BOMBO ROCKS – IT CERTAINLY DOES!

It’s day two of Kiama excursions.  I’ve made the decision to come again because of Bombo Rocks and the thought of watching some more pounding swells.  Stumbling onto Bombo on the internet and later being urged by Lorraine had been too much, the lure had succeeded.

After hooking up my bike on the rack in the carriage I deliberately chose to sit next to the other cyclist on the train, opening a conversation that flourished as time passed.  Here was a man who not only knew where to go, but just about every other track within 100 kilometres and passed on that knowledge in a slow and concise manner.  In time, not only was he going to inform me, but he made a conscious decision to get off the train one stop early so he could actually show me the way.

I guessed, with his slow, precise delivery, that he had been a school teacher.  A science one in fact and, as Ian was his name, how could we not become friends?

Alighting at Bombo, an unmanned station that had me asking why it was ever built in the first place other than to help people go to the beach, we set out.  Every nuance of our route was detailed by Ian, seemingly eager to dispense his considerable knowledge on the subject and, in no time at all, I was heading for Bombo Rocks.

Bombo is a dramatic basalt outcrop, much favoured by the photographic and film making communities, especially at sunrise.  Once mined for blue metal, these days its historic, unique geography and tourist value have made it untouchable, except for the swell that is.  Here it is epic, the sea a boiling cauldron of frustrated ocean as it slashes out in every direction to bring these bastions down but ends in an inconclusive wash that wallows in every direction.  The noise is constant, no outcrop sacrosanct from the pounding seas.  Everywhere foam bounces around the warped surface, still seeking a way past this spectacular outcrop of litite.  In all my years of surfing, I’ve never seen a more chaotic seascape.

The thrashing whitewater roars upward, sideways and over, all in its attempted destruction.  I’m mesmerized and spend well over an hour watching it, later joined by a trickle of tourists whose oohs and aahs indicate they’re equally impressed.

It took 20 years for its 1979 heritage nomination to become fact as the Water, Sewerage and Drainage Board had plans to build a pollution control plant on the flat area behind the spires.  It draws less than a tenth of the tourists that visit the famed Blowhole yet, when the surf is up, is much more spectacular.

Sated, I ride back to Kiama and, while enjoying a pulled pork hamburger, make the fateful decision to negotiate the Coast Walk to Gerringong.