1995/11 Australia trip - Nimbin |
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We had further to go on this day, as we wanted a change of scenery, so we headed further inland to the mountains around the Goolmangar River, and Nightcap Park. The scenery was soon changing, as forests and lakes were replaced by open country, cattle farms, and banana plantations. The trip took longer than expected due to a few wrong turns, but we finally ended up in the little town of Nimbin, and a quaint little campsite that we found by accident.
We’d intended driving up Mount Nadin to the radio tower, but couldn’t find the road. Even with directions from the campground manager, we managed to get lost again. Sandie drove along a narrow tarmac road which turned into a gravel track, and then to rock, with plank bridges, and foliage touching both sides until she came to a bridge that had a big drop in the middle which would probably have resulted in us getting suspended there for the night. So she backed out and tried again. This time we got the right road. Very steep and twisty but all blacktopped. We made it up there in time to see the sun go down behind the mountains, but there wasn’t much else to do.
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Nimbin (2.55) |  |
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Sandie managed to get some washing done, and I got on with this journal. At one point Sandie came into the camper with a three inch roach sitting on her back, but we managed to wrestle it outside.
The dawn chorus was deafening, with parrots and lorikeets sitting on the light poles and squawking at us. The campground manager puts out food for them and the feeder is a mass of green and gold feathers.
The town of Nimbin seems to be the hippy capital of New South Wales. Lots of enlightenment stores and books on how to raise top quality marijuana, not to mention some decidedly odd people sitting around on the sidewalks. The locals don’t seem too happy about what has happened to their town but there isn’t much they can do about it.
Tuesday, we set off in showers towards the Queensland border. This is beautiful country, green valleys surrounded by low mountains, similar to parts of BC, except of course that the plants and houses are all wrong. There are some pines and willows, but mainly it’s gum trees and palms. We followed the Tweed River down to the sea and then headed up the coast a little way.
We stopped to take a look at the Airport Opal Store on the way. It was a quiet morning for the owner (actually the owner’s son), so we got to learn a lot about opals, and he had a good look at Sandie’s rings and necklace. He advised buying opals in Australia, but not getting any settings, as labour costs are absurd. He priced Sandie’s $90 Black Hills gold ring at over $A 300 just because of the amount of work in it. (Most jewelry we had seen had been overpriced and only 9 carat gold.) Anyway, after going through his trays of opals and sapphires and his personal jewelry collection, we decided not to buy the $65000 opal, even at a discount. We did, however, come away with a couple of opals, one a black with red flames in it, the other blue-green with some red flecks. Of course, we also left a substantial donation to the Australian economy in return.