Alex Smith, D-Bah, Gold Coast

Alex Smith’s had an eventful trip to Oz. Kid made the trip from Hawaii to scoop some boards and waves. One morning, photog Dunc Macfarlane (who shot this) arrived at the place Al was staying on D-Bah. The duo were gonna go shoot some off, so Al went to grab his board from the car he was borrowing, only to discover that the raft had been stolen during the night.  So, he borrowed another board (one of Mitch Coleborn’s old ones), re-stickered and was good to go. The pair shot a coupla photos at D-Bah (one of which y’see above) but decided to head somewhere else. Duncan describes what happened next: “So, we get in his van, also borrowed, and drive south heading for Byron. He asked me to drive – being from Hawaii and all, he didn’t want to do a big drive on the opposite side of the road. Anyway, I drove and 15 minutes out of the Goldy, going 100km/hour, the bonnet explodes outwards and water goes everywhere. We pull over pretty quickly and the bonnet is bent all out of shape. As it turns out, the radiator had exploded. Blown clean in two. We then spent a coupla hundred each to get towed back to the Gold Coast. We figured, if bad things come in threes then we better call it a day. And parted ways.”