OZtralia.tv Blog

The Reserves Where Surfers Are King

By: Gail Liston-Burgess

Sand sticks between your toes with each step you take towards the ocean. The waves tumble noisily and roll against the shore. Several surfers plough through the water tossing their boards over the heads of the breakers. Beside you a giggling teen slides ungraciously off his board then quickly launches himself back into the fray. 

This may be the first time you have donned a wetsuit and tucked a short board under your arm, but it won’t be the last. And now that Australia has five gazetted National Surfing Reserves, visitors have even more reason to sample this quintessential Australian obsession.

Surfing in Australia is open to all. No one cares how well you paddle the board or how often you topple into the surf. The only rule, if there is one, is to wait your turn at the back of the break.

“If you don’t try surfing this year it will just be another year you wish you had,” says Brad Whittaker, beach operations manager for the recently gazetted Cronulla Beaches National Surfing Reserve, just south of Sydney.

“It’s not hard to get out there and have a go,” he says. “Sure there is a wide range of surfing breaks (at Cronulla) for the experienced surfer, but this coast has plenty of options for the new surfers, and you won’t believe the freedom you feel riding a wave.”

Former professional surfer Mark Aprilvic, who has been coaching new surfers for the past 30 years at his Cronulla Surf School, endorses this message.

“We’ve taught people from six to 70 to surf. Once you learn how to paddle and the standing technique, it’s not that hard. Anyway wiping out is part of the fun.”

Surf legend Mark (Occy) Occhilupo is a local Cronulla boy who has won 12 elite surfing tour victories and seven world specialty event titles, including the 1999 World Title.

According to Occy, the surfing reserves are “paramount to protecting the surfing environment and keep places like Cronulla the way it is – with so much variety for both pro and amateur surfers.”

“I remember thinking, ‘far out, I can’t believe this’, when I started riding waves,” says Occy. “This feeling stays with you.”

“I felt like that too,” says Mark Aprilvic. “Everyone does when they start to feel the water and enjoy this environment – it’s stress release. Like you are reconnecting with nature.”

Getting to the Cronulla Beaches National Surfing Reserve is easy. Trains and buses service the area, and the beach is only a 40-minute drive from the centre of Sydney. Each of Australia’s existing surfing reserves are all a short drive from major arterial highways.

You do not have to be a professional surfer to enjoy these surfing reserves. They are open to anyone who feels the desire to dive into the sea or fling a beach towel across the sand. And you may pick up a few tips from the locals or learn new skills by joining a surfing class offered by one of the reserve’s accredited surfing schools.

There are 10,685 beaches along Australia’s 37,000-km coastline. It’s called the “ribbon of gold” for a good reason because some of the finest beaches in the world embrace this island nation.

It’s not surprising, then, that more than 80 per cent of the Australian population lives within 50 kilometres of the coast. International visitors are similarly attracted to Australia’s surfing breaks and an outdoor experience that is second to none.

“The beaches belong to everyone,” says Brad Farmer, the National Surfing Reserves Chairman.

“Anyone can be a surfer. It’s part of Aussie culture. We wanted to create National Surfing Reserves around the country for everyone to experience surfing. Cronulla is the fifth National Surfing Reserve in Australia and there are 24 more on the way.”

The first of Australia’s National Surfing Reserves was Bells Beach in Victoria. The reserve was established to protect the coastal environment and the beach culture that emerged along this coastal fringe in the 1960s and became so much a part of the Aussie way of life.

Bells Beach is the home to six lauded breaks, as well as the longest running surf contest in the world – The Rip Curl Easter Pro – and the birthplace of the iconic international surfing labels Rip Curl and Quicksilver. Many visitors say it is almost a religious experience to touch the sand or dip a toe in the water.

Australia’s second surfing reserve was dedicated at Angourie in northern New South Wales in 2007. The surfing fraternity considers the right-hand point break at this north coast surfing village to be hallowed territory. On any given day you could be paddling at the back of the break alongside surf legends such as Nat Young and Mark Richards, or American champ Kelly Slater if he happens to be in town.

Lennox Head was the next to make the list. At the heart of the surfing hub of the far north coast of New South Wales, Lennox is renowned for its tough right-hand break off the point.

Crescent Head, also in New South Wales, became a surfing reserve in June 2008. This surfing hot spot was the breeding ground of the longboard surfing in the 1950s. Today Crescent Head attracts longboard riders from around the world.

National Surfing Reserves:

• Bells Beach, Victoria –71 kilometres from Melbourne, off the Great Ocean Road. Visit during the Rip Curl Pro from 7 to 19 April 2009. Learn to surf with Southern Exposure Surf School.
• Angourie, New South Wales – Located less than 30 minutes south of Yamba, northern New South Wales. Enjoy year-round surfing with fewer surfers during the week. Yamba-Angourie Surf School will teach you the basics.
• Lennox Head, New South Wales –15 minutes drive south of Byron Bay, northern New South Wales. Lennox Head hosts the annual Lennox Longboard Classic in August and Gromfest Junior Surfing Event in July. Best breaks are between May and August. Kool Katz Surf School provides instruction.
• Crescent Head, New South Wales – 19 kilometres southeast of Kempsey, on the mid north coast of New South Wales. Malibu board hot spot with the Malibu Classic in May each year. Get ready for the waves with Crescent Head Learn to Surf.
• Cronulla Beaches, New South Wales – 40-minute drive from Sydney. After a five-year hiatus, Pro Surfing returns to North Cronulla Beach with the Australian Open surfing event in March 2009. Cronulla Surf School offers classes for beginners.

Did You Know?
Americans played a key role in bringing surfing to Australia. It was Hawaiian Olympic swimming champion Duke Kahanamoko who introduced surfing with demonstrations of boardriding at Cronulla, Freshwater and Manly in 1914. He created a sensation, especially when he stood on his head on the board. In 1959 the Californians brought the short Mailbu boards to Cronulla Beach and started a surfing revolution.

Relaxing With An Ol’ Pastime

Bullo River Station is a 1,600 square kilometre cattle station tucked away in a remote corner of the Northern Territory. Guests can ride horses, help muster cattle, view Aboriginal rock art, go fishing, and swim at the remarkably beautiful Cascades.

There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune…

Shakespeare must have been an amateur fisherman. How else could he have written those words in Julius Caesar? The scene is supposed to be about Brutus’ desire to seize the moment in a Roman war, but the words just as aptly describe a moment on the banks of the Northern Territory’s Bullo River when the tide turns and big fat barramundi are there for the catching.

In fact, if you happened to be fishing at Bullo River at just such a time, there’s a good chance that you’d hear local fishing expert Trevor Bennett utter words to that effect.

Bennet has a dream job. He’s a fishing fanatic and knows everything there is to know about catching ’barra, those delicious trophy fish that Northern Territorians spend a lifetime in pursuit of. He also works at Bullo River Station, a massive Northern Territory cattle station which welcomes a handful of guests who are keen to fish, muster cattle, swim in gorgeously remote waterholes and otherwise enjoy the trappings of Outback life.

Bennett’s job for today is to maximise the likelihood that we’ll catch a ’barra for dinner. We know we’re onto a good thing when he turns up with a selection of rods and bait, then drives us out to what he reckons is one of Bullo River’s best spots for fishing.

“When you hook one,” he says, “let it run. You have to let ’em tire before you start reeling ’em in.”

They’re promising words. But the truth is that when we first cast our lines into the Bullo we get nothing but a few nibbles. The fish seem to be toying with us mere mortals standing on the banks of the Bullo, ankle deep in mud, baking in the afternoon sun.

A pair of eagles watch us from their nest in an old gum tree on the other side of the river. They’ve seen it all before, and know they may get a free feed if they play their cards right. One of them launches a reconnaissance flight, circling and then swooping underneath our fishing lines as if to assert prior claim to whatever swims beneath.

Bullo is croc-infested tidal river, flanked by mudflats and allegedly thick with ’barra. But they’re still not biting. The tide is coming in at speed, though, and we watch as the river spills inexorably across the mudflats, turning our footprints into salty puddles and then, a few minutes later, converting these puddles into pools.

Watching the tide turn is surprisingly therapeutic. Bennett, however, is getting restless. There’s a spot further up river, he says, where we’re sure to do well. But we need to be there now, when the tide is just so. We reel in the fishing lines, scramble into the ute and speed off.

After ten minutes or so, hoots of excitement fill the air. One of our party, Christina, has hooked a fish. She lets it run as instructed and eventually reels in a lovely silver barramundi. It’s big and shiny and good enough to feed a family of four.

Bennett moves quickly to despatch the ’barra by knifing it in the guts. The joy of fishing is writ large on Christina’s face. Meanwhile, somewhere beyond the Outback, the soul of a long-dead English playwright is no doubt delighted to see that ancient Roman dramas are replayed in the simple act of fishing for ’barra on the Bullo River.

Researching A Movie in Australia

By: Phoenix Arrien

Greetings from the Kimberley, a vast wilderness in the northwest of Australia.  I am researching the locations for Baz Lurhmann’s multi-million dollar epic ‘Australia’. The world will be hearing plenty about this movie in the next few months as he of ‘Moulin Rouge’ fame releases his baby in many countries.

I am awestruck by the scenery out here. Great gorges, sweeping mountain ranges, wide wild rivers, mangrove swamps, coral reefs, islands and forests that go on for days. Stars Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman also had plenty to say about this awesome place so I will join them in the accolades - balanced by a few negatives such as the ‘industrialisation’ of the Kimberley.

For unfortunately several companies, including Inpex (a Japanese energy company) and Woodside Ltd, have submitted proposals to develop the region’s Browse Basin gas field to the State and Commonwealth governments.

Certainly energy is an issue for everyone however the impacts of industrialisation, including proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants, would go a long way to destroying one of the last large and remote coastal wilderness areas left in the world.

Back to the subject of ‘Australia’ the movie, I am also heading to Bowen on the east coast in a few weeks. This is where Baz also filmed some scenes. Bowen is right by the Great Barrier Reef (another controversial endangered area) and next to rainforest so I will try and tread lightly.

It should be a fantastic experience. Bowen was set up as Darwin the 1940’s so just having been to Darwin I am interested in seeing the ‘old Darwin’.

More about the movie: www.australiamovie.net

The Town On The Edge: Part Two

By: Phoenix Arrien

We explore Mallacoota by land today, taking an extended walk along a deserted beach where the waves swirls around rocks and slaps the shore in a rush of foam before running gently up the shell-pocked sand.

In late September whales appear along the coast as they make their way south to Antarctica but no such giants are present today. There is still plenty to see. The coast is wild and rugged and a strong attraction is to visit the historic old lighthouses, many of whom still shine a light for ships. The walk continues along colourful heathland and then through stunted forests, the trees all windswept and twisted, but the ground soft underfoot.

Our farewell in town occurs at the grooviest live music event I have been to for a long time. Locals all gather at Café 54 once a week for resident musicians to rock the place with blues covers and a few locally inspired tunes. Plenty of food, noise and local gossip creates a great send off from a jewel in a beautiful coastal wilderness, oozing with classic low-key Australian friendliness.

Sea Dog Fridays

By: Phoenix Arrien

Tall ships! These two words conjure up high adventure and bold deeds. Square riggers using only wind and human skill, sailed to Australia bringing white settlers - willing and unwilling.

They dominated the oceans, trade and the fortunes of empires. They were lords of the oceans for centuries and in this day of virtual and fast travel, the few that still ride the seas on their own terms, bring lumps to throats when sighted breezing proudly passing under full sail.

So me hearties. For the next few months I am gonna prepare ye for the weekend, by taking ye to sea on Fridays. Aye, I am gonna spin ye such tales of me sea voyages that ye will enter the weekend with the smell of salt in ye nostrils, the whip of the cat o nine tails - no, that shall give ye ideas beyond the pure sort - let us change that to the whip of the ocean gale, the slap (mind yerself) of the waves against the ship’s hull and the freedom of heading out into the wild blue yonder.

No ordinary ships, mind ye, for I have sailed the seas around Australia in tall riggers, thems with the sails and wooden hulls, tall masts pointing to heaven and anchors pointing to Davy

Jones Locker.

Most Australian states have their own tall ship based in each capital city and undertaking sails ranging from hourly to multi-year journeys. Let us rejoicing in the power and might of these ocean lords; hear the creaking hull pulled along by large sails, feel the wind blow into the canvas and see the oceans seething with a fantastic world of creatures and currents.

Let us not forget the history. Stories, paintings, records and legends have wrapped themselves around the mighty sailing ships plying the oceans; the masters of transport taking people to far off lands. These vessels changed the destinies of countries and shaped the world.

They are also a bonza way to travel. So next Friday we set off on the Leeuwin around one of the five great capes of the world. See you on board then!

A Using the “C” Word(s) in Australia

By: Phoenix Arrien

‘Ere ya go then. Another lesson in ‘strine (as in short for ‘Australian’)

We bring you the letter C:

Cactus : dead, not functioning (”this bloody barbeque is cactus”)
Cane toad : a person from Queensland
Cark it : to die, kick the bucket
Cat’s piss, as mean as : mean, stingy, uncharitable
Clayton’s : fake, substitute
Cobber : friend
Cockie : cockatoo
Cockie : cockroach
Cockroach : a person from New South Wales
Coldie : a beer
Cooee, not within : figuratively a long way away, far off - England weren’t within cooee of beating Australia at cricket
Cooee, within : nearby - I was within cooee of landing a big fish when the line broke.
Crack onto (someone): to hit on someone, pursue someone romantically
Crow eater: a person from South Australia
Cut snake, mad as a: very angry

We sure are a creative lot ‘aint we?

Rest Among Trees In Australia

By: Phoenix Arrien

The Otway’s is a lush cool temperate forest on the southern coast of Australia. Cool fern gullies, dark hidden creeks and the inspiring Mountain Ash - magnificent trees that are an inspiration to stand under - are magnet for loggers.

After years of confrontation, environmental battles and resistance by the logging industry, the chainsaws are finally quiet in this region and the remaining trees are safe. Australia sends a good slice of its old growth forest overseas as woodchips and there has been a strong movement to stop this.

I visited a beautiful old growth forest in Tasmania called the Weld Valley. On the way I picked up a hitchhiker who was travelling to the forest blockade to help protest over the clear felling of this forest as well as have ‘some time out in the bush’.

This is common around Australia. Joining a protest is not just voicing one’s opinions about the destruction of trees, it is also a working holiday and an opportunity to spend some time camping in the middle of wilderness, meet interesting folk and breathe some pure air.

If you are thinking of seeing travelling Australia and experiencing a bit of the original bits, as they were hundreds of years ago before European habitation, as well as helping to stop clear felling forests, you may want to join an forest blockade. More info can be found on www.wilderness.org.au/getinvolved.

Low Coast Air Travel

By: Phoenix Arrien

Low cost carriers (LCC’s) or budget airlines as they are commonly known, have transformed the way people travel in Australia.

I just booked a flight with Tiger Airways from Melbourne on the south coast to the Sunshine coast two thirds of the way up the continent for $69AUD. This is a 2 ½ hour flight and is extremely good value.

There is a difference of course. You pay for check-in luggage, you don’t get meals or blankets (though you can pay for them) and you are bound to end up wedged between a crying toddler ripping his mum’s blouse apart and a long-bodied surfer with elbows like a praying mantis.

Fuel is a big cost, so it is my opinion that the ride is more turbulent, because the pilots do not climb as high as often as the normal carriers to find some calmer air space.

Still, you get there and you have enough money left over to BYO a bit booze for the party.

Whale Watching in Australia

By: Phoenix Arrien

Towns along the mid north coast of Australia’s New South Wales - a prime whale watching region - have adopted whales as part of the ‘Humpback Whale Migration Icon’ project.

Port Stephens has adopted ‘Panda’, a juvenile Fairly whale; Port Macquarie has embraced Panda’s mother, ‘Magenta’, a supermum featuring a distinctive ‘M’ on the underside of her white tail; while Coffs Coast has adopted a Humpback called ‘Janggalay’ (meaning Free Spirit/Happy Go Lucky).

The whale watching season along this stretch of Australia occurs from June to November and attracts visitors to view these amazing ocean giants from pristine coastal vantage points or on board professional cruise operations.

I have watched whales from several vantage points around Australia’s coast and I can honestly say it is an incredible sight. They are huge, slow and mighty and magnificent - giants of the sea.

Visit www.midnorthcoastnsw.com.au for more information.

Eating Healthy While On The Road in Australia

By: Phoenix Arrien

Australia is fortunate to offer just about every type of cuisine you can imagine. However when you travel it is so easy just to grab anything that looks remotely like food as you pass through airports and cities.

A diet of fast food can make you feel bloated, irritable and depressed, as well as unfit and lacking in energy just when there is so much to see and do.

Tips to eating healthy while travelling in Australia:

• drink lots of water (this is (mostly) a hot and dry place)

• avoid sugary fizzy drinks

• go for white meat instead of minced reds like burgers

• ask for grilled food instead of fried

• make sure you have vegetables with meals

• use cutlery instead of hands so you slow down your eating by having to use a utensil

• avoid fatty sauces

• limit desserts

Eating can still be fun. Try emu, kangaroo, crocodile and even witchetty grubs. No? Then fine French fare, hearty Tibetan yak or delicious Italian may just fill the belly and get you ready for adventure.