James Weir: Meghan and Harry’s attempt to pull a Hemsworth-style sea-change is what we all dream of

Meghan and Harry are the latest couple to pull off this annoyingly enviable trend. But not everyone can do it.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have pulled off a feat the rest of us regular folks can only dream of.

They clocked off over Christmas, kicked back on some Canadian island and, as the six weeks came to an end, started pondering what it would be like to just stay on holiday forever — far away from work and family.

Genius, huh? It’s crazy more people haven’t thought of it. But the thing is, we’ve all thought of it and most of us can’t do it because we’re poor. I know, I know – they’re working to be financially independent. Meghan’s applied for some casual shifts down at Just Jeans. Maybe she’ll even relaunch her bespoke bookbinding business and sell her wares on Etsy. (ICYMI, Meghan recently declared she was once a pro book binder. It remains confusing.)

The Sussexes have become the most high-profile couple to throw in their professional lives, uproot and embark on a radical transition to a fabulously stress-free life. It’s the modern-day sea change.

Every day I feel like I read a new article about a couple who has ditched their high-paying jobs and uprooted their family to sail the globe on a yacht. And they document it all on Instagram in hazy photographs where they’re dressed in chic nautical outfits and their hair has that effortless beachy look. My hairdresser is always crapping on about that “beachy look”. It’s perhaps the most unachievable of hairstyles – you drop 50 bucks on sea salt spray and blow-dry your hair to buggery and you just end up looking like you drowned at the beach and washed up on the rocks at low tide. People who look good after going to the beach shouldn’t be trusted.

BRB, lol, not.

Anyway, Byron Bay has become the ultimate place for rich people to relocate after trading in their high-flying lives. Did any of you get up there over the holidays? I didn’t. Partly because my sensitive skin can’t tolerate that kind of tropical humidity but mainly because every influencer and rich mum worth her salt booked out the entire joint well in advance.

It has become the most intolerable place on earth. Celebrities moved in and drove up the prices and now all those hippies are having to deal with lunatic Sydney mums breezing through town in kaftans trying to be one of them, just because they do yoga and once owned a Missy Higgins CD.

You can only imagine the townsfolk’s irritation, which of course delights me. And now there’s no affordable property left to buy in Byron so people are having to look on the outskirts. I overheard some lady bragging they just bought in Tweed Heads – “but it’s basically Byron”. “It’s basically the Gold Coast,” I muttered.

No shoes, no problems … The Hemsworths are loving their life in Byron.

“No shoes, no service”? Not in Byron.

Once people holiday in Byron, it takes them months to snap out of it. They get swept up in the fantasy – the desire to pull a Meghan and Harry by throwing in their regular lives. They consider buying a farm up there on acres of rolling green hillside. They daydream about learning to feed the cattle and the chooks and imagine renovating the old dairy down the back to rent out on Airbnb.

But that dream never eventuates. The holiday ends. And when it’s over, they can barely cope. They head back to their average lives with a gut full of Kombucha and try to keep the Byron Bay whimsy alive by really committing to the trend. It starts off with just a few linen outfits but next time you go to their house it’s covered in macramé and there’s a giant canvas print of a highland cow hanging on the wall.

This Byron Bay craze really ramped up when the Hemsworths blew into town and set up stumps. I adore the Hemsworths but I just don’t know why they try to look like hobos even though they have a zillion dollars and just built their own personal shopping centre. They’ve got Thor money but apparently they can’t afford shoes.

Elsa Pataky padding barefoot around the Coles carpark.

Still, they make it look so cool – walking around barefoot while wearing scraps of clothing. I tried to recreate that easy breezy way of life around Sydney over the holidays. The shoeless thing was great until I started padding around my street in Kings Cross and narrowly avoided stepping on a needle. Tip-toeing over dead rats and excrement, I thought, “This is what Elsa doesn’t warn us about”. She looks all boho glam while skipping barefoot down the main drag of Byron past the anti-vaxxers and the juiceries but really she’s on high alert – lest she stub her toe on a block of non-GMO tofu.

Even paradise comes with its own unique set of problems.

Twitter and Facebook: @hellojamesweir