The Beach Hotel, Byron Bay review: On the waterfront

Peter Wilmoth finds a tonic on a return visit to the beach town.

Byron Bay is known as a healing place, which is handy because I've arrived with a head cold that could stop a horse. Healing me is going to take more than a bagful of crystals. What's needed are some antibiotics and the delights of being back in this beautiful town I first visited 20 years ago.

Back then, seven of us rented a house at Wategos and drifted aimlessly with surfboards, bottles of wine, binoculars to view passing whales, Gabriel Garcia Marquez novels and endless hours to read them. This time I'm with my two children and, for our two-night visit, we have worked out simple priorities: a good pool, a good buffet and a place close to the beach.

The Beach Hotel ticks all those boxes. Built by John Cornell and Delvene Delaney in 1990, the 25-room hotel was bought two years ago by a consortium led by Melburnians John and Lisa van Haandel, who own the boutique hotel, The Prince, in St Kilda and several other Melbourne properties. It's in the centre of town and, as the name suggests, across the road from Main Beach.

Our room is stylish and spacious, not formal but not beachy either. The garden-view room has a double bed, sofa bed and huge television. There's a sliding door to a small area with table and chairs next to the hotel's lush garden and then on to the pool. The rooms are quiet, despite their proximity to the hotel's massive pub.

Ah, the pool. Edged by wooden boards and shrubs, it's just what these weary travellers need. The kids take seconds to jump in. I repair to a lounge with my book - a tome a little shorter than One Hundred Years of Solitude - and order chips and juice. Poolside service: now that's a phrase I could get used to.

As a little gang we're very happy and it's going to be hard to put us off our game, even if the waitress at the Railway Hotel tries. I want to show the children the famous pub where the train from Sydney stops (the sign says: "Why get off at Redfern when you can go all the way to Byron Bay?"), so we stroll through town and into the hotel.

"She'll need shoes," the grumpy waitress says, looking at my eight-year-old daughter's feet (she has temporarily taken them off). Er, OK. We start to walk through the bar to a door that leads to the station's platform. "They can't come through here," she says, referring to the children. I try another door. "You can't go through there." We get the picture. Whatever happened to peace, love and understanding? Actually, what happened to Byron's hippie culture?

I've returned twice in 20 years, which means Byron's evolution from a laid-back magnet for Centrelink-funded surfers and Melbourne and Sydney escapees into a mainstream tourist hub is noticeable. I find Byron commercialised to a point that makes me do something utterly predictable: pine for what I saw in 1990. Unrealistic, I know. Even so, Byron still has a village atmosphere and the wait staff in the cafes are still charmingly dismissive. It's consistent with the old Byron and I don't mind that.