Happy Hippies in Byron!

On our way to Byron Bay from Surfers, Makenna randomly pulled over in a small town called Coolangatta and told me to get out of the car. I had no idea where we were or why we were stopping since I knew we still had further to drive. As we started walking I saw a sign that said Welcome to New South Wales and I realized that we were at the town where you can literally straddle the line to both states. One foot in Queensland, and one foot in New South Wales. It was nice of her to stop for me because I had no idea until we were there and I will admit it was pretty cool. We did however get honked at because there is a huge rival going on at the moment between the two states for the State of Origin, which is three game series of rugby that gets quite heated. We had our nice photo-op and then got back on the road again.

Coming into Byron Bay I knew I liked the place from the second we got there. It had a very homey feel to it, reminiscent of Bellingham, with lots of cool shops and eateries along the main road. We drove straight to the beach where we found some free parking so we could get out and explore. The rest of afternoon passed as we lazily walked in and out of all the stores we wanted and Makenna showed me a couple of her favorite places. The last time she had been in Byron it was during the cyclone so it was kind of nice for her to be back when the sun was out. I found myself a really cool bracelet that I love (and later lost) and Makenna finally invested in a sweatshirt. The further south we got, the colder it was. Once it started to cool off enough that we noticed that it was getting late, we drove to find The Arts Factory, which is a hostel that I had been recommended by many people.

The Arts Factory was created back in the 60s when the real hippies decided to make a commune for travelers and it literally has everything you could think of. The best part, to park our van it was only $6 a person. Considering our financial state, that was a bargain and they had a great kitchen and other facilities including a shower. It happened to be trivia night that night and while we were eating one of the staff came around and told us we should join in. Together we decided that we should be semi-social and participate. It cost two dollars to play and I literally counted out two dollars in 20 cent pieces. Classy and typical backpacker. We didn’t have other team members so the host matched us up with a German, and two Israelis who really ended up being pretty useless as far as trivia goes. It was fun though, we got one question about America wrong and that was pretty funny. It was mainly because we misheard the question, but still. After the game we got ready for bed and headed out to our humble abode in the parking lot, which now was full of fellow Jucy vans.

The next morning we got on the road a bit late because we decided to have a proper breakfast. We made pancakes with Nutella and jam as well as some scrambled eggs. It was delicious and well worth the late start. Once we got going, we realized we had a lot further to drive than we thought. Headed south, we came to Coffs Harbor and the Big Banana which continued our photos of Australia’s “Big” things. After taking tourist photos through construction, we parked our van at the end of the parking lot and got out and made sandwiches. This also fits in the classy department but we were hungry and too broke to buy anything. We also were trying our best to use up all the food we had already spent money on. After the Big Banana, Makenna took over driving and we continued to head to Sydney.

We drove for so many hours... I am pretty positive it was our longest day, nearly 12 hours I think and we didn’t even make it to Sydney. At some point we got so tired that we pulled off and tried to find some town to sleep in. That was pretty much the most unsuccessful excursion. We ended up being unsure of which direction we were going and couldn't decide which town to drive towards. At some point we tried to stop somewhere but there was just nowhere good to park so we kept going but had to backtrack and ended up on some backwoods road that was unsealed and basically for a good half an hour drove through the most remote middle of nowhere on gravel just hoping it would put us out on the main road again. After we got back on the main road Makenna was about to lose it so I took over driving. We decided we would just keep going towards Sydney and wait until we saw one of the signs with a tree and picnic table which meant there was a proper rest stop. Unfortunately, simply because we were looking for one it was a million miles before we got to one and it was raining. Finally, I made a decision that the next place that we could pull over, we would and it happened to be an awesome rest stop about 70km away from Sydney. There was gas, a Maccas and a nice organic store as well as what we really needed, a big parking lot! So, continuing on our classy backpacker events, we found a spot away from everyone that was pretty dark and set up camp for the night. At that point we didn’t even care, we were tired and needed to sleep so here’s to camping at a rest stop!