Hollywood comes to the provinces!

The surfing superstar Sally Fitzgibbons, who was sensationally dumped from the tour after fourteen years and one hundred and eight consecutive events only to be shovelled a wildcard for the following year’s events following an enormous outcry, has opened the door to her just-renovated “beach shack” overlooking the drink on the NSW South Coast.

Thirty-two-year-old Fitzgibbons is a former world number one whose electric smile, dark and enormous eyes, rippled stomach and with skin painted a deep nutty brown suffused with pink, make her a favourite with sports fans of all pronouns.

Her latest property project, Highline House, built on the headland at Gerroa Beach, where Sally grew up, is a reimagining of the old weatherboard beach shack that used to squat on the dirt.

(Sally bought a place in Minnamurra, near Kiama, in 2009 for $515,000 and sold six years later for over a mill.)

The reno took a year and kept elements of the old joint while building a place she could live in or rent for top dollar, as they say, particularly during the frenetic months of summer when Australians will claw each others’ eyes out to get a piece of beachfront.

“This project became my anchor and why I love the Gerroa headland so dearly,” said Fitz. “Highline House has a unique feel, with quirks that sometimes make it hard to give it one particular style. It is a beach house when categorised, but it’s also open to interpretation, from the visuals of the salt-crusted rock platforms becoming the inspiration for the kitchen bench tops, to the warmth of the Baltic pine flooring and the history of the restored pieces from the original house, including the front door, oars and lifesaving ring.”

It isn’t the most original fit-out, Hamptons, Palm Springs blah blah, but the build looks solid, it’s got a swinging pool hanging out over the ocean, a private gym, and you can run down the grassy knoll to the beach.

Ain’t the greatest wave in the world, but it ain’t so bad either, middling crowd outside of summer weekends etc.

“I grew up in Gerroa so I like my own space. I like catching a lot of waves in the session,” says Fitz.

“I’m making history. They gotta make new rules to contain me."

Can you believe it’s been one-and-a-half years already since Zeke Lau, the powerfully built Hawaiian with full rounds breasts sculpted by God and which rivet the eye, won ABC’s The Ultimate Surfer and was gifted one-hundred-thousand dollars and wildcards to three events?

As fate would play it, Zeke didn’t need the wildcards; he qualified for the tour via the Challenger Series.

The six-foot-two, two-hundred pound Hawaiian, you’ll remember, qualified for the WCT in 2017 and competed for three seasons before missing the cut for the 2020 season.

Zeke’s high point on the tour was in 2018 when he highlighted the world champion John John Florence’s tender underside, an unwillingness to engage in paddle battles etc.

No one knew where to turn.

Was it good, bad, ugly? Was it a microcosm of the struggle ‘tween indigenous Hawaiian and colonial white man?

Or the reverse, the forever beat-down of the white man as he attempts to thrive as a minority?

From Longtom’s report on the day,

“Zeke, with a face like an Easter Island statue and physique to match, had monstered John, got all up in his grill and had sent the world champ into a tailspin. Combo’ed, Florence fell, then fell again as the clock ticked down. It was thrilling and almost wincingly painful to watch, like a David Attenborough documentary where the elegant ruminant gets savaged by a lion then has its insides ripped out by a pack of hyaenas. The champ looked so helpless. All that insouciance at the Gold Coast was gone and in its place was a lonely blond-haired kid being frowned upon by an older man on the stairs who shook his head sadly as the siren sounded.”

The WSL subsequently reinstated a rule that surfers could not “excessively hassle” their opponents.

“I seen the Zeke Rule,” Zeke said. “I’m making history out here. They gotta make new rules to contain me. Excessive hassling… I call it just a little love tap, y’know. That’s all it is.”

Anyway, Zeke, who turns twenty-nine in three days, was hit by the mid-tour cut despite a fifth place at Sunset Beach

Now, with one event left on the Challenger Series, the BIPOC surfer is in ninth place, and is probs gonna get back on the CT.

The WSL made a little movie about it, called Edging with Zeke Lau.

Essential.