The Mussel and The Ark.

It's early saturday morning and Madame M and I are having breakfast with her friend Tim before heading off on the long drive to Nimbim.

Madame M goes to the counter to order. Tim and I have been introduced mere moments before.

'So Tim, do you go down to Nimbin often?'

'No. I don't do much of anything really. I have this recurring nightmare that I'm trapped in a mine shaft and all the lights go out and I go to switch my head lamp on and its not there and I wake up in a blind panic and don't know where I am. I thought about wearing a headlamp to bed for a while but in the end I just put a backlit sign next to my bed that says 'Home.''

'I see. Do you think the weather will hold out?'

We head off in separate cars and for the first hour or so I read to Madame M from a book of David Sedaris essays I found on Kate and Keir's book shelf. One of the essays describes an old house in great detail and prompts Madame M to tell me about the home she lived in when she was growing up.

'We had Possums living in the roof. It's not that unusual. They were right above my bedroom and I'd listen to them scratching about, running up and down. The thing is there was also a snake up there.'

'Jesus.'

'A python.'

'Jaheesus.'

'Aw we didn't mind too much cos Dad said it kept the water rats away.'

I think about 'Boshog' the crocodile I met at the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. He lay in his man made pool utterly still watching us with ancient calculating eyes. Its strange knowing that something is looking at you as a potential meal. Unsettling no matter how much fencing is between you. The guide was explaining how Boshog came to live in the sanctuary after he attacked a farmers bull and ate it. He went on to mention that this kind of croc can be found in Broome. We are going to Broome.

'Excuse me,' I squeak. 'What should you do, y'know, for safety if you were to stumble across a crocodile whilst on a two week drive through the outback that your friends have arranged and you are now having severe second thoughts about?'

'Aw well, stay the fuck away. And don't go within 25 metres of the waters edge. And y'know, just stay the fuck away. Don't give it a reason to eat you and make its reputation worse than it already is.' He is almost accusatory as though I am planning to throw myself at one in order to muddy its name.

The others wander off and Keir and I remain staring uneasily at Boshog who stares back, confident that it is only a matter of time.

'I really don't want to get eaten by a crocodile,' Keir whispers.

'Me either. It would be so embarrassing.'

Its amazing to me that Australia has thrived as much as it has when there are so many things here that want to kill you.

'Anyway,' Madame M continues. 'I used to hear the Python hissing. And every so often it would slither across the floor and there would be the sound of a scuffle and then this awful screaming which seemed to go on forever. It would be squeezing a Possum to death, these terrible screams would go on and on until the Possum eventually died. Sometimes blood would trickle through the ceiling.'

I'm about to call the airport and change my flight when Madame M suddenly swerves off to the left, leaves the motorway, ascends a grassy knoll, bumps across to the other side and joins the adjacent motorway.

'What just happened?' I ask with one hand on the ceiling and the other covering my face.

'Aw, I just nearly missed our exit.' She smiles and turns the music up.

We stop in a small town called Murwillumbah for coffees. I want to remember the name of the place and repeat over and over again “Muriel and William have a Lumbaaaah puncture.” It's a trick my brother taught me and if I've spelt the town correctly then he has succeeded.

We continue on and pass through 'Uke.' A few days previously whilst driving up to the Glasshouse Mountains I noticed a place called 'Terror Creek'. What kind of country names a place Terror anything? The kind of country that is 58 times larger than your own and probably ran out of ideas pretty swiftly. 'Yeah sure its a lovely lake Greg but we already have 123 Lovely Lakes, just call it Certain Death, it'll shit the tourists up. 'Nother beer?'

On tour we passed by a place called Mount Disappointment and Kate twittered about it. Someone responded saying his family had planned a day out there but they couldn't find it.

About an hour outside of Nimbin Madame M pulls over.

'Are we there already?' I ask. 'Its only been three and half hours.' She ignores the sarcasm.

'No, I'm just going to see where he's headed.'

I look around and see a serial killer stood by the side of the road with his thumb out.

'Noooooooo!' I cry but she's already out of the car.

In the UK women do not pick up hitchhikers. Not never. I learn later that they don't over here either, unless you're around Nimbin in which case its perfectly normal and pretty much obligatory. Bloody hippies.

There's a brief discussion and moments later Terry has joined us. Terry was born in France, brought up in Senegal and has lived in Italy, Spain and for the last twenty five years, Australia. Which he believes to be paradise. Terry's parents are both living and have visited twice. Terry is a handy man and speaks four languages and enjoys moroccan spiced food. I know all of this because Madame M holds a forty five minute interrogation of Terry which only lets up when he begs to be let out of the car and can be seen in the wing mirror running back in the direction we've come from leaving a small cloud of dust behind him.

Nothing prepares me for the sheer unadulterated beauty of the rainforest surrounding Nimbin. It is both vast, and high and drips with colour. We drive in silence soaking up the lusciousness until we arrive in Nimbin town centre.

There's a sign. The sign says: WELCOME TO THE AGE OF AQUARIUS!!!

They are not fucking kidding.

When people describe a notable place to you in advance they often over bake it and you're left a little deflated. Its always more touristy than you'd expected. Or less scary. Not Nimbin. Its like time stopped in 1966. We get out of the car and I take three steps before a man with entirely red eyes and Satan on his heels asks me if I'd like some weed or acid. I demur politely.

The central drag is full of shops with handwritten signs. There's Peace and Love graffiti everywhere. Children run up and down the street barefoot and muddy all full of grins and chatter. The smell of weed and patchouli oil is overpowering and I notice at least a dozen people of pensionable age wandering about with long dreads, tattoos, harem pants. An elderly lady is sitting on a bench as we pass. She wouldn't look out of place in the W.I. (C.W.A for you Aussies), she smiles at me:

'Would you like to buy some cookies dear?'

'Oh how lovely, you're selling...oh. No, I'm fine thanks.'

Madame M takes me in to the Nimbin Museum. The entire interior (one tiny room) puts me in mind of an 'A' level Art project. There's half a VW Van with plastic dinosaurs glued to it, a painting of an Aboriginal man looking a bit cross and a CND sticker. Its a testament to the fact that marijuana is a gateway drug and what resides on the other side of that gate is acrylic paint and a glue gun.

As we continue down the street looking for somewhere to eat I casually glance at a rail of hemp tie dyed clothing and am immediately pounced upon by a woman in her late forties.

'Everything's cheap. I make my own jewellery too. I was at a party all night. Four hours sleep. Not drugs. Natural stuff. Its all cheap.'

We run away. We eventually settle upon the Rainbow (of course) Cafe. The menu reads like a stoners manna from heaven munchies list. I am in no mood for anything that spells 'Vege' as 'Vegiiiiiiiiii' and we decide to order the Beany Yummie Guaco Nachos. They are excellent. We sit in the sun watching these beautiful little birds hop from table to table. Madame M tells me they are called Rainbow Lorikeet. They really are every imaginable colour and it is impossible to get a good photograph of one.

As we stroll back to the car I overhear an elderly man saying to some very excitable children:

'Hey, chill out man. Just chill. Peace.' Really. I'm not making it up.

I may sound like I didn't approve of this place or the overwhelming number of completely caned people wandering about with nowhere to be, but actually I found it charming and funny. And very nostalgic.

We hop back in the car and make our way to our hosts house which is in the middle of the rainforest. We take a wrong turning and end up in the middle of a lot of trees, thick grass beneath us. Madame M attempts to turn around and we hit something hard (a tree root as it turns out) and the car is bogged. We try to reverse and end up deeper in mud. We try to push the car then pull the car then merely insist that the car stops pissing around. All to no avail. Madame M decides to chase a Bush Turkey that's been minding its own business whilst I smoke a cigarette and listen to animals killing and raping each other nearby. Night falls. It really does 'fall' in the rainforest. Eventually our host and Tim, from breakfast, wander down the hill with beer and find us. They send us up to the house and arrange to tow the car out before it gets any darker. How can it possibly get any darker I think? It gets darker.

The house was built by our hosts father in the 70's. Its called The Ark and it is like something out of a children's fairytale. It reminds me of a tree house. Vast and tall, full of winding staircases and hidden rooms. All dark wood and hundreds of perspex windows giving a panoramic view of the surrounding beauty. Its almost like camping, the place needs work. But there's light and gas, a flushing toilet (very recent), head lamps should you need to use the toilet and incredibly, wifi!

We are greeted warmly and given drinks and fish pie is cooked and slowly bit by bit neighbours pour through the door, the youngest being a charming eight year old boy, the oldest, a man in his 60's with an impressive beard. Madame M sits chopping rhubarb for her legendary crumble. Junior, a large and jolly south african cracks macadamia nuts that have been brought in from the garden. Chris fetches me some mandarins and lemons from the trees overhanging the veranda to put in the mulled wine I'm making and everyone is chatting and laughing and eating cheese as our wonderful feast takes shape.

The following morning the charming child bounds in and finds me lounging on the decking with a fag and a coffee.

'Hey, d'you wanna come on a bush walk?'

'No. But ask Madame M, I'm sure she'd love to.'

He bounds off.

Two hours later he returns.

'You could NEVER have handled that walk,' he grins. Covered in mud.

Five minutes later Madame M staggers in all wild haired and breathless and throws herself in a chair.

'He had me climbing ravines,' she wheezes.

'Goodness,' I say.

'And swinging from trees,' she coughs.

'Oh my,' I say.

'And then of course we had to fight off aliens. I had to replace my weapon twice.'

'Poor you.'

She told me later that at one point he had slipped down a muddy embankment and trapped his foot in a bog. As he struggled to free himself he called out:

'Go on without me! Save yourself!'

Tim took me back to the Rainbow Cafe for breakfast and made me laugh for a solid hour. I said that he should live down here as he has a skill to offer the community (he's an electrician) and that was one of the deciding factors when they were vetting you. He looked momentarily perplexed.

'Skill? What – Lechery and ambivalence? Maybe.'

He shows me a picture in the paper that at first glance appears to be a man and a bull posing with their heads close together grinning for the camera. It then becomes clear that the man is not grinning, he is grimacing, and the bull has a horn right through his stomach.

I imagine the man walking home with a carrier bag containing his intestines muttering that it was the shittest day out ever.

Tim takes it a step further: I went to the running of the bulls and all I got was this lousy colostomy bag.

Before leaving we went to meet some friends at the local market which was huge and arranged in a large circle. Christian, Sandra and Christian's daughter Lily are lovely and we wandered around buying Limoncello and oohing and aaahing over handmade things before grabbing some food. Everyone went for something from a different stall and seduced by the smell I bought a plate of seafood paella. We sat and ate and chatted and within about three minutes of finishing I suddenly felt very hot and dizzy. My heart rate shot up and my throat began to close.

Oh shit, I thought. I decided to wait for a minute and see if it passed. My tongue decided to grow a bit.

'Christian, I think I'm having some kind of reaction to the seafood.'

I sat there and Christian went away and returned with a nice looking elderly couple who sat down next to me. The man had his hand on my lower back and the woman asked me questions about my throat and my head until they decided I was having an anaphylactic reaction. The man continued to touch my back whilst a woman at the next table came over with some anti histamine. Christian gave me one with some water. The woman kept suggesting I go to the hospital which was just making my heart beat faster but then I caught Christian's face as he kneeled in front of me. He was smiling and shaking his head subtly, the telepathic message being 'Don't worry, she's mad. You're going to be okay.' And I started calming down. Christian is kind. Kind eyes. If you cut him down the centre you'd see the word 'Dad' written over and over again.

The couple were from the medical tent. And it turns out the man with his hand on my back was performing some kind of Reiki. That's what you get for having a turn at a hippie commune. If ever you find yourself in Nimbin with a medical situation demand drugs. And back up drugs. But be nice about the reiki, cos y'know, they're hippies, and they mean well. And if nothing else the placebo of that man's hand on my back was a feeling of being cared for.

And so, whilst my throat still feels like it has razor blades in it, I am delighted to say that I did not die today. All that time fretting about being killed by a crocodile when a mussel could have done the job quite efficiently. Can you imagine how embarrassing that would have been?