I've only been to Nimbin once, to visit a local friend. My boyfriend was physically assaulted by two youths on bicycles, who then glowered and followed him about for the duration of our visit. I found the experience terrifying.

People visit Nimbin because it's a freak show, not because they admire the lifestyle or people there.

There's not much else happening up that way in Northern NSW is there?

If people have perceptions of Nimbin being an aging hippie hangout, for people on the dole who have seldom if ever worked, maybe it's because there's some truth to it?

What's the point of this para, apart from hating Piers Aks "But perhaps even more bizarre is a poisonous piece from the notorious Piers Ackerman in an article entitled “Pay no mind to paranoid hippies” (Sunday Telegraph October 14, 2001). Conflating the Greens and Democrats with “dole bludging fringe dwellers at Nimbin” who want the navy to release videos of refugee boat people, he insists that, “The navy must not accede to the wishes of ageing hippies and dysfunctional children”.

Why is it poisonous - because you disagree?

Grow up ..

While I admire Graham's efforts in analysing Nimbin's media coverage as someone who's been a journalist for way too long I could have told him the result. Once Nimbin gets an image it is very difficult to shake. Media items are mostly selected to confirm images, not change them, particularly when editors want dirt for the front page and they want it now. Everyone is vaguely aware that Nimbin is a haven for dreadlock-wearing, drug-crazed ferals and a drug production centre, so that's what the stories say irrespective of what the reality may be..
Once Nimbin does shake its image, however, no-one will bother writing about it, and that may affect the tourist trade...

I first visited Nimbin at the time of the Aquarius festival. Nowadays, having friends and offspring in the area, I visit Nimbin 3 or 4 times a year. What I've noticed over the years is that the main street has become decidely grungey, and that's the Nimbin that young backpackers and older oglers (including journos) tend to see when they visit.

However, there's lots of positive stuff happening away from the grunge strip of which casual visitors wouldn't be aware. As for "There's not much else happening up that way in Northern NSW is there?", you are joking, aren't you?

There's more cultural and social development happening in the Northern Rivers than just about anywhere I can think of in Australia. You haven't actually been there, have you Amicus?

'In some ways the village of Nimbin has come a long way since the 1973 Aquarius Festival which was the largest assembly of alternative thinkers Australia has ever seen. '

What many of these alternative thinkers had in common was that they did not mind being dole bludgers and most were enslaved to their lusts. Out of this very little wholesome thinking came.

cj - I lived at Coopers Shoot for years, before Byron was "popular", when it was a railhead for the dairy and abattoir.

Lived at Evan's head for a while and at the top of the road at Main Arm, Mullim.

Surfed at the pass when the crowd was less than a dozen, for many years then left the area when it became full of alternative lifestyle ferals and hippies, who I could not and still cannot stand listening to the crap they go on with. A bunch of whining parasites.

I was asking a question cj, as usual, you go on with your ignorance.

"more cultural and social development happening in the Northern Rivers than just about anywhere I can think of in Australia", that really shows the limits of your perspective doesn't it.

Yes, social development, on the dole while someone else is paying for it - nothing changes up there does it? (that's a question cj)