BYRON Bay is not, as some people angrily suggest in social media posts,  f@#$%d.

I can understand why they think it’s f@#$%d  because I was thinking along the same lines nearly three years ago when Pam and I departed believing our time in the town was over.

Indeed, as recently as December last year I wrote on my website, My Byron Bay, that while Byron Bay with its amazing natural assets still had a special “feel”, it had become an overcrowded, overpriced and in some people’s eyes, an over-rated, money grubbing theme park being killed, mostly by cars – and of course its own popularity.

While Covid has temporarily smashed crowds and traffic for six, house prices are still ridiculously stratospheric and there are still the carpetbaggers who are only in it for the money.

Byron Bay is in my heart, soul and DNA and has been for almost 40 years from the day we moved to the town from Sydney.

I have said it before – and it’s the non-cosmic truth, so I will say it again – from day one I felt I had come ‘home’.

Indeed, I had never felt more at home than anywhere else we had lived.

Which is why that decision Pam and I made to leave to start a new life elsewhere has me, today, asking myself, ‘Why did we do it’? Were we nuts? What we were thinking?’

Questions, I might add, others have asked us as well.

Well, it was a combination of reasons really – those very same reasons I suppose why those people on social media are saying the place is f@#$%d.

We were sick of constantly being angry about traffic and crowds and the general Byron Bay overblown ‘hype’ and the erosion of the community feel.

That ‘hype’ continues today – think Byron Baes, Hollywood movie stars  – and out-of-town buyers are still spending mega-bucks on houses which they will turn into Air B & Bs depleting even further permanent rental stocks.

Happily, our time away turned out to be only a trial separation. We came to our senses.

We were lucky enough to be able to buy back into Byron Bay, but I feel desperately sad for long-time renters who are being forced to move away from the town they also call ‘home’.

I can understand why they would say the place is f@#$%d.

In that post last December, I  suggested the town had changed so much that there was ‘no going back’.

Well, that’s still true. Byron Bay is not the same as it was 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, or 1983 when we came. Nowhere is, but memories live on.

In making our decision to leave Byron Bay, we were also looking to downsize – again – and being of a certain age, looking to do something different in life before it was too late.

We tried Tweed-Coolangatta – nice beaches, good bike riding – but it wasn’t us. And it wasn’t Byron Bay.

We tried Ballina – nice house, great river, good walks, good bike riding, OK beaches – but it wasn’t us. And it wasn’t Byron Bay.

We looked seriously at moving to Maclean and started the process of buying a house in the town.

That plan fell over and now in retrospect – and no disrespect to Maclean – I’m glad it did, because it became the catalyst for our move back to the Bay.

Serendipitedously, we were put on to a house we could afford, which in this outrageous real estate market was a miracle, and we bought it.

We were coming home. It was meant to be and I can’t begin to tell you how excited I was.

Visiting Byron Bay as we did regularly during our time away, only reinforced the notion of not knowing what you’ve got until it’s gone. (Feel free to sing along.)

I recall – after the initial honeymoon period of starting a new life – the gnawing feeling in my stomach just about every time we headed back out of town back to the Tweed or Ballina.

A feeling of loss almost. It was our ‘home’ but we didn’t live there any more and I think I was jealous of those who did. It certainly ate away at me and I am absolutely sure I drove Pam up the wall talking about wanting to go back.

That all changed on June 2 this year when Byron Bay really became our home – again.

How to explain the pull the town has on me despite those aforementioned misgivings? Is it the view from Main Beach car park across the bay to the hinterland hills and Mt Warning? Yes!

Is it the cape and the lighthouse? Yes! Is it Wategos and The Pass? Yes! Is it the long sweep of  beach from Tallow to Broken? Yes! Is it the eclectic mix of fellow residents and characters? Yes!

Is it familiar faces, though in ever diminishing numbers? Yes.

Is it the Rec Ground, the Main Beach park, Railway Park, the golf club and the back bike track to Suffo? Yes.

Is it the world-class music and cultural festivals? Yes.

Is it walking the familiar streets? Yes.

Is it the passion many others have for the town and its future? Yes!

It is all those things and more.

And then there is the intangible ‘connection’. Can’t explain that – spiritual maybe –  but you will know it if you’ve got it.

While Covid unhappily has given today’s Bay a flashback feel of the 1980s and 90s in terms of traffic and feet on the street and is pushing many businesses to the brink, it will certainly bounce back when the pandemic genie has been safely bottled.

When it does, I have already determined not to ever again (well, maybe a little bit) be bothered by traffic jams, crowds in the streets and on beaches, or the Byron Bay media hype.

I’m hopefully just going to go with the flow.

If sitting in a line of traffic in Bangalow Road on a stinking hot day and I can feel a blow-up coming, I will remind myself of those nearly three years away and just be happy knowing I am living where I belong – Byron Bay, my home. And it’s not f@#$%d.