Looking down the Tweed River from the Riverview Hotel towards the sugar mill. The end of a stormy day.

Some regard Wedding Cake Island as something of a Holy Grail, as if there's something magical, mystical about the place. Perhaps there is. Colin Reyburn snapped this on Sat'dee arvo from Lourdes.

Compare this scene with Newport (see pics at bottom). What a difference a day makes! But is there something awry here?

Tweed River, Murwillumbah. The shorter loop in the middle is the "400m" "Guess-your-time" swim.

Coogee start.

The view from Newport. Glistening Dave loves clouds and looking northwards into storms.

Our friend, Killer, has an affinity with greatness. Or perhaps it's just that he's used to sitting atop a pedestal. At the Tweed River swim, a lady emerged from the water to tell him that she'd just won the laydees version of the event, but she had to get back home to Brisbane before the preso as her kids were  being minded. He said that was ok, thanks for telling him. And would she like her photo with him? Yes, sure, said Hayley Lewis.

That was after Killer, in his race  briefing, talked up the Tweed River Swim, mischievously, as being frequented by Olympians. His cobbers scratched their heads. A bit high falutin' for this river swim, which after heavy rain has been known as much for dead cows and mud as for its refreshingly egalitarian air. No Olympians within coo'ee. As he made his crack, Hayley was standing just in front of him. And just to her side was Melanie Wellenberg, who swam for Australia in Sydney 2000. Two Olympians at this year's Tweed River swim, up from 0 in the eight-year history of the swim to date.

Perhaps Killer was merely prescient.

Killer has had a lot of attention over the past five years or so, since he came to oceanswims.com's notice as a serial raconteur in that hotbed of raconeurentry, The Byron Bay Culchural Centre, the Beach Hotel. Every year, as a rule, we see Killer and he tells us that year's stories. After we profiled him extensively after a Vanuatu swim, then after he completed the Alcatraz Challenge in San Francisco a couple of years back, Killer shot to stardom, locally, as well as cyberly, now ranking as the Number 1 speaker on the congested Murwillumbah after dinner speakers circuit. Just this week, he's booked again for a breakfast meeting of the Murwillumbah Chamber of Commerce. The problem with breakfast meetings, he tells us, is that everyone has to get to work and they cut his presentation short. After three or so years of after dinner presentations, Killer is used to being gonged when he goes on too long, usually after 45 minutes. But the more his presentation is delivered, the longer it gets and the better the stories get. At a breakfast function, he says, they gong him while he's still doing his warm up. His swimming warm up.

Used to being himself the object of attention, Killer is unfamiliar with dealing with stars even greater, although his personality is such that he takes proximity to greatness in his stride. In Murwillumbah, it seems, there's plenty to go around.

Like the time "years ago" when Killer was drinking with his cousin, Gap (name for his teeth), in Murwillumbah's Murray's Hotel. It was a quiet Sunday afternoon, he says, when some limos pulled up and these two poms got out and came into the pub, surrounded by an entourage. Spotting Killer's black beer - Tooheys Old, Hunter River mud - they approached him and asked whether they could get some Guiness there. "No," Killer tells the two poms. "This is about as close to Guiness as you'll get around here". As Killer tells it, the two poms chatted amiably "for four or five beers" -- although that's probably grown, too, from the original version of a middy; a pony, maybe -- and when one of the poms ducked into the loo, one of his cobbers close by -- by this stage, an amphitheatre had formed around Killer and Gap and the two poms, as observing punters called mates, family, other relos, telling them to get down there, quick and smart  -- whispered to him, "Do you know who that is?" It didn't matter to Killer of course, although at that stage he wasn't to know how valuable the experience would prove to be to him in later years on the after dinner circuit. "It's Jimmy Page!" the cobber said. Led Zeppelin. The other pom was Robert Plant.

"They had four or five beers with us, then one of them said, 'We have to get going'. And, as one," Killer retells of the entourage, "every single one of them just got up and left. You could tell who was the boss.

"With that amphitheatre forming, everyone had been ringing home and mates and relatives were coming out of the woodwork down to the pub to watch. They probably figured it was getting a bit much."

Killer dates this story as "years ago, probably the last time they toured Australia". According to the official Led Zeppelin website, the band has toured Australia once, in February, 1972. In 1972, Killer was 12 and 13. Hey, it's possible. It's Murwillumbah.

Water banners in tribute to Mount Warning, the sentinel that watches over the Tweed Valley.

We had to drag this story out of Killer, of course, who mentioned it as a by-the-way part-way through a glorious afternoon on the riparian deck of the Riverview Hotel, Murwillumbah, after the presentations for the Tweed River swim. It was balmy sunshine over the "dark beige" river, as Killer had described it in his pre-race briefing, the day tempered by an envigorating sea breeze blowing up the river from Duranbah. The blues band had just begun their afternoon gig. It was a blues band, Killer had warned us, including "a guitarist from Canned Heat". Canned Heat? "Goin' up the country ... On the road again ...." That infectious, bluesy rock beat, that so infected our youth, from Monterey, south of San Francisco, in 1967 the world's first "rock festival; from "Woodstock, its offspring in upstate New York in 1969. Between them, Monterey and Woodstock were the defining culchural events of the generation that makes up the bulk of ocean swimmers. Not that we were anywhere near either. We were in Newcastle.

Killer crowned Mrs Sparkle, who is our Queen. He left all the trimmings in place.

Canned Heat is big. And James T and the Tomahawks, the four-member blues band that assembled on the deck of the Riverview, looked the part. Killer's daughter, Madeline, reigning Miss Murwillumbah Banana Festival Personality -- during her competition interview at teh Banana Festival, the MC asked Maddie to name three kinds of bananas, and she named "Lady Finger, Cavendish, and Gold Member". Anyway, Maddie took one look at James Thornbury - James T - and said, "He taught me harmonica!" Yes, nowadays, James Thornbury teaches guitar and harmonica in Murwillumbah, where he moved in 1995 after meeting his future wife when Canned Heat appeared at the inaugural Byron Bay Blues Festival in 1990. When Thornbury launched into "On the road again", Maddie said: "I know this song. He wanted me to learn this on the harmonica, and I thought, 'What the hell is this?'" The drummer is Maddie's friend's dad. The bassist was her friend's dad's brother. And the other guitarist, someone said, was their brother in law.

But, as with "Jimmy Page" in Murray's Hotel, there was no mistaking who was boss. When they started playing, the blues style of the band was haunting and throbbing. But when James Thornbury launched into "Goin up the country", then, in the next set, "On the road again", you could have closed your eyes and imagined you were there, in 1967 and 1969. It was eery and moving. One of those special, gems of moments that give meaning to your life and where you imagine you've come from. Canned Heat had a distinctive, almost falsetto sound -- "high tenor", as one website calls it -- underlay by that fused blues-rock beat. You couldn't mistake the sound.

The Riverview Hotel from the middle of the Tweed River Swim.

James Thornbury played with Canned Heat for 12 years from the early 80s, retiring from the band in 1995 to move to Murwillumbah to marry his sweetheart. No more on the road again.

Which is remarkable, because Thornbury didn't create it. He joined the band in the early '80s, over ten years after the death of the original creator of the Canned Heat sound, Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson. This perhaps makes all the more remarkable the way in which Thornbury has been able to recreate the sound, for if you listen to him now, you could swear you were listening to the originals.

The band played much more than Canned Heat, of course, although it was all based around blues. This was a very special afternoon, and reinforces the notion that ocean swimming is about more than swimming. Indeed, such has the sport grown, the swims these days merely the catalyst of the culcha.
As the afternoon wore on, James T and the Tomahawks played three sets of 40-45 minutes each. As the collection of empty schooner glasses grew, and the empty wine bottles proliferated, it sounded better and better. We chatted with James during one break; bought a couple of CDs from him. And we taped, on our Brownie Starflash-in-a-plastic bag, the band's last number of the afternoon, their second run through "On the road again". Afterwards, Thornbury came over to us, clapped us on the shoulder, and said, "You just taped the best version of that that we've done in years!" So we present it to you here ...

Thornbury must be accustomed to being accosted at gigs by bald, fat gits who can't release their youth. But he takes it in good humour.

Well, we were going to, but we discovered later that the Brownie Starflash-in-a-plastic bag was not designed for video clips, although it does take video. The sound is nothing. Sadly, Thornbury's "best version of that that we've done in years" will have to be taken on trust. That said, James T and the Tomahawks play the Riverview Hotel again on Sunday afternoon, December 21. Be there.

Mrs Sparkle captured the universe after take-off from The Gold Coast to come home after an action-packed weekend.

In their heyday, we'd have paid the equivalent of a couple of hundred dollars to watch Canned Heat play. But, here on the deck of the Riverview Hotel, we got it for free. Sometimes, the best things in life are free. We wouldn't change it for the birds and bees. And this gem was free.

Killer got us there, and he looked after oceanswims.com and our Queen, Mrs Sparkle, for the weekend. He collected us from the airport and dropped us off again later -- although this time the driver was Killer's bride, Merryn -- and he was generous and hospitable to a fault. One of oceanswims.com's true friends.

The swim? "Dark beige" was Killer's description of the Tweed River prior to the swim. That was kind. An observer of the river the afternoon prior to the swim would think there was no way it could be used for the event proper, the next morning. But the Murwillumbah Brass Monkeys have much greater experience in this than do we. Their faith held firm and, while the river was dark, like diluted chocolate, from weeks of heavy rain, by swim start the rubbish had cleared -- it had been flushed out, Killer said -- and it was perfectly fine from swimming. Here we sit, a day later, and we have felt no butterflies in the belly, and our ankle, raw still from Auckland Harbour two weeks ago and a rubbing chip band, has not blown up. It really was a lovely, beautiful swim through one of the prettiest river valleys in Stray'a.

We were sorry we missed Coogee, and the biggest numbers that swim has ever had, but we are glad we swam in Killer's "dark beige" Tweed, on the road again.

os.c

The old gits wave leaves the beach at Coogee. Bless 'em. Still active at their age.

Something awry, indeed. This must have been very confusing for mug punters, to be told on returning to the beach that they were, only now, at the start.

Of neoprene, Bart Cummings, Peter Garrett and the Bird Noises EP

According to no better source than Wikipedia, The Island Challenge is held in the last weekend in November by the Coogee Surf Life Saving Club and involves a 2.4-kilometre swim out and around Wedding Cake Island (of Coogee Beach) – the brackets are Wikipedia’s, not mine.

The some times pilloried Wikipedia is on the money when it says “The race began in 2000, attracts hundreds of competitors and is a prominent fixture on the Sydney ocean swimming scene”. Well, so far, so good.

Having been a competitor in the swim each year, except one, since 2000 I can vouch personally for those facts and also that in its very earliest form the swim was part of a biathlon.

Another cursory glance of Wikipedia also reveals many other interesting facts about the beachside suburb such its pier, which ran out 180 metres from the middle of the beach in the 1920s and 1930s.
Also, Coogee was the scene of the Shark Arm Case, which began when in 1935 a captured tiger shark at what was the Coogee Aquarium Baths regurgitated a human arm belonging to a missing local man. And Coogee was home to an alleged apparition of the Virgin Mary at Dolphin Point, at the northern end of the beach in January 2003.

Harrumph!!

The pride of Stray'an manhood.

I tried not too hard not the think about tiger sharks or blessed apparitions before this year’s swim.
But as I stood on the beach waiting for each age group to go off, I did however think about wetsuits and hypothermia – the latter a feature of this year’s swim because of the unseasonally cool water – about 16 or 17 degrees. And that just a day before the official start of summer.

I know some swimmers - including Mr Oceanswims – have a philosophical issue with wetsuits, but give credit where credit is due. If the water is cold, then why not wear one? (Editors’ note: oceanswims.com doesn’t begrudge people wearing wetties if they really need them. We do have an issue with wetties becoming de rigeur in Sydney, and with wettie wearers being allowed to compete against the bulk of swimmers without wetties.)

Sydney is blessed by what is, by world standards, warm summer ocean water. By November the water is usually climbs above 20 degrees, tops out at about 23 degrees in late summer, then stays above 20 until late autumn before it plunges back into the teens in late May or into June. This negates the need for a wetsuit for Sydney’s ocean swims calendar. Worn protection is usually a rashie to stop the sun or bluebottles.

This year has been different, though. The water briefly went above 20 this month, then fell sharply.
I will leave it to the oceanographers to best describe the dynamics of how the ocean is layered thermally and how this changes according to currents and weather patterns.

 The ocean gods certainly showed a chilled hand for this year’s swim, which took its toll on some swimmers who had to leave the water early and others who suffered from mild hypothermia and had to be assisted afterwards.

I confess, standing on the beach beforehand, that I felt like a prized wanker wearing a wetsuit for the first time in a regular ocean swim in nine seasons. But once I got into the water I was glad that I did.

A real legend: on February 15, Murray Rose is running a new swim from Malabar around the headland to Little Bay in support of the Rainbow Club, which helps disabled kids in sport. It will be a ripper. Click here for more ...

Wikipedia credits the invention of the wetsuit to an American physicist who once worked on the Manhattan Project, Hugh Bradner. It seems a curious connection but Bradner’s work on the later atomic tests in the Pacific islands and his own work at the University of California brought him into contact with a lot of US Navy frogmen who discussed the problems of staying in cold water for long periods of time. He began experimenting with neoprene and the rest they say is history.

This year’s swim involved a south-easterly swell of about one and a half to two metres, which made for a slow leg out and around Wedding Cake but  a much quicker run home.

Water safety and organisation was as usual excellent, and full marks again to Coogee SLSC for letting the swim go around the Wedding Cake Island. I had the Midnight Oil instrumental of the same name (from the Bird Noises EP) humming through my head (Editor’s Note: diligent os.c visitors will recall we used it as the backing track for last season’s report).

Gen Ys unfamilar the extended play record - as it was – should google it for further information.
And speaking of Midnight Oil, the former lead singer and now federal minister for the Environment Heritage and the Arts and local MP Peter Garrett was a celebrity starter.

And so was horse racing legend Bart Cummings who started the younger age groups, but he got a bigger applause. Maybe it’s got something to do with training 11 horses for 12 Melbourne cup wins.
The ocean swims season is under way.

John Macleay

In through the break 1: Even Coogee has a break, sometimes a very nasty little dump right on the edge.

Gotcha.

Been to NZ.

More rubber than anyone else on the beach.

Dave says he had to provide the signature cloud pic.

A sea of emeralds.

3rd and 4th in the 1.5k swim, a study in concentration. You'd think there was something riding on it. No, just kudos.

We bet this is on Glistening Dave's ocean swims calendar 2010. For Glistening Dave's ocean swims calendar 2009, click here ...

Ballet dancer.

Glistening Dave and his moods.

Grey day at Newport.

Time marches on.

Go.

Between them, this pair have you covered. Nicolee Goins is an optician; Glynzo Collinsio is a podiatrist.

Cool water at Newport. Wetties were in, course was shortened, goosebumps de rigeur.

What would a northern beaches swim be without Bronnie Bishop? Simply, it wouldn't be. Bronny gets them under way at Newport.