Alternative reality: two kambo deaths spark soul-searching in Australia’s counter-culture capital

‘Mullum’ has long drawn dreamers and idealists, but recently the region has been confronted by back-to-back coronial inquests into two kambo-related deaths. Photograph: Natalie Grono/The Guardian

The road into Mullumbimby beckons like a promise.

With its palm trees and buskers and its slightly raffish air, “Mullum”, as it is known, has long drawn dreamers and idealists looking for alternative ways of being. People come here to escape, to reinvent themselves, to cast away the past, to be healed.