Surfari Highway - episode twenty
- Distance travelled:
- 17,327 KM
- Location:
- Kalbarri, WA
- Travel dates:
- June 26, 2011
- Status:
- Beginning of our north-west leg
- Surf:
- four to five foot reef/point break.
- Swell direction:
- South-west
- Wind:
- Light easterly.
- Weather:
- Fine, sunny.
- Tides:
- High tide 7.18 am, low tide 6.16 pm.
Our journey northwards is bringing warmer weather and relief for my niggling lower back. It's like we've switched seasons almost overnight, from the depths of winter to a gloriously mild Spring or early Summer.
But for me, there is also the realisation that the surfing component of our journey is drawing to a close. I may have as little as a month of surfable coast left, before putting the boards away for the two or three months of the homeward leg across the top.
Our next stop is a unique little fishing village that wasn't even technically a town until 1951, inhabited by a literal handful of fishermen in rough shacks, and known simply as "The Mouth of the Murchison." My paternal grandfather, Basil Baker, "Pop" to us, spoke of the Mouth of the Murchison as a kind of fisherman's Nirvana, where the fish leapt into your boat and crayfish could be picked off the reef at will.
The local Point is an abrupt rock ledge that heaves out into outrageous barrels. Watching from the beach, it looks like most of the surfers are shoulder-hopping and you wonder why they are avoiding the first 50 metres of grinding barrel. Until you paddle out and look deep into that grinding barrel and see it contorting and sucking square off the reef in a foot of water, with that bare rock ledge just waiting to claim the unwary.
Five or six surfers are happily taking it in turns and I pick my way out over the rocks, watching a couple of surfers in front of me to find the best place to paddle out. The bloke I've decided to follow is poised on a finger of rock jutting out into the boiling ocean, waiting for a break in the sets to launch himself seawards. But he waits too long, gets knocked off his feet by a surge and is swept down the rocks in front of me. If he's my guide then I'm in trouble.
I eventually find a safe launching place and wait for a long lull, before paddling out around the break. I sit wide of the pack waiting my turn. It's a sunny Wednesday afternoon, the surf's four to five foot with a brisk offshore and I figure the fishing fleet must be out at sea for the lineup to be so uncrowded. It's a promising start to my north-west surfing leg and I pick off a few middling set waves, gradually edging a little closer to the peak.
Another afternoon out at the Point, the surf is three to four feet but raked by a strong onshore wind. Regardless, a gang of local teenagers are charging the windblown waves with abandon, blowing their fins out the back on every top turn, in a thoroughly contemporary display of high performance surfing. I watch a gang of three youngsters attempt to jump off the rock ledge, but one gets washed off and dragged down the length of the Point, caught up in the powerful sweep and pounded by sets. He gets washed in on the beach, inspects his board for damage, and trots round the Point to try again, completely unperturbed. Another lad, maybe16, gets washed in with a broken board and trots up to the car park to grab a new one. It strikes me as a wonderful grommethood these kids are having here, far from the surfing mainstream. The rawness of the ocean and the coast can't help but rub off on them, even as they exhibit all the modern skills of aerial trickery, producing well-rounded surfers.
There are still plenty of fish and crays lurking in these waters, and waves are still being discovered along this desert coast. They may be a long way from anywhere here, but only if they ever feel the need to go anywhere else.
Local tip: Strangely, fresh local fish can be hard to find in this fishing town. Try the wharves at dawn for the catch of the day straight from the trawlers.
Tourist tip: The gorges of Kalbarri National Park are a spectacular preview of what's to come further north.