A New Year
A caravan still stands beneath a scorched tree.
New Years Day. The first day of a new year. The first day of a new decade.
And all along the NSW South Coast and beyond, people awoke to air thick with choking smoke and further devastation.
In Bawley Point the power was still out and phone reception non-existent.
You could find reception if you tried. but you had to hold your phone at a certain angle in a certain place to get even a bar.
In these places, text messages could maybe be sent, and calls, scratchy and hollow and prone to drop-outs, could be made.
The best source of information was the ABC on the car radio.
Through them we had a lifeline to what was going on around us.
Through the sound of their voices, informing us of the events of the night before, we found comfort and knowledge. And although we were still trapped by the closed Princes Highway, it could have been worse.
We could have been in any number of the towns above and below us that had been hit, and hit hard.
We were the lucky ones.
The devastating fires that burnt through here in that first week of December, sending the trees and vegetation up in giant sheets of flames, had caused a natural firebreak.
And although the ember attack we had been warned of hadn’t eventuated, the threat was still there.
And people dealt with in their own ways.
Most stayed close to the house, to safety, hoping for the power to come back on as a symbol that normalcy was once again returning to this South Coast haven.
Others took off for the beach, and a surf.
For it is in their blood that no matter what is going on in the world around them, swimming out into the vast depths and sitting there amongst the waves is their sanctuary.
It is where they find peace in the chaos, an outlet for their anxiety, a way of pouring out their concerns into the physical exertion of surviving the bullying ocean.
And it’s an addiction.
A man walks through the murkiness of the smoke-filled morning in the hopes of catching a wave.
I went with one of our party to these beaches, out into the thick soup of smoke that had smothered the land, to see how others were coping with the weirdness this new year had brought.
And I found a sense of solidarity, and also solitude.
Out there, where you could barely see a dozen metres in front of you, people wandered, in groups or alone.
But no matter what, the vibe was one of concern.
We were experiencing things we had never experienced before.
We were living through events we had never thought we would ever see.
We were concerned.
We were aware.
We were scared.
But we pushed on with a strange sense of stoicism, refusing to let those concerns and worries bubble out onto the surface for fear they might overwhelm us and we would become paralysed, or worse, drown.
So instead they searched for their peace in any way they could. Be it walking along a deserted beach, wandering the lonely streets, or paddling out into the roaring surf.
And it those in the surf that I watched, curving and carving and forgetting the troubles so physically manifest in the hazey air.
I watched for hours.
And it was calming, observing them through my lens.
It brought me into their world, if only for a moment or two. All I could do - all I wanted to do - was frame, focus, shoot, repeat.
Shot after shot.
Frame.
Focus.
Shoot.
Repeat.
Their sanctuary was in riding the ebb and flow of the tides.
My sanctuary lay within a viewfinder, capturing them in theirs.
A surfer catches a wave on New Years Day at Bawley Point.
Finally we had had enough.
We walked back to the car through the thick and heavy air, talking about our pasts and what the future may hold, and made our way back to the group, satisfied in our own individual ways. Him with the peace and joyful ache in his muscles surfing brings, me with the peace brought about from doing something I love.
And although when we got back the power was still out and phone reception still non-existent, the uncertainty was easier to face.
And it was only something we had to face for a while, as a few hours later the lights flickered back to life, and with it came a profound sense of relief.
That night we celebrated like we had planned to the night before, washing away the fear and heaviness that had weighed us down with laughter and games.
But even though that night we slept the easiest we’d slept all year, we still didn’t know if we would be able to escape, nor when this terrible summer might finally burn itself out.