Tall Poppies and Choppy Waves

You don't know what you've got 'till it's gone. With tragic irony, that evening Anna, Jack and I went out to dinner, and as I told them about my trip to Australia Zoo, we ended up discussing what a shame it was that, despite his great popularity abroad, Australians themselves did not seem to be big fans of Steve Irwin. We wondered if, with his mullet and his 'crikey's he was such an unabashed stereotype that they were a bit embarrassed that he was their unofficial ambassador in the US, or, if it was simply a case of that syndrome that certainly exists in other cultures but seems to be particularly prevalent in Australia, of bashing those who've made good. For whatever reason, we had all found that mentioning Steve Irwin to people generally prompted an eye rolling and an 'oh him - we're not all like that, you know.'


The following morning, just as I crossed the border into New South Wales, I was scanning through radio stations when I heard a newsreader somberly announce that a wildlife expert and conservationalist had been killed. The name was not yet going to be released, as close family had not been informed. Vaguely assuming it was likely to be someone I'd never heard of, I reached out to flick the dial in search of some music, and my hand literally froze when the reader specified that the tragedy had happened off the coast of Port Douglas. I knew exactly who had been filming off the coast of Port Douglas that day, as his colleague had told me as I stroked the back of a 10 day old alligator. I actually heard myself sigh "no!" out loud, and had to pull off at the next layby as a rush of tears momentarily blurred my vision. It is curious, that genuine sorrow that it is possible to feel for someone who had absolutely no idea that they touched your life. You feel as though you have no right to grieve - your feelings are of course nothing compared to those of their family and friends - and indeed I impatiently brushed away the tears and laughed at myself for being such an idiot.


The only other time I have actually cried at the passing of someone I had never met, was for another great Australian, one also sadly under-esteemed by his countrymen during his lifetime. It was 1997. I had finished my A levels the previous summer, and was working as a junior PR assistant in a very trendy PR firm in Soho. By the time I arrived at work, the salacious rumours and jokes about auto-erotic asphyxiation were already circulating - not having read a newspaper that morning, I had no idea who they were talking about, and don't know how to explain the momentary crippling stunnedness I felt when someone finally mentioned his name. Now, at 27, I would like to think that I would put a stop to the conversation, that I would humble everyone by reminding them that a father, brother, friend had been lost; but as a relatively shy 19 year old, I nodded and laughed hollowly along with everyone then refused to explain why, ten minutes later, I was sitting at my desk wracked with heaving sobs.


They say never to speak ill of the dead, and I suppose it is not unnatural to fully learn to appreciate someone once they are gone; but as I listened to the outpourings of tributes and grief for the remainder of my time in Australia, I couldn't help but think it sad that Steve, like Michael, was not around to witness the impact that they had clearly made on their own country. Impact that, for one reason or another, was rarely expressed during their lifetimes.


Back in the Melbourne Girls' hotel in Brisbane, in the wee hours of Saturday morning, someone had invited a few blokes who were hanging out on a nearby balcony to visit us. I don't think that any of us fancied them, it was just entertaining to see if they would actually leave their comfortable balcony and traipse around hotel corridors at four o'clock in the morning looking for us. Duly, they found us. However, when they asked what we'd been up to that evening and we told them we'd been at an INXS concert, one of them grimaced and muttered something to the effect of them being nothing without Michael. And you know what? That is an opinion I certainly don't agree with, but I do believe that people are entitled to it. I don't think that they can call themselves INXS fans - rather, they're Michael Hutchence fans, which is perfectly valid, and it is just a shame for them that they are missing out now. But when one of the Melbourne Girls challenged him: so, how many concerts did you see with Michael? How many albums do you have? You had tickets for that last tour, right? His response was 'uuuhhhh…' So he wasn't a Michael Hutchence fan at all, just some idiot who thought it cool to cannonize someone after his passing, when he had never supported him during his lifetime. How sad and horribly pointless. We chucked them out and left them to traipse hotel corridors at ten past four in the morning looking for their own room.


One last vent, then I am done with bashing Tall Poppy Syndrome and its hypocritical posthumous retraction (well come on, I had to find something I didn't like about Australia): a couple of days later, a Sydney newspaper snidely referred to the "INXS tribute show" happening that evening at Luna Park - so, presumably, AC/DC have been a tribute show for the past 30 odd years? Is every band with a line up that varies from the original - therefore just about every band that there is, the Stones, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, to name a couple - a tribute act, or only those with a replaced lead singer? Do tell, Sydney Morning Herald.


Right, I am done and off to Byron Bay for my disastrous surfing lesson. Let's just say that despite our common affection for saxophone players who wear funky shoes, Layne Beachley I am not. I will say, that when the surfboard is safe and still on the sand, I am brilliant. I can shoot from lying on my front to crouching to standing in a smooth and fetching manner, then balance almost lazily, wind in my hair and often mentally outrunning a Great White or two. I might, in fact, be the only surfer for whom waves actually ruin the experience. To be fair to myself, which I always like to be, my instructor did say that, due to an impending storm, the sea was particularly choppy and not surfer friendly, which is what I am going to blame for the fact that in two hours, I stood up for a grand total of about 7 seconds, and more than once managed to bash myself on the nose with the board. I was eminently happy when the lesson was cut short by an hour (and my nose was eminently grateful to be spared further punishment) when the heavens opened.


My only regret was that I didn't manage to spend as much time as I'd planned moseying about the shops at Byron, due to the unappetising reality of dashing from one to the other under lashings of rain. Instead I went back to the car, pointed it yet again south, with the intention of hitting Port Macquarie by nightfall.