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Friday, 7 September 2007

ON THE ROAD - travel & places...

Nimbin - mythology made mainfest

A town of old wooden buildings and brightly painted shopfronts - Nimbin Neighbourhood Centre (right) and Freemasons Hotel (rear).

The suggestion would anger some local people. They say that illegal substances are all the town has become known for. They are right in asserting that there is a great deal more to Nimbin, but the image the town has is in large part its own doing. It is mythology made manifest.

Different yet the same

To locals, the town is a refuge in a turbulent world. To visitors it is a curiosity, a brave social experiment or a source of good dope. Nimbin is all these things and more.

The town is not a substantial presence in the landscape and radiates only a short distance from Cullen Street, the main thoroughfare. Heading east, the traveller crosses the flat farmland to Lismore while the road to the west leads, eventually, to the township of Uki and the Tweed Valley.

Leaving the main road, a long, straight stretch passes the showgrounds, location of a monthly food and craft market, and Djanbung Gardens, a training centre. The road then turns north east to service houses further out while a narrower diversion climbs the hill to Jalanbah ecovillage. A sign at the start of this section makes clear that the ecovillage is private property.

On the western end of town, side streets lined with old weatherboard houses roofed with galvanised iron, typical country residences in this part of the world, branch off. The old school, a cluster of timber buildings now superceded by a new structure nearby, has been turned over to community use. The main road dips towards a wide creek and leaves town. Just across the bridge, surprisingly, stands the town's picture theatre and, nearby, a recording studio.

Nimbin coffee shop.

A short walk along the main street reveals the fact that the town's colourful past continues to define its present. This is no affectation, no tawdry replication of times past as you find in places that trade on their history. The positive thing about Nimbin is that what you see is authentic. The town is the artifact of a unique period in Australian social history. Although it has changed since it became a youth culture icon it has dragged some of the ambiance of those times along with it.

It was the Aquarius Arts festival of 1973 that forever changed the town. The Festival was a celebration of life in music and arts and a celebration of a new lifestyle based on innovative social attitudes, personal style and aspiration. Those who stayed after the festival and others that came later introduced a culture that oscillated around music, dope and the styles of clothing and appearance that signified their belonging to the subculture. Personal identity and belonging were important considerations.

The festival attracted youth in their thousands and for some it was life changing. Most left in the weeks or months following the festival but many stayed. More came over the following years. They settled in town and on farms along the fertile valley and founded the first intentional communities, places such as Tuntable Falls, just a fifteen minute drive into the hills.

In those times there was a simple cultural divide in town - the established townsfolk, farmers and the newcomers, usually known by the derisive term of 'hippy' but who styled themselves, more accurately, as 'new settlers'. Relations between the two were sometime fractious but over the years they learned to live together and eventually the divide became meaningless.

There is a popular misconception that the Nimbin the visitor sees is the town of the Aquarius Festival. In general appearance this is true - the streetscape is much as it was then. But the town itself has evolved.

Locals resolutely defend the place, asserting that the negative aspects of the town's reputation are untrue or, anyway, not completely true. Yet, it is this reputation that brings many of the visitors who, for the most part, see only the surface - the colourfully painted shopfronts, the dealers who offer illicit substances outside the Nimbin Museum, the interesting locals. They seldom get behind the appearance to appreciate the creativity of the place.

It is either like or dislike

The road to mountaintop diverges from the approach to Nimbin just before the town. It winds a path into the hills from where the town lays revealed as a compact settlement amid fields of green farmland. Such a small place to have figured so prominently in the youthful psyche those thirty years ago.

Nimbin streetscape, showing shopfront artwork the original of whihc dates from 1973.

Up here it is farming country only partly colonised by the new settlers. It is hilly, undulating land where some have built houses of mudbrick and others have taken over the old weatherboard farm houses.

"The place has changed from when we moved in", said the man who, with his wife, shifted home from Sydney to Mountaintop in the 1980s. "It is different now. The people are different. The feel of the place is different. I don't go into town much... I don't like going into town."

On moving to the area he found employment in nearby Lismore. Later, the couple sold up and moved to the coast. His comment reveals an attitude shared by others who came to Nimbin at the peak of its popularity... a knowledge that change has come and it is not necessarily likeable.

Just when the town is supposed to have changed is hard to pin down. It seems to have been some time in the 1980s, perhaps around the middle of the decade. Just like the date, it is difficult to get specifics on the ways the place has changed. People allude to change, to an altered ambiance, but are spare with the specifics. It is as if the change is something felt rather than being something physical.

Despite the change, most Nimbinites have no intention of moving although some have found the changes so disturbing that they have moved. The town remains home and refuge, somehow separate to the world beyond. When controversy over drugs has shaken the town, their's has been a compassionate response based on a hope that things will work out for the better. It remains to be seen whether their optimism will be borne out. When criticised from outside they band together in defence of their place.

Outsiders have mixed feelings about the place. "I don't like the it", said one visitor. "I really don't like being hassled to buy drugs on the main street. The place has a feeling of dissipation about it".

Others are left with a similar appreciation, such as the TAFE group which visited the place some years ago. They went to the Rainbow Cafe for a meal and, staring up at the menu board, a person they assumed to be a local abused and then tried to hit one of them. His target responded mildly... instead of hitting back he simply grabbed the assailant's arm and pushed him to the floor. The incident was a portent. By 2004, the issue of street violence was troubling the townspeople and was taking up space in the region's newspaper, the Northern Star.

Another incident demonstrates how visitors can be left with a bad impression. It was down past the Freemason's Hotel where the visitor raised his camera to take a picture of a craftshop against a background of misty mountains. A local walked into the scene, saw the camera and, gesticulating and yelling, proceeded to abuse the visitor. A small incident for sure, but one likely to remain with the visitor and shape his perceptions of the town and the people who live there. Such incidents are rare, yet when they happen and are witnessed by visitors, the sometimes negative reputation of the town is reinforced. Visitors talk, reputation spreads.

Like other North Coast centres, Nimbin attracts backpackers. There are two lodges - one just off the main street near where it leaves town and the other a little further out. That one is of a more makeshift nature and is operated by a long-time resident, a happy, plump, easy-going man of middle age. At the other end of town is a bed and breakfast for those with a little more cash in their pockets and the desire for greater comfort. In the flatlands immediately below the main street is the caravan park and town swimming pool.

When it comes to visitors, the attitude of locals can be welcoming on the one hand and despising on the other. Such a reaction is not unique to Nimbin; it is found wherever tourism supports local economies. Visitors pointing cameras at locals is part of the price paid for tourism and a viable town economy but, understandably, it can be annoying when experienced time after time. Somehow, a compromise must be reached that accommodates the presence of gawking strangers in the knowledge that they bring in much needed money. There is not much else that does, apart from the illegal weed in the hills. The problem is that not all townspeople share in tourism's largesse.

A trouble with image

The mainstream media has been unkind to Nimbin. The town, on the rare occasions it gets coverage, falls victim to stereotyping. The imagery is predictable - the camera pans along the colourful buildings of the main street, moving over the artwork of the shop fronts before it zooms in on locals dressed in unorthodox style... a mother with child on hip... people standing around talking and not doing much, apparently. It is a visual tale that does nothing to explain the reality behind the images. The story line is one of social difference, illegal drugs, deviance. Seldom does the town get inquiring coverage that explains, not just shows. The exceptions have been documentary reporting on SBS and the ABC.

Yet, to get a real taste of the town's concerns, it takes no greater effort than turning the pages of the long-running Nimbin News. Produced by Nimbin Neighbourhood Centre, Nimbin News is a true product of the town's authentic, creative culture and a repository of the social history of the new settlers in the area.

The Nimbin Museum gives a glimpse of the past too, displaying the cultural artifacts of the social milieu that invaded the place after 1973.

The crop that supports a town

It was not an uncommon sound, the whump whump or rotor blades and the silouhette of a helicopter out near Mt Nardi. Moving low and slow over the landscape, the machine served as the eyes of those in the unusually large number of police four wheel drives that had been in evidence on the backroads.

It was the harvest and the police knew it was the time when the growers would be out in their hidden fields, discrete clearings tucked away below the canopy of tall trees or scattered patches concealed in the folds of steep-sided gullies. For years, the authorities have tried to extinguish the marijuana trade and have spent tens of thousands on their detection and eradication campaigns, yet the business continues. Crops detected would be uprooted, weighed, then disposed of. Of course, say some locals, deals were rumoured to be done and a few crops would somehow escape detection. Crop destruction was by burning and it was no coincindence that the police stood closely around those fires, breathing deeply, so the story goes.

Popular conceptions, or misconceptions, depending who you talk to, often have a basis in reality. Marijuana is celebrated here in the form of a Hemp Festival, in the now-closed Hemp Embassy, Australia's first and only attempt to set up an Amsterdam-style venue for the consumption of dope, and in the popular culture of the place.

Apart from the joys of being stoned, the mystical plant is celebrated with good reason. As local people say, the illicit marijuana industry is one of the town's economic mainstays. Best of all, it is tax free. It is difficult to estimate the annual value of the harvest because the transactions are hidden deep within the cash or 'black' economy. Local people, however, say it is substantial.

Rumours and stories thrive in the absence of factual information. But what is not rumour is the fact that the trade is not just a local one. It is supported by people driving down from Brisbane and the Gold Coast or coming up in mini-buses from Byron Bay to secure their supply. The arrival of a mini-bus that carries backpackers from Byron Bay is said to be good news to some in town.

The valley's most lucrative crop has spawned a culture around it, complete with its own mythology. With true figures on the region's dope crop unobtainable, guestimate suffice. At the same time that the town despises its reputation for drugs it seems to depend on it.

Nimbin as psychological refuge

The trouble started when a psychiatric journal told its professional readers that Nimbin had a supportive environment suitable for their clients. So they sent them there, as a local woman told the story, and that was the start of change in town. Like other Nimbin myths, the veracity of this one is hard to determine, however it was told with a certainty that comes with knowing.

Nimbin might have been a friendly town, but the support services these people needed were not abundant. Their presence added to the homeless who inhabit the nooks and crannies of the town. They are not a large number but they have been the focus of concern, such as when it was found they lit fires - presumably for warmth or cooking - under the buildings where they sheltered. The problem was that all the buildings along the town's main street are of timber. As a local put it: "If one goes up, they all go up".

A different, creative image

The two or three craft shops on Cullen Street are evidence that Nimbin's townspeople possess a creativity in the arts that more than competes with the focus on drug culture. Even a short visit to the craft shops discloses the fact that much of the merchandise - the ceramics, paintings, photography, fabrics and clothing - have been produced by artisans of merit. Best of all, the proceeds of sales stay local and the tacky souvenir and faux-craft of other tourism centres is absent.

Other elements of local cultural expression are audible. Music is well represented in the townspeople's repertoire of skills and on some nights its doof! doof! doof! booms out loudly over the surrounding countryside.

In the industrial estate on the edge of town stands a long, low building with an array of photoelectric panels atop the roof and a wind turbine on top of a tall tower. This is the Rainbow Power Company, a local venture by an early resident and a dabbler in renewable energy technologies who calls himself Peter Pedals.

Peter set up in business with other locals in the 1980s to produce and sell renewable energy systems to the multiple occupancies and homesteaders who moved into the district. The venture started with great fanfare but seems to have contracted over the years. However, it is an industrial enterprise founded on vision and daring that actually created employment for local people. That, in Nimbin, is significant.

Umbilical to Canberra

"People in this town", the speaker asserted, "do not like the government. Yet they are tied to Canberra by the umbilical cord of social service benefits".

The man was referring to what he said was the large number of people reliant on unemployment, single parent or other benefits. The availability of such benefits played a significant role in the willingness of youth to come to Nimbin after the Aquarius Festival, however government is no longer so generous.

To be fair, such observations must be balanced by the acknowledgement that unemployment is a big problem in most other rural centres and that employment opportunities are exceptionally scarce in the Nimbin area. The nearest likelihood of employment is in Lismore, a 45 minute drive away, and it is here that many local people have found work.

No enterprises has been started that could mop up a substantial number of the unemployed since the influx of new settlers started. Retail, itself stimulated by the influx of new people over the years, remains the town's biggest employment sector yet even here the numbers of employed are low. The shops - the general store, hotel, music store and newsagent - are the benificiaries of an economy largely underwritten by the expenditure of social benefits with tourism contributing to the income of the coffee shops, cafes and accommodation providers.

Many residents continue to commute to Lismore for work and this is likely to remain the reality because, despite whatever contribution tourism makes to the local economy, there is little to attract new employers to the town.

Dealing with change

It is ironic that a town whose very existence is due to cultural change can be so wary of it, but the fact is that many local people want to retain Nimbin as it is now.

The announcement in the 1990s that Jarlanbah ecovillage was to be built on the town's outskirts gave voice to an innate conservatism, a desire to keep change out. The fear, it seems, was that the development would bring in new people with new ideas and that this would change the character and perhaps the culture of the town.

Similar resistance was evident when Lismore Council decided to landscape the main street, although initial wariness was offset by a public consultation process that preceded the development. "It will look like other towns where they have done the same thing", a local woman said. "It will change the town and we don't want that. The wide main street will be changed". Her fears were ill-founded. The landscaping went in but the town stayed the same.

Locals only have to look around to see what they fear. The one-time family holiday town of Byron Bay, only an hour and a half away, is now the major tourism centre on the North Coast. The town has been changed, demographically, culturally and physically.

Were something similar to happen to Nimbin it would become a shell of its former self. But the fear is ill-founded. Nimbin is unlikely to undergo substantial development. Yet change must surely come. As another local put it: "Those hippies who moved into the hills all those years ago, they are getting on and some of them will want to come into town to live where they are close to services".

She was speculating about the development of aged care accommodation in town, but the potential for such development to bring change is limited. However, if more Jalanbah-type ecovillage developments are built they could bring change to the social makeup of the town. There is already a proposal for another such development, again on the town fringe. What holds it back is the district's economic climate - Nimbin might offer a pleasant environment but what do you do for an income? The man behind the scheme - he moved to Nimbin over a decade ago - admits that the negative reputation of the town that also holds back the development. For those opposed to change, a weak local economy is good news.

At best, Nimbin will continue to trade on its dual image of arts and dope and present itself as a time warp reminiscent of a social experiment increasingly distant in time.

Contradictions

Nimbin might represent different things to different people, but you cannot get away from noticing that it is a town of contradictions.

There is the seemingly disproportionate number of smokers - tobacco, not the funny stuff from the hills - which seems at odds with the focus on organic food and health. Then there are attitudes to tourism - the proprietors of the cafes and craft shops along the main street might welcome it, but others in town do not. Similarly, the desire to be left alone by government - the Rainbow Cafe used to have a sign in its window telling governnemt agents to keep out - is balanced by a reliance on benefits and the provision of services not available in similarly sized towns. "Nimbin is the best serviced small town in Australia", said one woman.

Nimbin has painted an image of itself that is all too readily contradicted by its anomalies, but in this it is not unique.

A town like no other

It is an interesting enough town with its painted shopfronts - the artwork of which was done during the Aquarius festival - and with its mix of latter-day hippies, alternatives, straights and visitors. But it is not the town of 1973 and nor are those on the street, for the most part, the same people.

All the same, the place continues to attract the curious and, perhaps, the nostalgic - the few who remember its creation as cultural icon and the good things that those times brought. But the new settlers of 1973 are now in middle age; some are older. New people have come to town and there is a fear of even more, yet those who have come have settled without disrupting the town's image of itself.

What Nimbin will become will depend on how local people negotiate change; how much of the past they want to retain and how they integrate it into their future. This will be no easy task and it is one that is inescapable.

UPDATE: APRIL 2005

In early 2005, the police launched an anti-drugs operation that saw the mini-bus that brings backpackers from Byron Bay to Nimbin stopped on a number of occasions. The majority of passengers were found to have weed in their possession and to have bought it in Nimbin. The town, it seems, was living up to its reputation. Around the same time, the regional press reported further incidents of random street violence in town.

In February of the same year, the building that houses the Nimbin Museum was put on the market. Curator, Michael Balderstone, who has operated the museum for the past 12 years, told the Sydney Morning Herald that he was " ...a bit worn out... (the museum) has been run by a few people who have put it together through donations in true hippy spirit, But with a rent of $430 a week we were slowly going under... I think they will have to change the sign from $2 donation to $2 admission to really get things working".

Balderstone hopes that a sympathedttic buyer will emerge and retain the museum. To do so would benefit the town as the place is a cultural asset, the only establishment where the town's history from 1973 is given meaning for the public.

Change, it seems, really is coming to Nimbin.