Relaxercise. Don’t bother looking for it in any dictionary. Despite my letters, emails, postcards and frequently turning up unannounced at the front door at three o’clock in the morning, the people at Macquarie Dictionary are unaccountably reluctant to bathe the term ‘relaxercise’ in the warm glow of recognition. Which, given their willingness to dip their hat in favour of ‘goon bag’ is something of an insult. If you’re not familiar with the term, ‘relaxercise’ refers to the amount of effort required to relax. It has particular meaning to people who are (for want of a more delicate way of putting it) uptight. People just like me.
Relaxercise. Don’t bother looking for it in any dictionary. Despite my letters, emails, postcards and frequently turning up unannounced at the front door at three o’clock in the morning, the people at Macquarie Dictionary are unaccountably reluctant to bathe the term ‘relaxercise’ in the warm glow of recognition. Which, given their willingness to dip their hat in favour of ‘goon bag’ is something of an insult. If you’re not familiar with the term, ‘relaxercise’ refers to the amount of effort required to relax. It has particular meaning to people who are (for want of a more delicate way of putting it) uptight. People just like me.
It was an easy enough mistake to make. When a fellow guest informed me that there was a fire outside, I wasn’t to know that he meant a small campfire around which fellow travellers would congregate to engage in convivial chitchat whilst consuming beverages. Rather, upon hearing the news of a potential inferno, I immediately sprang into action, dropping to my knees and shouting ‘get down low and go, go, go!’ at the top of my voice. Only after I had used a chair to break a window to ensure a means of escape was my misunderstanding explained to me. Clearly, I was going to have to take things down several notches to fit in.
Byron Bay is an easy-going kind of place. I, in stark contrast, am seldom accused of being moderately going much less easy. In almost every respect, Byron and I are total opposites. We’d never be housemates much less Facebook friends. I’d go so far as to say that we’d each give the other an inordinately wide berth on Linked-In. We’re just too different. Given the opposing nature of our personalities, it was inevitable that we’d feel a little uneasy about each other.
However, that didn’t stop me from forming an impression of the joint within the first five minutes. Best as I could tell, Byron Bay suffers from two things in plague proportions – bush turkeys and hippies. Granted, it’s difficult to tell them apart. One is a relentless scavenger that wanders around the streets not doing anything useful. The other is a bush turkey. That said, backpackers are also in near plague proportions and spend much of their time trying to figure where to get free parking. There’s also a bunch of middle-aged people who feel uneasy in the presence of so many New-Age crystal worshippers and, despite the odds, are deeply committed to wearing ill-fitting shorts. It’s this last category into which I squarely fall.
If you’ve never been to Byron Bay, I think I can sum it up for you as follows: Bali with superior plumbing. There are streets full of department stores and cafes and all the things you’d expect to find in any suburb, the only difference being a far higher proportion of shops in Byron Bay accept cash only. It’s as though they’re allergic to plastic. Whether the aversion to electronic commerce is a deliberate ploy to stop the aliens on Planet Whacko from stealing their dreams or a blatant device by which to short change the taxman is anybody’s guess. However, it poses the question as to whether this nation’s budgetary woes could be solved by taxing hippies. Forget the black economy – it’s the tie-die economy you’ve really got to keep an eye on.
There are two sure-fire ways to get a feel for a town – running and reading. Byron Bay is a great place to go for a jog not only because it’ll take you somewhere other than Byron Bay but because you end up the National Park and, if you’re especially energetic, the Lighthouse. Early in the morning, I set off up the hill, evading errant bush turkeys and hippies as I went. The gradient meant gravity was particularly potent. But despite my limbs feeling as though they were in mortal danger of falling off, the effort was worth it.
When you get to the Lighthouse, you’re pretty much at the most easterly point of the continent; beyond that is the blue expanse of the Pacific Ocean. If that’s not awe-inspiring enough, there are whales to be seen, spouting off all over the place. People line up just to watch the Humpbacks do their thing. You can’t help but wonder whether these creatures have any idea how fascinated by them we are. To see them launch themselves out of the water and crash down again almost makes the risk inherent in dodging bush turkeys and hippies worthwhile.
It has to be said that getting back down the hill is a whole lot easier. Once in Byron, I do the second thing that allows you to get a sense of a town: I grab a copy of the local paper. Turning to the classifieds, it becomes clear that there are more types of yoga than there are varieties of cheese (and that’s coming from someone who greatly respects cheese). There’s ‘silent’ yoga, ‘chanting’ yoga, ‘upside down whilst surrounded by crystals that Richard Gere once glanced at sideways on his way to get an espresso with the Dali Lama’ yoga right through to yoga in a park at sunrise whilst wearing lose fitting attire (also known as ‘toga yoga’). Granted, they all sound like great ways to relaxercise, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Instead, I felt as if I was forever on the brink of being turned over to the hippie police and charged with being too uptight. And, quite frankly, they’d have a point.