Article by Jill Margo AFR 2003/09/27

Ask for LSD in any cafe in Byron Bay these days and you'll get a nice warm mug of latte-soy-dandelion. Byron is a town with a sense of humour, but it's also a town that is changing before people's eyes. The hippies have gone to the hills - and although Byron now has real estate prices to rival those in Sydney and Melbourne, somehow it hasn't surrendered its spirit. It still stands like a beacon on the north coast of NSW, beckoning to people who want to reclaim lost bits of their lives. There was a time when it drew drifters, surfers and people on the artistic edge; today it attracts jaded city professionals, usually around 40, who hope it will give their lives a new dimension. Over the past decade or so they've come in, bought the prime real estate, put rents up and patronised the increasingly classy restaurants. While the town still doesn't have anything like the conspicuous consumption of the Gold Coast, it does have a lot of new money and an intense case of new-age narcissism, with every second resident deeply interested in their personal wellbeing and its expression. The social drugs are still there, a few old-timers are still on the bowling green, and with the new freeway putting only two hours between Brisbane and Byron, waves of tourists wash into town every weekend. In the hotter months, there are so many tourists in Byron it's hard to spot a local. That's its problem, says Tom Wilson, the mayor of Byron for four years. Real Byronians are harder and harder to identify, and the town is at risk of losing so much local content that it becomes an empty shell, trading on its past, where tourists rub shoulders with tourists. Newcomers discount this risk: Byron is just becoming more complex, they say. The population has a high level of education and passionately wants to preserve the low-rise casualness of the place. Newcomers have escaped the punishing career demands of the city and don't want to work too hard. They're comfortable enough to take things easier. While they like fine wine and good furniture, they also like yoga, meditation and the intangibles of Buddhism. Byron is probably the only place in Australia where people with lots of money speak the language of non-attachment - and do so without any sense of irony.
Many see Byron as a place of transformation. There's a pervasive belief that there is something special in the ground. People talk of good feng shui, of the value of being at the easternmost point of this ancient continent, of songlines and the land's history as a gathering place for Aboriginal clans. "People seem to believe that historically and environmentally, this is a place where the universe will work on you to create transformation," says Dawn Cohen, formerly a psychotherapist from the inner Sydney suburb of Balmain. "Whether it is in the biochemistry of Byron or it is just in our imagination, what is factual is that Byron is symbolic of transformation, of the place where you will find that lost aspect of yourself that used to have interests beyond the material. "It may be the middle-aged bloke hankering after his surfie days and the freedom that represented, or it may be somebody like me looking for a place where there is enough space and freedom of mind to go with my own internal rhythms." Cohen arrived in Byron with her partner about 10 months ago and is still high on the fresh air and freeness of the place. "It's got all the good things that go with rural Australia, and at the same time the level of artistic endeavour here is unbelievable. Almost every person is or wants to be an artist of some kind. "You call an electrician to do a job and he's got a novel going. And if he hasn't got one, then he's very interested in yours. It's so culturally alive. "And so different. In Sydney, if we are invited to a dinner party, we know what will happen in our social circle. It will start at the predicted time, people will dress studied-smart-casual, there will be eight seats at the table, and we'll talk about real estate for the first half of the night. "We went to [a dinner party] up here and there were 50 people. It was fantastic. Dinner was at 11 - that was a problem - but people were dressed in everything from fake fur to slashed jeans. And they were incredibly friendly. In Balmain, you don't talk to your neighbours for at least six months. Here, you talk about your extracurricular activities before you get down to what you do for a living. Eventually you still talk about house prices, but it's about acreage versus non-acreage." The house prices are about as breathtaking as the view of Byron Bay from the lighthouse. Ed Silk of Ed Silk Real Estate says shacks on the beachfront at Belongil can be picked up for $1.5 million. At the other end of the bay, $3 million for a house at Wategos wouldn't raise an eyebrow. There's nothing on his books under $250,000. Between 2000 and 2002, the market went up 50 per cent then stabilised. Silk says it has just begun to kick again. "My logic tells me it can't be driven much harder, but intuitively I think we haven't seen anything yet." The Byron market is not only geographically limited by ocean on two sides and wetlands behind, it is also limited by the total lack of political will to expand or go up. "Many people fall in love with Byron. It just touches something, and sometimes the investments don't make sense in their heads, only in their hearts," Silk says. "Some buy a unit to get a foothold in the market. They often borrow against equity in their Sydney house and negatively gear. Some just want their own piece of the place. They are 'globals' and have houses everywhere." Robert Sessions is not a global. He lives in Melbourne, where he is publishing director of Penguin. He, too, loves Byron, and was persuaded to make a "cast-iron" investment in a one-bedroom apartment in a managed block on the beachfront. "In the four years that I have owned it, it has been full 52 weeks a year, it has a 9 or 10 per cent yield, and it has almost tripled in value," he says. But it isn't only the investment that interests him. "This might be my resting place. There is something very special about this part of Australia - something to do with the degree of topicality. It still has seasons, the water is warm, the vegetation is fantastic, there are hills." The coast between Byron and Tweed Heads has also come alive, particularly around Casuarina, but these new developments don't have the charm or headiness of Byron. In more recent times, parents have begun following their children to Byron. George and Rose Franco not only want to see their grandchildren grow, they want to enjoy the beauty and buzz of the place. In 1999, they sold their waterfront apartment in Sydney's Point Piper, stopped subscribing to the opera, and bought a house with a pool close to town. They joined the local music society and enrolled in a cultural lecture group.
"Coming here is like having a shot of adrenaline," says Rose. "The change itself is a challenge which generates new energy."
George, who at 80 is planning a new business venture, does hanker after some Sydney things. "I miss the conviviality of my bowling club. It was in a beautiful position, I knew every member, and it's hard to recreate that situation." But as a place for retirement, he says Byron Shire is hard to beat. "I'd rather die than go to a retirement village because it has certain connotations - it's an antechamber. Emotionally, I couldn't stand it. The type of life up here suits me very well."
The natural beauty of Byron and its bohemian ambience are an intoxicating combination - one that has also lured several writers and journalists away from the cities in the past few years. Ruth Ostrow, journalist and broadcaster, moved up with her family four years ago and says getting off the Sydney treadmill was the best decision of her life. "I was living to pay the mortgage, so I could live in a fabulous place so I could entertain the fabulous friends, but I never had the time to have the fabulous parties because I was working so many jobs," Ostrow says. "Now I've unwound from that whole consumer obsession and have a modest lifestyle by the sea, where international musicians come, where world spiritual leaders teach, and where there is an artistic intelligentsia. "To me, Byron is the cultural-spiritual mecca of our generation. We are a respectable artist community, but still a bit hippie and free. This place gives you permission to explore those other dimensions within yourself, those childlike spaces which are the foundation of free thinking and creativity." But not everyone goes into raptures about Byron. Singer Grace Knight, of Eurogliders fame, moved up 12 years ago to give her son the opportunity of growing up in natural beauty. "When he was four, it was terrific - we walked in the rainforest, fished, and rolled around in paddocks," she says. "But now he's a young man, there is nothing here for him - no inspiration, no work opportunities - so he has gone back to Sydney. "It all looks fantastic if you're passing through, but unless you're an artist or have your work inside yourself, there is very little employment. That's the underbelly of Byron. In the shire, the infrastructure is poor - you drive on roads that are not repaired, garbage is not collected, and there are no facilities for kids. They get bored, they get depressed, they take drugs. "When I first came [here], I loved the rich mixture of people. You'd see a man walking down the street with a rat on his shoulder, and smile at his weirdness. But people like him have been flushed out by the wealth, and the spirit of the place has changed." Most mornings Knight is at the "breakfast club" with other artists, artisans, filmmakers and business people who meet around the big table in front of the Byronian cafe. It's an enviable group of old friends who sit around until mid-morning, chewing the fat and laughing a lot. One of the regulars is Bill Conner, who was NSW Exporter of the Year in 1993. He surfs from 5am to 8am every day, rocks up to the breakfast club around 9am, and an hour later goes to work at his leather hat factory, where he turns over about $1.5 million a year. By late afternoon he's often back in the surf. "I can live happy in this town every day," says Conner, who was born in America but is now an Australian citizen. "I love Byron's cosmopolitan feel. It has a sophistication that is uncharacteristic of country towns. You would think that because we have rock stars, multimillionaires, musicians, poets, artists and authors, that the streets would be paved with gold and there would be beautiful parks with great public sculpture - but the council is broke, and we don't have enough philanthropists."
For historical reasons, the council has a $7.3 million debt which it is trying to service off a rate base of $8.8 million a year. Its constant battles against developers cost up to $750,000 a year. Wilson became mayor as a result of opposition to the Club Med development just outside town. Now he's facing a fight over the same site, this time with Becton which is planning a more environmentally sensitive development that Wilson says is still of questionable tourism value. "We don't see tourism as some great benefactor handing out gold coins to everyone," Wilson says. "It's an extractive industry - it digs a hole in your community, in your social fabric and in your culture. You see that now by the rental push and the crime on the streets." But tourism has created considerable wealth for a handful of men, including John Cornell who, as it happens, is leading the push against the Becton development. In the late 1970s Cornell used his television and advertising earnings to buy the old-style Surf Hotel on Byron's beach. In its place he built the ultra-modern Beach Hotel, often cited as a key factor in the town's transformation. Next door stands the rather modest, typically Australian Bay Motel, owned by Peter Croke, who has spent the past 19 years accumulating local real estate and owns a string of motels, caravan parks and resorts. Croke was all for the Club Med development and says he hasn't yet formed an opinion about Becton. "Your mind never grows old in Byron Bay. It's unique. I've been to 101 countries around the world trying to find another place like it, but every time I return, I think it's the greatest place on Earth." Backpackers think so, too, although the writer Mungo MacCallum thinks they are deluded. "They still believe in the legend of the old Byron Bay as a place of significance on the international backpacker-hippie trail. But the legend of Byron Bay has become simply a legend."
MacCallum, who lives at nearby Brunswick Heads, says wryly that Byron has turned into the local version of New York. "It's simply too big, too flashy, too fast, too difficult and, of course, much, much too expensive. People are making huge capital gains and in the process destroying the place they came to live in." No one knows what will happen. As Dawn Cohen observes: "Byron is going through its own transformation, and all we can do is wait and see."