A Random Trip to Margies Oct 2018 - By Steele Walster

Its Friday and most people are getting excited because work will finish for the week and their life can begin. I don't feel that anymore, not since Surf Meal came along. Don’t get me wrong a love the weekend, but I've already maxed my froth-o-meter! Here is how. Having been away for a couple of weeks I knew the stores down south WA were running low on Surf Meal. These days it is an absolute pleasure dealing with the stores that I do. Being selective with stockists has allowed friendships to form with the shop owners and every visit is like catching up with friends. Driving down early Wednesday, I was already excited. The surf forecast was good and the so audiobook, I’ve been listening to has been pretty interesting. Calling in to @graciesgeneral for my first coffee, it was obvious by the way the ocean looked there was going to be fun waves somewhere. I called @clairebevo because she usually knows where the waves are and we are currently developing a new Surf Bar together, plus she's has become a really good friend. We met at Yalls and surfed Rabbits with the joyous @jessgrimwood who is over for the two QS 1000s that are coming up. Managing to avoid breaking my board or impaling myself on the close out rights, I called it a win but was left a little frustrated because the conditions were really good but it wasn't quite working. Luckily it was a rare all day offshore, so there was time to sniff out another wave. 

Farewelling, Claire and Jess, I hit the road again. I'd messaged Chris @surfstrengthcoach earlier and he scouring the coast through phone calls to find a good spot. I was stoked hear he was still keen to surf. We had a quick look at Inji and it was completely flat so we decided to head south. We jumped in the car and headed to Redgate - there is always something there. Cris does amazing things with surfing specific strength and conditioning and takes people of surf trips. Moving here from the US with his partner @fionapeters, they are carving out a cool niche in the area. It was good to chat with him as we sped down Caves Road with that familiar anxious feeling you get when you know there is good surf somewhere but you don't know if you are going to find it in time or at all. We arrived at Redgate around 2pm it was still a very light offshore and it looked... ok. Having just driven the best part of an hour, and discussing the possible impending doom that Artifical Intelligence (AI) may bring in the future we were like ‘let’s go out and enjoy it…while we still can!’. We paddled out at Blue Tongues and met a solitary old guy out there who was very protective of this little peak he had to himself and was ignoring all forms of etiquette. Still, there was still only three people out and this little left rip bowl was really fun, and it got better as the hours rolled by. We decided to go in as the sky started to turn golden and I was happy that my car keys that I left on a rock hadn't been washed away with the rising tide. Cris had brought some homemade banana bread topped with honey and peanut butter and that was promptly demolished along with several surf bars. 

Dropping Cris back, I messaged @jeromeforrest to see where he was at because I'd be crashing at his that night. Jez has become a good mate and I was looking forward to catching up with him, plus Jasper, Mon and their dog @saltytravellers have recently moved to Margs and are staying with Jez, and they are great people to hang out with – plus there were whispers that a chicken curry was on the menu and I was still starving. Rocking up to Surfers Point, I was right on time for an epic sunset and Jez's last wave which he tore to pieces. We cruised back to Jez's place which is this amazing wooden stilt house with Indian Ocean views. Here I said hello to the gang and remember that an Old Army buddy was in town and it was his birthday - I shot down to Settlers, with a shopping list from the crew. Coconut milk for the curry and 'choccy' for afters. I said g'day to @jakwoody and his beautiful (very English) friend that were having a quiet drink to celebrate the great man’s birthday. The one thing I can say about the Army is the mates you make are for life. I entertained them for 30 mins and drank a club sober (soda) and then crossed the carpark for IGA, getting the items on the shopping list 1.TCC Coconut Milk and choccy - I chose 'Old Gold with almonds - because quite frankly its delicious. Two blocks. Racing back out to Prev - I knew I was running late and there was a chance there would be no chicken curry left. 

I met @voltaire___ outside the house, 1. because he lives there and 2. because he was standing outside with his mate who had run into a 'really big' kangaroo. They were assessing the damage to the Landy. Story goes that on inspection the once dead ‘boomer’ woke up and bounded away like nothing happened. We hoped the kangaroo was ok as we all looked towards the night fallen bush, probably nowhere near the direction of the animal, but the gesture was sincere and we went inside. By the way Volt is rad dude and that's from a 10 second interaction him, and I’m completely comfortable with that. We watched the Quikky Pro for a bit - @jasperendersby and I pretty much ate the blocks of Old Gold ourselves and hit the hay. Having surfed the minimum of twice daily - I slept like a log. 

Waking up to sight of gently rustling ‘peppi trees’, the smell of ocean salt and the sounds of birds reminded me of my childhood and was nice. Feeling pretty calm, I tried this Pineal Gland mediation that the dude on the audio book I was listening to on the way down spoke about. After pretty much going inter-dimensional for, well, I don't know how long, I came to and thought I'd better see what the crew were doing. Everyone was getting ready for the day, but only Jez and I would have time for a wave. Jez had an hour in him and suggested South Sides. Greeted with an empty line up, clean head high waves it was a no brainer. Mainbreak looked sick too. I'd never surfed South Sides and was frothing out. It was really fun. It was so nice to drop into some waves and just point the nose at the beach and swing into a bottom turn. For a bloke who is well over 6ft it felt great to have all that room. I thought that perhaps this is what it’s like for short people surfing Perth Beachies, but then thought ‘na it’s probably still a close-out’. The froth factor was already peaking now as I ‘went to work’ and begun visiting the SM Stores - happily proclaiming to Laura at @annapurnawholefoods that the vego-wrap she made was the best thing I'd ever eaten. 

Knowing that it was another off-shore all day scenario I thought I'd better get another surf in before driving back up to Perth. Just to be sure you know. But before I could do that, I visited the remaining stores (I've tagged all the stockists) and quickly met up with Claire again to talk recipes. She was tidying up one of apartments she rents out on AirBnB in Yalls (book it - best spot, just book it the entire summer, you won't regret it!). Randomly I bumped into @jacobwilcox__ and his lovely girlfriend @alize.baxter in the carpark. I hadn't seen Jacob since his trip to Europe and had been meaning to for a while and  brag to him about the SM Super Greens. He’s such a level guy, a true champion and I just know he’s going to do well. From here I called Blakesy from @vassevalley to tee up a surf. (Blakesy and Bron grow hemp, make roasted hemp seed, it’s amazing and so are they!) We made the third Surf Bar together. Blakesy was once primed for the Olympics as an archer - random fact which I think is rad. I suggested we surf Bears and Blakesy agreed. The wind had been threatening to come in since lunch and it was now around 2:30pm. I was pretty confident it wasn't going to do any damage to the wave quality. Most people must have thought the opposite to me, which would explain why, as we descended the stairs at Bears, a fellow surfer remarked that ‘we had timed it perfectly because everyone had just left!’. He added, that the only reason he got out was because he was ‘rooted’. Well, I think that is what he said. I was already at full sprint down the stairs seeing that Mamas was bowling up over head with literally no one surfing it. Needless to say we surfed for three hours going wave for wave, chakas and ‘Wooos!’ flying around in chorus with the whale that was breaching out the back. A joyous occasion. 

Before hitting the frog and toad back to the big smoke, I pulled in and saw one of my oldest mates, a brickie (doesn't have instagram - obviously) and asked him to drop off some Surf Meals to a store that I'd run out of time to see, who were conveniently right next to his job site. Once on the road, I thought about the couple of days that had just gone and shook my head in disbelief at how happy and thankful I was. All these epic crew past present and future, the freedom that I have for new experiences and the deeper appreciation for what good health means all since starting SM, combine for a much richer existence than I've ever known. All this and I still had the weekend ahead and a beautiful wife to go home to! 

Then it came back to me... The story that summed up the last couple of days. Remember when I was at Settlers and the IGA? So when I go back to the car with the shopping. A random dude appears from the dark and shouts 'hey mate, you surf today?' - I replied 'yeah man, I surfed at’.. He cut me off. And then went into a detailed 20 minute, blow by blow, complete with hand gestures and facial expressions description of this 'F***ing Epic' barrel that he got that day. It sounded amazing, as all barrel stories retold do. I let him finish his account, bid farewell and all the best. As he strolled away - I thought - A Place, where it is not out of the ordinary or frowned upon to come up to a complete stranger in the carpark, who is clearly in the middle of something, and tell them about your ‘barrel’ – and for that person to not freak out or judge in anyway – and in fact actually start frothing out just as much as said stranger – is a f***ing epic place.