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The Princes Highway
With no definite plans we left Kempsey at 7:00 AM and headed south down the Princes Highway towards Sydney and eventually home. We eventually came to a large fork in the highway, which gave us the option of heading straight down south through Sydney, or to the northern beaches where, strangely enough the Mountain Man lived. There was no huge uproar in the car as I veered left and about a half an hour later I was walking through the gate of a property at Newport. As I stuck my head in I said to the freshly shaved bloke who was foraging around in his car 'Any chance of someone putting the kettle on?' The reply came back 'Too right!'. What a different bloke this was to the Bushranger we had gotten to know over the previous 5 days at Crescent Head, almost neatly groomed and very much the caring family man, hardly recognisable. Later he took us for a short tour of his local beach and a couple of surrounding breaks. Afterwards the girl and I did a tour on our own and I showed her some of the first breaks I surfed back in the early sixties like Palm Beach and Avalon. Actually Avalon was breaking quite nicely with a reasonable sized left and right peak. For a minute or two I even considered going out and catching a couple but with 60 odd surfers all competing for the same inconsistent waves it was hardly worth it.
The Mountain Man and Tourist
A nice looking Avalon peak...
...with sixty guys on it.
We were kindly offered the Bungalow at the back to spend the night, which was just being done up and had a number of comfort facilities in it. We decided to stay the night and invited the whole family for a meal at the local pub, which was an extremely large place with a spectacular view. Afterwards we went back to house for a cuppa and a bit of a chat on the large front porch that MM had constructed himself, then it was off to bed for an early start in the morning to get through Sydney before the traffic started to move. So at roughly 4:30 AM we loaded the boards and paraphernalia onto the car, slipped out of the driveway as quietly as possible, so as not to wake anyone up. Our next stop would be somewhere near Wollongong and hopefully a meeting with the Mongolian Horde.
Austinmere1
Well we did the right thing and tipped Mr and Mrs Horde out of bed at 7:00 AM with a call from a phone box on one of the main streets in the Gong. Ghengis said he’d be down the beach at Thirroul in an hour's time, so we went there and checked out the surf while we waited. The girl saw a guy approaching her, appearing very friendly, asking the dogs’ names and wondering if she had a cigarette. He was wearing a huge crucifix around his neck, and she was assuming that it might be the Horde. Something should have told her though that he seemed a bit too odd, and he didn’t carry a surfboard either, so she politely declined but pointed out that I might have a smoke. I was so consumed with checking out the surf that my mind was not quite with it as they both started walking over to me. I'll let the girl tell the rest of the story... 'Ron was walking over to shake his hand and the look on his face when being greeted very friendly and asked for a cigarette was unbelievable. He really thought that this weirdo was Kieren! I nearly cracked up with laughter, and after Ron handed him the tobacco, the guy stuck his greedy hand into the packet and asked for the papers. I just managed to whisper to Ron that THAT wasn’t HIM so Ron replied to this bloke that he needed to go to the Deli to buy some papers. The guy politely thanked and apologised for the inconvenience and slowly took off. Ron couldn’t believe he’d fallen victim to the local village idiot I was just sitting there, cackling for about 10 minutes about this hilarious experience, when Ron announced he could see a couple with a pram approaching, the guy carrying a surfboard'. 'Twas the Horde and his family!
Austinmere 2
The Horde was almost the complete opposite to the Mountain Man, as he looked more like a young student, a bit thinner, curly thick blonde hair and intelligent round glasses. His local break Thirroul, looked like only a very small ride in length with a gnarly shorebreak, so I asked him if he knew of a spot nearby that perhaps had a bit more shape and perhaps a longer ride. He suggested a place just down the road called Austinmere; so we threw his board on top of ours and went down to have a look. Like so many of the Sydney beaches it was like a tiny bay, with what looked like half reasonable lefthander breaking down the northern end. Apparently when this place is working at its best there's a righthander which is supposed to be pretty good down off the southern end of the beach. There was what looked like a heavy sea mist clinging to this part of the coast and further to the south it seemed to dissipate into what looked like blue sky. Without any further delay I got changed and we took the boards off the car and marched down to the waters edge. The water temperature was a lot cooler than up north and it reminded me of what I might expect when we finally got home. We paddled out with the aid of a slight rip and once out the back one got a better perspective of just what the waves were doing. They were quite a reasonable size with a shifting peak and even though it was basically a lefthander there was occasionally a right. The wave itself was coming out of deep water and jacking up slightly, making late takeoffs the order of the day. As usual, I grabbed a couple of smaller ones first just to see what was going on while the Horde seemed to be doing ok with a couple of bigger and longer rides. Eventually I went for a larger one and was quite happy with the result so I thought I'd have a go for a right. The second right I caught, this bloke dropped in on me and as I completed my bottom turn and was starting my trim when his board slammed into my left shin. I heard a loud 'SORRY' as he was wiping out but I managed to retain my balance and finish the end of my ride. If that had have happened a few years ago I would have reacted a little bit differently but seeing that I'm not allowed to punch blokes lights out anymore I just paddled back out and gave him the fuming evil eye. Just before I caught my last wave in a much larger one came through, the Horde was on my left just behind me and I thought he was scratching just like me to get over it. When I burst through the falling lip and turned around to see where he was, all I saw was the trail of his wake as he headed shoreward on that cruncher. Talk about spectacular late takeoffs just to impress the interstate visitors! At least I'm glad he got the wave of the day.
Austinmere 3
We both left the water together and made our way back to the car. I could hardly see much point in getting changed and drying myself off, as it had been raining, on and off for the last three days with barely a break, so everything in the car was damp, including the towels. We dropped the young Horde off back at his house and when we were invited for a cup of tea we politely declined, as we wanted to get out of this miserable rain and find somewhere dry.
By the time we reached Kiama the sun came out and it turned into a glorious warm day even though it was a Saturday morning and there was plenty of traffic on the road. As we drove past Kiama I noticed a number of guys out on nice looking break called Bombo. I was half tempted to turn around and go back but the need to get closer to our next overnight stop was more urgent. However we did stop at Ulladulla when I glimpsed a wave breaking out off the point of the bay. We drove up a road leading to a lighthouse and took a left hand turn down a dirt road, we followed it until we could go no further, got out and walked down some steps to find the wave we were looking for. We took a couple of pics as you can see here and made a mental note that if conditions were right on one of our future trips it would be worthwhile checking out as it showed a lot of possibilities.
Ulladulla
When we finally arrived at Batemans Bay, it was late afternoon and the Caravan Park owner was out for an hour, so we drove along the beaches and checked them out, but there wasn’t much swell around down here. That evening we made a decision to head down and across to Victoria and the Surfcoast as there were no chances of any improvement here. We left early the next morning and stopped at Narooma to find that the surf hadn't miraculously jumped overnight, took a couple of pics of a glorious sunrise and then continued the rest of journey to Torquay. As soon as we crossed the border a very strong south easterly wind sprung up and in this part of the country this is bad news as far as the surf is concerned. The girl generally phones ahead in regards to accommodation but for some unknown reason this time she didn't. This was probably the only mistake we made on the whole of our 5000 kilometre trip. So when we arrived, the Caravan Park we usually stay in was fully booked and so was every other form of accommodation, due to it being a Labour Day and Grand Prix weekend in Victoria. Driving on, along the Great Ocean Road in the hope of finding something further down the track I was checking out the surf as we went along. The south easterly was completely out of control and it looked like days before there would be anything like a decent wave on this coastline. We finally managed to find a Motel for the night at Warrnambool, where a room had just been cancelled. The next morning we were up bright and early again to complete the end of our long and highly successful surf trip albeit, the last leg being a little disappointing.
Narooma Sunrise
To sum up about this trip I would like to say that this was probably one of the best surf trips I've ever been on and there are several reasons for my saying that. I've often said that the New South Welshmen are the most congenial people I've had anything to do with in this country and the guys I surfed with and the others I met along the way only confirmed this belief. I mentioned before that the Mountain Man and Mongolian Horde are completely different blokes as far as personality, stature, etc go but there are some things they have a in common. No one could ever question their endeavour or stoke as far as being surfers go.... They just go out there and ride it...no complaints. The friendship they showed towards the girl and my self will never be forgotten. Thanks fellas for making our holiday and I only hope it's not too long before we surf together again.
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Photographs by Sibylle Martens
© Ron Taylor & Sibylle Martens
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