I have many things I want to say about Byron Bay (at least, I think I do, it’s awfully hard to tell until I actually start writing), but I would like to pause first and consider Australian coffee. Why is it so good? By all rights, these people should be tea drinkers, and don’t get me wrong, they do drink tea, and they make it well and serve it properly with milk, and sometimes sugar (but only if you’re a woman, and they might still look at you a little funny), but their heart, their passionate love, seems to lie with coffee. They have mastered it so thoroughly that America should be ashamed. I can’t believe they even allow Starbucks to exist in this country. As I’ve mentioned before, coffee here mainly means espresso, in a variety of puzzling forms that don’t appear to exist outside of Australia. Even the meanest, grungiest little diner here has a barista that would make the hippest mustachioed, tattooed, suspender-wearing coffee craftsman of NYC weep and beg for his mother. These people are serious about coffee. I walked into a hippy-tastic (expect to see more of that word in a minute) little cafe near my hostel on my first morning in Byron and this shoeless, dreadlocked man started asking me if I liked single origin coffees. He then proceeded to tell me all about the espresso they had, describe the degrees of taste like a sommelier presenting a fine wine, give me meal pairings and explain that, on pain of death, I couldn’t drink it with milk in it. After that presentation (and the eventual realization that he worked at the cafe), I had to order that espresso, and here’s the kicker, he was right. It was perfection in a tiny little cup. They even make something here called a ‘baby-cino’, which is not made with babies, thank god, but instead is a cappuccino with a very short pull of espresso, made especially for the kiddies. Get ‘em hooked young.
Coffee chat over, let’s talk about Byron Bay, which is just over the New South Wales border from Brisbane (and by just I mean about a 2 hour drive, which is pretty close in Australia). It’s a tiny little town with one main road and a couple cross streets, set right on a beautiful beach, which is it’s raison d’être. It is a surf town, a hippy mecca, a shoeless, shirtless, dreadlocked, sun-bleached, bongo-playing, sitar-wielding, patchouli-smelling (although I think all the patchouli is there to just mask the weed), sunbathed wonderland of chill. I don’t think anyone in this town has ever worried about anything in their life, unless of course the waves are bad that day. Normally, I could find this a little irritating, a little like posturing; however here, it just feels right, it is simply a natural off-shoot of the beach lifestyle. No one is trying to be a modern day hippy, it’s just sort of happened naturally. Frankly, I like most of it. I love not wearing shoes, I’m fine with attractive people walking around with very little clothing on, I love fresh, organic, farm-to-table food, I don’t even mind the smell of patchouli. I just wish they would come up with another hairstyle, because there are only so many dreadlocks a person can take and hope to retain their sanity.
I didn’t do very much in Byron, because honestly, there isn’t much to do. I spent a lot of time sitting on beaches, playing a fun game of chicken with my skin to see if I could get it to tan without burning (conclusion: I can’t). I had some surprisingly respectable Mexican food. I watched some spectacular fire-spinning — just an ordinary hippy couple, performing at the beach, spinning swords and metal fans and hula hoops and all sorts of things all of which were on FIRE. I sat on the sidewalk and watched some incredible street musicians, and some awful street musicians, and a lot in-between. I saw the most spectacular moon-rise, this massive orange disk appearing from behind a mountain, disappearing behind a cloud but back-lighting it with flames, and then bursting through the top; sometimes it feels like the sky is much closer here.
Also, I took a surfing lesson. I swore I would never do this, because it still doesn’t make any damn sense to me how a person can stand on water. That said, Byron Bay rubbed off on me and I had to try it, and it was awesome. These people are so used to dealing with moronic tourists that they make it idiot proof, giving you this big soft flotation device disguised as a surfboard that even an elephant could stand up on. The owner of the school was brilliant, gruff and rude and crude, but always with a smile, with skin like leather and long sun-blonde hair. His assistant, I kid you not, was Thor. Ok, obviously not actually Thor, but a dead-ringer for Chris Hemsworth. I have no photos to back this up, so you will just have to take my word for it. Perhaps it was because of my desire to not embarrass myself in front of Thor, but I did manage to stand up, and in general stay up, even making it all the way to shore a few times. I felt a bit like a drowned rat, but a drowned rat that was standing on a surfboard, so at least I had that going for me. If I’m not careful, I’ll soon have dreadlocks, and take to wearing those pants that look like flowy skirts and a crochet crop-top to match. Maybe I’ll change my name to Rain.
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