As a kid, dad would drop me off at the Burleigh pool while he surfed The Point. Although the ocean baths buttressed the rocky shoreline, it was very much a man- made setting, all hard concrete edges, solid fencing and corroded ladders. The highlight was a steep, stainless steel slippery dip that rattled and warped as you made the swift descent. The big drop-off guaranteed you a few seconds of thrilling hang time before you bombed into the water below, trying not to land on the kid who’d gone before you. On hot days the slide would absorb the Queensland sun and a burnt bum was the trade-off for the gravity-fuelled fun. Beyond the safety of the pool’s fence, nature ruled.

Thick-lipped Burleigh barrels rumbled down the point, before colliding with the slippery basalt boulders. Up high, the headland was covered in dense scrub while closer to the water, the Pandanus palms watched over the scene like friendly sentinels that had been there for eternity.

I can still remember being on top of the slippery dip as I watched dad tip-toe across the rocks with a pink, Sky twinny tucked under his arm; blood trickling down his shin that matched his scarlet-red board- shorts. He quickly brushed aside the cut as a scratch; the split-watermelon grin and gleam in his eye made it clear he’d been having too much fun to worry about a little nick – that was just the price you paid the band if you wanted to dance.

I knew right then I had to cross the threshold and ride the waves on the other side of the pool’s fence. Not long after that day at Burleigh we moved down south, to another beach with ocean baths, but I quickly left that behind and embraced the ocean ...