's cafés and a bit of browsing around the few shops in the high street. It was Monday morning and the town was a completely different place after the weekend of parties and crowds. But keen to keep going on our trip through some of the most alternative and laid back parts of the country, we headed for the quiet town of Mullumbimby. The countryside we drove through was stunning; across marshland and lakes, and alongside beaches and forests. Stopping in one small town and asking whether there was a bakery nearby resulted in a very perplexed look from the barman. Of course not! The town will probably have a second pub before they do something crazy like build a bakery. But if we wanted, we could drive 3km down the road and take a ferry across to a nearby island which sold bread!Madness!

After several hours of driving through similarly small hamlets that we came to the contrastingly larger township of Mullum – with pub, golf club, AND a rugby club.

Despite all this choice, we headed straight for the rugby club (which offered camping at the rear) where we parked the van alongside a river behind the clubhouse, and headed in for a drink. No sooner had we sat down, the power went out. In the bar, over at the camp site, and to the disappointment of the players outside: on the pitch. So in the darkness of the bar, we drank our beers and listened to stories about shark and crocodile attacks that the barman seemed to delight in telling us.

So it was with the torch on full-beam that we returned to the van, now uncomfortably close to the riverbank. And with half an eye on the surface of the water looking out for anything with more than fifty teeth, we made a quick but excellent curry which we ate whilst watching the myriad stars twinkle above this almost unpopulated corner of the world. Just like everywhere else we had been to, the people we spoke to were so friendly and genuinely interested in our stories that we felt right at home. Whether it was talking with the old guy in the caravan next to ours who had sat with his rod, dog, and reefer by the river for the last five and a half months, or being with the group of regulars in the club that we chatted to long after the lights had gone out. The small Australian towns seemed to have been populated by wonderful people that brought contagious positive energy with them that has consistently left me feeling energised and uncharacteristically cheerful. I've even started wearing bright colours!

After a night in Mullumbimby we headed straight for Byron Bay. The famously alternative end of Australia, popularised decades ago by hippy travellers, and continuing to be one of the must-see locations on the East Coast. First impressions were mixed. There were brightly coloured paintings on the walls and the roads and cool looking people walking through the streets, but just as many cosmopolitan cafés filled with solitary people on their laptops, and shops selling over-priced and unremarkable tat to tourists, as you would expect from a city which has been a popular focal point of travellers for the last thirty years.

But as we explored, the place quickly warmed to us. Many of the boutiques turned out to have plenty of bargains on offer and the food and drink seemed to range across all possible budgets, and all of it was excellent value. And when my stomach is happy, so is the rest of me!

As we arrived we received a text message from our friend Lachlan who we had last seen in Katoomba on Christmas Eve, asking where we were and what we were doing. When we told Lachlan that we were in Byron for the day, we were very surprised to find out that he was here, too – just for the day! And being an Aussie from the Gold Coast, a few hours North of Byron, we were keen to employ his services as a tour guide and point us in the direction of the best action in town. He took us to a couple of excellent pubs for beers and a massive dinner, and helped us find the best hostel in town – a place called The Arts Factory Village which is renowned throughout the travelling scene of the country.

The village was originally formed by arts students and hippies that wanted somewhere of their own in town where they could get together, and a mess of teepees, huts, and shacks built up over the years to form the 4-acre Arts Factory Village – now populated by permanent residents, travellers, 2-foot long monitor lizards, and big colourful brush turkeys. We stayed in a canvass hut known as an Island Retreat out on the creekside with verandas leading to the board-walk to the main buildings at the front and hanging precariously over the tee-tree stained water out the back. The sounds of the wildlife from this secluded place at night and at dawn made it very easily to believe that you were really hundreds of kilometres from the rest of society. The hostel boasted every form of entertainment you could imagine from pool tables, ping-pong, pinball, arcade machines (even classic table-top pac-man!), beach volley ball, plenty of hammocks and sofas to relax in and daily activities to enjoy like making a digeridoo or learning how to massage. But this time through we were on a schedule and were keen to have a look at the surrounding villages. So we stayed for a night and set off the next day for the equally hyped alternative-town of Nimbin.