One side trip worthy of mention was my daytrip to Nimbin, a little town in the mountains about an hour from Byron. Another one of those little towns those resourceful hippies invaded in the 70s, its retained a lot of the alternative culture, including a generous toleration of behaviour usually frowned upon by law enforcement agencies around the world.

I booked a daytrip with Jim's Alternative tours, who picked me up from Art Factory in an average looking coach. Once aboard, however, the stereo was cranked up, as Jim provides a soundtrack to accompany the day long tour (at first, classic rock and psychedelica, soundtracks to Easy Rider and the Big Lebowski), along with a little bit of narration about places along the way. The first stop was Lismore, where we were invited to grab a couple of beers for the bus. Done. Then it was on to Nimbin, located in the mountains west of Byron. It is a crazy little town, full of hippies, tourists, dirty backpackers, and reprobates. The main drag is lined with cafes, herb, clothing and art shops, lots of colour and a bit of seediness to give it some edge. Incense everywhere. Ate some cookies I got from a nice old lady, but they made me feel kinda funny.

One place of note was the Nimbin Museum. Looks like it was a house (squat?) at one point, but now is made of several rooms covered from floor to ceiling with a collage of paintings, surreal sculptures, inscriptions, and newspaper articles. I wandered through to have a look, but with only an hour and a half to spend in Nimbin itself (damn tours!), I could only have a superficial look around. I'd come back just to spend a few hours in the museum.

However, it was back on the bus, the crew on the tour much less boisterous than they'd been at the outset of the trip. I'd mentioned previously that Jim had set up a soundtrack for this tour. About a half hour outside of Nimbin, he pulled over, and told us that the next ten minutes of the ride were choreographed with some music he'd picked out, and that it may be a little intense for some. He then pressed play, and "One of These Days" by Pink Floyd started up. Threw the bus into drive, then starts careening down a mountain road. The tune has a slow build, then kicks wide open about two minutes in, at which point the bus pitched forward down a huge hill, cliffs on one side. Finally, as the last few seconds of the tune died out (5:22), we gently flattened out, and reached the end of the road. Nicely done. The next tune was Bob Marley reassuring us that "Everything gonna be alright", which carried us to a little farm, and we disembarked with the lyrics "Take a load off...."

The farm was run by Paul, a wild-eyd, long-haired dude who looked every minute of the 28 years he'd spent in the Numbin area. He'd purchased the farm upon his arrival years ago, when it was a flat grazing plain. Since then, he'd hand-planted (some say obsessively so) lots of native trees and bushes, as well as some non-native sub-tropical species. To look at the dense greenery around me, it was hard to imagine it had been an open field three decades ago. Paul's work has even been officially recognised, as the farm has been declared some sort of heritage reserve. We were free to wander around, so I found a little spot by a pond and chilled out. After who knows how long, I heard an engine start up, then realized I couldn't hear anyone talking. Egad, the bus! I quickly gathered my things, and made a bolt for it, only to realize later that I had likely left behind my clock (yes, another one - and replaced with a real crappo) and shades. Kinda poetic, I think.

We then were shipped to look at a waterfall (Minyon) for a bit, and then dropped back at our respective hostels, but not before Jim giving us a little spiel about challenging oppressive ideas and governments, and having the courage to express our own ideas. Although I'm not one for day tours (I don't like the time restraints), this one was planned out well, really interesting and informative, and Jim was quite personable. Greyhound drivers could perhaps take a page from this guy's book, though to be fair, their destinations aren't nearly as fun.