|
by Stella Kinsella
Come, join the honest
company
Of the Kings beggars-
Those gamblers, scoundrels and divine clowns
And those astonishing fair courtesans
Who need divine love every night.
I will lead you into
the Circle
Of the Beloved's cunning thieves,
Those playful, royal rogues-
The ones you can trust for true guidance who can aid you
In this blessed Calamity of life.
From the outset, Byron Bay might be looking a little thick
around the gills, you know, all that froth and blather, boutiques
bouncing back to back, the odd franchise, all that traffic.
For some regular visitors, it's all a bit hard to believe,
the changes that is, to this once briny town. And it has changed,
ask any local, but then again, who's a local in Byron Bay?
Byron Bay has been called a lot of things since
the dairy town woke up to the circus of lifestyle seekers
and tourists that now compose part of the semi stable population.
But Byron Bay is one place where Real Estate Agents and residents
agree on one thing, it's Paradise.
The natural beauty alone is God's draw card,
vamped up by a near perfect climate. These attributes are
enough to class Byron Bay and it's stunning hinterland in
the ten best dressed map locations of Australi
But sexy escarpment and lush forest do not account for the
reputation Byron Bay enjoys internationally. Byron has a vibe
that stretches beyond the travel magazines,the television
specials, the Lonely Planet guides. Its name rings from sweaty
backpacker quarters in the East Indies to elusive Manhattan
restaurants. Everyone has a story about Byron, or at least,
a story in the making.
Byron manufactures myth, it churns it out, a pulp fiction
fantasy, a place disinclined to need virtual reality parlours.
Living in Byron is not unlike enjoying an extended role in
your own film, it's perverse, myopic, surreal. So what is
it about this town?
There is a local story of a fellow who moved to Byron after
years living and working the city. When his urban friends,
stressed from their upwardly mobile careers called on him
to ask how he was getting along he said, I love it. When I
lived in Melbourne, all anyone asked me was where I went to
school. When I lived in Sydney, all they asked was how much
money I made. Now I live in Byron and all anyone asks is my
star sign.
It's true, Byron does enjoy something of an astrological
Mafiosi, but while your income, marital status and upbringing
is still excellent fodder for the cafe set, it just isn't
that important in Byron. There's just too much going on to
care that much.
The hippie headquarters, the alternative capital, the summer
land, the feral kingdom, surfer's lair, developers' cash cow,
the end of the world. Byron wears its labels like badges on
a protester. And it happily accommodates all of them. About
the only thing not tolerated in Byron Shire is intolerance
itself, which is perhaps the best way to get a real handle
on this town. Like the sarongs sold in the street opposite
the famous pub, one size fits all.Byron Bay is the result
of seven volcanic eruptions, a caldera spewed from the bile
of Mt Warning, its crag looming in the distance as a none
too subtle reminder of how arbitrary mother nature can be.
Its indigenous history ripples with lore suggesting the land
has always been special, sacred and fascinatingly problematic.
Popular myth identifies it as a meeting place, a place of
sexual healing, a spiritual trig point. True or not, it is
less than a century since the cedar getters cleared the surrounding
land of Old Scrub, since the dairy industry nestled into the
lush hills and plateau, since abattoirs made Byron something
of a killing zone for cattle, pigs and whales, since the hippie
invasion at the time of the Aquarius festival, since the surfers
found their mother lode, since professional refugees escaped
their cardboard careers for a life that makes wellness a priority,
not a luxury.
Byron Shire is often called a community. In truth, it is
a rabbit warren of communities and you can ascribe to as many
and as few as you wish. But if Byron Shire is a community,
it's a community full of black sheep. Researching a coffee
table book for local resident and author Di Morrissey, it
has become evident that the shining collection of men, women
and children who make this place swing like a hepped up metronome.
Of the Byron artists, musicians, architects, business people,
designers, surfers, politicians, composers, gurus, funeral
celebrants and writers interviewed for the book, a common
thread began to weave its way through their stories.
The environmental catastrophe that created the Byron caldera,
set the scene for a social crucible. The yarns spun in Di
Morrissey's coffee table book are about a place where the
misfits, the creative, talented, somewhat spoiled visionaries
and dreamers found they could rest a little, stay a while,
and paint their letter box blue. Black sheep who wandered
from the flock, discovered a different sort of take on life.
Byron has become a pilgrimage for the disaffected, where anybody
fits in, because no-one really does. And that's what keeps
the pendulum swinging. Byron is as endearing as it is arrogant,
as generous as it unscrupulous, where some people take more
than they give, and others give and give and still seem to
manage to find more. Culturally it might be naive, but Byron
has been able to embrace culture and ritual with such energy,
and such blatant disregard for what the world really thinks,
it suggests the name calling, the pigeon holing, the labeling
will continue, world wide- But no matter the handle, the only
way to really know this place, is to sit back & let it roll
you over.
Stella Kinsella
|
