Toyota RAV4 get outdoors - Surfari Highway - episode thirteen

Still, it is a slightly eerie sensation paddling out entirely on your own, with not another sign of humanity to be seen. Is there some reason there is no one here? Is there some deadly peril I don't know about? I stroke into my first wedging right and quickly discover one minor hazard. I kick out of the small closeout and find myself hopelessly entangled in a thick bank of kelp. The stuff wraps about my legs and leash so tightly I can barely wade out of it. Every ride ends in the same grim struggle to free myself from its clutches. I am just about fed up. What is it with this place? If it is not the wrong wind or tide or swell direction, it is the damn kelp. It's as if Mother Nature is throwing every single trick in her arsenal at me. The little wedging peaks are as fun as hell but paddling back out each time is like pulling teeth.

I eventually give in. There's a little southerly pulse predicted in a couple of day's time and I resolve to return then and see if the weed has been dispersed. As I drive out I see a busy gang of National Park workers preparing for a controlled burn, reducing the fuel load to lessen the bushfire risk.

When I return, on a crisp, cool morning a couple of days later, the entire foreshore is smoldering. Little plumes of smoke rise out of the blackened forest here and there, and small flickers of flame are still dancing on fallen logs. Geez, and they tell us not to leave camp fires unattended. The smoke is choking and it's a surreal drive through the hazy, charred forest down to the beach. The swell is indeed a touch bigger, the weed appears gone and the beachie looks like an inviting skate park of peaks and bowls and ramps.

One heavy plume of smoke is rising from the midst of the forest and, as the offshore wind freshens, I begin to wonder what would happen if the fire sprang back to life. At what point would I be well-advised to paddle in, jump in the car and get the hell out of here? Tassie surfing definitely serves up some interesting dilemmas. I've never had this particular problem at D-bah, pondering how I might best escape a bushfire in between set waves.

I watch the plume closely in between rides, as it rises above the forest ominously, but the waves are too fun to leave. As it turns out, this will be my last surf in Tassie and a suitably strange one, a see-sawing wrestle between delight and anxiety, exhilaration and frustration. A bit like our entire month here.