Why I Didn’t Marry Heath Ledger

New Year’s Day began with a bang. Not really. It began with me doing my standard waking up freakishly early when I’ve been up since 4:00 am thing. Because that’s what I do. Finding and using an internet cafe has been somewhat of a challenge on this trip. There are several, but they all elected to be closed on new year’s morning. I walked in to Byron to find that I could by a latte, I could buy a sarong, I could even buy some pennicilin, but I couldn’t get on the net. Bummer. That’s Australian for bummer, in case you were wondering. So I hung out at the beach for a bit, then made my way back to the hotel to find out about our new Wwoof host. Scary stuff. Wondering about the person you’ll be living with for several days.

So Greg, our Wwoof host, was supposed to pick us up at 11:00 at the hotel. He called around 11:00 to tell us he was running late and he’d be there in “half an hour.” Uh oh. We’ve heard that before.

He got there about 45 minutes later and we rolled out of Byron. We immediately found that our Wwoof host trepidation was unfounded. We found that he had an additional Wwoofer, Mick, who would would be working with us. Cool.

Greg is a nice guy. He’s SUPER liberal. All in all, an Aussie hippie. He’s a former sculptor whose now earning his bread by playing the stock market. Allright. We know the an all sand headland in the middle of a national park some place south of Ballina, but we really didn’t know what that meant. Apparently, that means a one lane road through the park up the dune to the properties. You can see for kilometers (hehe) to the park and the sea in either direction. This has been the only place in Oz, the only place in the world, with white sand dunes outside of the Florida panhandle. From the home, you take a trail down to the beach over HUGE white sand dunes to the gold sand coast. Once you’re there, you reach the black sedimentary rocks with erosion holes created from an ancient forest. Lunch consisted of scrumptious selections from the garden, including bagels, tomato salad, hummus and even caterpillars in the greens. Who knew Wwoof food would be this AMAZING?

So we made our way down to the beach with Jude, the neighbors partner, while the boys took a nap. Once we returned, a lady with her daughter and a friend dropped in for the night. We had a HUGE dinner with stir fry with chicken, sweet potatoes (I actually ate them, believe it or not) and wilted greens straight from the garden. All of the grown ups LOVE to talk politics. It’s interesting. In the US, they would certainly be considered the Green Party. We even tried a “shandy,” which is beer with sprite. Strange, but no stranger than red wine with Coca-Cola in Spain. After we finished, we noticed something strange outside. There was a white rainbow, which had to be caused by the moon. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Oh yeah, there is even an outhouse. Not like the wooden structure with the crescent moon cut-out in the front. More of a glass brick with stone tile and bamboo shades kind of outhouse. The water is still rainwater, so it’s a bit different from home. This northern rivers region of Australia is particularly environmentally conscious. The homes are run on a combination of solar and wind power. Very progressive.

Do you know what heaven sounds like? I’ve found out. It sounds like surf, wind and cicadas. I found that I LOVE to go to the point in the back yard and pretending like I’m the only person in the universe. It’s easy to do here.

– Carrie

New Years Eve in Byron Bay, Australia. It was okay, I guess. We had one of those New Years Eve’s where noone bothered counting down the…countdown. We all said “Happy New Year” at approximately 2 minutes after midnight. Where were we? The Great Northern Hotel. Otherwise known as the only place with no cover charge in Byron Bay. The evening began with the “seafood platter” at Bo’s on the main road. I’ll give you a little piece of advice…the world renowned prawns in Oz taste funny. It’s strange how a different ocean can cause a completely different seafood taste. Maybe it’s the salinity. Actually, funny is being nice. Really nice. We closed down the bar (actually not much of an accomplishment to tell you the truth) with only a tiny buzz. Not from lack of trying, I can tell you. But then things got more interesting.

We were hanging out with some Ozzie tourists from various parts of the country. Noone from Byron actually goes out in Byron it turns out. The bar had “pokies” in the back, which are slot machines. Some guy asked me “Have you ever lost money at the pokies?” HeHe. I wasn’t sure how to answer. And here I was thinking I was familiar with every way of losing money in the universe. Show’s what I know.

I had an urgent need to visit the little girl’s room for some reason, so we headed to the beach. First of all, the public toilets in Australia have black lights. Not for club lighting, but to keep junkies from shooting up. It turns out that you can’t see your veins in black lights. Weird.

So we headed down to the beach to ring in the first 2am of 2007. There was the beach, bonfires and the coolest Aussie around – Rosco Pico Trane. Rosco, among other things, gave us the in’s and out’s of the AFL (Australian Football League), including one strategy where you hit your opponent in the….who dad. He also had the good grace to show me the southern cross. He was a gentleman and a scholar…and a football player and a dancer and an astronomer. Mmmm…that’s about it.

Post beach, we wondered back toward the main street to find a native drum circle with loads of dancing hippies. The music was absolutely AMAZING. Unfortunately, the booze wasn’t flowing freely enough due to FREAKISHLY strict laws in place specifically for New Years Eve. The drums really were phenomenal, booze or no booze. You’ve got to love those hippies.

If you’re looking for a New Year’s party, Byron Bay isn’t really the place to be.

– Carrie

It seems like every year I blow it out on New Year's Eve Eve. Last year it was (accidentally) breaking in to an apartment complex in Manhattan and stealing a bottle of cooking sherry with the Scottish guy (we ... [Continue reading this entry]