Alternative Byron Bay

Byron Bay has a well deserved for being the home of alternative lifestyle. The Bay is now an internationally renown place for alternative life stylers and wealthy refugees from the suburban rat race.

There could be few places anywhere in the world with a more contradictory identity than Byron Bay. From it's beginnings as a meat processing town and whaling station, Byron Bay began to change with the influence of Australian surf culture, and the following alternative lifestyle movement of the 1970"s. Byron Bay was a part of the golden hippy triangle of the Aquarian Festival years, sharing that honour with Mullumbimby and Nimbin.

Since then, it could be fair to say that many of these flower children have moved on - whether by choice or by force. Not physical force, but rather financial pressures. As Byron Bay began it's rise up the Chic charts, so to did the property prices. Byron has become in many ways an upmarket get away for well to do southerners (mainly from either Melbourne or Sydney) who don't gel with the frenetic concrete jungles of the Gold Coast or the zimmer frame pace of Tweed Heads.

Over the past 20 years, Byron has acquired a reputation of almost biblical proportions for being home to the rich and famous. People such as Paul Hogan Linda Kozlowski, John Cornell and Delvene Delaney have made their home here ( though Paul and Linda no longer live here full time, but are occasionally spotted getting their Thai take away!). Half of the original members of Midnight Oil have made their home here, and even a member of 10CC living his own full time dreadlock holiday.

Visitors have included all manor of well known identities - from your run of the mill Billionaire folk such as Richard Branson, Hollywood heavyweights such as Tom Cruise and Billy Zane to music legends of all descript - too many too count, though Michael Franti must get a mention, as his is really an honorary local. In Byron Bay, these people don't get hassled by the throngs - no one really cares if your famous or not - it's not what it's about.

People in Byron are here just to do their thing - whatever that thing may be. For many, that thing is healing - being healed and healing others. If you are after healing modalities, then you've come to the right place! You name it, we've got it! A selection of these modalities include aura reading, shamanism, tarot, reiki, massage, kundalini workshops, tibetan eye reading, guided meditation, intuitive readings, psychic healing, facial harmony, zen shiatsu, astrology, ayervedic healing, tantra, kinesiology, reflexology, cranial sacral balancing and or course yoga!

Byron Bay could be called the home of Australian yoga. If you're a yoga teacher and plan on moving to Byron - be warned: there's a lot of competition! But, by the same token, don't let that put you off..... Byron is the kind of place that if you are meant to be here, you will be supported in doing just that.

The energy in Byron Bay is truly unique. It is said that the Byron Shire lies on a bed of crystal - and this crystalline vibration will affect you whetheryou are conscious of it or not. It is also said that Byron Bay holds the blueprint for unconditional love on the planet, and it is because of this that Byron's popularity has sky rocketed.

Whatever the reason, you can't deny that there is something very special about Byron. Even it is just the juxtaposition of the new age crew mixing it up with the old school hippies, who in turn were clever enough to buy into the real estate market and are now millionaires. Throw into the mix the last remaining cattle and cane farmers (who's farms must be worth a squillion), television and literary celebrities, backpacking citizens of the earth, and the odd billionaire, and you have one very interesting community indeed.

In Byron, you're either a yoga teacher or a DJ - and very often both!