Most people don’t know it but Alex, the abdominally rugged model featured here in our latest Byron shoot, is actually a time traveller and his mode of travel is the magic 1993 Nissan Patrol affectionately known around Byron Bay as the ‘Big Red Bus’. Recently Alex had delivered Vice-Admiral John Byron, fresh from the 1700’s, to a rocky headland called Cavvanbah in far North NSW, or Byron Bay as it is also known. Despite circumnavigating the globe ‘Johnny’ hadn’t set foot in the place Captain James Cook kindly bestowed his name upon.

Alex casually suggested ‘Johnny, before I show you around, let me take you to the pub for a parma and a middy’. Byron, dismantled by Alex’s casual tone, ‘Johnny? A public house? A parma? A middy? My good fellow, to begin, you will address me as ‘Your Honour’ and with a fully buttoned blouse at that. You look like you’ve survived a mutiny albeit free of scurvy, those teeth and gums are like the day you were born my boy”. Alex thanked Byron and explained he wasn’t an English person and that he used floss. Byron continued, ‘I haven’t set foot in a ‘pub’ since I ran a press gang in 1758, and despite my circumnavigation of the globe I am yet to encounter a ‘parma’ or a ‘middy’ for that matter. Start talking sense boy!” Alex cleared things up “I thought it best that we fill our stomachs with some crumbed chicken and a modest serve of ale”. “Very well then” returned Byron “But do go gently in that growling red carriage of yours, its very pace terrifies me and it smells like an orlop deck!” Alex confirmed he did spill a latte three weeks ago and it had “hung around a bit”. 

While conversation was stilted the crispy chicken and chips matched with beer made Byron rather more settled, and our new friends agreed the craft beer was ‘a bit shitty’ and they ought to have stuck to the draught. Sated, the duo hopped in the Patrol and went for a little cruise. 

The sites confronting Byron left him bamboozled. First, he spotted a willowy dreadlocked chap and suggested that the patterned smock he was wearing was similar to the clothes of indigenous people he met in the Americas. Alex pointed out, “nah that’s a bong rat in his drug-rug Johnny, a few of them around here”. As Alex toured Byron past Wategoes he spotted a near-naked woman dancing in front of small black rectangle on a three legged stand. “Heavens! She is all but naked my fellow!” Alex confirmed that she was close to butt naked, yes, save the micro bikini. Byron went on “I must avert my gaze but a strange magnetism does not allow me!” To explain, Alex compared the current ‘influencer’ to the ‘village idiot’ but the concept bypassed Byron. Alex determined it was best to get Byron out of town. He chugged the Big Red Bus up through the winding hinterland roads at a gentle rate as not to make his unfamiliar passenger car sick. Alex pointed to a leafy retreat where they could make out a row of naked people who were awkwardly supine and spread-eagled. Johnny’s jaw dropped, he couldn’t make sense of it, he was speechless. “They’re sunning their rectums Your Honour!” declared Alex jovially, “…welcome to Byron my friend!”.  

This was all too much for the Vice-Admiral, his name besmirched, he cursed Cook: “He must have thought I was a right tit to name this place after me!” Byron fumed, “Alex my time travelling friend, send me back! Send me back to mutiny, to scurvy, to pox, to the Spanish, even to the French! Relieve me of Cavvanbah!”. Alex granted the Vice-Admiral’s wish and put the Big Red Bus into 7th gear.