A PERFECT NEW WAVE
I'd fallen in love with surfing and now life. All of life!
Living amongst nature and close to perfect waves was calling.
Even more blissful, Kathy and I had become lovers.
I'd had enough of the city, the dead energy and sharp corners of the concrete jungle.
I bought an old station wagon.
Now I had wheels, Kathy and my friendship with another couple had become close, and we decided to go to a then almost unknown surfing Mecca… Byron Bay.
The most beautiful girl in the world was now my partner, and I couldn’t have been happier!
We arrived at Byron and went straight to the Pass, one of Australia’s most legendary waves and were greeted with lines of perfectly formed waves with no one out but dolphins 'body surfing'.There could not have been a more perfect introduction to our new home - waves peeling off tube after tube in glassy clear water under cloudless blue skies.
The girls danced joyfully on the pure white sand on the edge of the ocean that some how felt like it was glad to have us drawing joy from its own pure being. Totally 'tubed out', we set about finding somewhere to live.
Feeling re-energized, I was not surprised to later learn Byron’s energy was said by the Aboriginals to be healing...particularly for women.
We scoured the area and discovered a huge homestead sitting like a jewel on the edge of the ridge with brilliant expansive ocean views over the nearby beaches. It was empty, and we searched for the owner.
He was a giant of a man who towered over us like a mythical Norse God with a deep booming voice that sounded like it welled up from the center of the Earth
He too had dropped out from advertising in England, and moved to Australia and bought this beautiful 400-acre dairy and pig farm.
I was like a macrocosm to his macrocosm, and we quickly connected. His trouble was that a piggery was a large part of the income and as he was having trouble with the pigs he was living with his family in the small share farmer’s house near the piggery , way down at the bottom of the hill, leaving the homestead empty.
The homestead was huge, five bedrooms, a verandah with stable doors, a fireplace that could take a tree and a stove you could cook a cow in. I could climb a pine tree out the front and check what the surf was at each of the beaches.
Fortunately Ken, the farmer suggested, we could build fences for him in return for rent.
I always kept an eye out for sharks, Byron is Australia's most easterly point when sharks migrated from North to South they swam closely around it, safely perched on the headland looking down and we saw them in big packs. Byron was also home to an abboitors, and all that was left of the cows was a juice that was pumped into the ocean which was also a habitual hangout for sharks coming for dinner.
We had also become introduced to a natural pyschadelic -"the magic mushroom" and we would quite often go mushroom hunting.
We would soak them in honey or even create a mushroom sandwich, or simply just eat them straight- bite into them and head down to the surf.
Usually, by the time I got to the beach, I wasn't driving I was flying high, very high - a "magic carpet ride" indeed!!.
Everything would go soooo mellow, and the whole beach would look like this incredibly stunning garden full of vibrant patterns and colors, the sky would have transparent fairy floss clouds and the waves frisky little bits of fluid flowing glass.
Most ‘working’ days Gary and I would walk over the farm with rolls of barbed wire and Ken would drop off fence posts. We would dig the holes with a post-hole digger, drop the poles in, and strain the barbed wire. Sometimes I’d put too much strain on the barbed wire and it would snap and spring back at me and roll itself around me so I looked like a spring roll with a wire wrapping,
The cows would just hang out in their contented groove and leisurely watched as we built our fences.
Pigs are surprisingly intelligent, a disease hit the piggery and the new-born piglets started dying, Ken had saved one and taken it into his house, and treated it like was one of his beloved cattle dogs. The cattle dogs adopted it too and it became, a pink hairless would be cattle dog. By now Ken was letting us use his precious jeep and we would head off to build another fence with the cattle dogs chasing us, the piglet running behind them frolicking like a dog.
The Pass was a favorite surf spot for dolphins who joyfully shared wave after wave with us.