Northern Rivers

12 January, 2010

The markets were spectacular.

The kids played and played in the play area which was mostly shaded for the morning at least. They made a friend Maya's age whose mum had a massage stall so was very familiar with the market environment and, impressively, made her own way around, checking in with her mum occasionally for a bite to eat or to pick up her busking gear. We bought local produce, checked out loads of handmade clothes and candles and a rainbow ceramic mug with tea infuser and lid/coaster that I completely coveted but at $30 couldn't justify - Ecstatic Ceramics makes really awesome, beautiful things. We watched a tall unicycle riding (tall being the unicycle, not the guy, although he was pretty tall too), sword-juggling, wise-cracking busker singing for his supper. The kids each chose a treat, and the treat they chose, bless 'em, was "fruit creme cones" - frozen fruit (banana mango for Maya, and banana strawberry for the boys) pressed through a press so it resembled ice cream in taste and texture, but with no added sugar or dairy. I bought us a bag of macadamias in their shells, grateful that I brought along our handy little macadamia cracker that I bought at Castle Hill markets months ago - it's fun and a good way of not eating a kilo of nuts in one sitting.

We heard that after the markets, loads of people hang around for drumming and smoking and dancing and general merriment, and that was our plan too. But in the afternoon Eli got really tired, the temperature soared, and we were all feeling the need for a nice relaxing break. Nick and I suggested a drive in the motorhome and a movie in the back for the kids while we headed on to Nimbin, and they agreed. Eli was asleep before we even started moving.

For those of you who don't know, until the Aquarius Festival in 1973 Nimbin was a little village that had failed as a dairy farming community. When it was suggested as a site for the Festival, the community voted 100-4 in favour, and Nimbin was changed forever. What was initally going to be a 10 day festival became the promise of a sustainable, conscious, eco-aware community full of like-minded people. The flavour is there still, with the tiny main street populated with shops full of crystals, alternative books, fisherman pants, organic food, and a Hemp Embassy which sells hemp products, marijuana paraphenalia, DVDs on growing your own pot, and this unlikely certificate:



Apparently, through some sort of compromise with the police, it is legal (or at least acceptable) to be in possession of 15g of marijuana in Nimbin. It is clearly acceptable to smoke it around town - all of the cafes had pot smokers openly sitting outside. It was very interesting.

We enquired at the dodgy caravan park about prices, and the arseholes wanted to charge us $24.50 (which would have been a decent price) PLUS $7.70 for each kid, regardless of age. Usually under 5s are free. Just adjacent though was a huge oasis of a free community pool with shade cloths (yay), so we went for a refreshing dip with the plan of finding accommodation later on - we needed to refill our water tank and all of the taps in town were either too far for our hose to reach or without tap turny things. We ended up at Rainbow Retreat, a beautiful place in the bush complete with grazing wallabies, a fig tree and bamboo outdoor fort, a huge teepee (or tipi, depending where in the world you're from), and a lovely proprietor who was happy to not charge us for the kids and accommodating enough to find us a place to park our house on wheels where we could plug in to recharge our battery and refill our tank with the fire hose.

Back through The Channon to Protestors Falls, named after the group of people who stood up against the police and loggers to protect this amazing sub-tropical rainforest in 1979, and won:



This place is completely amazing. You step inside and the temperature drops 10 degrees. You are surrounded by bird sounds and creek sounds, and as the timber walkway disappears to be replaced by a dirt and rock trail, you remember to look up and realise you are surrounded by the most amazing, beautiful flora.





There are a few little waterfalls on the way up, and we wondered, "Is this it?" each time, but kept going until we came to what was quite obviously "it":



We didn't swim at the bottom of the falls (more on that to follow) but got close enough to feel the spray. The kids were amazingly agile and fun to watch as they traversed along the rocks behind the waterfall, down to the water, and up again. If it weren't for the promise of mosquitoes to come, it would have been an irresistable place to sleep, all tucked into one of the rocky caves.

Here are some more pictures (hard to choose which ones to post because they are all so pretty):











The bottom of Protestors Falls is one of the known homes of a highly endangered frog of which there are thought to be only 500-1000 left. Because of this, the National Parks and Wildlife Service ask people not to swim at the base of the falls. I was absolutely fine with this at first. The kids were totally onboard. They were appropriately outraged when we came across people walking down the trail in swimmers and towels - how could they do that to the poor frogs?? But after spending some time at the falls and watching people swimming across in order to sit right at the bottom to have *the best shower ever*, I started to think a bit more about those frogs and, really, about other people's priorities. Yes, I feel sad that more and more species are becoming extinct and will never exist again. Yes, I understand that humans have been horrible for the planet and have caused major, irreversible problems. But are we really solving anything by keeping people from swimming there, or just delaying the inevitable? Last ditch effort much? Swimming at the base of that waterfall would have been so amazing and my kids would have probably carried that memory with them for the rest of their lives. I certainly would have. But we didn't, because the NPWS suggested that we not swim there. I let their priorities be our priorities, and I'm still not sure how I feel about that.

And more along those lines. Sometime in the near future, because we are in close proximity, we will be visiting Wollumbin, aka Mt Warning which is the name that James Cook gave it to warn other mariners of the dangerous reef off the coast. Wollumbin is an ancient volcanic plug and is a very spiritually significant place to the Aboriginal people who called the area home. As traditionally only certain Aboriginal people could climb the mountain, they ask that everyone consider not climbing. Same thing with Uluru. I get it, and I have never had a problem with it at all until recently (see this post). It was their land after all, and the Europeans came and took it away on the basis that it belonged to nobody. The land is still theirs and should be treated accordingly. Right? Well not really, not anymore. Only around 1% of the population are of Aboriginal descent, and the other 99% never made the decision to take anyone else's land, they were just born where they were born. Before you lynch me, let me make it clear that I'm not saying what happened was okay - of course it isn't okay to come to someone else's island and take it by force. What I'm saying is - what do we do about it now? What do we stand to gain by adhering to ancient traditions? At the risk of sounding careless and/or ignorant and/or shallow, why do the other 99% of us have to choose between political incorrectness and missing out on what is surely an awesome view? I'm just saying.