I'd only had a couple hours sleep when my phone alarm buzzed. It was 7am on a Saturday. An hour of life I had assumed was reserved only for the youngest and oldest of people. I was neither. And I felt unwelcome. Still, I got up, packed a few things that were close at hand and scrambled out the door for St Kilda. I got to Sarko's place half an hour late - he was unimpressed. Sarko, Andy and Sonia were standing in the driveway. The car was packed; tents and food for the weekend; surfboards up top; GPS loaded - destination in sight; everything totally ready. Their great, planned, organised and tightly scheduled trip on hold a whole half hour thanks to me - I almost felt bad but I was too tired to really care. I made my apologies. We bid Sonia farewell, who would meet us with her friends at camp that night, and hit the road.
We headed south-west bound out of Melbourne, passing from the city and through the far-reaching suburbia that skirts the city, acres of identical housing on both sides of the freeway for miles and miles. I'd experienced these scenes before, up-close in the surrounds of Parramatta. Suburbia in Sydney is on a far greater scale; horizon after horizon taken up by the same design-home housing; cheap small lots of land, filled by brick cut-outs, crammed in side by side. The land is especially cheap because hospitals, schools, shopping centres, offices, the most basic necessities of Australian suburbia, are incredibly lacking. As such, the quality of life suffers the further out you are. Your only hope is that your area is serviced by the government first as opposed to the thousands of others popping up in the ever-expanding urban sprawl. As we shot away from it all, passing house by house, I knew I'd prefer a small country town, with one main street, than end up on the edge of this abyss. Then we passed the Geelong turn-off and entered the country.
I drifted in and out of consciousness in the backseat until I'd had a coffee. We'd stopped somewhere unknown along the road for bacon and eggs and cappuccinos to go, served by two round, grey-haired, lovely old ladies. The caffeine coursed through my veins as we were within an hour of our first surf spot in Torquay. I was keen. Years of summers by the beach in tropical climates and I'd never learnt to surf. In fact I had even learnt to snowboard before giving surfing a go. There is no snow up north.
We rolled on past farm and grass land and into the surfing home of Victoria. Torquay's main street is like a surfer's Via Veneto; but with big clumsy warehouses in the middle of nowhere shouting all the big surf brands with discount signs for boards, wetsuits and other gear. We found our surf school amongst the clutter and headed to the main beach for our lesson; wetsuit attired, board shouldered. And we were all pretty content with the lesson, we'd all managed to stand up on the floating foam doors lent to us, and looked forward for our next chance to get back out there. We jumped back in the car to head further south.
From Torquay the road wound narrowly along the coast. A brilliant rich blue filled our view as we looked out beyond the edge of the world. There was nothingness, only scattered wisps of cloud and whitewash disturbed the monochrome scene, a vast expanse of rugged sea in which we would all end up at some point drove out to where the blues met, and fell. Sarko was frustrated to the edge of his seat driving at the greys in front of him, the seasonal tourists in their rented sedans drove along at 40k's an hour in unwarranted caution to stay on the road. Andy told him to relax, I agreed, it was fine. Then we hit the bush. The road twisted upwards through dry dense Australian trees and shrubs. The sunlight struggled through, the car a shadow on the road. It was cooler now and I sat back and discovered the Chuck Berry coming from the stereo and drifted in to a semi state of sleep.
I awoke to the cool ocean breeze blasting my face. Andy was hanging halfway out the passenger's side window, with his XLR camera at his eye, attempting to capture the extreme scene. We had hit the postcard Great Ocean Road. And I could understand the hype. The land gave up here. Sheer scaled sunburnt cliffs met the ocean and came off second best. The earth retreating as the fierce waves and wind whipped at its face hundreds of metres below. Sarko guided us in and out, still at the 40k's an hour in the queue of tourists, on the pockets of land valiantly but ultimately vainly attempting to resist the great Southern force. It was a sight to take in; the scale of nature at work dwarfs any of mankind’s minute problems and when you don't have any on hand, you can't imagine ever having a profound problem or issue or thought; it just dwarfs you. The thoughts reeled around in my head as Berry made way for Marley. Andy and I reached for beers in the esky, and toasted to life.
We arrived in Lorne mid-afternoon with the sun out to ward off a threat of rain. Sarko dropped us off, with the tents and gear, and headed back to the city - he had a hockey game to temporarily return to. We found a picturesque campsite next to a flowing stream; lush with green grass and bush and Kookaburras and Cockatoos laughing and crying in the trees. After some effort constructing the tents, getting necessities from town and exploring the beautiful and touristy beachfront, Andy and I sat down by the stream on an old wooden bench. The view was rich and timeless. We drank cold beers and talked and mused and pondered and awaited our friends who would arrive in the night.
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