The ‘Rich and Famous’ took over Australia’s most famous beach town

BYRON BAY, AUSTRALIA—Drive 20 kilometres in any direction from world-famous Byron Bay, the easternmost point of Australia, and you’ll see it: acres of grazing country flattened by floodwaters; landslides where entire hillsides have shorn away; mountains of fresh debris piled high on the streets by muddy locals ferrying in and out of ruined homes.

When some of the worst floods in Australia’s history swept through northern New South Wales two weeks ago, these areas were the hardest-hit. But you’d hardly know it standing in the centre of Byron itself. The cafes are open and bustling; the beachfront car park is full. The water, renowned for its turquoise hue, is now a faecal brown—but out past the breakers a kayaker skates across it effortlessly, a pod of dolphins cresting in his wake.

The contrast is so dramatic it’s dislocating. While thousands of people in the surrounding region have been devastated by this natural disaster—one that has collectively claimed at least 22 lives and drenched more than 20,000 homes—Byron seems more or less untouched.

Ask anyone familiar with the area, though, and they’ll tell you that Byron Bay isn’t what it used to be; that the bohemian hippy town has fundamentally changed over the past 10 to 15 years. Hordes of seachangers, property developers, influencers and Hollywood glitterati—the likes of Matt Damon, Natalie Portman and Chris Hemsworth, who have all made Byron home—have gentrified the coastal paradise into Australia’s most expensive major housing market.

Meanwhile, less affluent locals have been driven out into the more affordable towns and cities of the hinterland: areas that are cheaper, in part, because of their vulnerability to environmental catastrophe and which have, in the past few weeks, been turned into disaster zones. The ongoing crisis offers a worrisome microcosm of a pattern increasingly seen the world over, where societies’ most vulnerable are also the most heavily impacted by climate catastrophes.

One of those former locals is Jessica May. Had the floods arrived two years ago, the 39-year-old hair and makeup artist would have been spared. She was then living in Suffolk Park on the edge of Byron, an area now home to several celebrity residents. But after being priced out of the area in 2020, May moved about 15 kilometres northwest to rent a four-bedroom house in the significantly cheaper but flood-prone area of Mullumbimby. That’s where she was in the early hours of Feb. 28 when the rivers burst their banks.