Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Heaven sent

A low dark cloud stretched across the Australian Day long weekend, one perfectly mirroring my mood. The end of the road had been reached and I was unravelling. I couldn't do this dual life anymore even if I wanted to; it was obvious that every softly-softly approach, the one that I'd been peddling for the last two and a half years, had spectacularly failed to get me to where I wanted to go. My simultaneous city/country life was crashing down around me and I was going down with it.

So I called a time out. I was taking a breather, making a master plan for 2013 (one which didn't include the word 'cope' as in 'this year I will cope with the long-distance travel by using my time more productively on the train'). In perfect synchronicity, just as I was tying my laces to do a runner from my own life, I ran headlong into the leaving date for our long-anticipated summer holiday.

I was yearning for this away time, ten glorious days to read, eat, sleep and swim. I wanted to get up at dawn, go down to the beach and watch the sun turn the sky a streaky gelato coloured vision of lemon, pink and lavender. I could live on that morning light; it's a magnificent vision of heaven.

Even though I had prayed for this holiday over that bleak long weekend, the weather gods proved unyielding in their cruelty. They nearly de-railed us before we had started sending thick clouds, wild winds and heavy rain our way, a legacy of the weather which was flooding Queensland. Never doubting for a minute, despite all the evidence to the contrary, the Country Mouse continued to pack the car with the utmost certainty. As we pulled out of the driveway the unyielding rain was accompanied by a soundtrack of thunder. Just perfect for a camping holiday.

The Country Mouse can be an enigma. Sometimes I have to jolly him out of a sombre glass-half-empty frame of mind, at other times he is positivity itself. "A week of rain", I howled. "It'll clear", he countered. I held my phone up showing the grim Bureau of Meteorology 7-day forecast - solid rain. The CM was unperturbed and became a one-man cheer squad on our trip north to Crescent Head. In those moments when the volume of water hammering down on us eased slightly he beamed "Look, it's clearing". It wasn't.

Despite the conditions the CM sorted our campsite like a professional and for the first time that night I heard the sound of tent rain. I know a man loves a woman brimming with questioning doubt and who am I to disappoint, so I peppered him. "Is the tent going to leak?" "What will we do if the campsite floods?" "Can we sleep in the car?" "Can we go to a motel?" "If the power board gets wet will we get electrocuted?" And still the rain kept coming. 

Crescent Head is loved by both of us, but we had no joint history there and this was the holiday where we were going to make the place our own. I first visited almost 40 years ago and remember scribbling in my teenage diary 'crystal Crescent', as it had the clearest water I'd ever seen. This was in the days before the deep ocean outfalls cleared Sydney's beaches and an innocent swim could easily turn into a frighteningly up close and personal encounter with one of the dreaded 'Bondi cigars'. My skin still crawls with the memory.

Crescent Head is time-standing still, country town meets coastal idyll, unpretentious and quirky. By some miracle in the decades since my first visit more has stayed the same than changed. The surf break is still there and due to a resurgence of (retro) 70's fashion the surfers look just like they did in the real 1970s. Killick Creek still runs into the ocean at the southern end of the beach and the cunjevoi still stink at low tide. The Crescent Head Country Club remains wonderfully unrenovated with bands still rocking the place on a Saturday night. Nothing could make me relinquish my Crescent Head love affair no matter how long we’ve been apart.

But back to the rain. We took day trips north (where it was also raining) and found places that didn't excite us, like Grassy Head which had a strange Deliverance-type atmosphere, and a town that did, Scotts Head. I loved South West Rocks with its dark green stands of Norfolk pines, cosmopolitan shopping strip and two lovely beaches. Where else can you swim over the top of a sunken ferry (sent to the bottom decades ago during a heavy storm), then lie on the sand and look at the ruins of a colonial stone prison on a nearby headland? SWR, we'll be back.

I'm all for paying your dues and four days in the weather gods decided we had paid in full. We'd obviously done our penance; a stretch of blue sky appeared and stayed for more than a couple of hours. It was just in time as I was seriously casting about the caravan park for a small child to sacrifice to appease those same weather gods. We ventured out.

Killick Creek was a muddy hue as the flood water which had flushed out the Belmore Swamp behind the beach joined other storm-laden muck and poured into its water way. Dirt and debris from the creek swirled into the ocean turning the waves a creepy colour even way out to sea and leaving a disconcerting brown stain down the sand. Even the white bibs of the local pelicans had a tea-stained look.

Despite chanting 'crystal Crescent, crystal Crescent' in my now water-logged mind it didn't get any clearer, so we drove south toward Point Plomber in search of the clean waves we'd been dreaming about. It was too easy. In about 20 minutes we were undone by the most gob-smackingly beautiful beach with wide sand, the dreamed of crystal water (the chanting had worked), a large rock pool big enough to swim in and at each end of the long stretch of beach deserted grassy headlands.

Did I mention we had all this glory to ourselves? Had we had travelled unknowingly into one of those Qantas Australia ads, the ones with the deserted perfect beaches, and that choir of kids singing 'I still call Australia home'. Beautiful one day, perfect the next? Move over Queensland and go the Crescent coast!

We were stunned. Where were we? We'd simply been cruising toward Point Plomber, saw a small modest sign which said simply 'Beach' with an arrow, parked and followed a track. Consulting our very inadequate maps we figured out we were at the southern end of Goolawah Beach and that this bit had its own curious name, Racecourse. The next day we did it all again, and the day after and after again. Every day finding yet another beach with another quirky name - Delicate Nobby, Barrie's Beach and Big Hill Beach.

Had we passed through some portal and gone straight to nirvana? I swept my arms around our newly discovered paradise. "This", I declared "is what heaven will look like". I was not only joyful, but soaring. The rain had stopped, perfection on earth had been found and one of my mantras 'Don't let age define you' was screaming in my head. It always inspires me to think about all the things still waiting to be done in life, like...nude boogie boarding!

I had my purple board, I was au natural and I was off. My reverie was broken by the Country Mouse's urgent call "Bluebottle!" A near disaster was narrowly averted as I steered just clear of an ugly encounter with a large bluebottle trailing a frighteningly large tentacle. By curious co-incidence I had just read about the latest research into bluebottle stings, making me informed but not prepared, and sadly therefore no less likely to be stung. So much for knowledge equalling power.

Pioneer bluebottle research from the University of Newcastle and the Calvary Mater Hospital which took place on Newcastle beaches was finalised seven years ago, yet bizarrely has had almost no publicity since. It proved that the most effective pain relief from bluebottle venom is water hotter than 40 degrees C.

If you have ever been stung by a bluebottle you know you need never go there again; and if you have ever been treated for the sting you know that everything formerly done - dabbing the area with vinegar, washing it in cold water and even rubbing sand on the site actually makes the pain worse. Those kids wailing after stinger treatment "It's hurting more!" (you might have been one of them) were telling the truth. The problem with the solution is the environment. Bluebottles, ocean water and the beach - and water hotter than 40 degrees C? All you can hope is that some English tourists (not backpackers) are nearby with a handy flask of tea.

In the middle of our out-of-this-world happiness the Country Mouse had to briefly leave, called back to Newcastle to do a couple of gigs as a guitar god, and that’s in a roundabout way how I came to have my own close encounter with God – or at least some of his chosen people. One sunny afternoon I took myself for a walk and passed by a Crescent Head institution, a double garage facing the main road to the ocean which has a large wooden sign with the words 'Christian Surfers', the letters being made of pieces of twisted bamboo.

It's been there as long as I can remember and I've always been intrigued by it. The roller doors to this Christian HQ are never open and I’ve often wondered what had happened to the surfers. Did they give up their mission, abandon their faith, or get taken by a shark off the point at Little Nobbys? Not so.

On that lovely afternoon, much to my delight, the roller doors were up and a sign out the front announced 'All welcome' to the launch of a book Ground Swell about the Christian surfer movement. What an opportunity. Inside the roller doors a club house was revealed, it was unpretentiously shabby chic with a fridge, bunk beds, funky signs, old mismatched chairs and a rickety table.

A big barbeque was in progress and copies of Ground Swell were out for sale. The book was an impressive production and documented the Christian surfers’ story which originated unsurprisingly at Cronulla Beach, God's own country, in the 1970s. There are now lots of branches across Australia but not, I noted, at my Sydney home beach Bronte; in fact there is no Christian surfer outpost anywhere in the godless Eastern Suburbs.

The launch had drawn a big crowd and they showed true Christian charity in their warmth and welcome to those of us who were strangers amongst them. I was thrilled when I saw a merchandising stand, if there ever was a group who had the moral rights to a Jesus walking on water t-shirt it was them, but they’d missed the opportunity, along with the chance to do a women’s surf wear line featuring St. Mary Star of the Sea. Still I left all warm and fuzzy, my life was wonderful, I was in Crescent heaven.