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Many things make me happy. My Portuguese water dog Wilbur, kids and husband a close second. I\u2019m also happy consuming dark chocolate bullets, talking to strangers, schlepping around in my trackie dacks, weeding the garden and singing my lungs out in the car \u2013 usually Billy Joel, Adele and Kate Bush (badly).<\/p>\n
Up there, too: escaping the routine of work and home life and taking to my happy place \u2013 the beach.<\/p>\n
I love everything about it. Diving into the first wave and that sensation of the cold water catching my breath; the feel of the salt on my skin; the sound of the pounding waves. I love the constant movement of the tides and the unpredictability of the water, from flat and calm to choppy and treacherous, seemingly within minutes.<\/p>\n
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Culburra is Georgie Gardner\u2019s favourite beach as it has everything: \u201csimplicity, clear water, migrating whales and the time to think\u201d.Credit: James Brickwood<\/p>\n
I love that every day is unique and that you never quite know what\u2019s in store or what\u2019s below the surface. I love that the surf is intimidating and leaves me feeling small and insignificant.<\/p>\n
I grew up in Perth in the 1970s, and the school holiday tradition was to \u201cgo down south\u201d. We\u2019d pack up the Ford Falcon station wagon, destination: my grandmother\u2019s fibro cottage 250 kilometres away, in a little town called Dunsborough.<\/p>\n
The journey was long and hot, sibling fights frequent, bare legs sticking to the vinyl seats. The five-hour trip was made more tolerable by the promise of a long holiday at the beach, which I realise now was the genesis of my lifelong love affair with the ocean. The grainy, square photos taken on my mother\u2019s ever-reliable Kodak camera document a childhood well-lived.<\/p>\n
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Georgie Gardner says Culburra Beach has stolen her heart.Credit: James Brickwood<\/p>\n
Many years later, in my early 20s, after choosing to make Sydney my home, when holidays beckoned it seemed obvious to \u201cgo down south\u201d. In this era a second-hand Toyota Corolla was my vehicle, the seats not so sticky but the destinations as varied as they were beautiful \u2013 Gerringong, Vincentia, Bawley Point, Tathra, Narooma.<\/p>\n
The beauty of the east coast is quite different to the west but united by the peppermint trees that co-exist with the eucalypts and wattle. The coastal towns offer up fish-and-chip shops, op shops and fishing tackle shops next to laundromats, video stores and Chinese restaurants \u2013 the type that serve sweet and sour chicken on Lazy Susans alongside Chiko Rolls. I\u2019d get a taste of the town\u2019s flavour by chatting outside pubs and post offices to locals going about their beachside life, the memories for this era captured on a Canon EOS 500.<\/p>\n
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Fish and chips, hot chooks: Summer life in Culburra.Credit: James Brickwood<\/p>\n
And so to my 30s and stumbling across the place that has stolen my heart: Culburra Beach, where a local told me on one of my very first visits, \u201cthere\u2019s not a lot here but there\u2019s everything you need\u201d. And how those words ring true: simplicity, clear water, migrating whales and the time to think, reflect, connect, star gaze, read and play Scrabble. The place where my son learned to walk and my daughter to roller-skate, where my husband perfected a mouth-watering butter chicken and where I discovered the joy of doing nothing.<\/p>\n
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Max Dupain\u2019s Sunbaker, 1937.Credit: <\/p>\n
Taking photos has been the constant \u2013 every milestone captured most recently on my iPhone. Think now of Australia\u2019s most iconic photo. For me it\u2019s Sunbaker by Max Dupain from 1937; the subject, his friend Harold Salvage, a builder by trade who\u2019d migrated from England. So, not a quintessential Aussie bloke, nor was it taken, as many assume, at Bondi Beach. It was snapped at my special place, my beautiful beach, Culburra Beach. Possibly a sign that the late, great Dupain also appreciated the beauty, the solace, the simplicity.<\/p>\n
Probably not surprising, then, to read a quote from a beach photograph he called The Office Worker\u2019s Dream: \u201cThere is nothing better than natural therapy \u2013 sand, sunshine and surf\u201d.<\/p>\n
Georgie Gardner is a journalist and presenter on Nine News Sydney.<\/p>\n