Our travels around Australia
After lunch we head to Nimbin, which is about an hour's drive inland. Steven's sister Sarah lives there, and we will stay for the night. In. I google Nimbin and find The Big Issue I read an article that said this small town was originally a cattle droving stop between Lismore and Murwillumbah, then it was settled by dairy fanners. In the early 1970s only 350 residents kept the place alive. Then in 1973 there was something called an Aquarius Festival. More than 10,000 young people and hippies smoked pot, listened to rock music and took their clothes off. After the two- week festival some stayed, bought land, and the population of Nimbin doubled. Not only does the area seem frozen in time, but the people also who live there do too. It' s where the children and grandchildren of the original hippies live. Over 10,000 people populate the communities of Nimbin's surrounding hills. One of them, a 29-year-old called Donovan, is interviewed in the magazine: "It's a dream of mine not to drive a car. When visiting friends, I'd rather walk for three months, stay for a couple of months, then walk back."
"Is your sister one of those hippies?" I ask Steven."She's alright," he reassures me. "You'll like her. It should be quite an experience for you to stay there.""Does she live in one of those communes?""Yep."" Do the y have water and electricity and things like that?'' "Yep."
The hills are as green and steep as I've seen in a Swiss summer. The car fills with the smell of freshly mown grass. I've never noticed so many shades of green, from light, almost lemon green to nearly black. Once in a while there's a house, white and bright as a washed mushroom.
We take the exit to Nimbin. Then we tum left, onto a dirt road through the bush. We stop at a huge Queenslander-style house with enormous verandas filled with potted plants. A rusty Volkswagen van with crocheted curtains is parked at the side of the house. A man is sleeping in a hammock. A couple of dogs run around and there are some parrots in a cage. "Oh, my darling, my dude!" Sarah walks down the stairs and hugs Steven as he gets out of the car. "I'm so happy to see you again. And to meet you, darling." Her dark brown eyes seem to be a world in themselves: two islands under a sky of green eye shadow surrounded by a border of black mascara and kohl. Her hair is a forest of reddish dreadlocks. A cockatiel sits on her shoulder. Around her neck is a leather lace with green and white beads. She wears a white blouse in cheesecloth with wide sleeves and embroidered borders, a pair of pink batik trousers, and a ring on one of her toes, no shoes. Her smile is genuine and her hug strong.
The hills are as green and steep as I've seen in a Swiss summer. The car fills with the smell of freshly mown grass. I've never noticed so many shades of green, from light, almost lemon green to nearly black. Once in a while there's a house, white and bright as a washed mushroom.
We take the exit to Nimbin. Then we tum left, onto a dirt road through the bush. We stop at a huge Queenslander-style house with enormous verandas filled with potted plants. A rusty Volkswagen van with crocheted curtains is parked at the side of the house. A man is sleeping in a hammock. A couple of dogs run around and there are some parrots in a cage. "Oh, my darling, my dude!" Sarah walks down the stairs and hugs Steven as he gets out of the car. "I'm so happy to see you again. And to meet you, darling." Her dark brown eyes seem to be a world in themselves: two islands under a sky of green eye shadow surrounded by a border of black mascara and kohl. Her hair is a forest of reddish dreadlocks. A cockatiel sits on her shoulder. Around her neck is a leather lace with green and white beads. She wears a white blouse in cheesecloth with wide sleeves and embroidered borders, a pair of pink batik trousers, and a ring on one of her toes, no shoes. Her smile is genuine and her hug strong.
"Come on in, my brother and sister." She holds Steven's hand and I follow them into the house. "Meet the rest of my family. Andy, Gerald, Kathy, Peter, Ken, Loraine, please meet Steven and uh... "" Karin."Men and women are sitting on the floor around a low, wooden table. Gerald puts up two fingers and says: "Peace mate." His beard is decorated with colorful beads. Peter is playing the didgeridoo. Two children hang around, dressed in nothing but their undies. I smell musk and patchouli. One wall is papered with the covers of books. Purple and silver tapestries are on another. There are white clouds on the ceiling, mobiles in front of the window, some rocks and wood which serve as a table, a huge ashtray made of clay and filled with innumerable cigarette butts.
Sarah brings lunch. Garden salad with pine tree nuts, a vegetable pie and a pot of green tea. A couple of the others join us. A little girl hangs around Steven's neck.
"The pie has carrot and lentil, all from our own garden. As far as food is concerned, we are almost self-sufficient," she tells us. " We have plans to start running the tractor on vegetable oil by setting up a conversion unit.Might interest you, Steven. I'll show you around tomorrow"I am not good at sitting cross-legged and 1 can ' t seem to get comfortable. Someone gives me a cushion. A little worm crawls out of what's left of my salad. I read a book to little Luther but by page four he has had enough. "You talk funny," he says.
After lunch Sarah takes me into the yard. She shows me the beds where pumpkins, tomatoes and corn grow. Some are ready to harvest.Pineapple, passionfruit, pawpaw, they all thrive here. She gets me a banana. Some of the plants look familiar. I grew them as houseplants at home, but they were nothing compared to what I see here. A weeping fig the size of a tree. An azalea as big as a tree. Majestic yuccas in flower. How many ferns died in my bathroom? Here they grow like weeds.
Behind a fence I see an old goat and a cow. In another area are some chickens, turkeys and a peacock. Sarah takes the blanket off a cage and a crow wakes up. The bird's wing is broken. They found him on the road and are trying to heal him."We all look after the garden and the animals; even the children have their job. Otherwise, we can do what we like and what we're good at. Make music, pottery, cook or teach yoga. I'm still in a learning cycle. I try lots of new things: astrology, Reiki, aura-reading, hypnosis, you name it.""So, what did you do before you came here?"''1 used to work at the Casino in Queensland, in the office. I scheduled the croupiers. lt was terrible. When I got the job, they gave me a full A4 page with the dress code, even though I would never go into the casino itself or meet any clients. Skin-coloured pantyhose, no matter how hot it was, a dark blue skirt that had to cover my knees, a blouse, beige or white, long sleeves, buttoned up and long hair has to be pinned up. Blush and mascara, compulsory ry. Eye shadow and lipstick, forbidden. lt wasn' t just a fo1mality. Once I was called into my boss's office. Someone had made an official complain t because I didn’t' t wear foundation. So, I put it on my face, day in, day out. Then I thought: who is crazy here? I resigned when I was offered the opportunity to live here."
"I can't imagine you in a business outfit. But your income, I mean, without a regular income where do you get money to buy things. Tools and clothes and fuel?""Just relax darling. You seem so tense." "Well, you do need money, don't you?""We're on the dole. And we sell stuff. Easy, isn't it? Not just pot as most people think. We are creative here, darl, I tell you. Lenny found a way to make money out of our garden waste. She makes pulp, dries it and presses it into paper. She sells her notebooks at the Sunday market in Brisbane and does good business. Ken does tarot readings. He's an expert. He goes there as well. You should ask him to do a reading for you.""Creative with Cork, is that one of yours too?"Sarah smiles. "You think we're weird, hey? Oh well, I thought the same when I first came here. But there're many good points in living like this, though it's not all sunshine and peace. For a lot of people living in Nimbin, Byron or Mullumbimby, it's the last option: they expect to find the answers here, a solution to their problems. For a while we had the highest suicide rate in Australia, did you know that? This is not paradise, darl. And I guess it is getting worse. More and more stealing, fighting, you name it. But still: I like it. It is quite an experience to live here."
After lunch Sarah takes me into the yard. She shows me the beds where pumpkins, tomatoes and corn grow. Some are ready to harvest.Pineapple, passionfruit, pawpaw, they all thrive here. She gets me a banana. Some of the plants look familiar. I grew them as houseplants at home, but they were nothing compared to what I see here. A weeping fig the size of a tree. An azalea as big as a tree. Majestic yuccas in flower. How many ferns died in my bathroom? Here they grow like weeds.
Behind a fence I see an old goat and a cow. In another area are some chickens, turkeys and a peacock. Sarah takes the blanket off a cage and a crow wakes up. The bird's wing is broken. They found him on the road and are trying to heal him."We all look after the garden and the animals; even the children have their job. Otherwise, we can do what we like and what we're good at. Make music, pottery, cook or teach yoga. I'm still in a learning cycle. I try lots of new things: astrology, Reiki, aura-reading, hypnosis, you name it.""So, what did you do before you came here?"''1 used to work at the Casino in Queensland, in the office. I scheduled the croupiers. lt was terrible. When I got the job, they gave me a full A4 page with the dress code, even though I would never go into the casino itself or meet any clients. Skin-coloured pantyhose, no matter how hot it was, a dark blue skirt that had to cover my knees, a blouse, beige or white, long sleeves, buttoned up and long hair has to be pinned up. Blush and mascara, compulsory ry. Eye shadow and lipstick, forbidden. lt wasn' t just a fo1mality. Once I was called into my boss's office. Someone had made an official complain t because I didn’t' t wear foundation. So, I put it on my face, day in, day out. Then I thought: who is crazy here? I resigned when I was offered the opportunity to live here."
"I can't imagine you in a business outfit. But your income, I mean, without a regular income where do you get money to buy things. Tools and clothes and fuel?""Just relax darling. You seem so tense." "Well, you do need money, don't you?""We're on the dole. And we sell stuff. Easy, isn't it? Not just pot as most people think. We are creative here, darl, I tell you. Lenny found a way to make money out of our garden waste. She makes pulp, dries it and presses it into paper. She sells her notebooks at the Sunday market in Brisbane and does good business. Ken does tarot readings. He's an expert. He goes there as well. You should ask him to do a reading for you.""Creative with Cork, is that one of yours too?"Sarah smiles. "You think we're weird, hey? Oh well, I thought the same when I first came here. But there're many good points in living like this, though it's not all sunshine and peace. For a lot of people living in Nimbin, Byron or Mullumbimby, it's the last option: they expect to find the answers here, a solution to their problems. For a while we had the highest suicide rate in Australia, did you know that? This is not paradise, darl. And I guess it is getting worse. More and more stealing, fighting, you name it. But still: I like it. It is quite an experience to live here."
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