The distance between towns has telescoped. Outer suburbia is metaphorically over the next hill. One last stop before skirting the black hole event horizon of urban civilization.
Wivenhoe Dam is Brisbane’s water supply, but with most dams, you only hear about them at flood time. I had remembered the great Lockyer Valley flood of 2011 and was curious to see the ‘back story’. The dam wall is 2.3 kilometres long topped by a main road with the flood gates almost dead centre.
In 2011, the flood gates were opened too late and the downstream surge claimed 23 lives and flooded low lying areas in Brisbane. I spent a few hours at the Cormorant Bay Reserve on the southside before heading back to the highway. Great leisure area for day trippers but gates close at sunset.
Caught up with a couple I met in Mt Isa, Ray and Angie. A home cooked meal, great conversation and my first night in a ‘real’ bed in eight months. I was still looking for someone to fit those springs to the van and got onto Hinterland Caravans down at Burleigh Heads, who assured me they could do the job. THAT was a mistake. ‘Ken hopeless. After spending the night parked outside the factory for an alleged 7am book in, I was re-directed back to the workshop a few clicks away. They denied all knowledge of the booking. In fact they didn’t even do suspension. You could imagine that the conversation got a little terse at that point. I was re-directed to Pedders, also just up the road. He was booked out, but kind enough to contact Pedders at Murwillumbah, who had a slot that day. So, a rather impromptu departure from the sunshine state as I crossed the Tweed River into New South Wales. All this ‘excitement’ and it was not even 9am when I arrived in Murwillumbah.
I’d allowed the whole day, but it looked like I could be back on the road by lunchtime. Murwillumbah is at the apex of an alternate lifestyle triangle, with Nimbin and Byron Bay being the other points. Murwillumbah is a long established agricultural centre but both farmers and ‘flower children’ share the footpaths here.
After a couple of hours I drove back to check on progress. The van was still parked in the street but about to be towed in. Forty minutes later it was done. The leaning tower of Jayco no more. In the distance, Mount Warning loomed above the town. I couldn’t head south without visiting Nimbin. I’m not sure we even use the expression ‘hippies’ any more, but back when we did, this sleepy little village was transformed in the autumn of 1973.
The Aquarius Festival was a ten day music and arts gathering for the counter culture (another term we don’t hear much), held just outside Nimbin. The festival did not advertise through mainstream media and relied on word of mouth for its promotion. Many religious groups, such as the Krishna Consciousness Movement(remember them?), attended the festival and held ceremonies. Unusually for the era, the founders of the festival made contact with the local Aboriginal people, the Bundjalung, consulting with elders over the proposed use of the land.
Many of those who came to Nimbin for the festival stayed on in the town afterwards, purchasing cheap land and setting up communal living arrangements on large shared properties. A number of Nimbin’s new residents were involved in landmark environmental campaigns in the area, such as the blockade against the logging of the forest at Terania Creek in 1979.
What Nimbin became REALLY famous for, wasn’t so much the counter culture as it was the drug culture. After a decades long run-in with police, there seems to be a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ , Sergeant Schultz understanding. After all, you can’t arrest everybody. And believe me, you don’t even have to ask. In Nimbin when they ask “Are you looking for something?”, THAT’S the something.
It’s been over 50 years since those memorable May days. You can still see some of the originals al fresco at cafes and ‘green rooms’, they’re white hair just as long as always, still philosophising and debating the merits of Ayurvedic Herbal Medicine versus whatever the other guy thinks. I will admit, I have been drawn to that sociological landscape for a long time, but if you’re an achiever and goal setter, it takes a lot of courage to let that go. More courage than I could ever muster. Anywho, it can cost as much as $500,000 to buy into a commune these days. The times they are a changin’.
