In a move that has given hope to both Tyagarah residents and naturists, Byron Shire Council yesterday resolved to continue to allow nude bathing on a reduced stretch of Tyagarah Beach, starting 200 metres south of Grays Lane and ending well north of Elements Resort.
The amendment by Cr Basil Cameron, to Cr Paul Spooner’s original motion to close the beach to naturists completely, was carried with the support of Greeens councillors Michael Lyon, Jeanette Martin and Sarah Ndiyae, together with independent Cate Coorey.
The motion commits council, after four years of inaction, to erect signage on the beach within two weeks indicating exactly where the clothing optional section is, and also requires council to review the situation again in three months.
In the meantime, council will liaise with police, naturists and the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) in an attempt to establish whether there is a more suitable alternative for a less remote clothing optional beach in the shire.
Original motion withdrawn
At the outset of debate, which lasted more than an hour, Cr Spooner announced that he had withdrawn his original motion and posted a new motion that would have allowed nude bathing at an increased number of beaches in the shire (including the whole length of Tyagarah from the existing beach to just short of Brunswick Heads).
But it would have specifically excised popular, if unofficial, clothing optional beaches along Seven Mile Beach Road, including Kings, Brays and Whites.
In a somewhat remarkable turn of events, this move was supported by National Party aligned Cr Alan Hunter, who joked, ‘my family are going to think I’ve turned into a hippy.’
ALP aligned Cr Jan Hackett, who lives in Sunrise and says she has seen naked bathers straying that far south, also supported Cr Spooner’s motion.
Police crackdown
The move follows reports of exhibitionism and sexual harassment of women at the beach, which appear to have increased following police crackdowns at the adjacent tea-tree lakes (which are not part of the declared nudist area).
But it also follows on the heels of the creation of a Safe Beaches liaison committee – comprising police, NPWS, Elements Resort and naturists – earlier this year.
As a result of that group’s formation, police have been given 4WD access onto the beach from Elements Resort and NPWS have erected new signage at the Tyagarah Beach car park and tea-tree lakes spelling out the penalties for offensive behaviour.
White ribbon
In explaining his move, Cr Spooner said he was a white ribbon ambassador and ‘it would be a contradiction if I didn’t speak out.’
He added, though, that he had ‘visited many nude beaches around the country and overseas.’
‘But I have concluded Tyagarah as a sole location is a mistake and don’t think signage alone will stop negative behaviour.
‘I’m of the opinion we shouldn’t ban [nude bathing] but let’s stop concentrating it on one isolated beach.
‘Nudity on Byron beaches does not offend contemporary standards of behaviour – so it should not be an offence to be naked on the beach or in the ocean,’ he said.
Mayor Richardson agreed the remoteness of Tyagarah was a problem.
‘It’s like putting a skate park in a quiet area and wondering why antisocial behaviour happens,’ he said.
Wreck to Belongil
Councillors Spooner, Hackett and Richardson all said they would like to see the area from the Wreck to Belongil declared clothing optional instead of Tyagarah, as it was closer to the main beaches and police and emergency services would have easier access.
But Cr Ndiyae said she thought that was not a good idea.
‘To have nudists trying to share the dog beach – I don’t know,’ she said.
Council inaction
In proposing his amendment, Cr Cameron said, ‘No matter what we do here today, tomorrow at Tyagarah beach there will be the same sorts of people doing the same sorts of things, behaving inappropriately and getting in the faces of our residents.
‘All efforts [to stop it] have been undermined by the fact that we [council] haven’t put up signs. If we put up signs, the authorities have an ability to enforce them – the police and others can take action.
‘In situations like this, the regulation will come from the community – beach users.
‘I’ve seen beach users really try hard by engaging with NPWS and others but we have to play our part,’ Cr Cameron said.
Despite Cr Spooner accusing Cr Cameron of ‘wimping out’ his amendment found support from Cr Coorey, who said, ‘I think we should be more like Europe than Queensland, where nudity is banned altogether.
‘I like what’s been put forward by Cr Spooner but we don’t have buy-in.
‘What we have is a group of users in Tyagarah that have started working very well. Police have said it would be good if we could define [the clothing optional zone].
‘I would like to see what Spooner’s putting forward be the case once we have seen this work.
She added that ‘conflating two different things, nudity and the behaviour on beach and tea-tree lakes’ was unhelpful.
‘We have to deal with that stuff – and nudity is a separate issue. I would like to see the whole of the shire nude.
‘Prohibition won’t stop the behaviour – it’s the police and the community that will control the behaviour,’ Cr Coorey said.
The Adam and Eve Social Group {from Queensland} have now scheduled to be at the Tyagarah Traditional Beach on the second Sunday of each month in 2018. The Adam and Eve Social Group ran the A-Bay games for over 30 years. It is our intention, with the assistance of locals in the Byron Bay region, to create the B-Bay games. Our A&E flags will denote the safe area where the cluster of Naturists, by weight of numbers, will ensure correct behaviour.
Sounds to me like Council is looking to be seen giving optional clothing support , but, in reality is it for a short term and then close it down for the temptation of increased lucrative developments in the area ? I am not a nudist, but, I can see the attraction to others and its part of what Byron is. Leave it alone, put the signs up that should have been there years ago and for some mysterious reason council never followed through.
Lucrative developments exist side by side with the nude beach at Haulover, Florida & the motels support it with the beach attracting 7,000 to 8,000 nudists on a regular basis.
Nudity should be allowed on all beaches in order to normalise it, instead of just one strip.
We need coexistence and equality for all, not segregation.
To regulate social nudity implies that there is something bad or wrong with it, in which there isn’t. It’s a good family friendly activity.
So hold on. We have to walk even further from the car park just to get to the free clothing section. Sounds like a way for Council to discourage nudists from going there and then claim that no one was using the beach and then have an excuse for ending it. Plus it makes it less safe for users if something does happen and need to reach the car park for safety.
I do find it most amusing how the Councillors claim to support nudity in Byron but do everything they can to discourage us from enjoying nature. And here is a little tip….. start putting public toilets along the beach so that people do not have to go into the dunes to take care of business. It is a joke that there are no toilets between Main beach and the Grays Lane car park.
We agree, signs should be posted! There should be safe spaces for Naturist Community members!
Sending ALOHA from Hawaii.
-Swimfree Hawaii
You don’t need “signs” to police offensive behaviour!
Who said nudiy is banned in Europe? There are nude beaches all over the continent, from Scandinavia, Holland, Riviera, even to the heart of Berlin where people frolic ‘au naturel’ in the Strandbad Wannsee.
This guy shouldn’t be allowed to make silly statements like this. Who voted for him?
Yes !!!
Well done Byron Shire for trying to find a solution to the problem rather than resorting to a knee jerk reaction like closing the clothes-optional beach.
Beach nudity is part of Byron’s vibe and character and is a primary reason why my partner and I visit from Queensland. I’m very glad you won’t let a few bad apples spoil the barrel.
There obviously are some people mis-using the clothes-optional beach. This needs to stop and is a policing issue. At the other end of the extreme you have the wowsers who are inexplicably still scandalized by the human body and won’t be happy until we are all back in neck-to-knee bathers. Neither end of this spectrum should be accommodated.
Please retain safe, legal clothes-optional beaches in Byron Shire for locals, visitors and tourists.
Jon, I think you have misread Cr. Coorey’s statement. I think it was implying that we should not be like Queensland where nudity is banned, but that we should be more like Europe where it is accepted.
Living a nudist lifestyle is a personal choice. I’m open to it and do not judge others so long as one is respectful of other’s need of privacy. Some men are concerned of their own appearance, especially their size relative to other men. Thus, I do appreciate their sensitivity; my white buddies would never consider bearing their private parts whenever an African-American man is around, for fear or shame of their relative smallness. Asian men are somewhat oblivious to the difference in size and tend to bear all with ease. Women are equally self conscious about their appearances but may not place as much emphasis on absolute size as their male partners. So long as you’re comfortable with your own body, who cares what others may think of you. Live free and long or short if it’s so!
Consenting adults can do whatever they like so mind your own business
I have been visiting Byron Bay beaches for holidays and to walk and lie on the beach in my birthday suit for 40 years, and will keep doing so regardless. It is a shame that the 1% spoil it for the 99% of ligitimate naturalists or people who just want to feel the freedom to skinny dip and let the sun upon their skin. Find a piece of sand and sit and read while listening to the sound the ocean waves.
It is shame that a minority of people who go to byron and spoil it for the majority of naturists That just go to skinny dip sit back read a book check out whales when they are migrating and just minding there own business
The signs are a good idea but to restrict miles of beach to 800 metres for the naturists now is a bit short
My partner and I walk kilometres usually on beach and now we are breaking a law if we go in the buff outside that zone
We travel down from Brisbane regularly to take advantage of a freedom law that Queensland does not have and let alone the dollars other Queenslanders do as well who cross over the border so not to break any laws
Police the beaches by all means for any misbehaviour and deal with That ,as the naturists will applaud the authorities to stamp out these individuals
Naturists are the peaceful ones being discriminated against
I hope council react swiftly as naturists do vote
I’ve been visiting Tyagarah clothing optional beach now for close to a decade. It began for me as one of the most liberating experiences which also helped me overcome a lot of body shame and pain from having terrible acne for over a decade as well (all of my teenage years and 1/2 of my 20’s), so the additional space between people on the beach fostered a sense of comfort that was necessary whilst I was trying to cure myself physically and emotionally without feeling peered at and judged. I often reflect on this history of mine at Tyagarah as the silver lining of my many years in the prime of my youth spent hiding behind collared shirts and hoodies and being heavily teased in school, because if it weren’t for having the subsequent insecurities resulting from the acne and the teasing etc then I probably wouldn’t have sought out naturism all together and certainly wouldn’t have found Tyagarah which became for me like the greatest sanctuary of all, where I could let it all out and not have to worry at all about what anybody thinks and this, coupled with the adjacent tea-tree lakes helped tremendously in my healing process.
Now I must be honest, what started out as pure and innocent had an obvious deviant element attached which I was aware of but only overlooked due to the benefits outweighing the negatives. As the years progressed, so it appeared did the lenience toward this culture too. Fact is, I have been made to feel extremely uncomfortable by other beach and tea-tree lake members numerous times and I have seen others been made to feel this way too, yet the feelings of others never seemed to register by these seemingly hypnotized, otherwise normal members of society whom for the sake of this report we’ll label most suitably as what they are – deviants. Sad but true. (aka – simpletons)(they could hold a PHD for all I care, the reality is, they’re only capable of holding their cock)
Types of behavior to expect at Tyagarah had become quite the study for me, but after not too long it all became pretty standard and predictable.. all the while I never complied with the impending culture because it all seemed to detract from the legacy of the beach that I was originally attracted to, so I resisted and spoke openly to men who would approach me with their full body tan and flaccid penis in hand about how their choices here are tainting the image of the place and making it a whole lot less comfortable than it should be, especially for people who aren’t trained martial artists as I am. The behavior seen and expected by many including locals, tourists, people new to the experience and myself is down right indecent and creepy! for instance; women might have several men at any point zoning in on their location from the minute they spot her arrival.. they’ll be behind the dunes, in the shrubs or they’ll be parading more openly back and forth in front of her (and me), basically whomever they think is either attractive or who appears even the slightest bit interested/likely to provide sexual favors. The standard of the beach today has declined in its ability to be civil whereby any visitor of Tyagarah can expect to see at least several men masturbating within a 2hr time window.. if you are female, you can expect that number to double and that’s only what you know of, there’s probably twice that happening behind the trees and shrubs etc. Some women actually know this and play on it because they’re exhibitionists, just like most men know it and play on it.. thus it is indeed a culture and a highly prevalent one at that!.
These deviant day visitors to the area that have come to know of it as their own secret little ‘Beat’, care so little about the environment that supplies them this sense of sanctuary from mundane reality that they carelessly leave rubbish all over the place, from used condoms, to cigarette butts/packages, alcohol cans/bottles and packaged food wrappers.
In summary; I would submit that these individuals and groups require spiritual intervention much like society abroad in order to simply want to give a fuck.. people are only subjects of the environment we create for ourselves (collectively speaking), thus they run from their polluted shut away lifestyles to be unprecedented level ‘free’.. the simplicity our systems begs of us fosters such renditions of freedom as the deviant behavior we’re now facing in higher levels at Tyagarah than ever before. If you’re reading this and you feel this is targeted at you, its important to realize that nobody who’s part of a problem realizes they are because they’ve cleverly conditioned themselves with reassuring self-talk to allow said behavior to continue, meanwhile however, you’re literally traumatizing people (Yes you are!), you’re creating a horrid image for the area, you’re fucking up the fragile eco-systems of the national park by creating elaborate ‘fuck tracks’, you make others who partake in the activity of naturism look as bad as you by association, you destroy a lot of peoples first time experience being free and bare skinned outdoors and you overall diminish the healing capacity such an experience can hold for many people, by rendering the whole area *your* sick little playground. This doesn’t have to mean you’re indefinitely ‘sick’, it just means that you haven’t learned to play properly enough in the playground that is your mind to realize the implications of your actions abroad, so take it all back a notch and bring it back to who you are.. not what culture and conditioning has made of you.. shed the layers of the mind before coming to Tyagarah and shedding the layers to your overbeaten cock or dare I say it, you may be facing some embarrassing legal implications which I’m personally hoping for.
I have been to the 800 meter clothes optional stretch of beach several times recently and must say it is all very quiet there, very few nudists, certainly no strange behaviour that I could see, but it is a long way to walk from the Elements Resort where I was staying. Why does it have to start 1500 meters north of the resort area. Half that distance would still be a long buffer zone between the nude section and the resort area.
The other option of driving out to the Tyagarah car park from Byron Bay is not very environmentally friendly and does not sit well for the very Green Byron Shire Council!
There were hardly anybody on the clothed section of beach either, despite the beach patrol being there.
While I lay on the beach and had a few dips in the beautiful blue, warm water only a handful of people, naked or otherwise walked past.
I say move the starting point closer to the resort area and encourage people to walk to it along the beach and don’t use the car.
“I think our bodies are beautiful, and I think celebrating them and being comfortable in them — no matter what age you are — is important,” “There shouldn’t be any kind of shame or discomfort around it.” Jennifer Aniston.
Facebook is a violater. They won’t allow nude picturesi am in Cleveland, Tn and at home, just thought i would see if you wanted to chat