“Weeds?” “Cookies?” “Mushies?” “Acid?”
That’s how the city center of Nimbin sounds like. Don’t be afraid if on your way to the main street many strangers approach you offering good psychedelic doses…
Also don’t be surprised if you see lot’s of people wearing hippy clothes, women with dreadlocks and hairy armpits and people playing with hoola hoops. That’s all part of the Nimbin’s particular slower paced atmosphere.
Tucked away in the hills west of Byron Bay, Nimbin was once a sleepy little dairying village in a lush setting of farmland and forest. Today, Nimbin is known the world over as Australia’s most famous hippie destination and alternative lifestyle capital.
The city has a subtropical climate, creeks and waterfalls, rolling forested hills, abundant wildlife and stunning views. Is the perfect place to rest a while, to relax, rejuvenate and let Mother Nature work her charms.
Nimbin & Cannabis
In New South Wales, the cultivation, selling and possession of cannabis is illegal. In Nimbin all three activities are part of every day hippie culture.
Nimbin has a high tolerance for cannabis plant (marijuana), with the open buying, selling and consumption of locally grown cannabis on the streets and laneways.
There mare any number of shops in Nimbin geared to the cannabis culture. The Nimbin Hemp Embassy, for exemple, is a “soft entry point for drug information”, and a shop selling anything to do with Hemp.
Nimbin Mardigrass Festival
To rally for an end to the prohibition of cannabis in Australia, Nimbin holds its annual MardiGrass. On the first weekend in May, thousands descend on Nimbin for cannabis oriented fun and frivolity in Austrlia’s biggest Cannabis Prohibition Protest Rally.
The Mardigrass Festival is a colourful, musical feasting affair. A highlight is the Mardigrass Parade with its gunja fairies, dancing down the main street in their fanciful costumes.
Hemp Info, expos, hemp goods, culinary tastes, musicians, performers entertaining and all this with a large dose of humour can be found every year as part of the celebration.
Mardigrass in Nimbin is also time to play!
The Hemp Olympics events include joint rolling, bong throwing and, for the more physically-minded, a Growers’ Ironperson competition, which requires participants to crawl through lantana tunnels dragging large bags of fertilizer.
Happy trip
The visitors who stay often in the city consider themselves to be “marijuana refugees”, seeking asylum from the norms of mainstream society.
And you, what are you waiting to add Nimbin on your bucket list travel destinations?
The city and the surrounding area is a sight well worth a visit, if your intentions are to enjoy the arts, the natural beauty and, obviously, a good marijuana cookie.
