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28/06/2009: "BELONGIL BEACH - EROSION WORRIES (1997)"
Are the power poles shown here are still in place?
Near Byron Bay, this beach that is renowned for multi-million dollar properties.
Serious beach erosion is regularly featured on TV news.
Byron Bay was once a fabulous spot. Quiet and with low prices. Good diving offshore. Today it's the opposite. Over-priced and crowded.
The story told years ago was how the area was 'discovered' by hippies, who favored Brunswick Heads - a nice-looking family holiday town by the sea, nearby.
Byron Bay then featured a closed-down whaling station and a 'live meat processing factory' (abattoir) at Belongil, with a pipe spewing blood into the sea, off the beach.
A not-too-popular well paying job for scuba divers was inspecting and clearing the pipe on the 'blood line'.
Until about 1980 Byron Bay was a 'marine industrial town'. Not too pleasant to look at but good fun and good value.
A tough attitude senior policeman serviced the area and virtually kicked the hippies away from Brunswick Heads township, so they moved on to nearby Byron Bay where nobody complained very loud. Byron was already established as surfing hot spot.
The surrounding hills attracted additional hippies who in time bought real estate and settled in.
The rich dairy pasture villages of Nimbin, The Channon, were an inspiration for young city people to get back to nature, for some to get married and for most to grow herbs.
Byron Bay has since become the destination for international backpackers. Prices for everything are probably double what they might be had the abattoir not closed and the blood ceased flowing into the bay.
Vegetarians would now out-number meat eaters in this part of Australia.
