MAIN BEACH

A twenty-bunk dorm with no windows and rickety beds, thin mattresses and damp carpet—we’re all vague outlines standing in the dark, gapping at one another. Somewhere somebody is crunching, shoving handfuls of Muesli into his or her mouth. The place smells awful. A German girl spreads her legs, stretching, and her pink lace panties can be seen in the crotch of her denim short-shorts. I climb desperately onto the top-bunk, feet stressing against the sharp edge of the ladder rungs, and extract my toothbrush from my pack. I swipe the sand of my sheet and return to the floor, avoiding cobwebs. Tom is waiting, looking pail and unnerved.

This is our first night in Main Beach Backpackers—welcome to Byron Bay.

It’s raining.

We enter the kitchen and my feet stick to the tiles, everybody glares. The skillets are dented into lumpy sculptures, distorted and uneven, and the counters are wet with slop and dried jam. There are three forks, a handful of knives, and four or five spoons.

We brush our teeth amid the piss reek of toilets and moldy shower stalls.

The next day our bread gets stolen.

Byron Bay is a tired tourist trap, feeling like an unfriendly brochure with nothing but bad coupons and obscure photos of a vibrant past. After Yamba, both Tom and I are disappointed. There are a lot of longhaired, drugged-up, nut cases reenacting the flower-power flourish of the sixties, minus the imagination, style, and values—minus the conviction and struggle—actually just a bunch of wannabes banging on acoustic guitars, lining the sidewalks, unshaven and stinking.

The beach is what must have fallen out from under Yamba’s fingernail and floated up-shore.

The lighthouse looks cool, shining from its perch above the sea, watching the night horizon with its long golden eye.

We met some people, ran into some people, played some hacky-sack—discussed things. Walked from bar to bar—lame scene—we watched people trashed, men standing and staring in their flat brimmed hats while drunken girls flailed their arms on lonely dance floors.

We caught the bus, left Byron Bay, and headed North.