When I returned to Bali for my third visit, it was the dry season of 1974. The surfboard count in and around the Uluwatu cave had incrementally increased since my first trip in 1971. However, the bamboo ladder remained the only way into the cave, and numbers in the water could still be described as sparce. The local drink sellers had grown in numbers slightly with an added tool in the arsenal – the ice bucket. Not that there was much ice in the buckets. That said it did keep the pre-cooled, soft drinks at a tantalisingly tepid level compared to the thirst-inducing warm-to-hot available on previous visits. Very few surfers were staying overnight, instead most were still enduring the daily bemo journey from and back to Kuta. It seemed the only ‘tourists’ were surfers who would arrive with a couple of mates; there to chill and surf this pristine, new frontier.
Gerry Lopez, Rory Russell and their entourage were in town filming their first visit to Uluwatu. The group had arrived earlier in the season, and were already well acclimatised to the tides, slow pace, the humidity, and the endearing features of the abundant durian fruit. They’d linked up with American expatriate, Mike Boyum, (the pioneer of the first G-Land surf camp in years to come) who was well versed in the idiosyncrasies of the Indonesian psyche. Their primary target was Ulu.
They managed to find some early model American cars with suitably worn suspension to glide over the infamous, pot-holed roads on the Bukit, but they still had to leave their vehicles and walk in from the road and do the Kuta to-and-fro each day.
The film crew would set up in the same spot Albe had perched when he captured much of the Bali imagery for ‘Morning of the Earth’ in 1971. Judging by the footage Gerry and the gang scored very good, uncrowded Ulu.
Coming from an early grounding in the long lefts of North Narrabeen, my preference was the longer, mid-low tide ‘Racetrack’ and ‘Outside Corner’ sections. I rarely surfed ‘The Peak’ during the high tide. I don’t think anyone could stay in the water all day at Ulu to surf both tides, therefore, the number of surfers competing for waves at any one time was limited by who preferred to surf where.
It was still a year before Richard Harvey’s, 1975 discovery of Padang Padang and Ulu was ‘the’ surf spot on the Bukit – no one was looking too hard for something beyond.
The Balinese people, particularly the original keepers of the Bukit, were some of the most chilled out humans I’ve ever met. Pulling into a roadside warung for a Bali coffee or cold drink there would always be one or two of them sitting there with you; smiling, sometimes holding your hand, saying very little.
The photo on the opposite page tells the story well. The tall dude was a clone of the ever-expanding European tribe of hippies who had claimed Kuta as a holiday stronghold. Their scene evolved around nude bathing on Kuta Beach, smoking pot and encouraging the Balinese to cook a wider variety of food.
This wandering soul had heard from surfers that Ulu was a beautiful area to visit with white sand and blue water. He was the first, non-surfer ‘tourist’ I had seen around the cave. He arrived with a batik shirt, sarong, old runners and shoulder bag from which he regularly pulled enough weed to roll one joint at a time. Fuelled by regular tokes, he did no more than swim all day in the rockpools and sit on the white coral sand outside the cave, where he could watch the surfers coming and going. The Balinese fisherman, surrounded by his own meagre belongings, hung out with him, squatting a polite distance away, smiling, sharing a smoke and enjoying just being there alongside this pale, free-balling individual who spoke in a strange tongue. Occasionally, he’d wander over to a rockpool to check his fish trap, before resuming his position with his hippy acquaintance. So long as the mood was chilled, he was happy to be there.
As far as any infrastructure goes, a small, square, bamboo and palm-frond hut had appeared on the high point of the cliff above the cave. The hut would probably keep you a bit dry in the wet season, however, it was hotter inside than out during the dry season. Being the only ‘building’ to emerge in three years along the cliffs, I figured Uluwatu and the Bukit would remain relatively untouched for a while to come – an enduring natural gem in an otherwise overcrowded human mosh pit. How things change.
