Australian Fruits, Instruments and Other Things
During our time around Byron Bay we took a couple of overnight trips in our camper to surrounding attractions…
Tropical Fruit World
Laura writes
The aftermath when you offer endless tasty fruits for us to try
We’re not proud of it, or maybe we are, but by impersonating a couple of rather sophisticated students we fortunately managed to save ourselves a hefty ten dollars entry fee into Tropical Fruit World. Well, every penny counts.
As far as I know, Tropical Fruit World is growing the largest range of tropical and rare fruit in the world. It’s situated on the rim of the largest extinct volcano in the southern hemisphere, and so of course, the views are just spectacular.
We started the day by sampling many strange and exotic fruits, such as jack-fruit, dragon fruit, the ice-cream bean, and the champagne fruit. Followed by even more odd-ness when the miracle fruit was presented to us. After chewing on this fruit for a few minutes your tastebuds are reversed, so sour becomes sweet. After eating a couple of these explosive berries we were having the largest sugar overdose of our lives;eating a lemon! Very odd. I want a miracle plant of my own.
Can anyone guess who’s egg this is? The other picture is me on the toy train. Everyone else is sat behind me (honest)
As well as getting to gobble-up fruit all morning, we were also learning some pretty interesting stuff (no, really). Did you know, star fruit will lower your blood pressure, dragon fruit will increase memory retention and avacado will keep your skin looking young and wrinkle free (no, it’s never too late).
Then it was off around the plantations for some joy-riding tractor fun, before plonking ourselves on the mini-train to head to the farm. I’ve never really been a fan of chickens, but this little chickie just melted me….
Nimbin
Rupert writes
Getting bored – again – with Byron Bay, we took a detour to funny little town called Nimbin. Vanessa, a wonderful friend from home, had written about the place in her fabulous guide of Asia and Australia she had written up for us before we left (the nicest thing to do ever. Thank you V!), so we can thank her for our adventures here.
Back in 1972, hippies marched into this little town, looked at the open fields and remote location and decided to call it home; I wonder why. Since then it’s shop fronts have all gone psychedelic and a Hemp Embassy has opened up to – seemingly unknown to the authourities, as it was publicised as being something to do with clothing – support the legalisation of marijuana. Far from being a chilled out place to exchange stories round a campfire, it has become a front for an empire of sketchy dope dealers.
We visited the ‘museum’, and shouldn’t have been surprised when we rounded the corner of the forth room – that was filled with yet more random selections of rusting articles from the surrounding countryside; anything from an old wheel barrow to half a VW van – and entered a room where people were openly stuffing there hands into large bags of marijuana and dealing it on the spot.
Apart from roaming the town, entering the shops selling completely off the wall bits and bobs, we tried out a local cookie – that sent us to sleep – and spent a good few hours swimming in the campsites’ pool and creating new wonders in our camper-kitchen. It rained a fair bit, which gave us lots of reading time.
We passed this awesome waterfall on the way back to Byron Bay.
Back In Byron Bay; Making A Didgeridoo
I’d made plans to meet Shimara (see below) in a couple of days, so we needed something to fill the time, and what better activity than sweating over a piece of wood together?
It started all giggles and very relaxed.
Then off came the shirt and things got serious. Working so fast we couldn’t take a steady picture
We actually had to sweat. Alot. Ignore my boobs in this picture, and instead note the tan
Although most of the sweating, albeit not all, was left to me, whilst Laura got to work on to the professional artwork
Unfortunately we completely forgot to take a ‘finished’ photo, so you’ll just have to wait until we get home. Now how do we get this thing home? I also bought one in Sydney, and have the one from India, so we’re now carrying around three digeridoo’s. Hmmm.
Meeting The Relatives
So why have we been hanging around Byron Bay for so long? Don’t think for a moment it was because of all the attractions to see. Apart from the beach that’s far to crazy to swim or surf in, some expensive bars and tour agencies that nearly outnumbered backpackers (and would have if the town was crawling with them), there’s not a lot to do. But just before we left Shimara, her mum, Lucy and her grandma, Jenny, arrived in town.
We spent a lovely evening with them, drinking sparkling wine and eating pizza. It was great to catch up and I hope Shimara and Lucy have an excellent trip for the remainder of their time here. For those that aren’t sure who these people are, it’s a little confusing, but I’ll try to explain: Shimara is my sister, Sunshine’s sister, but not directly my sister. We just share the same sister, and they share the same dad, but neither have the same dad as me (only Sunshine shares the same mum with me). We have lots of extended family all over the world (although Shimara isn’t from Australia you understand. She’s fairly English). It’s great.
Brisbane
It was raining when we arrived, and if I remember correctly, it was raining the following day when we left. Unlike the cosy feeling of Melbourne or the striking look of Sydney, Brisbane appeared to be just another grey capital. Degress past first glances and it did have it’s pretty sections, even boasting it’s own – very serreal – artificial beach in the middle of the city, and the city does offer a first class river transport service, with ferries and catamarangs.
We arrived in the evening and strolled around the town before heading for the nearest campsite, where we camped close by then checked in the following morning.
We walked into this art gallery and found a room full of randomness
We spent a day walking, busing and taking novelty rides on the City Cats and ferries. We also ventured into the City Hall where we took an old lift up to the top of the clock tower.
Not an endless amount of fun here, and because we had other things on our mind (see below) we didn’t hang around.
Australian Animals To Come next! Sorry it’s taking so long to get updates on. That’s life.
We’re about to head off into the Outback… wish us luck! Mount Isa is our first stop, then it’s off to Alice Springs.
Tags: Australia, Travel
Monkey
Hi there! just wondering if there is a fruit that can help with the affliction of man boobs?
;o)
Perhaps its time that Laura drove the camper and you ran alongside?
Glad all is well, keep on trucking!
O
Good luck in the outback, sounds like a big adventure, watch out for strange fruit, and who’s the guy with the dead sheep? love mum
What dead sheep? If your refering to the chap in the green shirt and a funny smirk, that was our funny guide at the Fruit World place. And he’s standing over a Jack Fruit, which has gone off a little, but it didn’t stop him from biting into it; “tastes a little like vinegar at the moment”. You think?