"I'm a thrillseeker but I've kids, a wife and a bunch of businesses so I need my head.”
The air becomes naturally electric around Mullet Lord aka Daniel Brown, cafe owner, espresso martini mix wholesaler, sex pot and wild slab hunter.
Brown self-describes as “a thrillseeker. And my wife knows what happens when I get in the surf when the surf’s up. If I’m going when it’s big I have to wear a helmet. I’ve got kids, a wife and a bunch of businesses so I need my head.”
In the wave wave pictured below, a secret below-sea level bone-crusher on the NSW South Coast, Brown was “launched out in front of it. I thought I’d be exploded back up with the whitewash, but I was drawn down so fast I hit the back of my Gath on the reef. It bent my head down and folded my chin into my neck. It hit my upper spine as well.”
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The helmet was a leftover from when he was a kid and his pal forget to take it home one day. Brown moved from the neighbourhood, never saw the kid again, and kept the Gath.
“The Gath actually took the impact so well. My head was fine. It was just my neck getting pressed into the chin and the pressure of my neck bending so much. But, my actual head, no bruise whatsoever. It’s an old Gath but it’s served me well.”
The day before he’d had worn one of his Billabong impact vests. He figured it was a little smaller the following morn so didn’t put it on. What he didn’t take into account was the long-period swell as masking the eight-to-ten-foot bombs that were hitting the reef.
“Wish I’d worn it, especially when I hit my spine. I deadset thought I’d broken my back and when I came up. I had hair sticking out through the cracks in my helmet, I got a mad mullet cranking, and everyone was laughing. I said, ‘Yeah, I just cracked my head on the reef.’ Their smiles turned to frowns. I got someone to touch my spine, to see if there were any broken vertebrae.”
A few minute later, an even bigger set loomed.
“There’s eight-foot slabs and you could get the wave of your life,” he says. “There was no way I was going in. It was a proper bomb and I was in the right spot. But that wave was so big it went mutant.”
Brown hit the reef again, this time on his thigh.
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“I have a true love for this sport, he says, listing recent slab-hunting injuries, including a smashed shoulder and a ripped MCL.
“Deadset, if I didn’t have that Gath on and I was back in hospital I would’ve been so depressed. When I can’t surf I get depressed. I may as well look like a crash-test dummy and prevent injuries. If I can’t surf and I get depressed no one wants to be around me. Deadset, armour up when the surf is big, out there always.”
Brown can sure feel his away around a folding sandwich, something even Kelly Slater approves of, liking this video where he cavorts at an extraordinary ledge.
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The mullet, he says, is a symbol of freedom.
“I used to work in hospitality where you have to have collar-length hair. I started my own thing and now I don’t have to shave, I can have a mo, a mullet and no one’s telling me I can’t. It’s a good reminder of not taking anything too seriously. If I’m depressed, I look in the mirror at my head and have a good laugh, like, what are you taking so seriously? We’re here for fun and games! In my head, I’m just an Aussie bogan and this is the haircut that chose me.”
That ledge looks sick as hell. Tbh, I wouldn’t even surf it, I’m past the time of pushing my boundaries that way.
Sasha doesn’t wear or need a helmet.
So Mikey Wright is an offshoot of this guy?
Dosent take much to be a Hunter hero
He’s actually from the Cenny coast. ABC
Can surf, can make a damn good coffee. Glad his noggin is ok.
I’ve had a couple of coffees there and had no idea.
I’ll hand-deliver a few stickers when the next batch comes through.