15/09: Cave Party, Ooooh, Get Funky, Ooooh.
For my birthday John bought me "the" Red Bluff book. It is a coffee table sort of book, wider than it is tall and full of pics and stories, the kind of book you can just pick up, flip open and start reading anywhere. And it is really cool, because the Bluff is really cool and has a great history as an Aussie surfer hideaway from the confines of societal structure that breeds normality and conformity to the capitalist system. No, the Bluff would have none of that. Red Bluff in the 80's was a place where surfers could collect the "dole" (Aussie Unemployment) and surf their brains out, making trips to town once a month for food and water and to jump through the hoop of submitting a new dole form while picking up this months dole check. Classic. They called it the John Howard Surf Team, as that was the name of the Prime Minister at the time (well, i can't remember the actual PM's name, so J.H. will be used in artistic substitution for the sake of the story).
So we brought this book with us up to Red Bluff and some of our favorite photos of the lifestyles these surfers led were of the "Cave Parties" that went down on the beach in the overhanging limestone caves that were used as shelters for some of the long termers who were living there. All these old hippie surfers with long hair and beards, warm cans of "piss" in their hands and smiles on their tanned faces. We passed the book around to neighbors who came by to hang out with us at the van and always the reaction was the same, everyone loved the pics of the cave parties. So the catalyst came from Jarrad, a particularly stoked seasonal Bluff resident who suggested that we relive the dream. "We should have a Cave Party," he suggested and it just started from there.
We got approval from the current management team, Jim and Bek, not wanting to offend anyone or get in trouble for doing something we shouldn't, which was a good thing because they informed us that since 1998 when a limestone overhang in Gracetown, similar to the ones at the Bluff, collapsed killing a group of people watching a surf contest there, the caves at the bluff had been offlimits for camping. Apparently parties were lumped into the same category as camping in this case, and it was suggested that congregating 10-20 people under the overhang, even if just for a few hours one evening, was just asking for trouble. It made sense to us, but we still wanted a Cave Party, and Jim and Bek are all for having fun, so they suggested we do it in the "Small Cave".
There are 2 caves on the beach at the Bluff, the big cave at the end of the beach, a truly massive cave that allows many people to gather under the tens of tons of compacted limestone overhead, and then the small cave, which can accomodate a few people under just a few tons of compacted limestone. A fair compromise.
We organized a day that worked for everyone, just a few days before the departure of several of us from the Bluff, and started to spread the good word about the Cave Party and the response was enthusiastic. Everyone was stoked from Hippie Shane to Heavy Metal Shane. Especially Bill and Andy, Red Bluff old timers, were stoked to bring back the Cave Party, but lamenting that they wouldn't be able to participate in the "good stuff" like they used to do...no, this Cave Party was sans psychedelics. But what we lacked in psychotropics we made up for in numbers, for the Cave Party was a hit drawing a huge crowd of what must have been 40 people at the peak of social hour.
We made preparations for the Cave Party in order to make it a hit. We had a fire pit just outside the roof of the cave with plenty of wood. We dug a pit in the sand, lined it with a tarp and filled it with ice to keep the beers cold. We even pulled Dave's Suzuki Samurai up to the edge of the 3m cliff above and blared the tunes so that we could have some rock and roll to help bring out that party vibe. And it worked, we were raging at the Bluff.
Red Bluff is a pretty testosterone filled zone...mostly it's just blokes that come out to wait for swells in the dusty desert overrun with flies. Occassionally a guy can get a girlfriend to come out with him for a few days, but it's a rarity, and her uncomfort there is obvious with so many pairs of eyes trained on her as she walks to and from the point with loyal support for her boyfriend. In order to build some excitement we spread rumors that we were shipping in girls from Exmouth, a backpacker tourist town often crudely referred to as Sexmouth by Red Bluff surfers since it's the nearest town with any population of females. We even went so far as to claim a stripper pole was being installed inside the cave, which was outlandish of course, but stirred the kind of jovial excitement that we were looking for in a Cave Party.
But the greatest surprise of all was when a new girl actually arrived the day of the Cave Party...a group of 3 Germans, one woman and 2 men arrived the very day of the Cave Party. We informed them of their very good luck to have arrived on such a momentous occasion such as this one since they were only planning on staying one night and it was assumed that the girl was the girlfriend of one of the guys, but as they arrived to the party the 2 guys took a seat by the fire while the young lass casually made her way around the party, soaking i am sure, in the attention from all the fit surfer blokes. A single woman's paradise, a bunch of fit, young, tanned, surfer boys all vying for her attention. It turned out that the lucky young lad to score the attention was Red Dog. The "'ranger" (Aussie slang for red head, shortened from orangutang) from south australia pulled the cute German lass back to his camp and bedded down in the back of his Nissan Patrol...lucky devil. Most surfers who go to the Bluff can brag about barrels big or small, but oh so few can brag about sharing a night with a sweet smelling lady-friend. Nice work Red Dog.
For the rest of us, we drank and told stories big and small, funny and freightening, short and tall into the wee hours of the night as the nearly full moon drifted overhead drowning out the shooting stars that normally streak the desert sky. I was determined to stay to the end, to absorb as much of the Cave vibe as possible and experience this night to its fullest, and anyway, even though we called it the 8' Cave Party, the swell forecast for the next day was pretty bleak. The end came at some several hours after midnight as the aforementioned Hippies Shane and Heavy Metal Shane and I sat round the fire talking stories of waves found and missed on our coastal travels around this massive continent.
This is when one of my favorite defining moments of my time at the Bluff came. The 3 of us were sitting around the fire when Hippie Shane, staring into the belly of the fire, commented randomly and in no general direction, saying "Isn't a bottom turn just beautiful..." Heavy Metal Shane and I just sat in silence. Then Hippie Shane followed this by waving the burning stick of sandalwood with its smoldering end in front of him to allow the aroma to overcome him, then he passed it over to me. I have a streak of hippie in me and i can appreciate the softer things in life so i gave the stick a few passes in front of me to enjoy the natural aroma, then i tried to pass it over to Shane, calling his name to get his attention as he stared into the fire. He looked at me with a slight scorn in his eye and responded to my gesture by saying, "Nah, I hate hippies."
To this comment both Shane and i just chuckled, not sure what to say. Hippie Shane was probably offended to some degree, we called him Hippie Shane because he lived in a bus with his family, wife and 2 kids, had long hair, and spoke in a soft and slow manner, but he didn't show any sign of resentment, like a good hippie would. I knew there was no defending hippies or their soft mannered ways, for Heavy Metal Shane was a good guy, just strongly opinionated, and once spoken, his opinions were impossible to influence, even with the most sound of arguments. Like his tatoos, "Failure 2 Conform" in large text across his belly and "Trust No One" in smaller text across his neck, there was no changing his point of view.
After that comment we sat for about 3 minutes in silence all staring into the fire until Heavy Metal Shane spoke up again with, "I'm outta here" and up and left. A few minutes more of staring into the fire, all conversation with Hippies Shane exhausted, i excused myself from the fire and headed back to the van to catch some sleep. Apparently, Hippie Shane remained at the edge of the fire all night, moving aside some of the stones that made the ring and nestling in for a good nights sleep on the warm sand, earning himself the prestige of having shut down the 8' Cave Party '08. The stuff legends are made of...
So we brought this book with us up to Red Bluff and some of our favorite photos of the lifestyles these surfers led were of the "Cave Parties" that went down on the beach in the overhanging limestone caves that were used as shelters for some of the long termers who were living there. All these old hippie surfers with long hair and beards, warm cans of "piss" in their hands and smiles on their tanned faces. We passed the book around to neighbors who came by to hang out with us at the van and always the reaction was the same, everyone loved the pics of the cave parties. So the catalyst came from Jarrad, a particularly stoked seasonal Bluff resident who suggested that we relive the dream. "We should have a Cave Party," he suggested and it just started from there.
We got approval from the current management team, Jim and Bek, not wanting to offend anyone or get in trouble for doing something we shouldn't, which was a good thing because they informed us that since 1998 when a limestone overhang in Gracetown, similar to the ones at the Bluff, collapsed killing a group of people watching a surf contest there, the caves at the bluff had been offlimits for camping. Apparently parties were lumped into the same category as camping in this case, and it was suggested that congregating 10-20 people under the overhang, even if just for a few hours one evening, was just asking for trouble. It made sense to us, but we still wanted a Cave Party, and Jim and Bek are all for having fun, so they suggested we do it in the "Small Cave".
There are 2 caves on the beach at the Bluff, the big cave at the end of the beach, a truly massive cave that allows many people to gather under the tens of tons of compacted limestone overhead, and then the small cave, which can accomodate a few people under just a few tons of compacted limestone. A fair compromise.
We organized a day that worked for everyone, just a few days before the departure of several of us from the Bluff, and started to spread the good word about the Cave Party and the response was enthusiastic. Everyone was stoked from Hippie Shane to Heavy Metal Shane. Especially Bill and Andy, Red Bluff old timers, were stoked to bring back the Cave Party, but lamenting that they wouldn't be able to participate in the "good stuff" like they used to do...no, this Cave Party was sans psychedelics. But what we lacked in psychotropics we made up for in numbers, for the Cave Party was a hit drawing a huge crowd of what must have been 40 people at the peak of social hour.
We made preparations for the Cave Party in order to make it a hit. We had a fire pit just outside the roof of the cave with plenty of wood. We dug a pit in the sand, lined it with a tarp and filled it with ice to keep the beers cold. We even pulled Dave's Suzuki Samurai up to the edge of the 3m cliff above and blared the tunes so that we could have some rock and roll to help bring out that party vibe. And it worked, we were raging at the Bluff.
Red Bluff is a pretty testosterone filled zone...mostly it's just blokes that come out to wait for swells in the dusty desert overrun with flies. Occassionally a guy can get a girlfriend to come out with him for a few days, but it's a rarity, and her uncomfort there is obvious with so many pairs of eyes trained on her as she walks to and from the point with loyal support for her boyfriend. In order to build some excitement we spread rumors that we were shipping in girls from Exmouth, a backpacker tourist town often crudely referred to as Sexmouth by Red Bluff surfers since it's the nearest town with any population of females. We even went so far as to claim a stripper pole was being installed inside the cave, which was outlandish of course, but stirred the kind of jovial excitement that we were looking for in a Cave Party.
But the greatest surprise of all was when a new girl actually arrived the day of the Cave Party...a group of 3 Germans, one woman and 2 men arrived the very day of the Cave Party. We informed them of their very good luck to have arrived on such a momentous occasion such as this one since they were only planning on staying one night and it was assumed that the girl was the girlfriend of one of the guys, but as they arrived to the party the 2 guys took a seat by the fire while the young lass casually made her way around the party, soaking i am sure, in the attention from all the fit surfer blokes. A single woman's paradise, a bunch of fit, young, tanned, surfer boys all vying for her attention. It turned out that the lucky young lad to score the attention was Red Dog. The "'ranger" (Aussie slang for red head, shortened from orangutang) from south australia pulled the cute German lass back to his camp and bedded down in the back of his Nissan Patrol...lucky devil. Most surfers who go to the Bluff can brag about barrels big or small, but oh so few can brag about sharing a night with a sweet smelling lady-friend. Nice work Red Dog.
For the rest of us, we drank and told stories big and small, funny and freightening, short and tall into the wee hours of the night as the nearly full moon drifted overhead drowning out the shooting stars that normally streak the desert sky. I was determined to stay to the end, to absorb as much of the Cave vibe as possible and experience this night to its fullest, and anyway, even though we called it the 8' Cave Party, the swell forecast for the next day was pretty bleak. The end came at some several hours after midnight as the aforementioned Hippies Shane and Heavy Metal Shane and I sat round the fire talking stories of waves found and missed on our coastal travels around this massive continent.
This is when one of my favorite defining moments of my time at the Bluff came. The 3 of us were sitting around the fire when Hippie Shane, staring into the belly of the fire, commented randomly and in no general direction, saying "Isn't a bottom turn just beautiful..." Heavy Metal Shane and I just sat in silence. Then Hippie Shane followed this by waving the burning stick of sandalwood with its smoldering end in front of him to allow the aroma to overcome him, then he passed it over to me. I have a streak of hippie in me and i can appreciate the softer things in life so i gave the stick a few passes in front of me to enjoy the natural aroma, then i tried to pass it over to Shane, calling his name to get his attention as he stared into the fire. He looked at me with a slight scorn in his eye and responded to my gesture by saying, "Nah, I hate hippies."
To this comment both Shane and i just chuckled, not sure what to say. Hippie Shane was probably offended to some degree, we called him Hippie Shane because he lived in a bus with his family, wife and 2 kids, had long hair, and spoke in a soft and slow manner, but he didn't show any sign of resentment, like a good hippie would. I knew there was no defending hippies or their soft mannered ways, for Heavy Metal Shane was a good guy, just strongly opinionated, and once spoken, his opinions were impossible to influence, even with the most sound of arguments. Like his tatoos, "Failure 2 Conform" in large text across his belly and "Trust No One" in smaller text across his neck, there was no changing his point of view.
After that comment we sat for about 3 minutes in silence all staring into the fire until Heavy Metal Shane spoke up again with, "I'm outta here" and up and left. A few minutes more of staring into the fire, all conversation with Hippies Shane exhausted, i excused myself from the fire and headed back to the van to catch some sleep. Apparently, Hippie Shane remained at the edge of the fire all night, moving aside some of the stones that made the ring and nestling in for a good nights sleep on the warm sand, earning himself the prestige of having shut down the 8' Cave Party '08. The stuff legends are made of...
