Surfing Lodge Ruins

One of the stranger sights along the walk from Animal Flower Cave to River Bay is this ruined hotel. At some point in the fifties or sixties, I gather, some entrepreneur thought it would be a good idea to promote the north coast as a surfers' paradise. I don't know how long the lodge was in operation, but today this ruin is all that is left of the venture.

I don't know anything about surfing, so I can't speak to the wisdom of the plan, but I've had a good look at that point on the coast, and I just don't see how, once they'd cruised in on their gnarly waves, the surfers could avoid being pureed against the rocky cliffs.

Perhaps that's why the hotel went out of business, when all its guests failed to return from their day's activities.

One thing to note about this point in the walk: there is a hobo-like person who seems to live by the walled perimeter of the surf lodge. He likes to insist you buy something from him as a kind of fee for passing through. One time we bought a wild grapefruit from him (it wasn't entirely edible, but its scent made me think I'd died and gone to citrus heaven) and this time around the GH bargained him down from five dollars to three for an entirely desiccated coconut that he claimed had juice in it.

He seems pretty harmless, and we don't begrudge him his rather marginal means of scraping by. He seems shy about who he approaches—one time I saw him start towards us jauntily, only to melt into the shadows under the trees when he saw the muscular beefcake tourist who happened to be walking in front of us. I felt rather sorry.