‘From surfer to spectator at Lennox Head, New South Wales’

I can still clearly recall coming here in my younger days, though numbers were so much fewer then and it was still an adventure. An old Holden ute, surfboards on a rack, sleeping on the beach (did I really do that?).

I also recall sleeping under the tonneau cover one night and waking to this mysterious humming noise. Upon investigation my friend and I realised it was 5,000 mosquitoes being denied the pleasure of our blood but, the combined humming of their wings while they tried to pierce the canvas had made this eerie noise. We moved on rather quickly.

Lennox Head however, was one of the places we occasionally surfed. I say occasionally because, for those of you who don’t know, the entire headland is rocks. Lose your board and you were courting disaster. The rocks weren’t forgiving and leg ropes hadn’t been invented yet. It was a deterrent when other breaks like Byron Bay were just up the road.

Still, those marching peaks rolling in from a thousand miles away made your eyes water if you were keen. The machine-like rhythm of the swell was spell binding.

These days you are lucky to get a wave. At the first sign of the latest line-up, cars emerge from everywhere, the carparks bustle with arrivals and the crowd on the water is discouraging. That could be my excuse for not going out but merely taking photographs of this spot in New South Wales.

I’ve found that if you understand a sport, it makes it so much easier to take pictures of, because you know when that ‘moment’ is about to happen. Then there’s the added pleasure of being close to the action; the roar of the break crashing over the rocks right beside you, the tentative fear that the next one might actually spray over you, reliving some of the past. It all adds up.

An added bonus is that you get to view what was happening all over again as you edit your photographs afterwards; see the difficulty participants have in jumping off the rocks (I’ve seen some wait 20 minutes) so they don’t get pounded; watch for the moments when they’re doing a big snap off the lip or, on a really good day, get some epic tubes.

Thus it was I stopped again for the umpteenth time, a balmy winter’s day where the warming sun beneath a cloudless sky made it a pleasure just to be there. I hope you can enjoy some of it as well.

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