“It will completely destroy a large part of the lagoon in the face of the most beautiful wave in the world!”

A few weeks back the vaguely humorous story of Olympic organisers tearing down the old WSL wooden judging tower at Teahupoo and replacing it with a magnificent aluminium structure for the three-day event at a cost of five mill US.

Necessary, I suppose.

The old tower is rickety as hell, and who wants to be responsible for besuited officials plunging to their doom after a cross-beam snaps and brings the whole thing down, but a little rich, given Paris 2024 has positioned itself as the “sustainable” Games. 

Tahitian surfers ain’t so thrilled, as you can imagine.

It’s their home and they surf and fish and play on these reefs. 

Local surfer Tahurai Henry, therefore, has organised a protest against the construction on Sunday at eleven am, Tahitian time. I’m writing this at nine pm, Saturday, Sydney time, so in fourteen hours or so. 

“We’re up against this judge’s tour project that will completely destroy a large part of the lagoon in the face of the most beautiful wave in the world! A construction worth over 500 million francs for 3-4 days of competition that won’t be reused for our local surfers! ( No Inheritance )

“We will begin the walk from Teahupo’o town hall to the tip in front of the surf spot! Come one come all 🙏

“TEAHUPOO NEEDS YOU.” 

 

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Support for the action is being felt worldwide.

Eli Olson, a thirty-year-old jiujitsu black belt who grew up shredding alongside the Florence bro’s, posted a before and after of the Tahitian paradise along with the fighting words.

“Taking advantage of the local community and their kindness. I stand with my Tahitian brothers.”

If you happen to be in French Polynesia tomoz, swing on over to Tahiti-iti and put some boots on the ground.

And, in the interim, thrill a little to Henry’s post of Lucas Chumbo at Teahupoo.

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New owner drawn to Lennox Heads’ “low-key appeal”.

If any further proof was needed of the wildest property bubble in Australia’s history, the 18 mill sale of a joint in Lennox Head, once a hardscrabble town of surfers and blue-collar workers, is probably it. 

The “seaside masterpiece” at 44-52 Blue Seas Parade, Lennox Head, which looks right into the guts of the famous righthander, is “the best property on the east coast, in terms of what it offers in terms of 8.5 acres sitting on one of the most easterly points of Australia with panoramic ocean and coastal views,” selling agent Nick Bordin told the Australian Financial Review.

The vendor, retired software developer George Farley, bought the land in 2012 for a little under three-mill and built the five-bed pavilion style home.

He was chasing twenty-mill, but settled for an undisclosed amount between seventeen and eighteen mill. 

But the value wasn’t so much about the house, pretty as it is, but about the…land. 

Software developers ain’t dumb.

Farley got council approval to create a sub-division of eight luxury homes alongside the main house so, likely, the new owner will bring in the dozer and the cranes ala Owen Wright’s $30 million Byron Bay development.

Two years ago, the director-headliner of retro-surf movie Breath, Simon Baker, shucked his seventeen-mill mansion in Sydney for a cement block and timber beach shack a few hundred metres from Lennox Point. 

Baker, who is fifty-four, bought the two-bedder at 23 Dress Circle Drive, Lennox Head, for almost three-mill following the breakup of his marriage and the subsequent sale of couple’s Bronte house for seventeen-mill; a place they bought in 2015 for six-and-a-half mill. 

His Lennox joint, a sleepy eyed derelict, is one of the last remaining original houses in Dress Circle Drive, the modest holiday homes having long given way to man’s urgent need for compounds and monoliths. 

“This is the ideal site to make a terrific new statement,” advised the selling agent. “It stands on an elevated 505sqm medium density allotment within strolling distance to the beach, cafes and all of Lennox’s amenities. This is a rare real estate offering that will bring fantastic rewards to those wishing to upgrade, knockdown/rebuild or develop the site and capitalise on such a tightly held setting.”

Surprisingly deft on a surfboard, Baker grew up in Lennox before treading the boards in Sydney, Los Angeles etc.

“You can’t deny the power of this landscape,” Baker told 60 Minutes while standing with reporter at Lennox Point. “It’s got this intensity and whether you like it or not it will have an impact on you.”

A cursory jog through Lennox’s recent property sales reveals it ain’t Byron Bay’s poor sister any more. 

Mill and a half for a townhouse, two mill to be near the beach. If you don’t have generational wealth or are at least four rungs up the property ladder, you ain’t buying. 

Rent forever kids, although one thing money can’t buy is a deft rock jump.

 

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