Have heard many complaints that Nimbin is not what it used to be. No such problem here. We booked into the guesthouse of the redoubtable Xuan, then hired bikes off him in the morning. Cross streets and making turns into them very confusing when you're used to driving on the side of the road. Didn't fully seem to matter, scooters and bicyles often drive on the wrong side of the road. We had to go into town first- horn use is ubiquitous here. Some of them are particularly loud. So good to be on a bike after a bus. Left our bikes and hopped into a little boat thing to go through a fantastic karst limetone landscape. It was a clear day so we saw no fanciful fog that a tourist brochure had informed us of. Went through three caves which opened up into different valleys. Our guides were an old man and woman who struggled a bit with the wind- so Kyle helped them out. The younger men operated the oars with their feet so they looked like they were riding a bicyle down the creek. One the way back the old woman determinedly tried to sell Kyle local embroidery- Kylie refused way to politely so the woman kept trying to sell them to her. Climbed up one of the limestone mountains a bit later- the brochure people were probably onto something with fanciful fog- certainly a mystical place.
Rode off the main thouroughfares up a valley about as far as we could go.
After climbing up for another view from a temple later in the day, we were held up by a herd of ducks being droved up the road. Then accosted by a mad wild woman with an umbrella- she threatened me with it and as Kyle rode off she gave her a good whack
with it. Unexpected.
Raced the sun home over rice fields and through narrow town alley ways.
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