No horses, goats or pigs allowed

Sorry about the boring title but my wit was on hold today.  Probably a good thing!

I began the day by taking Tammie for a walk round the ‘hood, specifically looking for the cemetery (our abode was in Cemetery Rd).  This revealed some excellent rainforest remnants.  Bush regeneration seems quite important to the locals and a development a little bit up the road has banned cats and dogs.

On advice from Cynthia we took ourselves off to Bangalow Markets, about 15minutes drive away.  They advertised parking for $2 so we cheated and parked a bit away.  Just as well the traffic jam to get in was horrendous, completely filling the main street for at least 100 metres in both directions. 

In the middle of all this was a parked truck, possibly selling lawn ornaments.

They had banned dogs from the markets (and quite reasonably as they were very crowded) so Frances dived in while I walked round the town.

The churches were (architecturally) good examples of that sort of thing.  Some of the shop fascias were quite interesting – obviously from an age where the shopkeeper lived about their place of business.

The markets were very good.

 When my turn came I didn’t buy anything but had we any room in the car there were a number of items that would have been acquired.   For example ....

 Frances had given a bit of action on fruit and some more bromeliads.  There were a number of ‘alternative’ stalls offering: various sorts of massage (most any part of your body could be rubbed by most any part of the massagers body and/or tool kit); jewellery and/crystals; and occult nick-nacks.  The best sign was on a stall selling fire-juggling rods ‘Unattended children are welcome and will be given an expresso and a free puppy’.

The next stop was to go for a walk down the main street of Byron Bay.  This was full of young persons: I suspect the average age of folk here is about 20 years below that of Murwillumbah.  Shops were very varied from upmarket shop and jewellery fashions through new-age stuff

to standard beach crud.  However it all seemed quite mellow unlike the tawdry commercial shtick of places like Bateman’s Bay (NSW) or most anywhere in the UK with tide and sand.

We ended up at the patch of lawn overlooking Main Beach.  This had a wonderful notice outlining the many things that could not be done there.  I was VERY disappointed with the lack of (in)decent symbol for ‘no nudity’ and will refer later – possibly several times - to the range of livestock not prohibited in the area

Somewhere along the way I noticed what appeared to be the Byron Bay Environment Centre.  They had a message about coal-seam gas (click on the image to read it).

 Our stroll took us past a cafe where one of the local residents was sitting beside his foldable bowl.

Naturally Tammie went over to say hello.  At this point the Manuel responsible walked past and said  something about an upcoming dog-fight, and opined that his money would be on Tammie. Perhaps: we moved on rather than test the matter.

In the afternoon we revisited Tallow Beach.  This time we walked from the house to the beach.  This turned out to be a tad further than I had thought but still quite feasible.  The beach was as enjoyable as yesterday with many dogs paying their respects to Tammie.  One small fluff-ball seemed such fun I decided to let Tam off the lead to see what happened.  She had a great time chasing the fluff-ball around: they were both very fast and agile.  She was recaptured without too much trouble!

On the way back home I noticed a Byron Bay version of a roadside memorial.  One wonders if Donney was carrying his board on a bike when he passed on?  Few of the local cyclists wear helmets seeming to believe that scarves or dreadlocks will achieve the same effect.  However a closer inspection of this memorial showed it to include a stubby, so possibly he should have stuck to gaseous products.

 On which subject we have come across “The marijuana cookbook” which is quite amusing although the amount of butter involved in most of the recipes would do one’s cholesterol count no good whatsoever.