So in this blog, I’m going to talk about a few of the places I checked out while staying in Byron Bay. Mark and I booked a Nimbin tour with the Happy Coach, and I mean why not. So we got picked up by a funky hippy bus blasting stoner jams the whole way, and best of all it had a cat with a hat.

The first stop was Killen falls. Now, this is where the story happens. So the group all walk down to a decked area at the top of the falls. Mark leans over and bam, his lovely real Ray Bans drop over the edge but we couldn’t see them hit the floor so they must be on the ridge. However, the group was getting moved on so we had to come back another time.

The second stop was an abandoned railway bridge. At this point, my fear of heights was still prominent. Probably only getting a third the way over before turning back stepping over railway sleepers with ‘Charlie sized holes’ between them as I put it.

The next stop was the town of Nimbin. Known for smoking marijuana. Walking around seeing some real characters. What can I say really, people go there for one reason…. the community pool, which is we had a barbecue before continuing. On the way back be stopped and our tour guide Princess (Something…. Sorry) pointed out to a large rock. Calling it the three brothers, similar to the three sisters in the Blue Mountains, believed to have aboriginal stories behind it. However, its been over a year so anything I would say would be a loose guess to what I got told. After we continued back.

Fast forward to the day after. We rented a car with a few of the guys in our hostel room. And decided to go waterfall hunting, making Killen Falls our first stop with the mission to find Mark’s sunglasses. We scrambled down this steep wet clay path through the forest. Turns out it rained heavily overnight. We decided going barefoot was a good shout, as our trainers weren’t getting any grip at all. On the way, something bit me on my toe. Now I didn’t know what it was, it was small, black, and in my reaction to being bitten grabbed whatever it was and threw it. A few weeks later described it to a Friends relative and he said it sounds like a bullet ant. Probably explains the feeling of having my toe shot off. And stupidly we were already so far down and close to the waterfall. So I rinsed it in a puddle.

So we reached the bottom of Killen Falls. This is this would get worse. Mark fly’s his drone to the ridge to see. The water spray hits the drone and he has to bring it back. At the time it damaged the drone to only fly straight and not turn. (It would then be sent off to find out it’s now fine and then was crashed at a later date R.I.P Marks drone). Then we did what we actually planned to do, have fun! Skimming a tennis ball to each other in the water, swimming under the falls, dodging the turtles in the water, didn’t want to get bitten anymore that day. The climb up was funny, to say the least. Holding onto tree roots as we slipped over constantly, but we made it back to the car!

Next stop was to try and find Whian Whian Falls, which means many trees fall if I remember correctly. It was recommended by my friend Talib and was really out the way unless you knew it was there. Walking along a edge of a fence through some trees on a random roadside we found it! Checking how deep the water was before doing the jump we heard about. Always check the water level on the day of jumping as levels can vary. Starting with the lower jump then moving to the higher one to then get more adventurous with dives and flips.

After a few hours, we headed back as the sun was coming down. We watched the sunset over the fields before getting back into Byron Bay for another night out in the town.

Next Stop Brisbane

- Charlie Bluck