Road Trip

So I just arrived back in Melbourne after a week on the road with James and Sam. We decided we wanted to drive up the east coast stopping in at a few places but mostly seeing where we'd end up. So we set off at 6am on friday and apart from a brief stop at James' place and a switch of cars, didn't stop until we reached Goulburn, a small town famous mainly for its huge prison. We camped in our three man tent there one night before moving on to find anywhere more exciting. So we drove north through Sydney to Coffs Harbour where Sam's parents lived. Didn't really get up to too much mischief there either and after a night in a bed and a good shower we moved on up to Byron Bay.

The place is famous as a backpackers town so we went out and had a few drinks before ending up at a place called Cheeky Monkeys where we witnessed a wet tee shirt competition. Something about 200 blokes cheering and staring unashamedly at 5 girls getting their boobs out freaked me out a little but we had a good time and got a few drinks down our neck. So the next morning we head up to a small town called Nimbin which is famous for its hippie culture and defiance against the prohibition of marijuana. However we were there to meet James' 2nd cousin whom he had never met before rather than taking advantage of the lax law as the bus loads of tourists came for.

So we met Jack, a 6'4 54 year old block with no shoes, long dreads and a piercing stare. After speaking to him for even a short time I began to realise this was an incredible man. He had left his home at 20 and never lived in a house since. He invited us up to his place which was a hollowed out hippie bus (right of the picture) in the rainforest with an outside lounge area covered by a sheet of tarpaulin (left of the picture).

Jack is behind the pole and that is James you can see on the right. So we spent two days here with Jack telling us about his experiences living in a teepee for 13 years, meeting Bob Marley, his younger activist years, his time spent living with the aboriginal community as well as dicsussions on politics, philosophy and society before we'd settle back down into a our three man tent set up beside the bus. Of course it wasn't all serious and we had a good laugh too but it is difficult to give justice to how fascinating, interesting and inspirational this man was. Probably what affected me the most was simply his way of life and how he lived a self sustained existence outside of capitalist society and how his values and way of thinking was heavily influenced more so by the aboriginal communities he had visited.

This is Sam walking out of the dwelling with the toilet up on the right. We spent two nights here with Jack and his partner and her 11 year old daughter before heading back down south. On the way back we hit up Byron Bay again, this time spending a bit of the day admiring the beach and the scenery before hitting the town at night.

We also stopped off again at Coffs Harbour and this time spent a bit of time with the local students on their res. It was a good night culminating in the three of us taking it in turns to push each other home in a wheelchair we found for 5km.

As you can see, James had a great time. From Coffs harbour we drove for 16 hours until we made it to James' house in Tatura. After a sleep in a bed next to Sam I got up for a lift back to Melbourne from James' auntie as he had an Aussie Rules Football match that day. The journey was made extra special by the 6 year old on one side of me and the 8 year old on the other. Thank god I brought my Nintendo DS for them to play with. Didn't stop them from hitting me with a polar bear teddy for the whole 3 hours though...