We had the most amazing trip over December and January to Western Australia and South Australia. For me it was a chance to surf places I was last at 25 years ago. The children and my partner got to see some of the most stunning ocean and beach landscapes in the world. We are so lucky.
Below are just a couple of surfing-related photos. While I did score some awesome waves on the trip, they are not really recorded here. Mostly these photos just show some warm and wonderful memories of the sea (and me and the children in it!)
One of my favourite ever photos me surfing: relaxed and having a ball!
Early morning surf under the setting moon about 600 kms north of Perth
Tandem riding with Snake Girl - classic shot!
Miss Adventure and me cruising in the curl
When there was no surf we'd play with our new sea friends
Heading out for adventures at a place appropriately named 'Green Pools'
Our kitchen and dining room for seven weeks
Micro waves on Christmas Day (near Esperance, WA)
Miss Adventure's idea of the perfect place for a relaxing dip
Just after dawn walking into remote surf spot, South Western WA
When the swell was big around Margaret River I surfed this spot a lot. Huge, hollow and lots of fun
Just back after a couple of days doing six star camping on an unspoiled stretch of coast. Some pics below of me and my girls enjoying glorious winter weather.
No swell, but beautiful beaches with no-one around
Cold water but so very wonderful
I don't mind surfer girls (yeah, yeah - surfer girls)
First wave on the birthday surfboard
No fear - well done
Just the another of many heavy nose dives I hope
Who's in charge here? Not the humans! (First weekend away with our new dog, Jet)
We are back after two weeks away in warmer weather. Here are some initial pictures of surfing action with Annabeth. Next post will tell a more detailed story.
The Queen's Birthday long weekend saw us spend three blissful days at the beach. I'll let the photos do the taking.
Just one brief reflection: finally, after snapping a surf board and getting washing through rocks and generally feeling like an old kook, I think I got my surfing mojo back. Happened at lunch time on the second day when I shared some nice 4 to 5 foot waves with a young fellow on a boogie board at one of the points near our favourite beach. Great to surf - really surf - again. Big drops; long bottom turns; re-entries and cut backs. Unreal!
The view from our cabin on the beach at dawn on the first day
Where I surfed early on the first day - small, intense reef
Hermoine, nature lover with rainbow lorikeets on the the verandah of the cabin
Annabeth, nature lover
Rock ledge surfing deep inside remote location. Wild, beautiful and a little dangerous (not for me anymore!)
Big wave, shallow water, local guy charging
We are spoilt rotten with clean water, untouched forest and great waves just a couple of hours from home!
Late afternoon. Remote headland. Stunning
So far, this is my all time favourite photo of Annabeth surfing. After she got this one she said, 'I was steering the board!' She looks hooked and stoked. (I remember this feeling at her age.)
And Hermoine is well on the way to getting that same stoke - look at her face as we catch a wave together.
Togetherness - me and my girls sharing some wonderful times together
Sunrise on the last day. This is almost perfect: winter, before dawn, offshore winter, four foot waves and no one around. My idea of pure bliss
I don't really think that surfing and surf culture has been particularly well captured in fiction writing.
Not that I have really, really looked hard to find good surfing writing. If you know of stuff beyond what I am going to suggest below, please tell me via the Comments function.
Dogs of Winter by Kem Nunn is very good in parts. According to Amazon.com:
In The Dogs of Winter, Nunn draws again on the eternal legends and tall tales of surfers. Jack Fletcher is a pill-popping photographer on the skids who lucks into the assignment of photographing the aging surfing legend Drew Harmon and two young pros at the Heart Attacks in Northern California--an appropriately difficult-to-reach and shark-infested "mysto spot" reputed to have 30-foot waves. Not all dangers lurk in the ocean, however. The local Indians are unfriendly to outsiders and to each other; Harmon's young wife is obsessed with Indian witchcraft and a murdered local girl; and Harmon cloaks his own demons in laconic surfer-deity mystique. The hapless Fletcher and a local tribal council worker named Travis McCade desperately try to avert the curl of disaster that builds and breaks in this heavily atmospheric novel.
The descriptions of the coast in Northern California, just on the border with Oregon, made me want to drop everything and go there. A good story, that is of course more than just surfing. But the surfing is epic. Cold water, huge waves, great white sharks. Not the California imaged in the Gidget movies, that's for sure.
It is so very moving and probably like no other writing I have ever read captures some of the essence and experience of surfing.
I will not try to summarise the ploy, explain the characters or ponder on what the book might mean to me or anyone else.
If you surf, or you are interested in surfing, or just want to read an exceptional piece of real Australian literature (with a capital L) I could not recommend a better book.
One of the odd things I noticed after reading Breath was that you could view a video trailer on the web. This is below - not just how I feel about this approach to promoting books, but interesting all the same.
Like most surfers I have almost no photos of me surfing. This really is the only one that I have.
A very good friend took it with a 600 mm lens off the beach on the mid-north coast of NSW.
I love the spray. Beautiful photo. (Oh, and it was taken 10 years ago so I don't look or surf like this any more).
Recently I came across a new Australian band made up by three members of Midnight Oil and the bass player from the Violent Femmes. The bank is called The Break and bill themselves as surf music.
The single off their first album is called Cylinders; the Youtube clip below. It has some pretty good surfing footage, but it also shows the band playing (including an happy looking Rob Hurst playing the drums with great joy).
But this begs the question: what - if anything - is surf music? I suppose it depends the era you grow up in. When I was in my teens it was all Midnight Oil, B52s, the Clash etc. And the style of surfing seemed to mirror this aggressive, rock music.
One of my favourite recent music clips is Diamonds on the Inside by Ben Harper. The clip below is mostly filmed around Byron and Lennox. It reflects a more mellow, soul surfing vibe.
What about you? What is surf music to you? Post a comment below to let us all know!
