Table of contents for No. 573 in Tracks

The Place The Ujong Kulon National Park of Java, Indonesia is rated as a category II National Park. Which means it could kill you. If not from Krakatoa blowing its stack, then maybe from the Tsunami that rake the region in relative anonymity. Or maybe the underwater landslides. Or the earthquakes. Or the crocodiles. Or the leopards. Or maybe from one of the last Javan tigers whose roars are rumoured to still be heard here. The good news, is that you won’t face any danger from the rhinoceros. A smaller, docile, Javan species. The last wild ones on earth. There are about 40 of them left in the park. Counted a while back when a few rhino poachers became extinct after an Indonesian Special Forces ‘training sweep’. There are a…

“What’s the plan?” asks Liam O’Brien from beneath a mop of thick, brown curls that look to have been borrowed from Mark Richards. The bright young Queenslander, who has deferred an engineering degree to pursue his pro- surfing ambitions, is standing in the baggage queue at Padang airport, enduring the first smack of Sumatran heat. He is wearing the sort of pinstriped, button-up shirt I didn’t know existed in the Billabong catalogue. The plan, I explain, is to head north and deviate from the regular Mentawai milk run and explore a different version of the Indonesian dream. Liam’s partners on this northern quest are six other natural footers, Toby Mossop, Callum Robson, Kyuss King, Torrey Meister, Brodi Sale and Wyatt McHale. Aside from Torrey who is a journeyed WQS pro…

DAYLIGHT HAS JUST BROKEN OVER BELLS BEACH WHEN A VERYCAFFEINATED DAMIAN COLE JOINS ME ON THE VIEWING PLATFORM OVERLOOKING ITS MAJESTIC NATURAL AMPHITHEATRE. THE WORLD TOUR CONTEST IS SET TO BEGIN IN A FEW MINUTES TIME BUT AS SIGNIFICANT AS THAT IS, IT BARELY RATES A MENTION. With three weeks until Australia heads to the polls to decide its next Prime Minister, Damo is in full campaign mode. The past week has been frenetic, he tells me, and there’s no sign of a let up. Last night he was up until all hours running a local community forum and taking care of a team member whose sister is in intensive care. “It’s not looking good,” he says. A couple of days earlier he helped organise and lead a couple of…

As surfers, many of us can pinpoint the moment that surfing came to Australia. We know that Duke Kahanamoku performed a surfing demonstration on Sydney’s northern beaches, and we know there was a girl. But who was she? How is it that in 1915, in Federation-era Australia–when bathers wore neck-to-knee swimsuits and the Archbishop of Sydney was advocating for sex-segregated beaches –a young woman was among the very first Australians to ride a surfboard? And how is it that, with such an early formative figure in our surfing history, women remained outliers of the Australian surf scene for the better part of a century? In order to understand Isabel and the legacy she left behind we must examine the context in which she lived. Letham was born in 1899 into…

WHEN I FIRST SAW PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE WAVE BEING SURFED BY PHIL MACDONALD IN 2006 I WAS INTRIGUED. I KNEW IT WAS SOUTH OF SYDNEY BUT I HAD NO IDEA WHERE, AND AFTER MANY YEARS OF SLEUTHING AND PRYING PEOPLE FOR INFORMATION I ENDED UP IN A CAFE MANY HOURS DRIVE SOUTH THAT HAD GRAINY OLD PHOTOS ON THE WALL THAT WERE UNMISTAKABLY THE SAME WAVE. I KNEW I WAS CLOSE. At the time I was camping down there with the family, so I made some excuses about getting firewood and after a few hours combing the area I sighted the break for the first time. It was midweek with not a soul around and I sat mesmerised as those eight-foot bombs stood up and detonated on the reef. It…

Noosa will become the tenth World Surfing Reserve next February – hopefully celebrated with a nice Coral Sea low – and the third in Australia, after Manly/ Freshwater and the Southern Gold Coast. There are two schools of thought about what such an accolade does for an already-over-loved surf locale, but a disclosure here: as a long-term resident and one of the leading protagonists for WSR status for more than six years, I see only the upside. The downside we already have in spades, and this represents one way to try to control that. It’s interesting to note that while it has the least to fear from immediate environmental threats, and is the least populous of the three Australian World Surfing Reserves, Noosa during a swell event – and we’re…

At the time of going to print, nine weeks after a globally publicised incident, Sunny Garcia remains on life support. A 911 call was made from a third party in the immediate wake of a nonphysical domestic incident. Assistance arrived several minutes later. The following isn’t about the incident. It’s not meant as an elegy to one of the great surfers in pro history. It’s more about a force once realised that has to invoke reaction. I know someone with a life cleaved open by breast cancer. Five years pitted against unbridled force. Confronting it, she invokes fear and reverence of a monster unleashed at the gates of the mind body and soul. One can only imagine the grip, try to imagine the pain, but then it swings your way…

“I’ve never felt that winning feeling", sighs Kolohe Andino as he looks down to the ground. It's 7pm and the Keramas contest has just concluded. By some stroke of luck, Kolohe is slouched on the airport floor as I pass by, five hours early for my flight. Wrestling through the media mosh-pit a few hours earlier I’d only managed a few meagre interludes with the world’s best. However, to my surprise, I'm warmly greeted by Kolohe who appears chuffed that someone at the busy airport wants to talk to him. After all, he’s just finished fifth in another event where it seemed like he may wrench the monkey off his back and finally claim his first WCT victory. Instead he had to stand by and watch the much-improved Kanoa Igarashi…

IT STARTED WITH THE NOW INFAMOUS SPILL MAP WHICH SHOWED JUST HOW FAR OIL COULD SPREAD IF A PROPOSED DEEP-WATER OIL WELL IN THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN BIGHT WERE TO GO PEAR-SHAPED. The map shows an inky red stain spreading across the southern third of Australia, encircling Tasmania and dispersing from Albany, WA all the way to Port Macquarie, NSW. It went viral on social media and the anger it provoked helped kick off a rolling series of paddle out protests around the country, the likes of which have never been seen before… anywhere. As more details emerged the anger and distrust only grew. Equinor, a Norwegian state-owned petroleum company, are eager to open-up ‘Australia’s largest untapped oil reserve’ in the Bight. While drilling has occurred here since the 1960s it…