Cottesloe Surf Boat Race
Day 135
Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool or you go out in the ocean.
Christopher Reeve
On my last day in Australia, I ventured down to Cottesloe beach, camera in hand, to shoot what I hoped would be a beautiful sunset. As it turned out, a surf boat race was taking place that afternoon between a bunch of Perth’s Surf Life Saving clubs. It’s something I’ve always wanted to capture on camera.
Reflecting Australia’s predominately coastal population, Surf Life Saving Clubs have played a significant cultural role for over a century. There are few more iconic Australian symbols than that of the bronzed Aussie lifeguard, clad in speedos and a red and yellow skull cap. Steeped in tradition, Surf Life Saving is one of the few cultural institutions to escape significant visual or social change in the 104 years since the first club (Bondi Beach) was formed. Whether it’s the old guys marching in formation, or the beer soaked BBQs back at the clubhouse after a competition, its an enduring hark back to an earlier era of Australian history.
Inflatable skiffs and jet skis have replaced surf boats for modern rescues, but surf boats remain a major part of surf life saving culture during competitions like the one I was about to witness.
In preparation for the races, crews carried their boats down to the shoreline, while some of the clubs just rowed up the coast to Cott. One by one, surf boats came into view and pulled up onshore. To an international visitor it must be a strikingly foreign scene, with large groups of grown men standing around decked out in coordinated speedos and cotton skull caps. In one of the more unusual traditions (albeit one with a practical purpose) surf boat rowers shove their speedos up their ass cracks before a race. It’s done to prevent the rowers butt cheeks chaffing on the boat’s seats during a race, but the visual impact is hard to miss. Thankfully, most clubbies tend to be in extremely good shape, which might explain the lack of public indecency outcries. It’s just an accepted part of surf boat culture, a tacit demonstration of the arbitrary nature of social mores.
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Street Beauty – Microguagua
Day 129
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
Ellen Parr
The sun was setting on my last day in Barcelona and I’d been walking since breakfast, savoring every last drop of my time in this amazing city. Two weeks of minimal sleep and maximum eating, drinking and merriment were catching up with me though, and I felt myself hitting a big wall of tiredness.
Heading back to my hotel, I stumbled upon a group of musicians warming up for a street set. All seven spread out in a long line with their eclectic instruments and I was curious to see if the music measured up to their impressive visual impact. Within a few bars, I had my answer in the affirmative. During their five song set, you could literally feel and see the energy lift all around them, and they pulled a large crowd who were all jumping and dancing along.
A Barcelona based musical collective, Microguagua perform their lively reggae/jazz infused music to appreciative crowds throughout Spain. With members hailing mainly from South America, the group’s size has continued to grow up to its current seven members.
My camera battery died right after their first song, so you’ll just have to take it from me that their sound and energy continued through the entire set. Their infectiously joyful music brought me back to life (Barcelona has a habit of doing that) and I walked away elated and fired up for one last night of Barcelona magic.
On The Road…
Day 17
All the pathos and irony of leaving one’s youth behind is thus implicit in every joyous moment of travel: one knows that the first joy can never be recovered, and the wise traveler learns not to repeat successes but tries new places all the time.
Paul Fussell
Image - Mandy Wood © 2009
I’m sitting on the top floor of the B hotel, on a sun lounge, overlooking an infinity pool, with views of the Placa D’Espanya eight stories below me. The sun is setting and I can’t quite believe I’ve found myself in such a spectacular location (and for such a great price – 45 Euros per person – more on that in a future post).
I had planned, somewhat ambitiously, to post regularly while I was in Spain. I’m keeping pretty busy shooting images and videos during the day here, but to be honest, I’m not really in the mood to sit in front of my laptop at night, when I could be out soaking up the lush, vibrant beauty of Barcelona. I haven’t been to Europe for ten years, and I’d forgotten how easy it is to fall in love with a city here.
There’s much to love about Spanish culture, not the least being the slower pace of urban life here. A work oriented culture like the US has many advantages – you can get a shitload more done when your colleagues come to work before 10 and don’t take two hour lunch breaks before leaving at four. But the Spanish have lifestyle down pat. When you’re here, you eat, drink and party well. And you do it surrounded by breathtaking architectural and cultural beauty.
When I was growing up in the ‘80s, flights overseas from Australia were incredibly expensive and the common wisdom was that if you were going to leave our shores, you’d better not come home until you’d seen and experienced everything you wanted to. When I, at 19, bid my family a teary airport goodbye, I wondered when I’d be back (it was almost three years later). It’s a common rite of passage for many young Australians to head out and explore the world we’re so far from geographically.
I spent about five years of my teens and 20s backpacking through Europe, among other places. With some bizarrely mature foresight, I decided back then to save a couple of the best European cities for later in my life (in the same way my best friend Raquel saves the best mouthful on her plate for last). For me, those cities were Rome and Barcelona.
Three and a half days in, I’m a happy camper indeed. And I’m pretty sure I’ll be talking about moving here once I fly home. I always do. Los Angeles has been a small miracle – the one city that’s managed to keep me in its clutches for more than a year. I’m nomadic by nature, but I think I know why I’m still in LA after six years (apart from the great weather, career, friends etc.) – it’s a great jumping off point for travel. Look at a map and LA is close-ish to everywhere. If I can just remember not be so work oriented and get on a plane to somewhere new now and then, I think I’ll be set.
Best Brew – Bondi
Day 8
Black as the devil, Hot as hell,
Pure as an angel, Sweet as love.
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord
Coffee paid my way through college.
While most students drink the stuff to get through midterms and finals, I made it instead, working as a barista to help pay my way through school. I must’ve made literally hundreds of thousands of lattes, cappuccinos and flat whites over those years. On quieter days, it’s a really lovely, meditative process making coffee. If I ever needed to, I could go back to that job tomorrow and be pretty content. I never drank a single cup during that period, preferring the aroma of freshly ground beans to the taste of coffee. These days though, I love the stuff.
Australia has a serious coffee culture. Unlike much of America, where serious coffee means seriously huge cups, Aussies know their lattes from their macchiatos. Recently, I’ve discovered a couple of spots in LA that serve incredible coffee (I’ll share them with you soon), but the sad fact is that it took me six years to find a decent coffee in a city this large. Whereas in Sydney or Melbourne, you could throw a handful of coffee beans in the street and be sure to hit at least one spot that makes incredible coffee.
In Sydney, there’s nothing better after a swim at Bondi Beach than sitting down with a towel wrapped around you for a flat white (like a cappuccino, but with just the coffee crema instead of the foam on top). My brew of choice is a soy flat white with a teaspoon of honey or raw sugar. I don’t go overboard with coffee, at most a cup a day, sometimes two, always single shot.
Here’s my vote for the top three best flat whites in Bondi -
bru COFFEE
The new kid on the North Bondi scene (with equally young owners), bru coffee operates out of a tiny, hole in the wall storefront – it used to be a hair salon when I lived there – and makes a seriously good cup of coffee. Patrons spill out onto the astroturf, lazing in the sun with a latte and the paper. Like all Bondi spots, the vibe is relaxed.
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Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.
Will Rogers
I first walked the Bondi to Bronte Coastal Path during the Sydney 2000 Olympics. I was visiting the city with my best friend Raquel and we heard it was a great walk. But nothing prepared me for its beauty.
The path starts at Ben Buckler Point in North Bondi and extends all the way to Coogee (3.5 km/2.17 mi) but the most popular section starts next to the Icebergs Swimming Club and ends at the Bronte Baths (1.5km/.9 mi) – a smaller ocean pool at the south end of Bronte beach.
It runs along coastal cliffs until picturesque Tamarama Beach (a popular surfing cove), where it converts to a regular street sidewalk until Bronte. Along the way, there’s exercise stations and ample places to sit and read, meditate or enjoy the views.
Raquel and I stood looking over the Pacific from an incredible cliff top vantage. “After seeing this, why would you live anywhere else?!” she said incredulously. I agreed wholeheartedly, and relocated from Perth a few months later.
Sydney is a huge flirt of a city, with its stunning harbor and man made wonders like the Opera House. But it was this walk that sold me on the city, and on living in Bondi. It’s a walk you never tire of. The lucky souls who get to walk and jog it daily know what I’m talking about.
