Thursday morning I woke up early for no good reason and pretty much just rolled around in my bed for hours thinking about Bob Saget’s greatest television moments. Unfortunately, I could only recall about two or three and they all occurred on “Entourage”, so it ended up being a slow morning in the thoughts department. Since Kiel was again showing no signs of life, it was up to me to make things happen. I hit up the tour desk and booked us on a couple of excursions. The next morning we would be going on an all-day bus tour to a town called Nimbin, which is basically like the Amsterdam of Australia but on a much, much, much smaller scale. I also booked us into a surfing lesson for a couple of days later, as I had been now been in Australia for a year and had yet to touch a surfboard! Very un-Australian, I know. When Kiel finally rose from his stupor, we made our way down to the beach to take in the beautiful 25 degree weather and beaming sunshine. We set-up shop with our IPod and speakers like a couple of Portuguese soldiers and just took the day in. Regrettably for Kiel, he didn’t listen to me when I tried to warn him about the strength of the Aussie sun and how different it was from Canada. I offered to lather him up (sickening image, I know) with sunscreen to which he refused and in turn paid for it the rest of his vacation with the nastiest burns this side of “Backdraft”. I’m not exaggerating when I say his back was fire-engine red! After working on our skin cancer, we ended up spending the rest of the day and night chilling in the hostel, doing such productive things as playing Pac-Man and ping-pong. And then it happened...After five nights of straight partying, Kiel finally crashed and went to bed at 8:00pm without a single drop of beer or wine. I must say, it was an impressive run, but for someone who was claiming he was going to party for twelve nights straight, well let’s just say shit was weak! After Kiel and all the three year-olds around the world went to bed, I ended up hanging out and having a few bevos with some Dutch dude who claimed that his friends called him “Sanchez”, despite the fact that he was whiter than Casper. In addition to his peculiar nickname, he also happened to be a former semi-professional “Call of Duty” of player. Take in to account the fact that he was major pot head on his way to work in the weed capital of Australia, and you have yourself one interesting night of conversations.
The next morning, Kiel had to wake up bright and early (and he actually did), as it was time for us to do the epic tour to the town of Nimbin. What is a Nimbin you ask? Basically, it’s a town located a couple of hours inland from Byron Bay, where people are allowed to sell marijuana pretty openly and the coppers turn a blind eye to it. It’s the only such place like this in Australia, and a once dying dairy town now has a thriving, yet still technically illegal industry, based around shady drug dealers and hemp shops. We had arranged to go on “Jim’s Tour”, which features an amazingly knowledgeable hippy dude and bunch of people in their twenties and early thirties out for a day to get baked and ride around on a school bus listening to the likes of Afroman and Led Zeppelin. The first stop of the morning for our bus of thirty or so people was a liquor store for everyone to load up on beers for the long day ahead. Always a good call before 10:00am! Following a pretty lengthy drive and some crazy tunes, we rocked up to the town of Nimbin which was for lack of better words a one-street town. Everyone piled out of the bus and went their separate ways for an hour or so. Almost immediately upon descending into the town, Kiel and I were harassed by dudes trying to sell us their product. We elected to check out some of the hemp/bong shops first before deciding to pick-up off some guy outside a pub who looked like he hadn’t showered in a few days. On the main drag we also encountered an old Aboriginal woman selling “special cookies” at a rate of three for $20, which was another purchase we just couldn’t refuse. After downing our cookies and seeing all the non-existent sights in the shithole that is Nimbin, we made our way back to the bus and were headed on our way to some nature spot to chill out for a bit. At least that was the plan, until about half-way there the bus driver had to pull over because some dude in the back of the bus started tripping out like mad! He was pouring water all over himself and saying, “I’m that guy aren’t I”!? Golden moment number one! After calming him down, the bus got back on the road, but was forced to pull over a few minutes later when said dude had to get out of the bus and started puking on the side of the road in plain sight of everyone. Golden moment number two. Naturally, I took this as an opportunity to take some funny pictures of him. After vomiting like mad, Captain Trip-Out then decided to lie on the road in front of the bus. Golden moment number three! Eventually some of the other passengers managed to scrape him up off the middle of the highway and he ended up spending the next five hours KO’ed on the floor of the bus. With the drama all sorted out, it was time to relax and kick back, so our driver Jim took us to a small lake/nature park (with a great history lesson on the way) where he treated us to a delicious lunch. Then again, I’m pretty sure anything would’ve been tasty at that point. Our last stop on the day-long dube-cruise was at a big waterfall with a swimming hole, where Jim encouraged everyone to jump in and go for a swim. Kiel, decided to go for a dip, while I opted to stay high and dry. Boo yaa! It was around this time that I thought to myself that letting a bunch of people who’ve been using cannabis all day jump off big rocks into a deep, murky pool of water is probably not the safest thing to do. But, on the other hand Jim’s been doing the tour for a long time so what the fuck do I know?! After returning back to Byron Bay around dinner time, we hit up the Subway for some eats and then got back on the nightly alcho-express. This was naturally followed by a visit to Cheeky Monkeys, where Kiel proceeded to dance his pants off, act like an idiot, and somehow still get the attention of people of the opposite sex.
As expected, the next day we slept in until close to lunch time, which thankfully for us, all other six people in our room appeared to have the same agenda. Once we got our act together and had a little chow, it was time for our surf lesson in the afternoon. Kiel and I were joined by a chick, Katelin, who was staying in our room and felt the need to make us look like the amateurs of all amateurs. Once the instructors rounded everyone up from their accommodations in the surf bus, they took us all out to a beach called Lennox Head, which was a bit outside of Byron Bay. The reason for this was that not only was the beach a bit quieter, but apparently had better waves for rookie-biotch surfers (see: Brent). After getting our group of fifteen or so all stretched out and semi-comfortable with our boards on dry land, it was time to ride the waves like a champion. At least that was the plan. Mostly what followed was a series of wipe-outs and me drinking loads of salt water. A few times I was able to catch a wave, although most of the waves were about the same size as the ones you can generate in your bathtub with a solid fart. It was a pretty shameful affair, and Kiel even had to retire early due to “nipple rash”. Most of the peeps in the group were only able to get a decent ride when the instructor’s helped with a push-off at the beginning, although that usually didn’t work either. For the most part it was just a bunch of stunned tourists, acting like, well stunned tourists. After deciding the life of pro surfing wasn’t for us, Kiel and I headed back to the hostel to get our dinner and drink on (something we could turn pro in). This was again inevitably followed by our third visit to Cheeky Monkeys in four nights and the official death of my liver and wallet.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment