There is a Place
There is a place; I think it might be special. I know it is different. It is a place where you can feel forever young and the next minute incredibly old. A place where old HI ace vans, Subarus, Falcons and Holdens go to die, where you feel sorry for the one dog in ten that you see on a lead because he is the only dog being controlled, a special place where everyone rides pushbikes, almost always without helmets, often dinking and sometimes drinking. A small town where the history of the years of settlement is on display and the historical strata pushes through or is being repurposed. Of course it seems like it is one of the last outposts of the 60s counterculture and you will see more fresh amazing tattoos in one hour at the beach than in most places in a week. On weekends it seems that every good looking Australian under the age of thirty has gone there to procreate and produce cute bronzed infants running free.
It has a river for boating, fishing, swimming, kayaking and SUP, a bridge where apparently it is completely ok and legal to jump off into the said river and hold up the traffic when you climb up the bank and run down the roadway to wait your turn to jump again. The beach goes forever, the surf can be good but it is not a spot like D-bah or Crescent Head. The funny thing is I reckon there might still be some secret spots nearby.
What is for sure is the town pub is one of the best in Australia, a mecca for all and sundry and I only wish the tiles in the public bar could talk. When you sit in the large beer garden on a summer Sunday afternoon and have a beer or two the crowd and the vibe reminds me perfectly of afternoons and nights at legendary 70s and 80s beach watering holes like Surfair, The Playroom or Fishos.
Surprisingly the town has long narrow lanes running inland from the front street shops like some of the beach suburbs of L.A. It is easy to imagine great creativity emerging from a flat or a shed in one of these lanes, perhaps a block or two down from an Australian equivalent of “The Dude” or Inherent Vice’s Doc Sportello. It is the essence, the pinnacle of the rapidly diminishing catalog of classic East Coast beach towns and if you haven’t guessed already I am talking about Brunswick Heads. To me Brunnie is one of a kind.
To know that Brunswick Heads is twenty minutes from Byron Bay, a town where millionaires fight over car parks with the backpackers living in their cars outside the millionaire’s front gates signifies a lot. The new Byron, a town that was much like Brunswick Heads but is now so different that movie stars enroll their kids at the local state school, is a warning that for Brunnie, the Brunswick Heads that I am writing about, time is running out. The first signs, the ones that make Brunnie more desirable to those who want more are already there. The old locals are starting to complain about what is coming even though some of them will do very well.
I fear the growth is unstoppable and for all the carry on about the bush in Australian life the vast majority of us want to be within a few hours of the coast, in fact we prefer if we can walk it in ten. This of course means that sooner or later our beach towns on the East Coast are destined to become suburban dormitories or garish Vegas lookalikes or expensive playgrounds where the natural beauty is preserved at a price. The price being the place is unaffordable for most of us for most of the time.
By accident of birth I have been able to enjoy these paradises but I hate the NIMBYness that often masquerades as environmental concern from my generation. I want Brunnie to stay just the way it is in the way that Byron, Noosa and Coolum have not but I know it won’t, it can’t and I am honestly at a loss as to how you stop the changes. It appears we all want a piece of paradise and who am I to say no. Such is life, as another Australian once said. One Australian who I am sure would have been very happy riding helmetless around Brunnie on a rusty pushy with an old mal or a fishing rod under one arm.
Last year I wrote about a fine book called Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel. [See https://www.chestbeatingbyword.com/home/2020/10/22/the-goldilocks-book] It is dystopic fiction but unlike a lot of those books which can bring you down with unrelenting death and destruction from aliens or weather events or the walking dead, Station Eleven is as uplifting as can be given 99% of the world’s population has died from a nasty flu. Yep, I know who would have thought that could be possible.
Set in 2040, Station Eleven is about a travelling troupe of actors performing plays and music from the past to the remaining outposts of civilization. Of course it is not all good reviews and civilization rebuilding, there are still bad people and artifacts from the recent past link and bring our characters together in a clever and artistic way. Station Eleven has been made into a ten part series that is now on Stan and the showrunners have done a great job. A really moving, thought provoking adaption with top performances and based on the three episodes I have seen I can only say it is a much watch.
The book, the TV episodes and Brunswick Heads are all jumbled together in my mind at the moment. I think COVID, the feeling of the world changing, the loss of the familiar and how the things that we think matter really aren’t that important in the end may have something to do with it. Check Brunswick Heads and Station Eleven book and/or film out, you will be rewarded.
Photo by Martin Flischman on Unsplash
