The only trouble with paradise,” a blow-in Sydney surfie told me as she picked up her longboard, “is that everybody wants a piece of it.”

Paradise Australian-style is miles of pristine sand, whip birds at dawn and a flotation tank across the road from Woolworths. Emerald parrots screech in casuarina groves; heavenly footpaths wind through rainforests; and dreadlocked surfers catch long right-hander breaks while superannuated retirees throw king prawns on the barbie.

This Aussie kingdom come is Byron Bay, surfing mecca and “cashed-up” baby-boomer utopia, Green heartland and honeymooners’ hideaway; a hedonistic haven where the sun shines, the wide blue Pacific is always warm, and 1.7m visitors, including me, will check in for a bonza time this year.

Now, I’m no beach person. I don’t tan, as Woody Allen once said, I stroke. But when I dropped into town for a day, I ended up staying a week. Byron cast a spell over me, and not just because half-a-dozen naked Swedes were dancing around the lighthouse.

Spectacular natural wonders enchant every visitor. Beneath the Cape’s rugged cliff faces, washed by blue, mauve and aquamarine seas, migrating humpback whales can be heard breathing at sunrise. Tandem hang-gliders soar above schools of dolphins. Scuba-divers explore the Julian Rocks Marine Reserve, while bushwalkers stride into the rolling green hinterlands, through koala forests and macadamia plantations. And nobody can resist the temp-tation to sprint along the sand and leap into the ocean.

Byron’s laid-back residents have long fought to defend this alternative subtropical paradise. Ten years ago, an unlikely alliance of environmentalists and local businesses was formed to oppose construction of the biggest resort in New South Wales. Club Med had proposed an 800- unit, £35.1m resort that would have transformed Byron into another populist, high-rise Gold Coast.

The alliance’s “No Club Med” campaign focused local opposition. More than half the residents took to the streets. After four years of meetings and hearings, the Land and Environment Court withdrew planning approval for the scheme.

So, instead of ranks of concrete towers, Byron has small, exclusive hotels and restaurants, neatly arranged among its pastel-shaded, tin-roofed bungalows. They are set back from the road on green verges overhung with gums and eucalyptus.

Bob and Patti Lowry, who converted an abandoned piggery into the vibrant Arts Factory Lodge and Supernatural restaurant, have built two retreats in town. The intimate Garden Burées comprises split-level Balinese houses enclosed by tranquil private gardens; while The Peak is a lofty sanctuary with views of the Border ranges silhouetted smoky-blue against the sky.

One balmy morning, I found myself at Azabu, a luxury lodge of five suites set amid remnant rain- forest. On the teak deck, among guests freshly polished by the Aveda Day Spa, I met Ward Gunn, a passionate advocate of native Australian cuisine, and glowing with rude health.

“In Sydney, I was working as a chef, 60 or 70 hours a week,” Gunn explained over a cup of Stovetopper espresso. “The food was increasingly packaged: steaks precut and apples waxed. The connection to the farmer had been lost. Then my apprentice introduced me to bush tucker. Suddenly I saw a way to bring me closer to the land.”

Gunn left the city, settled on a Rainbow Country bush-food farm and — at the Bay Pavilion restaurant and now at Azabu — began incorporating rainforest produce into his cooking, helping to develop a remarkable regional cuisine. His favoured Mod Oz dishes include gum-smoked crocodile in kakadu plum sauce, kangaroo with hot dorrigo peppers and swordfish baked in paper bark and infused with aniseed myrtle. A top dessert is apple and riberry pie, the latter a native spicefruit with a gingery taste.

“This is the new Australia: a glass of full-on red in your hand and clean, green gourmet tucker on the barbie,” said Gunn. “Life can be a struggle sometimes,” he laughed, “but here in Byron, it’s a delicious struggle.”

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