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One thing that could be more outrageous than last Monday’s Sydney swell is Eastern Suburb’s property prices. As a young man living in Sydney, I know this is something that deeply worries my generation. I’m sure you see enough of the housing market hysteria in the mainstream news. We’re not in the business to ruin your moods, so when Tracks actually acquired a positive story that involves a “$20million” property in South Coogee. We had to share.
The storyteller is Tim Bonython, who once again captured the best footage (video above) of Oz’s most recent big-wave session.
Below is Tim’s funny tale as he searched for the best spot to shoot the Wedding Cake spectacle.
“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It’s fucking huge. It’s breaking miles further than it would normally ever break. And then you could see waves way out and see that were like capping on whatever reef was out there. I just couldn’t believe that it was even capping . Like literally, you know, two kilometre’s out to sea, you know, like what’s out there. “
“It was all about trying to find an angle to shoot. And it was such a big playing field. And so I actually ran around and checked where I normally shoot looking side on, and Bill Morris (Tracks longtime photographer) was sitting on the rocks shooting as well. I looked to Bill, I kind of snuck up behind him because he was on his phone. I was gonna try to surprise him. But then I was looking at him and I was like man I don’t have time to play games here. And he was looking straight into the sun, like looking north. I was thinking this is not the angle today. I haven’t got time to play games, I said Bill, I’m gonna go and find another angle, this is too bright for me. So I went around, and kind of found this angle, looking down from the hill.
So I drove down this dead-end street on the hill, kind of in between where they paddle out. And I’m like, ah, now I kind of I gotta stand in the middle of the road here with my tripod and set up my shit because I got a real clear view of the surfers in the lineup. Obviously, you want to film where they kick out and where they start right, so I was right in the middle of the street. And I was like this is pretty good but it is in the middle of the street and there’s no cars.
But there’s this guy in this fucking $20 million dollar home on the balcony with his camera looking at me. And I’m looking at him and going maybe he might invite me over . I was like” What’s going on?” and he said ” Mate do you want to come up and shoot on my balcony?”
“Oh, really “. I trudged to his beautiful fucking $20 million house. And his name’s Brian, lovely guy. And I’m sitting on the balcony getting this incredible view and every bit of the view of the whole wave and then looking south down to Lurline Bay and all that. And his wife comes out in a leotard. Oh, would you like a coffee? I’m standing there like this is too good”‘
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Check out Tim’s end product of the Wedding Cake spectacle in the featured clip above.
Tracks already covered the all-time morning session that featured a brave group of surfers, two fearless foilers and a rogue, boardie-wearing body surfer. Tim also captured Maroubra Chargers Max McGuigan and Wayne Cleveland’s session, with the duo sticking around until later in the day to tow into some Wedding Cake giants.