Byron Bay is a wonderful place. Located just 180 km south of Brisbane on the Pacific coast, it has magnificent beaches, dramatic mountains, patches of original rainforest, and a warm temperate climate. The headland which forms the bay is the easternmost point of Australia and the site of an historic lighthouse which is the symbol of the town. There are few vistas in Australia more dramatic than the sweeping ridge of the Byron Bay headland and the long beaches at its foot.

Because of the headland, the beaches of Byron Bay face north, east, and south, making the area ideal for surfing, especially on the main beach, where you can catch a wave at the foot of the lighthouse and ride it all the way across the bay to the town. Occasionally dolphins will surf with you, and from the headland you can see whales in their migratory season heading to the rich feeding grounds of the Antartic or back to the breeding waters of the north.

Behind Byron Bay is the largest volcanic crater on earth, fortunately extinct now, with the dramatic peak of Mt Warning in the centre. Sheer cliffs and verdant valleys crease the terrain behind Byron. There are waterfalls 200 metres high, with surging streams above and crystal-clear ponds at their foot.

But it is the spirit of the people that makes Byron Bay what it is. Not only surfers but people of the New Age and alternative lifestyles have been discovering and settling in the town for decades. Byron Bay has the first Green Party member ever to be elected mayor of an Australian town, and she is also the first woman in the Green Party ever to hold a major political office.

The people of Byron Bay do things differently. They follow many spiritual paths in life, and spiritual teachers visit the town regularly. Yoga is popular here, and dozens of alternative therapies and forms of healing can be found advertised weekly in the free paper, The Echo.

The people of Byron Bay do business differently. There is a farmers' food market every Thursday in town. Colourful markets selling all sorts of handcrafts, and goods from spiritual books to rainbow clothing, are held the first Sunday of every month in Byron and other Sundays in nearby Bangalow, Nimbin, and The Channon. The hegemony of dominant multinationals has been held off, and there is no McDonald's, Pizza Hut, or KFC in town.

Resistance to developers is strong. Club Med tried to take advantage of the Byron name and bought land in the area, but demonstrations and resistance in court prevented this packaged resort plan from coming to dominate the town. Developers have been resisted in the hopes of sustaining Byron's village nature. As a result developers find the Byron name more and more enticing, and their efforts to ruin the town continue to keep the residents' energy of resistance at a high pitch.

The Byron name, incidently, did not come from the poet. The town was named by Capt. Cook, who led the first European expedition to this wonderful coastline in 1770. He was a friend of the poet's uncle, from whom the poet later inherited the title. Nonetheless, a spirit of poetry pervades the town, and most of the streets of town are named for famous English and Australian poets.

Byron Bay has a wonderful energy about it. There are many street cafes and restaurants with healthy and delicious food. Buskers and street sellers give a vibrant energy which goes on late into the night. There are few towns in Australia where you can find life and excitement going on well past midnight every night, but Byron is the best of them.

The people of Byron Bay refuse to accept outmoded boring stupid habits of life. An example is their resistance to developers and fast-food restaurants. Another is their acceptance of nakedness. When an over-zealous Police constable started busting people for nudity on the beach, the town exploded in two huge demonstrations favouring nudity on all Byron Bay beaches. That didn't quite get Council approval, but Council did approve the longest nude beach in Australia just north of town – and this was not the first nude beach in Byron Bay, it was the second.

Byron Bay's acceptance of nudity is celebrated in this book. The beautiful young women of this book are all from Byron Bay, and they are true nudists in that they go nude whenever they can, at home, at the beach, and even at parties and with friends. They celebrate nudity with body painting, a popular subject at Byron, and with naked dancing, yoga, meditating, and of course swimming.

These photos have been taken in the course of a dozen happy years that I've spent at Byron. I came here because I loved the lifestyle and found the geography ideal. I wanted to make Edenic videos of attractive naked people enjoying beautiful natural surroundings, and Byron gave me everything I needed. I've made more than 20 videos in Byron about body painting, parties, yoga, acrobatics, national park walks, and beach visits – all done completely in the nude.

Many of the photos in this book were done in association with the videos, and I've also made videos of naturist resorts in France and around the world. All these are marketed under the name Synetech Video Co.

Byron was an ideal place for me to be, and I made it my home, because here more than anywhere else in Australia, nudism, or naturism, is a way of life. The beautiful young women here, like all the people here, enjoy nakedness and believe in it as a natural part of their lifestyle. Their enjoyment of nakedness shines forth in Synetech videos, and gives them a lightness and happiness not often associated with nakedness in the humdrum conventional world.

The people of Byron Bay live a better lifestyle, not dragged down by unhappy old-fashioned ideas like consumerism, conventional religions, greed, or intolerance. They don't destroy their environment or embrace war or accept the domination of wrongheaded political or business instituions. Their love of nakedness is just one aspect of the whole rainbow of these good ideas.

To me it is fitting that the symbol of Byron Bay is the lighthouse. The people of Byron Bay are holding up a light for the rest of the world, and gradually the rest of the world is starting to see it. The ideas of Byron Bay are spreading and lighting the whole world. The lovely young women of this book, with their acceptance and enjoyment of nakedness, are just one beautiful aspect of this gradual spread of happiness across the world.