| Rumors had been circulating
around the country for weeks about an arts festival in a small town
called Nimbin
in the hills of New
South Wales.
Communes, hippies, and travelers were converging on the site from
all over Australia. Stuck in Cairns after seven years' traveling
to more than 70 countries, I hitched a ride south in a car that
had "Nimbin or Bust" spelled out in the dust on its rear
window. Driving deep into the countryside, we at last arrived at
Nimbin. A fountain of red paint spurted above a storefront, psychedelic
motifs ran from building to building all along the main street,
and outlandishly dressed people emerged barefoot from all manner
of wheeled contraptions. As I surveyed the scene, I realized that
I had happened upon an Australian Woodstock,
a landmark event of the 1970s, a wondrous once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Nimbin perched on top of a small hill. Below lay a broad valley
cut in two by a winding river. Scattered across the valley floor
were hundreds of tepees, tents, multicolored domes, makeshift plastic
shelters, vans, and RVs, all under tall, bushy eucalyptus trees.
I was invited to stay in a huge communal plastic orange igloo with
a gang of bikers. Late into the first night, chillums sparked in
the darkness as a New Zealand organist pierced the night air with
Christian rock music. The next morning I woke to the sound of flutes
and chanting Hare Krishnas. A heavy mist encircled the trees and
drifted over a sea of bodies crashed everywhere on the damp grass.
Smoke puffed above a small Aborigine tribe from central Australia
camped on a nearby hill where they performed dances and told stories.
The Aborigines considered Nimbin a holy place inhabited by departed
spirits and refused to pay the admission fee to enter land they
felt had been stolen from them.
That day hundreds of celebrants - each one a character - arrived.
Fred Robinson, an amazing white-haired 83-year-old Moses figure
from Perth, gave talks on the Grand Order of the Universe, flying
saucers, and Right Diet in order to save the world by 1978 - which
promised to be a very heavy year. In a nearby field, peddling furiously,
a man attempted to get an absurd spiral-shaped flying machine off
the ground. As the crowds swelled, a mushroom-eating greeter called
out "Hello Bruce!" to everyone. Webster, a sexual activist,
revolutionary, and spiritualist, enthused on his soapbox in his
faultless British accent: "What we need is not a new Christ
but a new Robin Hood! Not pie in the sky! Pie now!" A bedraggled
band of crazy long-haired flautists and bongo drummers from Melbourne,
who called themselves "The White Company," poured out
of a long white bus. All shared food and whatever else they had;
at the communal privies, guys and girls - complete strangers - shared
the toilets and took showers together. Everyone was repeating "It's
working, it's working!" Nimbin was to become a metaphor
for a whole generation of Australians.
The hilltop swarmed with people and hummed with activity. Rock concerts,
be-ins, peak experiences, spontaneous dances swirled around us.
Shops sold oatmeal cookies and stir-fry veggies on paper plates
(the locals called whole-wheat flour "hippie flour"
and brown rice "hippie rice"). The Learning Exchange
held workshops on silversmithing, transcendental meditation, instrument-
and batik-making, mime by the White Company, and others such as
"Sex - The Virile Sport." A massage tent had opened
up, and in the afternoon at the Butter Factory, vehement diatribes
were underway on racism, gay and feminist liberation, radical sociology,
and antipsychiatry. At the Nimbin Pub, packed with freaks and farmers
from 10 in the morning until 10 at night, the till was white hot.
And the din! A few doors down, a poetry group read Yevtushenko by
candlelight in the middle of the street. Dollar Brand, an African
pianist, played a wild improvisation in Nimbin Hall, taking the
audience to a crescendo, then down to the nadir. In the Central
Cafe, the New Zealand jug band Blertha sent a hundred people rockin'
with their shivering electric guitars. It was a scene of mind-boggling
freshness and innocence.
By the 10th day, the media got hold of the event and turned it into
a real circus. Straight tourists walked down the main street warily
as if they were in a lion park. Keeping their kids close to their
sides, they stood gaping at the goings-on, laughing nervously. Plainclothesmen
drove the dirt roads, and notices divulging their license plate
numbers circulated. Cameramen worked the throngs. An official-looking
man asked me, "Where's the main attraction?" Later
that morning, news spread of an orgiastic be-in on the soccer field.
It started as a snakelike procession winding in and out of all the
tents - a freak parade with everyone singing and playing musical
toys. In the center, the crowd danced and gyrated, a naked, free-spirited
frenzy, while a shaggy, bare-ass photographer with an oversized
16 mm movie camera recorded the climax for posterity. That was Australia's
Summer of Love.
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