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Published: February 4th 2006
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I spend the summer prior to my senior year and the summer following graduation from Penn State working for my brother’s surf film company. (Shameless plug: Check out the website www.mutiny-media.com ) During which time, I was privy to a lot of films containing amazing footage from all over the world. There are some places that are enticing for their tropical regions, some for their proximity to foreign cities, most for the cleanliness of their waves. I was particularly impressed with some of the footage I saw coming from Australia. Beautiful beaches, crystal clear water, perfect sets rolling in one after the other after the other. I can speak from experience now that every single one of these films were made in George Lucas’ basement and CGI has progressed so fast within the surf film industry that Hollywood has been desperately trying to catch up for nearly ten years!
I’ve seen a very large sample of this island and everywhere I’ve gone there have been surf shops. I even rented a board in Byron Bay where I surfed for 2 hours and caught 1.5 waves. (body boarding one crappy wave only counts as half a wave.) I went surfing in
Western Australia, despite being human chum and it was so choppy my cousin Jamie couldn’t even paddle out past the breakers! Then there was Margaret River which I believe I touched on in my last blog. There were people out trying to surf, but what I saw was no collection of Kelley Slaters. It was more like 40 A.C. Slaters scrapping at each other during amateur hour. But despite all these great surf spots lacking waves I was SURE, Belles Beach would have something ridable.
All I saw were three skimboarders attempting to ride the shorebreak. I give up. There’s no surf in Australia. Its all a farce, one great giant conspiracy conjured up by the people of the Australian Board of Tourism to attract unsuspecting surfer dudes to come visit the millions of Surf Shops that employee 90% of the pretty girls in the country. (Having written this blog after visiting Bondi Beach in Sydney where there are more surf schools than pre-schools, I can re-confirm the Great Surf Conspiracy!)
After witnessing the scheme known as an empty Belles Beach, there was an amazing drive ahead of me west down the Great Ocean Road. This is considered
Drive on the left
There were 3 of these signs wihin 20 meters... one of the most beautiful drives in all the world however I don’t believe I saw the sun once during the 4 hours of twists and turns it took to get from Belles Beach to the 12 Apostles. Its is a good thing I have an overactive imagination and I saw the sun shining down, glistening off the near perfect sets of rideable waves crashing just along the road for miles on end. 12 Apostles is the crowning attraction along the Great Ocean Road, however there were pleny of picturesque spots where you can pull off the road and take in the grandeur.
I’m really glad I noticed the signs telling motorists that Australians drive on the left side of the road. Due to the alarming number of tourists and rental cars on this road I can only laugh at the fact that the government needs to remind us foreigners of this fact and wince at the notion that there are morons driving on the wrong side of the most winding and dangerous roads I have ever come across.
When we finally made it to the 12 Apostles, there is a rest stop, parking lot, loo, amateur art show
and an overpass crossing the GOR taking you to the edge of the cliffs. As I gazed down upon these rock formations for the first time, I couldn’t hear the man next to me complaining that there weren’t 12 Apostles, but rather only 7. How could one make such a major error in addition? I decided to count the disciples myself. I should preface my counting with the fact that there are technically only 11 apostles now that one of them crumbles with the past few years, but the pile of rock rubble is still clearly visible and larger than some of the other smaller apostles. Having said that, I’m not sure how far down the coast the apostles extend but I only counted 8 including the broken version of the Judas apostle.
Royal offered a vague answer to my question of what happened to the rest of the apostles, that they are hidden by coves. There are coves in and out of all of the cliffs down the road but how are there 3 apostles hidden from the view of the entire public. “You can only see them by helicopter” he persisted……
The Great Ocean road was beautiful
and I will put it down as something to do again in good weather, but at this point in time I am still perplexed by two things:
Where are the missing Apostles? Where did all these people get the crazy idea that there is surf in Australia?
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lozmioz
non-member comment
hey
hey australia is great stop bagging us. bet you loved our beer at least