The Face of Byron

Going strong since 1984!

Click image to Buy a Copy

Rusty's "Byron Guide" Cotton T-Shirt

Click Image to Buy a T'Shirt

RUSTY'S BYRON GUIDE

Inspiration For The Byron Journals

by Daniel Ducrou

I grew up in Adelaide. Yep, the Radelaide Badlands, Australia’s Bermuda Triangle, home to weird paedophile rings, bizarre murders and megalitres of brutal shiraz. For most kids, the place you grow up is your world; you don’t know anything different. I grew up landlocked in the eastern suburbs, learning to surf on weekends at Goolwa, a shark infested beach near the River Murray’s dirty anus. The water is brown, the waves crumble to shore from miles out and the wind turns onshore at 10am every morning. Of course, my brothers and I thought Goolwa was paradise – the icy water, refreshing; the gutless waves, perfect; the regular sightings of great white sharks the size of mini-buses, completely normal.

You can imagine my surprise when I chanced upon Byron Bay in the late nineties on a surf trip with my older brother. I was dazed by the summery sexiness of the place, the decadent lifestyle, the opulence of the natural environment. On our second day in town, we bought a bag of weed, smoked a joint and set out to explore Byron’s surrounds, with vague plans to discover new surf breaks and name them after ourselves. We motored up a dirt road into the National Park in my two-hundred-dollar Toyota, parked between two existing tracks, glanced at each other, boards under arms, and pushed our way into the rainforest. The foliage and spider webs thickened until we couldn’t work out if it made more sense to turn back or keep going.

Twenty minutes later, we could hear waves breaking and pushed forward, certain we were close to something. What we were close to – was a cliff face with a sheer drop to rocks and ocean. We edged along the cliff until we reached a worn track, then stopped, awestruck. The rainforest swooped down the hill in a natural amphitheatre and the ocean glittered blue with a lone surfer in the water. At the bottom of the track we came across a large group of girls sun-tanning topless on the rocks. One of them smiled and waved as we walked past and my brother and I looked at each other and nodded in agreement. This place is unbelievable.

After Byron, Adelaide seemed like a retirement village. Dry, boring and conservative. Byron, on the other hand, was electric – the lifestyle deliciously hedonistic. I moved here as soon as I finished uni, landed a part-time job washing dishes, got seriously barrelled for the first time at Suffolk and started meeting girls from Sweden, Norway, South Africa, England, Germany, Brazil, New Zealand, Lichtenstein.

Read More.......

Rusty's Byron Guide - 27 years of publishing: 1984 - 2011.

Colours of Byron from Rest Your Eyes on Vimeo

ADVERTISING

The  Byron Guide  team are currently booking space and positions for the coming 2012 edition.

Talk to Tricia or Rusty on

02 66 847 390

or click here to:

Download 2011 Booking / Rate Sheet For Same Price in 2012

Great discounts and best positions for 'Early Birds' Phone now to find out more!

Rusty's Surf Shop