Sandboarding at Port Stephens | Walking up dunes
As anyone who has attempted to run on a beach will know, plodding through sand can be extremely hard work. The deeper and softer it is, the more the leg muscles get consumed by a tidal wave of lactic acid, and the more you sweat like a love-rat politician with a gaggle of photographers outside his house.
Trudging uphill on a large sand dune with a steep gradient, therefore, is absolutely murderous. More so when you have just face-planted into the bottom of said dune and are spitting sand out like a hyperactive llama, nursing a seriously bruised ego.
Sandboarding at Port Stephens | Preparing to go
If it all goes horribly wrong, or you get a bit cocky, that is the fate that awaits you when sandboarding. The activity itself is testament to the ingenuity of those who will try and get an adrenalin rush from just about anything. No waves to ride? No snow-covered mountains to slither down? No problem… Just adapt the boards and stick them on a massive pile of sand instead, then come up with ways to make them go downhill really fast.
It’s not rocket science, to be fair. The dunes at Stockton Beach, which runs between Newcastle and Nelson Bay in NSW, are gigantic. The gradient in itself will send you down fairly quickly once you’ve jumped off the crest. But, to help things along a touch, a little trick has been borrowed from the sport’s spiritual cousin, surfing. Before we’re sent to our sandy grave at high speed, our guide pulls out a giant candle and proceeds to rub it vigorously on the underside of the board. “The more, the better mate,” he says, applying a thorough polish. “Unless, of course, you want to go at kiddy speeds.” The challenge is set.
Sandboarding at Port Stephens | Racing position
The official racing position is sat down on the board, with knees up for balance. For steering and speed control, you are supposed to leave a finger trailing behind you in the sand. This supposedly ensures that you’re going straight and adds a bit of friction to ensure that it’s not a breakneck hurtle to the bottom. But, if you want to go fast, it should be barely skimming the surface.
Effectively all that is needed is the ability to sit down and behave. It’s the perfect activity for the school swot in that respect. For the naughty kid who just has to go against what he’s been told, and then needs to perform an emergency bailing procedure to avoid mowing down an innocent bystander, less so.
Sandboarding at Port Stephens | Machismo
Until you start racing other people and putting speed over dignity, it’s all good clean fun, but once that barrier of machismo is crossed, all hell breaks loose. The magic finger seems to have far less influence on the direction of travel than the tracks of previous victims and unexplained mounds in the sand.
A three way race, against the explicit instructions to go down one at a time, ends like a war film. One is downed early, having to take the emergency exit to avoid a bone-crunching collision, while another’s board digs in at the bottom, sending him flying with comic grace. He ends up head buried, ostrich-like, while the soul survivor speeds past roaring with laughter.
Sandboarding at Port Stephens | History of Stockton Beach
Still, if you absolutely must fill all your clothes and orifices with sand, you’d be hard pushed to find a better place to do it. According to our guide, it is Australia’s largest sand mass, years of winds, currents and coastal erosion managing to dump it all in the same place. At 3500 square kilometres, it is a big playground, and a magnet for 4WD enthusiasts, quad bikers – plenty of whom can be seen zooming past, bobbing up and down the yellow hills.
Bird watching and pipi shells
Less obviously, it’s also a paradise for bird watchers. Plenty of the feathered fish-addicts loiter around this Saharan-looking coastal strip, completely undeterred by the thrill seekers and those whizzing down 30m hills on glorified baking trays.
Where the Tasman Sea laps away at the shoreline, there are also plenty of pipis to be found. These are slug-like shellfish which can be picked up in the shallows, and gently coaxed out of their shells before they realise that they don’t want to be too sociable after all.
Sygna shipwreck
The Bight is also home to the wreck of the Sygna, a Norwegian bulk carrier that smashed into the coastline in 1974, battling unsuccessfully against winds of up to185 kilometres per hour. Half of the ship is still there, and can be reached via a short drive along the beach as you shake sand out of your ears and eye socket.
Copyright David Whitley
