Once A Pipe Master, Always A Pipe Master

Note: Hit the settings to see subtitles in French, Spanish, or English.

Though it’s usually known as a rite of passage for Australian Aboriginal youth, it’s never too late in life to go walkabout.

At the ripe age of 19, Arnaud Mestelan inadvertently embarked on one. By chance, the lanky Frenchman encountered Pipe Master and ASP tour vet Robbie Page at the Biarritz train station. At a time when surfboard sightings away from the beach were mostly a rarity, Page didn’t hesitate to initiate a conversation with Mestelan upon finding out they were about to take the same journey.

Accompanied by his mother, Page, according to Mestelan, said reassuringly, “No worry, mother, I take care of your kid!” Three weeks of surfing together along the coast of New South Wales ensued before Mestelan went on a solo trip throughout the country.

Two decades after his first solo trip, Mestelan cooked himself one last meal at home — three sausages stuffed into a French baguette, or “the white death” as wheatgrass-guzzling Pagey calls it — before departing to meet his accidental mentor in his homeland.

Mestelan showed up at the National Aboriginal Surfing Championships at Bells to join Page on another East Coast road trip before tagging along with Wayne Carberry, where both practical and spiritual knowledge was passed on from one of the island continent’s true locals.

Visiting the unofficial Robbie Page museum — Cream Surf Shop at Crescent Head — gave Mestelan a firsthand look at the surfboards, memorabilia, important documents, (and organic veg) that define the Australian’s career and life path.

The film was produced by Oxbow — the same people who brought us Children of Teahupoo and Mundaka: The Legendary Day. Robbie Page has been part of the Oxbow story since he moved to France in the ’90s. Robbie and Red White also made the music for the film.

Different from most of what we’ve been serving up here, the film will be playing exclusively on Stab until February 17th. It also serves as a fitting prologue for a forthcoming — and very amusing — piece on being Pagey’s roommate, by Sir Paul Evans.