Byron Bay 7.04

Byron Bay is a beachside town located in the far-northeastern corner of the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located 772km north of Sydney and 165km south of Brisbane. Cape Byron, a headland adjacent to the town, is the easternmost point of mainland Australia. At the, the town had a permanent population of 4,959. The town is in turn the nucleus of Byron Shire, which had 29,209 residents.The local Arakwal Aboriginal people's name for the area is Cavvanbah, meaning "meeting place". Lieutenant James Cook named Cape Byron after Naval officer John Byron, circumnavigator of the world and grandfather of the poet Lord Byron.HistoryThe history of Europeans in Byron Bay began in 1770, when Lieutenant James Cook found a safe anchorage and named Cape Byron after a fellow sailor John Byron.The first industry in Byron was cedar logging from the Australian red cedar. The timber industry is the origin of the word "shoot" in many local names – Possum Shoot, Coopers Shoot and Skinners Shoot – where the timber-cutters would "shoot" the logs down the hills to be dragged to waiting ships.Gold mining of the beaches was the next industry to occur. Up to 20 mining leases set up on Tallow Beach to extract gold from the black sands around the 1870s.