Normal text size Very large text size There is no way to tell the story of a place as beautiful, fractious, mocked, stereotyped and beloved as Byron Bay, unless you admit, firstly, that everyone will have their own version. You fell in love here, married here, gave birth here. You came to get well, or die here. Your life fell apart here. You wrote your book here, or spent years pretending to do so. You danced till dawn in the hills, learnt to surf on those perfectly formed point breaks. You kayaked with dolphins and sea turtles; you heard the migratory humpback whales singing their way up the coast, long after their parents and grandparents had been harpooned, their throats cut, then shipped to the slaughterhouse to be processed into margarine.