I’m blessed to have enjoyed such a time

Most bucks parties start out the same way.

Gather a few likely lads that you went to school with, or hung out with in the suburbs, and head off to an array of public bars, most likely in the Cross, or some place else where reputation could never be sullied, no matter how bizarre, or depraved the acts against humanity became.

For some reason that still eludes me, there is an omnipresent force, which seems to drive, what I assume are fairly average people, to exhibit behaviours which most definitely lean toward the dark side of normality, such as leaving the pending groom, scantily clad, and cocooned in dunny roll and smeared with a mixture of shaving cream and occasionally vomit, giving the appearance of a kind of self saucing kebab, conveniently wrapped in leg irons, and tied to a traffic light in Broadway, for all to see.

Come the next morning, long after various brews have been consumed, regurgitated, and reconsumed, amid much chanting and hearty chorus, of such soothing ballads as “working class man” and “why don’t you all get fucked”, blurry eyes try to focus on the thick stand of roses of someone’s garden, which has made a perfect bed, or the dog who has been turfed from his digs, to make way for a drunken reveller who is dead set sure this is his home.

The next few days will be spent piecing together all the blank bits, wondering where pants are, or why there is one eyebrow missing, or why there is a nasty rash, inhabiting the groin area.

Can’t say I’ve been on one of these journeys into the unknown, but plenty of cobbers have convinced me, by their graphic descriptions, that I’m best off warm and safe under the blankets, rather than roaming the Cross, looking more outlandish than one of the locals.

Having said this, I’m not totally devoid of feeling toward a pending groom, so when plans were hatched to fulfil the desire, of boys to bond, and become men, in a still somewhat unconventional manner, slightly left of field, but without toilet roll, except for traditional purposes, and exposed genitalia to greet the startled pedestrian, it was full steam ahead.

This grand plan was to span the entire weekend, not some overnight, fluffy waltz on the town, and was to take place eight hours drive north of the NSW capital, in a quiet coastal village, that was soon to feel the love of a band of hard core bros, from the burbs of western Sydney.

When I say “hard core”, I don’t mean, late take off at Shipsterns 25 ft hard core, I mean work all day drive all night, 6 to 8 ft Headland lefts, straight into the water hard core.

Yes, we were going to have a “bucks weekend”, and that was to entail all sorts of internal and external abuse, including some sampling of local weeds and fungus, copious brown bubbly cordial, and be capped off perfectly, with minimal sleep, and hopefully, after all that we would secure some of the most loving and empty waves, the north coast could, or would ever offer, breaking across the most perfect banks that we ever dreamed of, after all, we were children of the 60s.

The plan was hatched, work done for the week, and as night fell, the assembled convoy swung north onto the F3, elation rising as we said goodbye to the big smoke for the weekend, and looked forward to what lay ahead.

Strains of Devo’s “whip it” boomed out from the Kombi’s tape deck, as I sampled some of Victoria’s finest cordial, and settled in for the trip as a passenger, with the groom Rob, and left the steering to my two esteemed colleagues, who were busily sucking ciggies and turning the cabin into an eye watering, pub on wheels.

Fact is it could have been our local Hotel, except there was no purple carpet, soaked with fragments of corn and carrot, and no biker having a quiet slash in the darkened corner, and the bouncing and rolling about as we passed through some dodgy road works, was a dead giveaway.

The trip became a blur, as sleep came and went, and apparently we missed having a head on, as our pilot, with infinite wisdom, decided to drive down the wrong side of the highway, in an epic overtaking manoeuvre that worked out fine, but nearly didn’t. Happy that.

Scotts Head was a nice little town in 1982, and it was where we watched the sun rise, and filter through the steam trains, that feathered off the top of empty and hollow five foot rights, tempered by a light offshore breeze, that just hinted some coolness, at the dawn of a superb summer’s day, and our first surf in the clear northern waters was underway.

We were just a bunch of blokes, having a ball, all with our own styles, trying to emulate the top surfers of the day, be it my favourite MR and his casual carving, Anderson and his newly invented “musta havtha thrusta”, or the rip and slash, of Tom Carrol.

Scotts was a beautiful break when the ducks lined up, allowing a magical walling right, that held up and enabled generous cutbacks, for anyone that had even the vaguest idea of how to ride the wave, and even with rocks poking up and disappearing along the section, it was pure joy.

The right eventually fatted out in the rip, but walled into a left that took you all the way to the corner where you hit the beach, walked to the rip, paddled across and did it all over again.

Mid morning saw us at our final destination, weary after the trip, and our session at Scotts, we camped on the headland, and with a fire going to cook some snags, to give some substance to the cordial, before we headed to the ocean, to sample some more of the north coast magic that had been gifted us.

Lefts and rights rolled in off a remnant ground swell, but was chopping up in a slight crosswind, and closing out as the tide headed toward dead low.

Outski, and time for a kip before the evening’s activities commenced, and the we all went to a special place somewhere between oblivion and mars, or was it near the B52’s Planet Claire?

Morning arrived, and a two foot red bellied black was giving me the eagle eye, but only till body and head parted company, and it became a hood ornament on an HT bonnet.

Substance abuse followed, then it was time to hit some headland lefts, which were peeling nicely across solid banks, and providing plenty of waves for the band of now merry brothers who could either go right or left, or even fall off.

There was something that caught my eye, way past the peak, and youthful curiosity soon had me paddling over the gently rolling swell, that casually rose over the shelf, as I zeroed in on what looked like an arm from the elbow to hand, vertical, and motionless in the water.

Bloody hell, thinks me, as I see my first sea turtle, and gaze in wonder at this giant creature, who was not fussed either way over me, and casually swam away, gliding in twenty feet of liquid glass, to destination unknown, leaving me in awe at this beautiful animal, alone on the big blue.

I paddled back to the pack, and amid laughter and cheers for sections made, we hooked in till we knew it was time to hit the frog.

Weary, but inspired, we walked back along hot sand, then through swamp land that most likely had all manner of things that I didn’t want to meet, but fearless beings we were in those days, and we just laughed and spoke of nature and all things free, as we made our way back to camp, gathering thoughts with belongings, to begin the trip south.

Down the dusty road, past a clean, clear lake, a calm and peaceful place where we found our drinking water on the way in to Yuragir, but that vision fades as we hit the tarmac, where yellow blinkers acknowledge the southbound turn toward Sydonney, and some sense of deflation gathers as our beloved headland became a memory.

This place, Yuragir, is where my first realisation of the interconnection, between man and his world, really came to me. I was in tune, with nature’s beautiful music, but this place, where boys dreamed of becoming men, through ritual, had me indelibly stamped onto the sheet.

I spent ample time alone, in this magical place, a place inhabited, but where it was easy to be lost in the nurture of nature, a place where rolling swells crossed hard sand, and lifted great walls of water to a place of awe, where dolphins, manta rays and sea turtles mingled with sharks and other less formidable predators, in a world of clarity, a world of water that caressed and inspired, that ushered feelings of unity, yet there was no sign of human life for miles.

I still dream of this place, thirty years after my first visit, and know that it would be similar, but never the same, so I’ve never been back.

It was a time when youthful wonder and innocence, met the immense beauty of the natural world, and embraced with love and unspoken understanding, a time that a treasure was picked from the path of my journey, and taken into my heart forever.

I’m blessed to have enjoyed such a time, blessed that we made this journey several times as lads, and blessed never to have woken with one eyebrow missing, and covered with rose thorns.