Field Report 8:
East Coast of Australia - February 27, 1999

By Jeff Bell
 

It's a stormy day, I've just visited my most Northern destination, the Gold Coast of Australia. A sort of Miami beach, much maligned, carnival atmosphere. The major event of this stop was a couple of hours at a water skiing park where you get pulled by a long, fast cable system. Very fun, very sore, the take-offs on these cable pulls are especially challenging. Some guys would do it in a way to lauch themselves prone, face forward, into the air, five feet up, and 10 yards out before pulling forward to land in the water.

Yes, I've spent three hours in this cyber cafe, but I enjoy it! From here I head South, checking out the mountains just inland along the way. Been in Australia one week now.

Totems

In Aboriginal culture totems are assigned to people for life, totems being an animal name. The sense of the totem (as near as I recall) is that this animal is responsible for giving you life and it is your responsibility to protect and watch over the animal type that were given.

In the 1992 Furnace Creek race, Chris Kostman assigned me, sight unseen, the totem of the "Brown Bear". While I can't say that I've ever even seen a Brown Bear, the power of having that assignment, a permanent assignment, is something that gives me a small peak into the hunter/gatherer ways, as in the Aboriginal life. In modern life, a totem is symbolic only, but in a hunter/gatherer life, where you lead a delicate balanced relationship with the wildlife which you are dependent on for existence, your relationship with them is central to your life. The random aspects of hunter would naturally also cause a great deal of praying to gods/god for luck. It just seems like there's a huge connection between lifestyle and spirituality.

Driving

They've made the switch to metric down here, and right now .62 is a magic number, it's the currency conversion and the conversion number for km to miles to go. Kind of a positive effect, you see these large numbers, and then are pleasantly surprised when you realize that they aren't quite as bad as they seem.

Have you ever run into someone who had a violent aversion to the euclyptus tree? I never got it, they always seemed to be interesting trees to me. But perhaps they've driven the coast north of Sydney and seen a few too many of those trees.

Some early Englishman commented bitterly that the land of Australian was the "most inhospitable land imaginable". And it is true that there is a LOT of inhospitable land. Hundreds of miles of solid euclyptus "forests" outside of Sydney. There are lots of great places along the East Coast, but it is true that they are separated by long distances of rough, rough country.

I've covered a lot of ground, having put around 1200km on my rental car, going up beyond Byron Bay, the furthest eastern point of Australia. And down here driving is upside down, sort of. They copy the British and drive on the left hand side of the road.

They point out that we are the ones that drive on the wrong side of the road. That may be true in one sense, that on old roads (Roman?) they rode on the left side, because, like the jousters, you wanted to pass with your right hand free to give a high five to opposing horseback traffic. Someone realized in the days of automobiles that it would be a lot better to have that same right hand free to shift, adjust the radio, shake hands with your passenger. Maybe right side of the road is even safer for these reasons.

In choosing to be different, (and it's too late to change,) to put cars on the right side of the road, we've messed up. Introduced a permanent bug to the system. Because anybody visiting a left side country from a right side country or vice versa is..let's face it, taking their life in their hands. I don't think I'm any different than anybody, and you just have to concentrate. And even then you find yourself making a mistake pulling out of a driveway or something.

It does make for some comedy at time. You aren't thinking and you walk up to your car..."hey, where's the steering wheel?" (you walked up to the left side, again.). On the freeway, you have to get used to being in the right lane and realizing you are in the fast lane. And the clincher is that moment when you come to an intersection, you're trying to focus as much as possible, because this is confusing, and at the crucial moment you signal to turn and the wiper blades come on because the turn signal is on the right side of the steering wheel, not the left. Now at this moment you are truly tested because your brain goes into overload wondering how the hell the wipers came on and should I deal with that first rather than concentrate on this turn? It takes active intelligence to ignore that wiper blade and just concentrate on surviving that turn.

There are frightening stories told to me about Americans waking up in the hospital, having no idea what happened, but basically somewhere along the way they wound up on the wrong side of the road. But I have to say that one of the great wonders of modern life is when you give them a piece of plastic, they give you keys to a car you've never seen before, and you drive off just like that. Just about each day I have some moment starting up driving, radio on, where I get a great rush about the freedom of having been loned this car. In some ways you develop a little love affair with this machine, more intense then any car you will ever own.

What about the rules of driving? They give you a car and that's it. They would give you more advice if you were on a rollercoaster ride. Are U-turns legal? Left OK on a red? I still am not too sure. And we Americans don't know the first thing about the right of way rules on a roundabout. And roundabouts outnumber lighted intersections 9 to 1. It makes sense that in a country that developed some very out of the way places, that roundabouts, where no traffic light is needed would become the norm. You just gotta dive in and figure it out.

Encounter with the World Champ

When I bought a surfboard over here, the fellow informed me that the first guy I spoke with, who had left, was the owner and he was former world surfing champ, Mark Richards.

I was stoked, to say the least. This fellow eventually divulged that the champ was heading out at 5am the next morning to hit a secret spot 1/2 hour South. Well, it took me a minute to realize that this should where I should be heading the next day too.

I was amazed that the former champ still had the dedication and love for surfing to crack it at 5am, so I pried the details on this secret spot out of this fellow and went to bed at 9pm. I wondered just how the champ could be so focused. I thought of Seana Hogan and her dedication to bike riding to make the bridge.

Just before dawn I arrived at the secret spot. It was stormy, a bit cold, and the wave were big, but chaotic. The champ was nowhere to be seen. I figured he had already come and gone. I was surprised to find out when I made a trip back to the surf shop that the champ had slept in, slept through his alarm! He wasn't perfect after all!

My method for seeing the coast is to have bought a board and wetsuit and stopped in every so often on the drive up the coast to check out the surf. And I have surfed half-dozen spots, at least, and seen some wild stuff.

Australian surf is a big secret in the surfing world. There are so many good spots, few people, warm water, and at least during the stretch I've been here, plenty of swells. In Port Macquarie, I encountered the largest surf, 15-20 faces, and in Byron Bay, the longest waves, I timed one ride at 53 seconds, perhaps 1/4 mile or more. Another spot, Crescent Heads, was a huge long point break with tons of room for everybody.

The spots have been really different. One evening I came to a spot where it was too big to paddle out it seemed, until a local showed me that you could paddle out 5 yards off the side of a massive breakwater. It was weird at first, but there was a huge current that took you right out and it must have been deep there, the swells wouldn't break there.

That was a memorable go out. Massive swells were breaking another 1/2 mile out, but right off the end of that breakwater, huge peaks formed and there were only 3 other guys out. Staring shore into the setting sun with huge stormclouds, I had a single moment that's still frozen in mind taking off at the very peak of a huge, light blue colored peak. The frozen moment was right there at the takeoff point, looking down the face, seeing the wave peel over to my right, sensing it breaking right behind.

I really wasn't making any take off errors, and having a great time, but the one mistake I did make happened at the exact moment you don't want it to.

At Port Macquarie, huge surf was breaking in the mouth of the harbor entrance and again you got out by riding a channel between some natural rock formations to the side of the harbor. (A pod of dolphin were hanging out right at the take off point at the first break and if you got a short ride, the pod would swim right at you, as if to tell you 'good ride'.) After getting some rides of my life of the side of the harbor, I decided to head out to the big left hand break about another 1/4 mile out in the middle of the harbor entrance.swells were breathtaking. Very well shaped, with big almond shaped breaking tubes. But tricky, shifting peak take-offs.

After being out there for only about 5 minutes and lining up far outside on the notion that I could use a rest and the notion that you don't want to take a small set wave and get caught inside, a massive set rolled in. And lo and behold I was sitting right in the right spot.wall that I was facing was truly frightening, I don't know how big it was, but I remember thinking that with a wave like this I probably needed to paddle a bit more than normal to match it's speed. So I turned around and experienced the most frightening moment of all, turning my back on this monster.

As I rolled backwards up the face, I realized that this wave was pitching faster than I thought and not only would I catch this wave, but it would be a late takeoff. I do believe that I would have made it, had I not had a moment of fear at the critical takeoff moment and not headed down with confidence.

It was a long way down the face and the moment I got up I knew it was curtains. Over the falls I went and into the washing machine. It wasn't too bad, I actually managed to hold in air until the moment when I felt I could make a dash for the surface. At that moment I did panic a bit and blew out all my air and swam in what I thought was the up direction. No problems mate.

(My recollection of the next spot I went to, Crescent Heads will always be arriving after an hour's drive or so, bending down, and having a river of stored up seawater flow out of my nose. I was an elephant!)

Bryon Bay

Byron Bay jumped out as a uniquely interesting place. It's the most eastern spot on Australia and is has the physical beauty to match. There's a walkway that takes you through the rugged, semi-tropical jut of land at the very point, and when I was out there everyone just sat there in silence for many minutes just looking at the rocks that mark the farthest point. When I left the Aussies that were out there still hadn't moved, I imagined that they were clearly touched by pondering this farthest point on this massive land that was where their lives would be played out.

The surf got smaller the farther North I went, but Byron Bay was a ton of fun. Waves that swung around the point would peel off forever. They would start at about 4-5 faces and by the end of the ride, they'd be down to 1 foot and you'd get out of the water and run back 1/4 mile and do it again.

The town is especially hip. I say this because the hippie culture is strong here, no different than a Dead concert. But it also has lots of upscale cafes, etc. Suddenly happening into this town, you get to test your own ability to play the chameleon and adjust to the local culture. I talked with one guy who I thought was a local surfer, turns out he was from England. Sounded like he actually did a fair amount of surfing in England. Whoa!

I've always vaguely liked the Crocodille Dundee image created by Paul Hogan, because it seemed to capture something lighthearted that is a true representation of the Aussie people. But the Aussie laugh at the image, and as time goes on, I can see their view, it's too contrived, and it ignores how most Aussies lead their lives, which is not at all a Croc Dundee existence. But there is something different about Aussies, and that is a truth. They like to have fun, all of 'em, young to old. You'll see all ages and sizes out there surfing, and you can talk surfing with just about anybody on the coast. Gerry Tatrai won last year's Race Across America and he is truly the most colorful personality in the ultra riding circuit. There's a certain fun-loving style that Australians have that I believe you have to be born here to give off, can't be faked.

By the way, Foster's Lager, the ads. At least in this part of the country, it is NOT Australian for beer, seems like about the only beer they don't drink! On the other hand, there actually are road signs up here warning you to watch out for crossing Koalas! That I would like to see!

Bye for now,
Jeff
 

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