Sunshine coast discussion
So anyway, Darwinian natural selection. Paddle out to that lookout, minimum 5 waves on the head, but hug the rocks, its fine right? I need a gameplay. Jet ski assist? Hug the rocks. Doesn't seem like you get swept into them, nevertheless it just looks brutal.
I left for a plethora of reasons Dromo..... But the main 4 reasons were,
Financial - After spending sooo many years of easy living in Coolum, you know, just working 4 days a week as a contractor, renting an old queenslander beach house for $150 per week with an amazing view, literally fall out of bed and into the surf , the shit hit the fan during the deliberate housing boom created by Howard in the early noughties.... From cruising, it went to having to work 5, 6 days a week.. Not just me but my wife too..... Rents steadily increased.... Didn't quite have enough for a deposit.... Rents went from 150 up to 350 in a matter of 2 years... The "queensland lifestyle" became a joke... You see ads on tv with couples holding hands walking along the beach in bliss..... Bullshit, well for 99% of folk.....
Total change in vibe - The boom brought more people.. More chippies, sparkies, cleaners.... Bidding for tenders became a joke...Aggro in the water....On the streets... The town used to have just an IGA, and some locally owned eateries, a pub, a club or 2.... The place had a real individual feel.... The soul bar was great... Back in the day you could go and watch outdoor movies for free near the library.... Anyhooo, along came maccas, woolies, coffee club, subway, lycra wearing boomers sitting around judging passers by whilst sipping soy lite double decaffs.... I fucking resented it.....
Family reasons..... My dad had retired down in tassie.... He always loved that place and wanted to move there for years..... Dad fell ill.... I was the only one in the family in a position to be able to go there and part time care for him....
Skin cancer..... My dermatologist up in kawana once jokingly said I should be surfing on a south or west facing beach in the morning, as not to cop the double whammy of the qld morning sun AND it's reflection off the water.... He said surfing in the arvo in qld is ok.... But we all know arvos in qld suck 90% of the time... In reality , early morning points and beachies are the staple diet for 10 months of the year...
Now..... This headland...... Firstly know your shit...... A rock jump can be done..... But it's fuckn tricky..... Seen some serious carnage.... Seen a guy from W.A , rather cocky young chap, could surf really well, lose all the skin up the right side with a major deep gash in the middle..... 2001..... Ambulance.... Hospital....
But there is a far easier way.....
I sent Ben a diagram last week in regards to this fickle big wave spot..... Now i know he doesn't like doing this sort of stuff, coz once you start every tom dick and harry wants him to do it..... But perhaps if you email him and beg him with all your might, he just may forward the paddling diagram to you..... I'll send it to him again now..... Just follow the yellow arrow, drom...... Cheers mate
Thanks sheepy, I'm still glad I moved nere from the southern end, still a bit of a community vibe, honesty thing going on here, for instance I had to buy a Gumtree board as mine took some punishment and I didn't have quite enough money and he was like just come back give me the rest when you get paid. There is some poetry arts festival too, I just happened to bump into the person organizing it, just trying to get involved in these things, and just even chatting to the local bottle shop guy, I haven't been here long but have so much respect and love for coolum, despite the fact I get skunked for waves surfing straight handers. I see it so reliant on that boomer coffee thing, but it's important to me and I assume people like yourself it gets back to the art identity it deserves. There are a lot of good people here its just getting everyone to kind of be the change you wish to see kind of thing. I feel for the long time locals. If it was a hub it can be that way again. Like how many people even know the Wilson's, never sold out to big business, small house trapped between multinational consumerism. Says it all. Thats being the change you wish to see. And I think a lot of people here are feeling that pull. I see shadows of what it must of been like and the kids growing up here deserve to have that. Don't even lock the house here. Sooner or latter that might come to bite. But fuck. The world I want to live in, you shouldn't have to.
Noosa is what happens when you turn the other way. I think coolum is suffering an
identity crisis. Yes it needs investment, so why does that have to come from multi nationals. The whole top section of the boulevard is for lease, lounge bar, anything artsy, some saviour could do that, instead it sits unrented. Such a shame. Where are the people with money still believing in the arts, you know. Julian and the Wilson's can't save coolum on there own, needs the right people with money investing for the community not just with profit motive!
It's still the best town on the sunny coast, dromo.... But yeah, I had her when she was a hot 18yo beach babe.... You've got her as a milf.... Still rootable.... But she needs a bit of slap and botox bahahaha....
I'd suggest on smaller days heading up to a certain dog friendly stretch just on the outskirts.... In my last couple of years there, as the front banks became more and more packed, that stretch became my hangout... I'd only surf "in town" if the board riders bank was working, or the points were on..... If you wade across a certain creek, you can get some ok banks with 1/2 the crowd..... You just have to work out what tides, winds, swell angles etc........A lot of people surf in town "to be seen"...... Fuck that......
From where I came from Coolum is heaven. Love it here. PP on its day is great and I surf a plenty on my own. Wont leave. Its a freeken awesome little town.
Have to agree. Lived here for a little while in '82 and just moved back a couple of months ago. Livin' the dream now. Same thing, never lock the house because it's such a great neighbourhood and can usually get a bank to myself in the area outlined by sheepy. Best town on the coast for sure.
Been living close to Noosa for the past 30 years, moved up from Maroochydore, wow has that place changed!Finding it increasingly difficult to escape the crowd factor at the points, all the old tricks ie go the half tide, go after 8 when the workers and school drop offs left, go the 4 am, get the last hour or so before dark.........well they USED to work ,not now, shoulder to shoulder and no one says a word.Only place I ever surfed where no one knows who the locals are so there are no rules.Mals hog the waves (no leash !!!wtf), catch the set paddle straight past and do it again, you know the old stand like a statue take no risk so never fall off routine...Crowded on weekends, every holiday booked out, tourism dickheads organising events every weekend, traffic jams and a whole bunch of new "locals'', sadly time to move on for me, seen the best of it will only get worse with all the housing going on,,,hmmm but where to go now.
I went up to Maroochydore the other week, first time in six years my god from Caloundra to Maroochydore has boomed and is complete mess it's just like a city with a maze of roads and non sop traffic.
Im not a huge fan of the sunny coast just because it lack of swell and set ups, but the north end is very pretty and at least it gets way more swell than the south.
Summer '79 or '80, I was a tiny little kid going up on the dirt road from Brissy in my uncle's Suzuki 4x4, back to Mum's family ancestral home. It truly was paradise and magical. A walk on the beach complete with lorikeets back in '72 persuaded my Dad to move the whole family to Oz when they could...
Incredible place, the beach, the mud crabs on the Maroochy river at sunset that would bury themselves as you walked past and then emerge behind you, like a carpet. I was convinced that the cross shaped air warning light on the top of Coolum was where they had crucified Jesus... The cane trains running through central Nambour, the noise and size of them amazed me as a kid.
Mum's family is an old cane farming family from the area, the farm backed onto the river. A landscape littered with warm relatives and farms; my great grandmother, great uncle and great aunty sitting on the back verandah of their Queenslander picking beans and rolling tobacco, looking over the fields. A disused Land Rover with grass growing up through the engine bay...
Stories of Grandad fishing Double Island in the 40's and 50's. Nan telling me of climbing Coolum in the 20's as a girl. My uncle body surfing Mooloolaba with 16ft faces in the 40's. Collecting shells on the tidal pools with my uncle...
The 4pm thunderstorm. Sleeping on the verandah of Nan's Cotton Tree flat to hear the Coral Sea Lows going flat out each night, winding the cyclone screens down. The spume coming up the path into the carparks. Back when the island at the rivermouth was on the southern side. Surfing after 4pm when Mum told me not to, having a Tiger emerge on the surface not to far away.
And then life and work scattered my immediate family all over this vast landscape of Australia, (and led to a magical grommethood of exploration on the West Coast). I still take my groms up, half to surf, half to remember their family background and give them a sense of place.
No matter how developed, still special.
wow, great evocation VJ.
I can taste the muddies now ... Thanks VElocityJ
So I hear calls such as busiest in 30 years. Sheepy that lookout, 100 people there sometimes. I love Wilson, jdub don't know the guy well enough to call him that, and great guy great family, amazing people, just when he is around, and it seems to me his entourage is barely 5 people, is it just a thing, how the hell is there suddenly 100 extra people. But anyway even at the end of the road yesterday, why do the old stalwarts who don't want to hassle have to sit wide, so a bus load of Brazilians, or tourists in buses, or whatever grunt get to call hey hey. Is that why you left?