Tales of Bush Fires and Banksias

Gas Reef. No point waiting around.

Blackened old branches from a past fire, with new plants sprouting up to replace them.

Margaret River was on fire last week.

The little town in Western Australia, famous for producing high quality Bordeaux style wines and world class, heavy, waves was being threatened by an enormous and ferocious bush fire that was started as a "controlled burn" by the authorities (on a 37 degrees Celcius day??!) but which quickly spread beyond it's planned boundaries burning an area of 3,400 hectares.

Photos taken from outside the town's fire station (at the end of the street that I used to live on) showed the sky west towards the coast filled with thick smoke. The fire raged along the coastline west of Caves Road, burning through the beachside communities of Redgate, Gnarabup and Prevelly destroying 31 homes, 9 tourist chalets and a historic house (dating back to 1865 so historic by modern Aussie standards). This is one of the most wave rich stretches of coastline on one of the most wave rich continents on the planet, but I guess that that fact was no longer relevant to the residents sheltering on the beach while their homes were razed. One guy got his wife to safety then returned to defend his home from the fire; he stuffed rags into the gutters and attached sprinklers to the rooftop then, when the flames started to engulf neighbours homes he pulled on a scuba tank and mask and jumped in his neighbours pool, laying on the bottom for 5 minutes whilst the fire passed overhead. His home was saved, deservedly so I reckon.

My friend Krede, who lives in Margs, checking the waves at Redgate. Probably less green and more black around here right now.

WA is a state familiar with bushfires. Has been forever. Banksias are Australian wildflowers perfectly adapted to the regularity of fires resulting from the scorching sun beating down on the tinderbox scrub and bush. Roughly half of the banksia species are killed by fire but the fire stimulates the opening of their seed bearing follicles and the germination of seeds in the ground. The other half have bark so thick that the trunk is protected, or they have tubers underground that resprout straight after a fire event. The communities of Gnarabup and Prev'll do just that I reckon; resprout and bounce back.

It's too early in the season for this fire to affect this season's wine vintage, and nothing'll stop these waves continuing to break on the limestone reefs fringing this beautiful coast. Good luck down there.

Mainbreak

PANOVISION

Back in the depths of winter I found my dream camera on a certain internet auction site: a Hasselblad x-pan 35mm panoramic rangefinder camera. I quickly figured out which of my meagre possessions I could sell and even dipped into my sacred surfboard budget but it ended up selling for four times my bid. Who was I kidding??! As a consolation prize I had a rummage in my camera box and pulled out a crappy "panoramic" point and click excuse of a camera, basically a cheap toy thing with two bits of plastic screening the top and bottom of the frame cropping it out and making a wider than normal image. I put a crap roll of film in the crap little camera and stuffed it in my pocket. 36 shots and 5 months later I got the film developed, and just look at what came out, here's my top ten...



Early January, police warnings to make no unnecessary journeys due to heavy snow. We loaded up the Landrover and drove across Bodmin Moor, Davidstow Moor and onto Dartmoor to go climbing, passing scenes like this.


A junky needs their fix. A mile inland the snow and ice forced us to turn around and settle for the junky surf of home: MJH encased in neoprene heading in whatever.

Davo and me could check the waves from our loungeg window at low tide, but as the water pushed in we had to walk along to the cliff top. February evening, trying to decide if it's worth getting cold for.

My friends Rob and Sarah are my inspiration for living well. They live in a walled garden on an organic herb farm with their chooks, ducks and sheep, off the grid and an example of the good life for the rest of us.

A wide angle view of another perfect wave going hollow and unridden at a certain spot in West Australia. Not for long as I was already halfway into my wetsuit.

My good friend Krede with a truck full of big boards for riding big waves. We only needed our regular boards this afternoon for surf number 2.

My housemate Matt pausing/tensing for breath and a look around on a gnarly and as yet un-named free solo ascent a stones throw from our house on the nearby cliffs.

The "other" view of Pentire Head, with Gulland and Newland sitting seaward. Turns out it's a beautiful bit of coastline whichever direction you're looking at it from.

I shaped an alaia recently, an ancient Hawaiian wooden and finless surfboard design. Before I could though I had to recondition the hand plane that I inherited from my Grandad who was a wooden boatbuilder and master cabinetmaker. I felt the pressure of craftsmanship and I hope I did a worthy job.

Andreya Triana under the spotlight fronting Bonobo on the recent tour for the Black Sands LP.

With no control over aperture, exposure or even focus this camera was always a gamble machine. There's something about panoramic images though, I guess there's a reason why our eyes are side by side and not one above the other after all.

Step on the Gas (WA transmission #3)

"How big's your biggest board mate?"

"Um, 6'2"

"OK, I'm bringing down my entire quiver, so there's a bigger board for you and we've got some spares, we should be on for Grunters or big Gas"

"Right-oh...."

Now I know for a fact that Krede has a few 6'6" and 6'8" semi guns in his rack, plus a few boards that are 7' plus for when North Point is breaking (the sort with tails so pointy that it looks like somebody made a mistake at the factory and put fin plugs in the nose). I want nothing to do with this, but keep quiet.

Grunters is a wave that breaks a fair way out and moves ALOT of water, the thing is pretty much backless. It looks ok from the top of the bluff, even kind of friendly, but by the time you've paddled out and have to duckdive through one you realise just how heavy it is and just how much you've underestimated it. It's the full board-breaker.

Gas is an identikit version of it's near neighbour The Box, 2km to the north. It comes out of deep water and hits a shallow shelf, drawing water off the reef in front of it. Below head high the wave pretty much trips over itself and the curve of the face is so concentrated that it's only really rideable by our lie-down cousins on their squishies, and over head high it gets intimidating. To make this wave you have to take off behind the peak and run through the barrel; taking off on the peak or out on the shoulder seem like an easier option until you find yourself being pitched outwards and downwards headfirst with force towards the shallows. Like I said, intimidating.

Thankfully, this day didn't quite live up to the hype - the swell had a bit too much south in it and wasn't wrapping onto the coast properly so I was spared a paddle out at Grunters, and Gas was in the "manageable" overhead range. So there I was sat out at Gas taking the odd wave and not messing up too bad, a few of the locals sat a bit further out waiting for the bigger sets, and I take a look around me. I'm surrounded by 12 year olds. All of a sudden I don't feel like I'm ruling it quite so much as I watch a tiny blonde kid spin around super late and, after 3 paddles, air drop into a wave that is enormous in comparison to all 4ft of him. He disappears from view as the lip pitches out, only to hop over the back way off down the line with poise and style way beyond his years. Keep your eyes out for a kid called Jack Robinson, that boy is going places. Me? I pretty much rode my next wave all the way in, got out and walked up the beach.

Top: A sunset drainer coming through at Gas Reef, Gnarabup, WA, with just one lucky guy left out there.

Second from top: Inside Grunters. It looks nice huh? It ain't.

Third from top: Dino Adrian getting all Larry Layback on the end-section at Karates, Gracetown, WA.

Bottom: Study this one carefully kids. This is how to come off the top, a textbook demonstration by Scott Jardine-Hargraves at Karates.

WA transmission #2

A week later than advertised thanks to time zone changes, international flights and a 3 metre swell. It's been good to be back though; sunshine and more than a little bit of oomph behind the waves are just a couple of reasons why this all too short trip was a full box ticker.

These images are all archival ones from when I lived out here back in 2005 and 2006 - I got a load of films back from the lab this morning but give me a week to digitize them and sort the wheat from the chaff. On initial inspection there's a few keepers in amongst them, including an absolute drainer coming through at Gas Reef and some good action shots of my mates Mick and Scooter alongside Deano Adrian attacking lips Down South. Check back soon hey.

Until then, from the top on down:

The way home from work; Wise Winery, Eagle Bay, Dunsborough.

Rottnest Island, home to the funny little half rat/half kangaroo like Quokka, and some heaving slabs if you can get your mitts on a boat or ski.

"Every year Scarborough steals a load of our sand and calls it a surf spot..." Mick Jardine taking it home for Trigg Point Boardriders in the 2006 WA Surf League.

Karri trees, Boranup Forest, Margaret River.

Way out West

Back to the programme. I'm meant to be throwing up surf and travel photos and it's been a few weeks since a photo of a wave made it on here, so time to change all that. I landed in Perth, West Australia a couple of nights ago, just in time for the wedding of some good friends of mine (congratulations Anna and Mick, it was a beautiful day) and now I've got a week to catch some waves and spend time with friends.

The West coast of Australia is big and remote, edged with ancient limestone reefs and long beaches. Big storms from the roaring forties send swells spinning off up this coast on their way to Indonesia, and the waves that break here as thy drag up the coast are some of the rawest and most powerful on the planet. Pretty humbling and the joint breeds a certain type of understated hard charging surfer, comfortable and competent in just about anything aquatic.

So far, a few days in I've had a few surfs at Trigg Point in Perth, possibly one of the most crowded metropolitan waves anywhere but managed to snag a few thanks to the generosity of the ruling TPB boys. I couldn't buy a wave this morning but, just spent a few hours banging elbows with crew. But Down South is where it's at, and where I'm aiming for.....a few missions planned and a 3 meter swell is forecast for next weekend which is pleasantly intimidating.

The only problem being that one of my camera lenses in in two bits post-wedding (it looks like I tried to drop kick the thing, pretty upsetting) so I'm going to be standing a long way back with a telephoto lens for the next week, and my new board is lost in transit somewhere on it's way over from the Goldie. I'll do my best to get some shots in between, before and after surfs, and I'll try to find a computer and update you all next Sunday, let you know just how that swell pans out.

The top image is from 3 Bears, just underneath Cape Naturaliste and is a rare boiling right running off Mama's. As the name would suggest, this stretch of reef has three waves of varying size; Baby's, Mama's and Papa's.

The shot below is by Perth photog Mike Maxted and is of my friend Ryan Thomas on what's being hyped as one of the best days at Trigg Point in the past decade, just a couple of weeks ago. Off the top of the point and eyeing up the mental slalom course coming his way. I told you this place gets crowded...