The Daring Adventures of Rosy Hodge

From Stab issue 65: In the middle of a summer night...

Video by Shinya Dalby

Oh, aren’t our prayers answered! Here, pictured, we see the marvellous Rosy Hodge, a pro surfer of course, sponsored all the way to the hilt by Roxy, but who is also the undisputed queen of the post-heat interview. A world champion of the post-heat interview, if awards were awarded for such things.

Don’t you even dare tell me you’re unaware of her broad South African vowels and hair that flashes like warped gold or of the way she towers over her subjects, projecting a comely blend of intimidation and sex appeal.

Often, and now that I’ve mentioned it you’ll notice it, big names, household names, stare wide-eyed with their very famous mouths fixed open.

“Ah, can you repeat the question?”

But, here, tonight, just before midnight, Rosy is in Byron Bay. The champagne we’re fritzing for one of the shots ain’t champagne, of course, cause who’s going to fritz real French? Not when it’s back in the refrigerator, cooling just right, ready for its final resting place in an ice bucket. This is Australian swill we’re murdering here, Jacobs Creek, maybe, 10 slugs a throw. What’s the count on the real juice tonight? Six? Eight?

“Slow maaah roll,” sings Rosy at one point when it must’ve appeared her flute was magical and never emptied. We pull back the bottle.

“How about a red?” we ask.

“Sure."

From four-thirty pm until a fingernail before midnight, the custodians of Stab magazine collect much data. While the photographer soaks up what we might call a brazen corn-fed beauty, we learn from our pestering that she possess an undeniably strong and moving personality.

Rosy tells us she was reared in East London aka Slumtown, although Queensbury Bay where she learned to lick her chops in the surf ain’t exactly Soweto. That if you were stand on the lawns surrounding her parent’s house, you might see giraffes, zebra and perhaps a lion. That the righthand point in front of her house was the stage for a much-viewed youtube clip where the viewer watches, horrified, but secretly fascinated, as two Great White sharks attacked, but not fatally a pal. And, where, just three years ago, Rosy watched Greg Emslie, the former South African professional, be charged, bumped and circled by a four-metre White.

“On the beach bawled our eyes out,” says Rosie. “I ran home crying and hid in a corner cradling myself.” These experiences have given Rosie a constant feeling of attack, by shark, even when she’s many thousands of nautical miles from her home country (Rosie admits she has the Great White tracking app on her telephone), and says she is much more respectful towards the animals and henceforth never surfs when the sardines are running at her home beach however good the waves might be.

But sharks ain’t on the menu tonight. That kinda talk is so intimidating. All we’re thinking about is creative contemplation, eating, travelling, conversing, sleeping, dreaming and maybe urinating on the palm trees that line this beach house (Champagne goes straight through you, don’t it!).

Now let’s turn our attention back to the subject. Envision her now, smoking with a contemptuous scowl and yelling derision at you in a rough harsh voice. You return her gaze with blank and tender eyes. – Derek Rielly

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