Making Friends With The Neighbours

Until the past few years, I have never considered myself to be 'a writer'. I have always written - stories, poems, letters, emails - but I never thought of myself as having any kind of skill at it, nor that anyone (other than the recipients of those letters) would want to read my words. But with the encouragement of a few kind souls, I have found greater confidence in my own written words, and in the idea that other people take some kind of interest in reading them. Trust me though, its still a surprise! So I was equally shocked, proud and excited to have been invited to take part in the Newcastle Writers Festival , which is happening this weekend. You might remember that I developed a pretty affectionate relationship to Newy during the time I spent there as an Artist in Residence at the beginning of last year (If you look on the right hand side of this page, you'll see a category, 'Newcastle', that contains all my posts from that time), so you can imagine how e

So, today was my last full day here in Newcastle as resident writer at The Lock-Up Cultural Centre. And I’m sincerely bummed. I’ve had the most wonderful time, met so many great people and found my feet in the surf, so I’m sad to leave. Today Garth asked, “ So you must be missing home by now ”, and my honest answer was “ No. Not at all .” I mean, I miss my loved ones, but Newcastle is great and I have been busy and productive and happy, so I haven’t had much reason to look forward to the end of my time here or feel any home-sickness. In truth, I’d love another month here. I feel like I haven’t had enough time to get everywhere I wanted to go, meet all the people I wanted to meet, surf all the breaks, hang out with crew, to read, think, write. So I’d love another month or two, but I’m off to Sydney tomorrow and then to drive/camp/surf my back up the east coast next week with my friend, Terry, so things aren’t too bad really. But I was hoping that today I would be able to get in one

When I arrived here in Newcastle, indeed even before I arrived, I was told repeatedly that this was a male-dominated, hard-core, localised short-boarding town. That the waves did not lend themselves to anything else, I was told. The couple of chicks I had spoken to told me of unfriendliness and drop-ins, of guys treating them with contempt. I was, understandably, apprehensive. However, what I have found instead is a growing scene of longboards, eggs, fish and beyond, adding to the established scene of body-boarders, knee-boarders and body-surfers. I have met the most welcoming, friendly and inclusive crew, who have showered me in kindness, maps, invites, company and knowledge, as well as local crew, who are generally stoked to have a chick out in the water with them. People have loved that I love their breaks, that I want to know more about them. Different to Byron, my being new hasn't proved to be a sin or a threat. I found it happening out of the water too; in cafés like One Pe

The other afternoon, my friend Emma, and I drove down the coast to check out a couple of breaks I had heard are really lovely. By the time Em finished work and we got our crap together, time was getting on, and rain clouds had gathered to threaten the afternoon sun. Nonetheless, we persevered and headed south, out of town. We stopped at the first of our destinations, to a carpark filled with utes and old cars, which I thought probably bode well for the state of the surf. As we walked down the short, sandy track to the beach, a panorama of soft sand, clear water and peeling waves opened up before us. A reef was breaking down the way - a flotilla of bodyboarders enjoying it's fruits - and there was potential at a breakwall at the end of the beach. But the peaks along the beach itself were inviting enough, with more surfers than I had expected out in the water. Hailing from Byron, however, to me anything less than 50 people seems pretty reasonable, so I was keen. Also, I hate surf-c

Here in Newcastle, there used to be a hospital overlooking Newcastle Beach, right down by the shoreline. Opened in 1817, the Royal Newcastle Hospital only closed in 2007, to make way for - you guessed it - apartments, and the hospital was moved away from the sea. Although I understand the economics and practicalities of it all, I still think it's a shame our public buildings and services so often get shunted away from the coast to allow for private development. I'm certain that the views and sounds of the ocean were wonderfully healing for patients and staff alike. Indeed, Dianne Taylor and Suzanne (who works here at The Lock-Up and whose knowledge of local history is vast) have both separately told me a wonderful story about the pleasurable proximity of the hospital to the beach. Apparently, when it was quiet or they were on their breaks, the nurses and the doctors used to go down to the beach, to swim and surf and play. When they were needed back, a towel would be hung

Yesterday afternoon I was lucky enough to spend a couple of hours chatting with Dianne Taylor. Dianne is a volunteer at  Newcastle Museum , who spends a lot of time talking to people and recording their stories as oral histories. She is an amazing lady, who believes that everyone has a story to tell'. By listening to these stories from so many different people in and around Newcastle, she has developed an incredible knowledge of the social and cultural history of the region. I was stoked to have met her. Recently Dianne has been focused on collecting stories about surfing, and has been speaking with all kinds of people from Catherine Hill Bay to Foster to record their memories and knowledge about surfing in the region - breaks, people, anecdotes, events, understandings, relationships, shapers, shops, music, art and all the things that go into what it means to surf here. Like me, she is mostly interested in 'everyday' experiences and memories - things that are often dismis

When you ride a surfboard that is a bit over 9 feet long, you have to learn some tricks for manoeuvring it around the place.  My board is not only long but is wide so my arm barely stretches to reach around its thickness, and I have to lock in my fingertips and elbow to make sure I don’t drop it. Years ago, when I was fit, this was not a problem and I could happily skip up and down walkways to the beach, a longboard clutched under each arm. Alas! No longer. These days I struggle to carry my heavy board very far at all, so instead I lift it onto my head where the weight and length is more easily managed. Because I ride longboards, I am used to seeing people balancing boards on their heads, and because I carry them this way myself, I guess have come to assume it as a pretty normal sight. But, apparently, it’s not so normal here in Newcastle. The other day, as I walked along the coastal path to go surfing, I passed a school group. As I passed them playing soccer on the sand, the teach

The first time I visited Newcastle, I remember being taken aback by the sight of coal ships queued along the horizon. I had only ever really seen ships one at a time off in the horizon, and had never before visited an city where industry is such a part of the fabric of the landscape itself rather than hidden away from view, like a dirty little secret. But here, as you walk along the coast, you can see the hulking silhouettes of these enormous ships lined up in the distance, waiting their turn to be ushered just inside the harbour to be filled with coal. As you can imagine, this industry brings protest and activism, and understandably so. The coal industry is problematic on a number of levels, and for some the continuing connection of newcastle to the mining and export of coal is something to be lamented. I understand this position, and from the position of ecology and sustainability, I support it wholeheartedly. And yet, what I never expected, were the feelings of affection a

Where I’m from, the mere mention of northerly winds brings much shaking of heads and looks of disappointment and frustration. Our beaches face north and east, so the strong north winds blow out every break except one. When northerlies blow for several days, people start to get a bit batty, the effects of the wind working their way through their hair, skin, minds and levels of tolerance. ‘Fucking northerlies ’ is a common refrain. Here the word means something else. Something less definitive. Something potential and possible. Here it’s the east wind that terrorises surfers, blowing through their world and destroying waves. Here it is the east wind that sends crew inside with a pile of DVDs. Fucking easterlies.

This afternoon, I thought I would go for a drive along the coast and check out the beaches to the south of the city. I took off from Hunter street and headed south, tracing a line along the coast, cliffs and sand. I only made it as far as Bar Beach surf club before I saw a park and thought I’d pull over and check out what the banks were doing along there.  I jumped out of my car and walked up to the white fence that lines the top of the dunes. The surf looked, well, whompy. There was swell, but the banks were shit, so it was coming straight in and the lines were closing out in one solid wall of white-wash. I was  uninspired .  Two guys were next to me, sat on the fence checking the surf. I couldn’t help but notice their tattoos, hats and all-round general style had a ring of home – not a Billabong or Quiksilver logo to be seen. But they had the skin tones and physicality of surfers. Longboarders? Loggers? I wanted to know. Approaching a couple of guys who are surf checking in the m

Many thanks to Maia for the surf check and coffee hang.  xx

Underpass mural by Trevor Dickinson Late last year, I was lucky enough to have my application accepted as part of the 2012 Artist in Residence program at The Lock-Up Cultural Centre . The Lock-Up is an old gaol that has been turned into a museum and gallery space, and which also houses the Hunter Writers Centre . As it turns out, they had a place available for me right at the beginning of this year, and so I find myself living and writing here in Newcastle for the next couple of weeks or so. I'm pretty stoked. My plan while I'm here is to spend time on the beach and in the water, and to think about what belonging to a sub-culture like surfing means when you are out-of-place. As a child of the sub-topical, wetsuit-free, busy, warm water, point breaks of northern NSW - where longboards and women are the norm - surfing and hanging out in Newcastle will prove to be, I think, a very different surfing world. While I like to imagine that sharing a love of surfing can help pe