Mick And Parko Help The Rescue Effort
On Sunday, as the Gold Coast copped the worst of the rain and swell from the current coastal trough, a Swellnet associate saw Mick Fanning lugging sandbags near the Tugun beachfront.
Cynics should note there wasn't a camera or journo to be seen, nor corresponding social media post made.
On Tuesday, the three-time champ focussed his efforts further south, to the stricken Tweed Valley.
According to Nine Media, pharmacist Skye Swift put a call out on social media for a ride from Tweed to Murwillumbah to make sure local residents could access essential medication. To her surprise, none other than the Mick Fanning rocked up on a jet ski offering to give her a ride.
Mick with pharmacist Skye Swift (Nine Media)
Also on the water was 2012 World Champ Joel Parkinson, who described the mass rescue as “one big community effort”.
Parko told news, “We went to one farmhouse that I thought was one-storey – the water was so high. But it was actually two storeys and I was jet skiing over their cars to get to them,” Mr Parkinson told The Courier Mail.
“We yelled out ‘is anyone home?’ and this four-year-old kid in a life jacket answered the door. We grabbed him, his mum and the dog and got them out of there. Another guy was up in a treehouse with all his supplies.”
Parko puts his ski to good use
In a bitter irony, Mr Parkinson returned home on Monday to find his garage open and his wife’s car stolen.
“All day I’d been helping people who were close to losing their lives and their houses and I came home to that,” he said.
“There were so many people out there trying to do good, but some people just want to do bad.”
Rain has eased in SE Queensland and northern NSW, however the trough has intensified further south with a small low forming off the NSW Central Coast directing moisture onto the Sydney, Illawarra, and South Coast.
Comments
Couple of bloody legends!!!
Well done.
Ensuring the Aussie spirit is alive and well. Great work lads!
Well done to everyone who put themselves out to help and continue to do so.
As for thieves…
Boom. every effort counts.
Onya lads.
You've earned those drop-ins.
(joking!- don't drop in)
parko rivalling occy these days for dipshit drop in status
Couple of legends right there!
What a bloody $%^& go for Parko having to come home and find his wife's car stolen that's dreadful
After the hottest summer on record in Perth/SW, union representative Noisey and me sending love and best wishes to all on the east coast suffering through these terrible devastating floods. To all the aussie legends helping, true aussie spirt shines through.
SS, is Noisy the same one with the gammy eyes?
If not, how's she coming along?
Hi Zen, no mate Maggie May is the one with the EX gammy eye, she's in the background with the pink/white sheet over cage. Doing great, I'll post on daily good news soon.
That's right- Maggie May. Awesome news.
Mum and Dad had three resident Maggies- Stumpy, Guts and Scruffy. I'm sure you can guess how they got their names.
Judging by his insta, looks like he has a tidy little arrangement with @landrovergoldcoast....I'm sure a replacement is not too far away..... though I do feel empathy for the invasion of privacy,,,thats the fucked bit
Bout time those stinkin noisey machines were put to good use.
Hate to admit it but those 2 blokes are probably (gulp) better humans than me.
Good on em.
I’m not sure mate. Yes, legendary helping out but I judge a person by their actions in the ocean. I’ve been dropped in on by one and see the other do the same to others.
Looks like Ryan Hipwood, Mickey Wright, Bede Durbo & wifey have been putting in a huge effort too (as well as a lot of other punters). Great to see.
2 of my closest mates spent the last couple of days in tinnie ferrying people & supplies around Chinderah, Duranbah & Tumbulgum.
Neither of them world champion surfers but world champion blokes.
True tales of two blokes…
One surfed good, got paid to travel the world, surf the finest breaks in season, the locals lined up to take him here and take him there,
the girls lined up to enjoy his company,
My other mate did good at school, went to uni for 6 gruelling years, to go to work for us all in our most desperate moments,
He returned to study, in addition to full time work, to train as an specialist emergency doctor
Many/most of his days at work he listens to people screening in agony, and some he can’t save, and he has to face, and inform, their families of his “failure “ . He does his best to repair the car crash victims, the burnt people, and kids, those who attempted to end it all, but where unsuccessful.
He doesn’t have fancy accountants and businesses, he pays a shockingly large proportion of his income in tax, much more than most. Really pulls his large income back to similar level to the rest of us. He just gets to contribute more. Drives a Subaru
He loves to surf, the only thing he does outside of work & family,
He surfs pretty good too, considering the long hours, overnight back of the clock shifts, the stress etc
I see him get dropped in on by these “legends” and the usual suspects.
I know how frustrated it makes him, cause he tells me.
“DamI I only have an hour and a half before my shift, got one good one and F***ing/P**ko/etc/etc dropped in on me, AGAIN”
He doesn’t have a PR person, or media who are interested
Both went out this week to do a bit for the community, on their days off,
Day “off” from….
I know the doctor was there, helping others cause I saw him.
I know the “legends” were there too because….
Pretty sad state of affairs when good actions get reduced to this.
If you've been reading Swellnet for any length of time you'll know we've called out pros for dropping in and acting like privileged dicks at Snapper, but the flip side of that is also paying heed to good acts - especially when done unconditionally as was the recent case.
What they did doesn't delegitimise anyone else's good work, especially when they haven't tried to grab the spotlight. Far as I can see, the media went after them, not the other way around.
A mate, saw MF packing and stacking sandbags on the Goldy a day earlier, and have you seen photos or news of that anywhere...?
Yeah fair enough Stu.
Couple of things though, advancing ones financial interests in the face of others suffering is more than a little distasteful,
and make no mistake media attention for celebrities,
is promoting their "brand" and converts to cash,
especially this type of "feel good" story... "what a good bloke"
Etiquette, dam it, decency demands that you say, "no photos today thanks mate, people are suffering"
So yeah, as you said, sad state of affairs
This just highlights the asymmetry in our little mob, as in wider society,
of heroes unsung who save lives etc (emergency doctor mate)
Vs celebrity "heroes" praised widely for doing what others also do, (in this case, lend a hand when needed) (and who can bank that media attention)
and who's lives work really contribute nothing to the wider community.
The fault is probably at least partly to us all, we the click baited,
rather than exclusively to the sportsperson/musician/actor.
Anyway, great to see one and all responding with labour and love when others fall on difficult times.
Would be great to see a bit of community spirit in the water too.
Works in Hawaii.
Cheers
I understand where you are coming from. While they've done some good deeds and potentially saved lives, where is the consistency? Where's the integrity? Everyday heroes (emergency workers, doctors, nurses, SES, and volunteers) are seldomly celebrated proportionate to a celebrity's one-off good deed. Those who havent been burnt will pin medals on them for being good humans. Maybe they are???
While I do not know MF and co. on a personal level, experience tells me that pros, ex-pros behaving with any ettiquette or respect for gen-pop in the water is in the minority and rare. There's definitely some delusions of grandeur and self-entitlement. If they are indeed decent people out of the water, I cannot see why the boundary of their good will is the dry side of the high tide mark. If they care so much about people, where's the integrity when the spotlight (crisis) is off. Given their behaviour in the water, I dont care to know them nor buy from their sponsors.
The reason no one bats an eyelid when ordinary, everyday heroes do their thing is because it doesnt violate our expectations.
At the very least, once they've finished putting those f%*king, pre-tax purchased jetskis to good use, and not evil, they can go back to looting the waves off gen-pop. Then our expectations wont be so violated. I wonder if they experience any cognitive dissonance taking waves off over-worked, taxpaying doctors, nurses, and others putting hedonism last everyday to improve the quality of life of others etc.
Of course not. They'd plead ignorance and quite rightly so. They are just pro/ ex-pro surfers after all.
(Disclaimer: Not all gen-pop surfers are everyday heroes. But who would know if they are, right?)
Yeah Yeppee the cynic in me was thinking the same, still I guess its a feel good story for some, the boys actually ding some thing meaningly full.
The cynic says they got way more mileage by keeping the early efforts on the DL, and allowing the MSM to ‘discover’ their good deeds. Then, rather than a single post on SM, it became a daily update on various news bulletins.
Still, good of them to do what they have. But doesn’t erase the sins of the past. There’s way more people who actually idolised them and were left betrayed, than those who were less invested and got a dink.
Hopefully there’s an epiphany in their deeds, and they continue their kindness in other pursuits.
Don't know about Mick but out of the surf Parko is quite down to earth.
I've burned and been burnt by both those guys at Snapper. Never anywhere else. Occy on the other hand....
But I agree,so many unsung heroes out there . The last flood I got stuck in on the old pacific highway near Tumbulgum, it was a legend of a cane farmer and his family who put me up in his stilt home for 3 days until I could get a lift out in a fire truck. His main concern was always for his neighbours. Unfortunately while he was helping others the water overtook his property and most of his stuff ended up in the middle of a cane field, including his boat.
Joel Fitz:
Being who they are the only way they wouldn’t get some coverage was if they did nothing so I don’t think it was a shameless PR stunt. It’s probably the main negative with being a high profile sports person, you take a shit and people want to take photos and critic it.
Ahh jet skis can be a force for good, well done everyone who helps
all that good publicity..then Parko becomes a Karen. Hilarious stuff.
https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/world-champion-surfer-involved...
Youtubers with some seriously grubby form on the board film a confrontation for likes?
I don't know who's wrong or right, but I fucking hate that cultural development.
All I can really take from that video is there are a lot of frayed nerves up there.
The guys look like peanuts, sliding down a mud hill that only looked fun on the first day with the rain,
6 or 7 days on that mud would fucking stink, the council has fenced it off, rate payers will fork out to fix it.
Good on Parko i say.
I don't know Burls. Rate payers will fork out to fix it? That's what budgets are for and I know that the GCCC have allocated close to $150m for the 21-22 year for parks and open (green) spaces. It'll be a spendathon before the EOFY as they won't come closer to contracting that out or spending it internally. As is always the case. And anyway, what's abit of underturf soil and some grass mate. Parko was into it last week with his kids I read? Hypocrisy 101 if that's legit. Non issue amongst all our global issues imo.
everyone wants to be a youtube star now
Does parko surf swell from cyclones that destroy pacific islands? Or does he sit them ones out, out of respect?
Have you seen Kirra hill? It's fucked after its been slide down 1000's of times. It was fucked after first day. I saw it on Tuesday morning (1 day after the rain)
Adult men filming themselves sliding down on day 7 in dirty stinking mud is just dumb and disrespectful.
The council fenced it off for a reason.
'youtubers' who call themselves Paton and Steeze. HA!!
They deserved a clip regardless.
I have no problems with people having fun. However, it must be weighed against the cost! Who does it affect/ what does it effect? When its few days down the track and the hill is a mess, the fun has been well and truly had. If they missed out, no cause for fear. In a time when others are hurting, their efforts could be spent getting muddy elsewhere if they can. For restoration's sake, eneough is enough. Knowing when to stop and think is a problem for many. Particularly on the GC and Tweed Coast. Seeing a barricade or fence up often signals to some that their freedoms have some how been trodden on. This is not cancel culture! Quite often there remains a reason/s without malice why a barricade or fence is up. The old "we are just having fun" is the catch cry for every idiot being called out who has not had an ounce of consideration for other people or things. We saw F-wits in 4x4s passing through flooded roads for 'fun'. F-wits on jetskis towing wakeboarders down the flood streets of Tweed and GC for fun. The wake went into people's houses FFS. People called them out and they got spat at, literally. While I dont know how he approached the sliders, I am with Parko on this. The fun's been had, days ago and it caused a mess, have some respect for the immediate neighbourhood before you shit on it. Think about it. Maybe they could go do something admirable if they're capable.
Totally agree
The GC bully has an article on kids doing the same at North Burleigh hill a week prior. The comments were 95% let them have some fun and a few outraged fun police.
Parko overreacted and got carried away.
Would the local residences feel the same 1 week later?
Yeah he overreacted, but those grown men sliding down 7 day old stinking mud for a few clicks on their socials look like tools.
In my opinion they are on their way to being exonerated for being such c#nts in the surf. Finally they can justify the purchase of their Jetski's and use them for something useful beyond self promotion and greed.
However, massive shoutout to all the anonymous and nameless cobba's who fired up their tinnies and rescued dozens of people without taking selfies and telling the world about it.
Damned if they do.......damned if they don't.
What have you done to help the cause while you're sitting in your glass house?
hahaaha Ringmaster. Did I hurt your little feelings by criticizing your hero's? Like I said their heroics have exonerated them of c#nt acts in the surf but full disclosure I have a personal vendetta against Fanning after he faded me at Kirra a few years back after his 50th wave of the day so I have an extreme personal bias.
If you must know what I've been doing the past fortnight.... My partner and I have been in Lismore helping with the massive clean up as her elderly parents home was destroyed and they pretty much lost everything and are now staying with us.
My in-laws were saved by a local bogan hero who dodged the power lines on his tinnie and plucked them of their neighbor's roof. This hero apparently goes by the name of Sandro. His dog went missing in the flood waters on the early hours of Monday morning the 28th. He fired up the tinnie and took of into the flood water in the dark in search of his dog and ended up rescuing countless people with no recognition and no selfie. My in-laws reckon he saved around 70 people.
So many stories like this and i had a friend drive out with his tinnie from Ballina to come and rescue people. None of these people had any time to take any photo's or get any recognition.
I don't have a boat and we were flooded out of Lismore where we live so like you said I did just have to sit in my glass house for a couple of days but have been in town cleaning up since water receded.
he get his dog back?
Later on that day a guy was watching a dog trapped and tangled to a fence as it got washed away in flood waters. He got sick of watching and swam out with bolt cutters and cut the dog free and rescued it. The dog had a collar with a name tag and number on it and the bloke called the number and it was this old mate Sandro's dog :)
fuckin unreal
To Jedi Warrior:
My 'heros'?
Fuck off mate. I'm in my 50's and couldn't give a rats about current pro surfers or 'celebrity' worship in general. Closest thing I've got to a 'hero' is probably my dear old dad.
Don't bag out people who are having a crack like a lot of others just because they have a profile. They're not taking 'selfies' while doing it as you probably well know.
Boo hoo......MF dropped in on you at Kirra. Stiff shit. Everyone drops in at some point and at the end of the day the best surfers get the best waves wherever the location. If it's too hard go surf somewhere else.
I live on the Vic West coast so hardly ever share the line up with anyone remotely 'pro'. Been in the water with quite a few of them overseas and in other parts of Oz over the last 30 plus years though and never had a bad interaction.
One and only time with MF was at pumping 6ft plus Cloudbreak in 2011 and he left a great impression on everyone out there that day. I fully understand him going into rude overdrive at his local just like most of us do when it gets stupidly crowded.
Good luck with the recovery up there. Sounds horrendous and with the way the planet is changing in these times it's only a matter of time when all of us will cop it in some shape or form regardless of where you live.
I'm just sick of celebrities etc for being lorded for doing things that every day working class people have done with no cameras or recognition. There is just so many unsung heroes behind the scenes of this disaster.
Each to their own and good on the Prostitutional surfers for getting out there and at the end of the day they saved lives so that is what counts and that is more than this keyboard warrior can say. But in my opinion its the least they could do after being paid to travel the world and surf for 2 decades but truly who cares what I think.
Like I said, I have a vendetta against Fanning after he jumped off the Redbull Jetski into prime position straight after already catching the last set and faded me at 4-6ft kirra a few years back so I just look for any opportunity to sink the boot online into him in vengeance hahah.
Don't worry ringmaster, just because someone anonymous said something negative about your hero's on a forum online doesn't mean you have to take down your posters of them in your wank den.
If you are after some late night masturbation material of Saint Mick I've got you covered.
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/conversations/elizabeth-osborne-si...
It's a good listen. Cheers mate
I once met a bird who dated Mick, she said my willy was a lot bigger than his so yours probably is too.
Im only 7 and a bit inches so he must be small if that helps your feelings about the drop in.
Groundswell, you really know how to console a man in hard times with that crucial intel! Some pics would be useful to verify but will take your word for it. Glad to know Saint Mick isn't packing heat.
Thanks for your kind words!
No exoneration for being entitled c#nts in the surf.
Sandro and his dog’s rescuer’s are legends. That story has me smiling. Nice one guys. Awesome stuff
I wana know more about sandro
Freeride needs to track Sandro down for a Swellnet exclusive.
Fuck yeah that sounds epic.
Glad you guys enjoyed the yarn. Deserved to be told. So many stories of anonymous heroics from civilians and I haven't seen much of it being covered in the media.
Agreed, that would be epic.
All I know is that he lives in North Lismore and apparently has only lived their for 4 months or so.
Fark, don't say that! Prendo will be foaming at the mouth.
We all like to have fun, but there’s a time & place & in my opinion that was not the time & place. We have enough messy, muddy, stinking land around without creating more. It’s fenced off for a reason, it’s pretty bloody obvious. Here’s a solution, get the numbnuts to re- turf the hill, that’d be fun! Also if I knew people who lost their houses I definitely wouldn’t be calling them c#*ts!! So I’m calling bs on that statement of theirs.
Ummmm… he did the same thing, on the same hill, just a few days ago:
https://fb.watch/bFbZJxnPed/
Lol..well Karen Parkinson is also a hypocrite. What a dick he has proven himself to be.
Well there you go, so the comments were true. The sycophancy should stop here but nah let's keep defending people imposing themselves on other people some more on the account of them being "youtubers". Ballsy running up on crew you know nothing about these days anyway. You'd want to be prepared to have a proper crack if it kicks off. Clearly a calculated guess on parkos behalf here and he still looked rattled by it
Ha!!! Says Roaddill,
The biggest fucken Karen on Swellnet.
Oh wow, yeah that’s not a good look for old Parko.
Maybe Parko was pissed because he wanted another go but the groms kept dropping in on him.....the feeling of missing out on a go was probably foreign to him and thus he wasn't used to dealing with those type of emotions...
Kidding
I guess on the first day (when parko was doing it) none of us realised the extent of the flooding and it was just innocent fun.
As the days went on and the damage was clear his priorities changed.
I do think he was out of line for damaging the camera, but those adult peanuts sliding down 7 day old mud for YouTube clicks shouldn’t have been there either
So parko gets to decide when the fun stops? Nahhh
Not parko himself, of course not. But if your moral compass is working then you can make the right choice on your own
burleigh told us on wave of the day he surfed everyday during the rain/flooding event. And yet now, these guys are doing the wrong thing...yet burleigh was allowed to surf and have fun...even after knowing the extent of the flooding.
Just like Karen Parkinson, Karen burleigh seems to think he gets to decide when it is ok to have fun.
Another fucking hypocrite.
Odd sort of equivalence?
No-one fenced off the surf.
And by now I'm sure you're aware they weren't kids having fun, but grubby YouTubers doing it to sustain a business model.
So do you think Parko is in the right here Stu?
No. I don't think it's a case of one being right and the other wrong. I reckon it's a particularly unedifying situation all around.
However, in Parko's defence, at times like this nerves get frayed, and people respond in ways they otherwise wouldn't. I wonder if he was allowed to have his time again, whether he'd even go over and confront them.
But as for twenty-something YouTubers filming a confrontation for likes. Mate, I've got nothing but contempt for that shit and find it hard to let them off.
You’re making excuses, there is zero excuse for Parko and Co who were 100% responsible for the violence and any damage to a camera.
I do agree with you that the 2 YouTube wannabes are flogs. Being a flog or a YouTube’er is not illegal though.
You being serious..?
I could really care less, mate.
Could care less? You've commented as much if not more than anyone else on the issue. At this point you're either defending the good intentions of your original piece or defending parkos aggression imo
Well you have a pretty limited viewpoint then.
Is it not possible these days to be neutral on something?
“ But as for twenty-something YouTubers filming a confrontation for likes.”
Yeah, that shit’s repulsive. And a real downside of social media.
There's an upside?
Of social media?
What about all those likes you get on Insta!
Ah yes, all of those Likes!
Went to the bank the other day, but they wouldn't accept them as collateral.
I’m not trying to be a smartarse, but I think of the Swellnet forum and comment threads as part of social media.
Fair point, except there's a lot less vanity posting on Swellnet.
the moralising from burleigh was where the comment was directed...ya get on your high horse and pull lame analogies...you usually end up looking like a karen.
"But if your moral compass is working then you can make the right choice on your own"
Stu, were the beaches closed by council during?
To swimmers, yes.
beaches closed to all....is my understanding, however they can't stop people going in the water. ie surfers...much like a small fence on a hill.
I'm not trying to defend anyone, but I don't agree with that correlation.
Parko's instagram feed is hilarious..getting smashed as a Karen mud activist.
Dingo, made a comment telling Parko to go mud sliding...lol
It appears the damage to the hill had mostly already been done by others (including Parko) before these hooligans arrived. However bad this behavior by the utubers may have been, it doesn't justify the aggressive response. Violence was in no way justified.
I cant correlate the label "youtuber" with these guys, it implies they have significant influencing power....but 3500 followers on Insta...half of which probably garnered in the last week and the rest from uni / school / boyscouts whatever is barely reaching the masses....yeah they look like dick wanna be DJ's / content creators on there insta but I cant see them filming and posting shit much different to the average punter out there, they arent getting any endorsements off that level of activity.....Mr Parkinson has 400K followers....thats a different story
and now I am 3 beers in on a friday afternoon...time for some perspective....
If I was standing on top of Kirra Hill while those dicks were doing what they were doing I'd be shaking my head thinking what fucking flogs....
However should a bikini clad Margo Robbie rock up and take the fins out of her MF Beastie and ask if Id like to double ...Id be mudding up for sure
I'm 3 beers in right now as well Bustard and I fully concur with your line of thinking!
Cruising past that hill it would never look that same. With that memory....
haha classic comment Bustard. Gold.
I just drifted off into a movie type 'dream scene' happy place. Thank you.
Soon as the Kirra Eagle flies the coup the iconic landmark turns to shit...who could've guessed!
https://m.facebook.com/7NEWSGoldCoast/videos/new-kirra-lookout-open-toda...
Next full moon the Surf Council will hoot the Kirra Eagle to again rule his roost & settle the tribes.
Call upon Wahines to Gromz to Hodads to howl at the next Full Moon...(Give peace a chance!)
Everyone do the Moondawg!
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-02/kirra-hill-mudslide-a-mess-after-...
https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/gold-coast/wild-video-kirra-hill-mud...
News : "Heartbreak Hill locals also let fly on the Miami Hotel Piste!"
I jsut dont understand how any surfer at heart could commit to moving to the gold coast. There are way better waves, maybe shorter but better around Australia with a crowd being 10 people.
Even waves if you walk for an hour you are wishing someone else would paddle out and join you. all this within 3 hours of sydney cbd.
I just dont understand the attraction to the gold coast. When i was last there i surfed by myself every day on the beaches near the main party part of town, cant remember the name of the street but everyone was surfing the points.
Shoosh. If we could contain them all in 2km stretch of sand, that would be great. By all means, move to the GC. Haha.
https://fb.watch/bFbZJxnPed/
Hypocrisy 101
Joel comes outta retirement ...Take 4
Joel is #1 seed for The Balter Birdsville Pro
[ Factcheck ] Oz #1 Muddy Idiot now rides for Squidz Mud Boards.
Wangkangurru Yarluyandi Elder :
"Hey Hodad! Stop denigrating our sacred site... it's not some Cooly Boy'z mudwrestling trough!"
Hold On...
Q: (Are you of Drinking Age?)
Just kidding Gromz...Not a Drop of Beer was Harmed in the making of this Commercial.
https://www.facebook.com/pg/BirdsvilleRaces/posts/?ref=page_internal&mt_...
Joel wipes out on Big Red but our champ never spills a drop! (Said! Not a Drop! Ok!)
Ok! So they glued the can to the hodad's hand on the 2nd take...still counts...Go Joel!
A word from the champ!
#1 Muddy Idiot :"It was actually a lot faster than I thought...Almost as Heavy as the Surf Lakes Drop!
"Yeah! Had time for a Beer on the way down!"
Qldurr points out ... (Legendary Aussie Surfer!) It's Official!