The real estate agent was incredulous. “Why would you want to leave Byron?” she asked as she showed me a house for sale an hour north.
It was a good question, one that I’d asked myself often, but the new Netflix show Byron Baes, featuring the town’s influencer culture, confirms the decision is right.
Our decade in Byron has been pretty much a love affair. There was the travel-brochure version: I loved the world-class beaches, rivers, coffee and slowed-down lifestyle. There was the esoteric version: I had grown to love the Byron-esque kookiness, learning to contribute to conversations about my aura and completing job applications that required my astrology sign.
Then there was finding a home on acreage with ocean views that pulled at us from each room and anointed our evenings with a lighthouse flash every 13 seconds, I exhaled and my heart cracked open.
All that was the culmination of a single moment during a visit to Byron. Prominently pregnant with my first child, swaying with the heat and humidity and flush with baby hormones, I knew this was where I wanted to raise my children.
It took 14 years from that trip to be ready to leave Melbourne and its three-question triangulation on meeting anyone new: “What do you do, where do you live and what school do your kids attend?” Now, in Byron, I’m far more likely to encounter a casual, “So, are you working?”
The kids embraced the lifestyle, relaxing their vigilance on conformity and, when the youngest accidentally spent a day at school wearing his furry monkey slippers without attracting a single comment, we acknowledged that a significant shift had occurred.
We considered ourselves “true locals” when Gracie adopted us. Through her daily beach walk and chocolate labrador eyes, we met people who are now lifelong friends. We became accustomed to the lushness, the mould and saved George-the-Snakeman’s number in our phones
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