Saturday, April 20, 2013

That Psychedelic Village Named Nimbin

Duuude, it's 420! We ain't celebrating with a slice of space cake though. No Puff, The Magic Dragon either. To commemorate this uhm, counterculture holiday, let's do a different kind of "trip", shall we?

A psychedelic visual trip.

The talk of spliff takes me down two travel memory alleys. That of Amsterdam's (where possession of  cannabis is legal) and that of Nimbin's... Nim-what? Precisely why I chose to feature the latter today. I shall save my story about "dining" in a Dutch brown cafe for another 420.

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Nimbin Museum. Groovy!
 
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Nimbin Hemp Embassy. Since 1992.

Possession of cannabis in the state of New South Wales, Australia is a criminal offense. But northeast of this state, in a village named Nimbin, locals have a high tolerance for its trade and usage. And it is for this reason, alongside permaculture, that peregrine hippies flock in busloads 'til this very day.

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Titled: The Last Session
 
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Kaleidoscope of tins.

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Postcard with a photo of the annual MardiGrass Festival. The highlight of this festive weekend is the Cannabis Reform Protest and Parade.
 
The once-sleepy village that lived off dairy farming morphed into a vibrant town in 1973 when the Aquarius Festival, a huge experimental shindig attended by uni students and alternative people, was held here. A small population of which stayed behind. And the rest, as they say it, is history.

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The hunt for hemp soap.
 
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Shops that line the main street.
 
On day 122 of our 2011-2012 round-the-world trip, my hobo family did a pilgrimage to Nimbin. It is the real deal. No poser hippies like me around. Just spiritual beings who live in isolation or in communes, and live off the land and/or tourism.

Nimbin remains to be one of my fave places on Earth.

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"Chip hemp not forests."
 
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Run free, my wild child.

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For vintage vultures.
 
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Oh those pretty sidewalks!
 
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May the entire universe conspire to help us relocate somewhere nearby this village someday.

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