I know because the landlord was at great pains to inform me of this shameful milestone in the town’s history. Considerately, he shielded the bottle from the gaze of other patrons before placing it in front of me. Perched on the pub’s sunny verandah, I looked out upon the rust freckled tin roofs and sandstone facades of the main drag. A three-carriage road-train carrying livestock flashed past in a blurred, unnatural rush of engine and animal noise.Eight hours of bitumen separated my adopted home of Margaret River from this dusty country town, situated about a third of the way up the expanse of Western Australia.
Established in 1864, Northampton is relatively old in terms of modern settlement of the state, it also is full of the familiar hallmarks of many an Australian town. A postoffice, a bakery, a hardware store and two pubs that face each other across the street in a silent tension.This inauspicious pitstop marked the midpoint of my journey to Gnaraloo: a 220,000 acre pastoral sheep station situated on the edge of the desert and overlooking the UNESCO World Heritage listed Ningaloo Reef.
The left-hand waves that break off Gnaraloo and nearby Red Bluff have become a quintessential pilgrimage for Australian surfers since being discovered in the 1970s. Video of Mark Occhilupo slicing the lips off the turquoise waves of ‘Tombstones’ in the JackMcCoy classics ‘ Bunyip Dreaming’ and‘Green Iguana’ have become seared into the collective consciousness of surfers around the world. In a sport that continues to be defined by the search for the novel, this iconic spartan road trip has become a rite of passage for many. Unlike many lost paradises, the raw ingredients of harsh desert landscape, tropical reef surf, and superlative wilderness still remain for others to discover.
The street that cleaves the two pubs of Northampton apart also serves as a major arterial road. The ‘North West Highway’ snakes its way some 1300km before crossing the tropic of Capricorn and finally reaching Port Hedland in the state’s north. I had arrived via the highway and hoped to leave as soon as first morning light arrived from the east. In retrospect, the other pub looked better, bustling with an ocker post-work crew. The one I had happened upon was called the‘Miners’ Arms’, it reminded me of my local back in Cornwall, and for that I was willing to forgo the atmosphere for a serve of nostalgia instead. On the walls of the pub were boastful images of the town’s rich mining history, where pioneers, including Cornish expats, toiled for mineral wealth in the form of copper and lead. Looking into the hardworking eyes of the men photographed, I realised how lucky we are to be surfers, born into this bountiful period of history. Chasing immaterial thrills is a decadence most people never had or have.
Small beads of rain started to bounce off parked cars. The thin warmth of the winter sun that had arced across the northern sky immediately abated. What I was simultaneously chasing and avoiding was about to arrive. The drive from Margaret River in the state’s far south western extremity, had begun in a rainstorm so relentless that I had to accept that my belongings were already wet and important things were likely forgotten. The westerly front that had brought the rain that morning continued to harass me as I drove further north, nipping at the wheels and buffeting my old 4×4 at every opportunity.
