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This clip shows a series of black-and-white photographs intercut with archival black-and-white film footage, illustrating key historical changes in Byron Bay, on the northern coast of New South Wales, since European settlement. The narrator details the effects of the timber, pastoralist, sand-mining and whaling industries since 1840. Colour footage and a voice-over from an interview with Nick Shand, a local journalist, are blended with the photographs to convey Byron Bay’s transition from a working-class rural town to a community that attracted people seeking alternative lifestyles in the 1970s.

Educational value points

• The town of Byron Bay is located in New South Wales on the east coast of Australia, approximately 800 km north of Sydney and 200 km south of Brisbane. Byron Bay has become a national icon and an international tourist destination. It is renowned for its alternative culture and lifestyle as well as its picturesque coastline, on which is situated the most easterly and most visited lighthouse in Australia.

• The documentary outlines the key historical changes in Byron Bay and surrounds since European settlement. It covers the early settlers clearing the land to harvest timber and develop pastoral industries, the building of the lighthouse, the sand-mining and whaling industries, the transition to a haven for people seeking alternative lifestyles and, most recently, the commercial tourism developments.

• Some of the early industries in Byron Bay and surrounds are described and illustrated. The timber industry harvested cedar, known as 'red gold’, in the area from 1840 until the 1880s, when 'the big scrub’ was exhausted. Pastoralists then cleared the land to produce beef, butter and bananas. Produce began to be exported when the jetty and railway were built. The Norco Co-operative was established to manufacture, store, sell and transport butter and other dairy products. In the 1930s the sand-mining industry began extracting zircon, rutile and other minerals from the rich deposits in the beaches between Ballina and Brunswick Heads.

• The whaling industry in Byron Bay features in the clip. The Byron Bay whaling station operated between 1954 and 1962, processing 1,146 whales and producing more than 10,000 tonnes of oil. The whalers used harpoon guns, which would explode after lodging in the whale’s flesh. The whale was then killed and towed into shore to be processed. A 12-m humpback whale weighing approximately 40 tonnes would yield about 10 tonnes of oil. Whale oil was used mainly for lamp fuel, lubricants, candles and as a base for soaps. The International Whaling Commission introduced an open-ended moratorium on all commercial whaling in 1986. The moratorium is supported by the Australian Government.

• Major social changes occurred in Byron Shire in the early 1970s and some of these are described in the clip. Byron Shire continues to reflect the ethos of the 1970s through an ongoing commitment to environmental sustainability. Residents have successfully campaigned to prevent transnational corporations such as McDonalds and Club Med from establishing businesses in the area. The tourism boom and a growing permanent population are central concerns for residents who debate the advantages and disadvantages of increasing numbers and the best approach to managing congestion during peak season.

• The clip includes an early photograph of the Cape Byron Lighthouse, which was built in 1901. It is Australia’s most easterly lighthouse, being situated on the most easterly point of the mainland. The original optical lens weighs 8 tonnes and contains 760 pieces of polished prismatic glass. In about 1956, when the light was converted to mains electricity, Cape Byron Lighthouse became Australia’s most powerful lighthouse, visible 27 nautical miles out to sea. Lighthouses have become largely automated with the introduction of sophisticated satellite navigation, and Cape Byron Lighthouse became automated in 1989. Since then, it has not been occupied by lighthouse keepers.

• The documentary was directed by David Bradbury (1951–), a critically acclaimed Australian filmmaker who has developed a reputation in Australia and overseas for his politically challenging stories. His films Frontline (1981) and Chile: Hasta Cuando? (1986) were nominated for Academy Awards for Best Documentary in 1981 and 1987.

This clip starts approximately 36 minutes into the documentary.

The clip shows a series of black-and-white photographs intercut with archival film footage, illustrating key historical changes in Byron Bay since European settlement.
Narrator The first settlers called it ‘The Big Scrub’. They came to cut the cedar. That was in the 1840s. Down went the 1,000-year-old trees. Down they went for 40 years. They called it ‘red gold’ and shipped it to England and the United States until there was none left. None! Then onto the denuded land they came – the next wave of white settlers. They built their slab huts and cleared the land for beef, butter and bananas. In 1889, their ships tied up at the new jetty connecting Byron and the produce of its hinterland to the outside world. After they built the jetty, they built the first pub: the Pier Hotel. The lighthouse was built in 1900 and Byron got its first council chambers in 1906.

A passenger ship steamed into the bay twice a week from Sydney. But in the eyes of the rest of the world, Byron was still a million miles away. The whole area expanded rapidly through the 1920s, and there were sawmills up every valley. Then came the sandminers, after the loggers and graziers, When the mineral sands ran out in the 1950s, new wealth had to be found.

We see film footage of whaling in Byron.
Narrator Byron survived by becoming a whaling town. After eight short years, the whales were gone and another human endeavour had killed the golden goose.

We see a series of black-and-white photos of a new hippie community, including photos of large ‘families’ and houses and community buildings being erected.
Narrator Then in the early ‘70s came a new tribe: people from the cities who came with the idea of living lightly on the land.

Interview with Nick Shand, a local journalist.
Nick Shand Um, I was 23 years old, I think, and uh, we had a young child and we wanted to go and live on the land, back to Mother Earth, live in a community, get away from the city, drop all those uh, all those values of uh, materialism and uh, consumerism, and uh get back to the natural life. We were hippies. We were drop-outs of the early ‘70s. And um, that’s what we did. We came to live in Mullumbimby. We were one of the first, uh, people there.

It was always a slow process building houses in those days, because of course, nobody had any money. But uh, as the community effort got behind individuals who were building their houses, and we had one work bee here and one work bee there, then, then as the houses got built, our energies turned into putting up community buildings.