From tough Aussie abattoir town to global surf/tourism mecca, Neverland offers a rare pictorial account of how American and Australian anti-Vietnam War surfers transformed Byron Bay forever.
Neverland is a social history of a surf town in Australia – which happens to be Byron Bay.
It is the story of the surfers, American and Australian, who found and made Byron Bay their home in the 1960s and 1970s changing its history forever. These stories, as told to the author, are of a time in Byron Bay that charts the forces that created modern Byron Bay. Culture wars. Freedom, rebellion, they believed they were going to change the world.
It tells the story of how a backwater NSW slaughterhouse town became the beating heart of Australian counterculture, a crossroads creative Mecca, a world-class surf destination, and one of the planet's most desirable addresses and expensive real estate. If it wasn't for the American and Australian surfers, Byron Bay may still be an industrial town rather than the cultural destination it has become. They changed Byron Bay town from black and white to colour.
'Byron Bay is rich in stories: something has happened in every corner, behind every tree, on (and under) every blade of grass...and of course in every take-off spot. This book is a treasury of those tales that give Byron its unique living spirit. To read it is to feel that you have been welcomed into a tribe.' – Malcolm Knox, Australian journalist, author and surfer
'Tricia has successfully woven personal stories of drama and daring into a layered social history of the far north coast seen through the eyes of a community of American and Australian surfers tied through a bond of understanding and respecting a feeling. A feeling born out of the joy we experience playing in the waves, how simple and yet how powerful that connection can be.' – Simon Baker, award winning actor and director, a surfer and north coast resident
Tricia Shantz is a social geographer/research consultant and journalist who works in the fields of journalism, urban planning, social planning and community development. She lives in Byron Bay, Australia and is committed to knowing the environmental and social construct of her community. She co-publishes and edits the Byron Guide magazine about people, politics and culture.
Tricia co-wrote and published her first two books with Rusty Miller: Turning Point Surf Portraits and Stories from Bells to Byron 1970 - 1971 in 2012 and Turning Point II Surf Portraits and Stories Hawaii: Oahu-Kauai-Maui 1968-1972 in 2014. A third book, No Fixed Abode; Stories from the streets around Byron Bay in 2017, was in association with the Byron Bay Community Centre and Byron Writers Festival. @neverlandthebook
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