Surfing the NT

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After trekking around Kakadu and Arnhem Land, I was surprised to have a rare free morning in Darwin. I had heard so much about the new wave pool and being a bit of a beach lover, I thought I better check it out for myself. After paying the $5 entry fee for a half day pass, teamed with my swimmers, towel, hat and sunscreen, I headed into the pool grounds.

Scanning my surrounds for a comfortable spot in the shade, I spread my towel under one of the small palm trees offering enough shade to shelter from the sun. I gazed back towards to pool which for a Wednesday morning was quite full with families, tourists and school kids who may have wagged school and I noticed that the water is flat! There were no waves, wasn’t this meant to be a wave pool?

Undeterred and looking forward to some respite from the heat, I headed to the pool and grabbed an inner tube on my way in. I waded through the cool waters out to the deeper part of pool, negotiating past gossiping friends, parents playing with their children and young boys playing dares. I very ‘elegantly’ pulled myself onto the inner tube and began to float. It was quite peaceful floating around and I began to think it would be quite nice to have a cocktail in my hand. Interrupting me from my meditative zone, the surf life saver microphone came to life, sounding like a DJ at a nightclub, an enthusiastic voice announced “Morning guys! I can see some surf on the horizon, it looks like an approximately 3 feet swell coming through and it will most likely come in sets of three!” adding to my wave pool nightclub, three warning sounds echoed through the pool. Lying there on my inner tube I looked around eagerly waiting for the waves to roll in.

Slowly, ever so slowly, ripples appear across the water and they start to grow in size. Looking across the waterscape, heads start to bob up and down as people on inner tubes start navigating over these larger growing ripples. They grow larger and larger until my on my inner tube seem to climbing over small mountains of water just before the waves break. Deciding to be the daredevil, I decided it was time for me to take control of the waves and try and ‘surf’ one on my inner tube surf board. I paddled to where I thought would be the best spot and was promptly flipped from the tube. I climbed back onto it (just as elegantly as before) and saw my wave coming. I lined it up and started paddling as effectively as I could in my tube. The wave was rising up and I was getting speed, as it started to crest and crash, I was in the perfect position and riding high on the wave, rode the whole way in, all the time negotiating around the families and kids, trying not to ‘surf’ over anyone.

Then in no time, it was over and I was in the shallows of the pool. I untangled myself for the inner tube and decided that I needed to do that again and headed back into the waves.
After about 10 minutes, the waves melted away and pool lay dormant once more. The DJ/lifesaver announced that there would be a break and that he could see some “swell on the horizon that would be there in around 10 minutes”. I clambered out of the pool and headed to my patch of grass under my palm tree.

I looked around at everyone having fun and enjoying themselves in the 35 degree heat and thought to myself, that this is definitely not a bad way to spend my free morning. I re-applied my sunscreen and started to prepare for my next surfing session and wondered what type of swell would come through this time…

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