Sydney to Cairns – Part Two

The next day we went to Byron Bay. It had a nice atmosphere and was full of hippie shops and backpackers. We parked our vans at a fortified campsite where there were lots of old people. Our lodgings that night were a cheap and cheerful twin bunkhouse close to the shower block. The triple bunk beds were a squeeze to get into.

I bought a T-shirt with ‘Byron Bay Australia’ on it. It looked proper good. Everyone was buying clothes. We went out for dinner at Hog’s Breath but they didn’t have hog. Then we went out and got pissed, as Byron Bay didn’t shut down at 6 in the evening like the last two places we stayed in.

It was a messy evening involving meat platters, cycle taxis and numerous changes of venue. The bloke in the cycle taxi ferried us all to the other side of town in two trips. Not surprisingly he was a very thin man. I asked him where he got his cycle taxi from and he said Colorado.

We watched Lindsay sing at the jam night. Two guys from a band asked her to record with them at their studio. Later on I hit my head in a minibus. Everyone was going mental and singing something called the ‘Magpie blues’. Things were getting out of control. I didn’t enjoy this night.

The next day, nursing one of many hangovers, we went for a look at Byron Bay bay. It was bloody amazing. There were great views up by the lighthouse and the council had thoughtfully employed a man to run up to our window and tell us the car park was full. We didn’t get any photos up there so the nine of us went for a swim down on the beach. Well it was more like a British seaside paddle; shoes and socks off but no funny business.

There were lots of surfers on the beach, some of whom I am reliably informed by the girls were ‘fit’. Dave spilt coffee down his new astronaut T-shirt and tried to wash it off in the sea. I remarked that it was a likely act of subconscious self-sabotage and that the T-shirt was too beautiful for this world. After those high jinks it was time to do more driving. We had to keep an appointment with the boat man up in Sanctuary Cove.

We stopped off for the afternoon in Nimbin, a famed hippie town. Psychedelic shop frontages lined the street in silent homage to the long-vanished days of flower power. Aging figures in tie-died clothing minded stalls. This town was home to those who turned on, tuned in, dropped out for good then started a small business once the drugs wore off. Signs in the street warned, ‘no dealing’. In a big city you’re never more than six feet away from a rat. In Nimbin you’re never more than six feet away from someone selling a bag of weed, apparently.

The Sat Nav had obviously been at the ‘space cakes’ and directed our convoy down a narrow and winding gravel track. Alex, who usually drives a Mini, put in a great shift at the wheel of the second minibus as the vans crawled up and down hills and through miles of forest, seemingly without end.

Eventually, our strange journey through the woods bore fruit, and we emerged on to another highway that would take us to Sanctuary Cove. Now we crossed over the border from New South Wales into Queensland. The clock was ticking and we were very late for our rendezvous. Chris, the instigator of the trip and official Holiday Dad, was starting to show his dark side to the stragglers.

We’d driven relentlessly for a few days since leaving Sydney and everyone was craving a moment to put their feet up, crack open a beverage of alcoholic content, gaze out to the horizon and give each other a contented high-five. It was with not inconsiderable excitement that we awaited our three days at sea.