Benny Issue 11 - Autumn 2023

ISSUE 11 / AUTUMN 2023

K'gari Island

Exploring the largest sand island in the world.

Flour & Co.

Good coffee and good food that we all need in our day.

FOR LOCALS & VISITORS ALIKE

Subculture Agency

Making changes to the music scene on the Central Coast.

The information contained in Benny Magazine is given in good faith and believed to be accurate at time of printing.

The contents of this publication are subject to copyright and cannot be reproduced in any shape or form without written consent from Studio Benny or Benny Supply & Co.

hello@studiobenny.com.au www.bennysupplyco.com.au

Benny Supply & Co

Central Coast, NSW Australia

Artist

Creativity

vuitton.com.au

CONTRIBUTORS

Natalie Wabbis Editor in Chief, Creative Director & Founder

Jess Moroney

Benny Eats Out

Claire van Poppel Weekend Warrior

Cape Byron Distillery Sustainable Future Series

Music News

Jonny Blackwell (Subculture Agency)

S&P Wabbis Proofreaders

Publication designed by Natalie Wabbis. Cover image by @eldingo.co (IG)

© 2023 Studio Benny

Welcome Back Baby.

Another issue of Benny has landed in your hot little hands - lucky you! As most of us, being ocean lovers, are shedding the last of the salt from our summer skin, we're back for our eleventh issue and are here to help you transition into the greatly adored spring. Often donned the second best season of the year, spring on the coast is a bustling time - events, live music, food and some of the years best weather.

This issue is still, as always, offering up local music, events, food, coffee, adventure and creatives making a vibrant splash in your favourite local areas.

We have a few new advertisers on board with us this issue that we would like to say thank you to, we appreciate the support. To you, and our ongoing supporters, we hope you know that without you, we wouldn't be. So, get amongst our spring issue (and its supporters), and if you'd like - we'd love for you to tag us on socials, it's how we grow.

Biffybrentano

You would have seen Brents work around the coast... get acquainted.

Sand Island

Travellers take us with them on K'gari Island, the world's largest sand island.

Sustainable Distillery

Cape Byron Distillery taking the lead in sustainable practices.

Local Music Events

Incredible events held on the coast, with so, so much more to come.

PICTURE THIS… A SLOW SUNDAY MORNING, THE SUN IS SHINING, THE WARM COASTAL BREEZE BRUSHES AGAINST YOUR FACE AND THE DELICIOUS SMELL OF COFFEE AND BAKED GOODS DANCES THROUGH THE AIR....

Sounds like heaven right? Well, it’s close.

Flour & Co. is Toowoon Bay’s little slice of heaven. This bustling family run café is a fan favourite of locals and beyond (as one of the “beyond”, take my word for it). The vibe is super friendly and the staff are so happy and welcoming which sets a great scene for the whole experience.

The coffee is delicious - smooth and creamy always - and worth the trip. Take it down to the beach to keep that happy, stress-free morning rolling or (better yet) grab it on the way to work to make your day better.

You’re also spoiled for choice with the food. They’ve got house baked pies and sausage rolls that are flaky and flavourful. The spinach roll is divine, and they have some of the coast's best burrito options handy to be devoured as well. There are toasties and pastries and sweets and breadyou really can have whatever you’re in the mood for.

Take yourself to Flour & Co. soon. It’s a wonderful place and you won’t be disappointed. You can treat yourself Mon-Sat 6am to 3pm ish, and Sundays and public holidays 7am to 3pm ish. Plenty of time for a visit.

Flour & Co. $ 88 Toowoon Bay Rd, Toowoon Bay NSW 2261

Biffybrentano

CENTRAL COAST, NSW

Who are you and what do you do? My name is Brent and I'm an illustrator, muralist and designer.

How long have you been a creative for? Roughly 15 years I think.

Did you study to become a creative? I went to Tafe for a year, but I’m mainly self taught with help from my peers.

What is your favourite thing about what you do? There can be a lot freedom with your time, and seeing your own work out in public.

How has your work changed over time? I’d like to think it has become better, ha.

How did you get started on this journey? I was living in London and one of my roommates was a designer for a music label. It seemed a lot more fun than what I was doing, so when I returned to Australia I gave it a shot.

When did it dawn on you that “wow, this is my job now”? When I got my first job in a studio and I wasn’t being a bartender on the weekends. That felt pretty great.

Do you do custom pieces? Yeah, of course!

What would be inside your dream studio? A lot of natural light and a comfy couch to snooze on.

How long did it take you to turn your art into a business? For a long time it was a side gig, but once I decided to make it the majority of my work it happened pretty quickly.

Do you have any wild stories from your creative past? I worked for many years for Mambo, it was such a wild workplace and I got to travel a lot. One of the perks was getting to go to Reg Mombassa’s house in Glebe and sniff through his sketchbooks for new designs.

Have you thought about teaching your craft? Not really, but I’m due to run some workshops at St. Peters High School in Feb. So perhaps, depending on how they go.

What’s on the horizon for you? Plenty on at the moment with a couple of murals, branding for businesses, apparel designs, illustrations, skateboards and some top secret jobs. Busy... but the books are always open.

Where do you hope your creative future takes you? Bigger artworks, bigger brands, more surfing!

Can you share any advice for aspiring creatives? Show your work, even if you don’t think it’s great. You need to show people and keep creating even if you don’t love what you’ve done. Keep going, keep showing.

The Largest Sand Island In The World

AKA K'GARI ISLAND (FRASER ISLAND)

K'gari Island is located on the East Coast, approximately five hours north of the Sunshine Coast, and is in our opinion, one of the best islands for a 4WD camp trip. Hoooooly moly, this place was absolute heaven.

When thinking about K'gari Island, the first thing that comes to mind are the epic beach drives. You can basically drive the whole length of the island on the beach, and I don’t know about you, but this gives you a special sort of feeling… especially when it’s at sunset.

However, K'gari has so much more to offer than just long beach drives. The inland routes of this place are epic. There’s a section of the inland scenic track called Pile Valley, a lush, majestic rainforest that grows 80m tall trees out of the sand. This was mind bending. Such a magical place to spend a day wandering, it actually reminded us of the redwoods in Cape Otway.

Now the lakes. We visited Lake Mackenzie and Lake Wabby. Lake Mackenzie is by far the most beautiful, bluest, fresh water lake we’ve ever swum in. It has crystal white sand which fools you into thinking you’re just spending the day at the beach. There are a few metres of shallow water at the shore, until it drops about 7-8 metres causing the drastic change in colour. Lake Wabby not far from Mackenzie, is a very green lake, the deepest on K'gari, hidden deep within the sand blows which advance about 1m per year, and in time will eventually mean Wabby will disappear.

Now the creeks. The most popular of the bunch Eli Creek - now we did enjoy Eli, however it’s super accessible and a family favourite. So it gets packed out really quickly. >>

North of Ngkala Rocks. Maybe the last 20% of the north west side of the island is inaccessible to tour groups due to the 4WD track of large coffee rocks. Crossing this is very tide dependent and shouldn’t be attempted at a rising tide (unless you want the ocean to swallow your car). But by far this was the most fun to do in the cars. There were some challenging sections, some big drops, boosters and boggy sand. I hate to admit we did get briefly bogged, but self-rescued, so it doesn’t count.

Zone 9 - Sandy Cape. The tippy tip top of K'gari Island, this camp zone only allows 30 people each night, and is extremely hard to get in to. We booked last minute on a cancellation, and were so lucky we got this spot. We watched the sun set over the forests from the top of the dunes, whilst a full moon rose over the ocean. It was pure bliss.

East side is the popular tourist side, there’s a raw ocean, tour buses, no swimming, sharky waters, and loads of people. The true beauty lies on the west side. Tour buses can’t get over there, so there are significantly less people. The coast is mostly protected, and the whole time we were there the ocean was clean and beautifully blue. Swimming is completely safe, and marine life is incredible. Spear-fishing is also allowed and there are fresh water creeks to wash off in. There are big rainbow cliffs, palm trees and the beach drives are more picturesque than ever. You will also find Wathumba Creek aka K'gari’s version of the Whitsundays, and we can confirm it’s pretty epic.

Here we discovered one of our favourite campgrounds in all of Australia. We spent the nights playing Monopoly Deal with our mates, cooking up fresh fish for tacos, beach driving, and dancing and singing on the beach.

A seriously underestimated place in our opinion. The variety and scenery of K'gari Island is second to none. We will be returning.

IG // @saltylap

Cape Byron Distillery

BYRON BAY, NSW

CAPE BYRON DISTILLERY, HOME OF BROOKIE’S BYRON GIN, WAS FOUNDED IN 2016 ON THE NOW REGENERATED 95 ACRE FAMILY PROPERTY.

In 1988 Pam and Martin Brook purchased the property, which at the time was a desolate and weed infested run-down dairy farm. The Brook family set about planting 4,500 macadamia trees and 40,000 native rainforest plants on the property. Today the land is a thriving regenerated ecosystem with countless self-seeded rainforest trees that serve as essential habitat for the vulnerable native wildlife such as the Koala.

It is this unique rainforest that the distillery sources the ingredients and inspiration to craft Brookie’s Byron Gin. This rainforest is also the environment in which Cape Byron Single Malt Whisky rests in oak casks to slowly mature and breathes in the air to age their single malt Australian whisky.

Cape Byron Distillery views its business as a force for good, going beyond industry norms, creating and implementing better solutions and hopefully working to teach and inspire others to do so to make the distilling industry a leader in sustainable practice.

The team has implemented several goals to ensure they continue to improve procedures upholding the highest sustainability standards. These goals include improving the rainforest regeneration on site and protecting the biodiversity, as well as eliminating negative impacts from production. Cape Byron Distillery is choosing longterm investments over quick wins, and measures their success based on the positive impact they create and hopes to lead the way in the industries effort in sustainable practices.

Visit Cape Byron Distillery to learn more. www.capebyrondistillery.com IG // @capebyrondistillery

Jaxon Cowan

NORAH HEAD, NSW

What’s your home break? I would call Soldiers Beach my local break, but we also have a lot of reef breaks I could also class as local breaks. We are really lucky on the Central Coast to have a large variety of waves to surf in all types of different conditions.

Do you remember your first wave? I sure do, because it turned me off the ocean for a few years before I actually started surfing. I was about four or so and we were living on the Gold Coast at the time and Dad pushed me into one on his board at Snapper Rocks. I was just laying down on the whitewash but I couldn't steer it and went straight into and washed over the rocks at Little Marli on the inside of Snapper. After that I wanted nothing to do with the ocean until I started surfing properly at about the age of nine.

What board are you currently riding? I'm really lucky to be working with James Cheal and Mike Spencer from Chilli Surfboards . The guys at Chilli have made me some incredible boards since I jumped on with them, but the three I'm going between right now are the best I've ever had. I'm riding the Chilli shortie model designed by James but scaled down to my size. Cheers Chilli and Spenny!

Where is your favourite place to surf in Australia? There's so many to choose from but I'd have to say just a little reef break/slab we have here at home in Norah Head. I won't mention the name even though everyone already knows about it, but my Dad and I surf it every time the swell is good for it and it has everything from dredging ledges to barrels and really fun big carve sections. Dad has helped me work my way up the pecking order there, so now I'm starting to get the good ones. That's probably my favourite because I surf it with Dad.

Tell us about the wave of your life? We were surfing Budge one arvo with Dad and some friends, and their Dad and I were down the beach a little and this perfect right came straight to me. I kind of had to paddle out to it and swung on it a bit late, but I got to my feet, airdropped straight into the barrel, got one big pump up into it, then just held on. I rode the foam ball for a bit and then got spat out of it and did a big swan dive off the back and looked at Dad with his arms up claiming it for me. He was looking straight into it, so I'm stoked he saw it too. Still the best barrel I've ever had.

What's your go-to wax? Sex Wax is usually my go to wax, but I do run Foo whenever I can get my hands on it. That stuff sells like hotcakes .

Can you tell us about your greatest surfing-related memory? It would have to be winning the under 12s regional titles at my home beach. It was one of the first big contests I'd done outside of our local boardriders club, and I won all my heats that day. When the final came I was super nervous and actually didn't get a wave at all until about 4 minutes to go. I got my first wave then and that score still had me in 4th position. Somehow I managed to get myself back out the back quick enough and got another wave with literally 30 seconds left, and got the score I needed and went from 4th to 1st. Crazy heat, not sure how I kept my nerves on that last wave but it all worked out.

If you could surf with anyone in the world, who would it be? Ethan Ewing for sure. Just so I could say I surfed with him haha. Also just to watch him surf in person and see how much he destroys waves would be amazing. Hopefully he'd give me some good pointers on how to surf like that too.

Who is your greatest inspiration? My Dad for sure. He's done everything for me; driving me up and down the coast for comps, up early with me every day to either surf with me or just sit there and film. He's always trying to help me get better and enjoy my life. Not only that, he's my best mate, and he rips. Dad challenged himself last year to put back on the competition jersey and competed in the master state titles where he let me coach him for the weekend. He smashed it all weekend while he was sick with the flu and ended up 3rd overall, and qualified for the Australian titles where he let me coach him again. I learnt so much watching my dad compete and to watch him surf the way he did in the state titles while he was sick was pretty damn inspiring to me.

Do you have any advice for beginners?

Just stick with it. It can get tough and scary sometimes, but if you love the ocean, there's no better way to enjoy it than surfing perfect waves with friends. So get out there and enjoy the healthy lifestyle.

What does your future of surfing look like? I'm not a fortune teller so I can't say what my future holds exactly, but if I could pick, it would involve a few big contest wins and then hopefully that would lead into competing on the WSL junior series and the world qualifying series to hopefully one day qualify for the big leagues on the championship tour with the best of the best.

If you know someone who would be a great candidate for our next Q&A, please get in touch with us.

RAPID FIRE - THIS OR THAT?

Natural or goofy? Natural.

Sunrise or sunset? Sunset.

Summer or winter? Winter for waves.

Wetty or no wetty? Wetty.

Longboard or shortboard? Shortboard.

3-4ft or 8-10ft? 3-4ft.

Beachie or point break? Point break.

The Lazy Eyes

ALBUM REVIEW

SongBook 2022

The boys from Sydney are in town! Metaphorically of course, but quite possibly a literal realisation will be on the horizon when they next tour our beautiful vistas. Alas, we are here for the music review and let’s unpack this deeply tripped out psychedelic fuzz gem.

Let’s start by saying this is a pretty crazy sound for a debut album; it is guitar laden, whirrs cyclically like a mechanical rotation and smothers with synth overlays. It’s without doubt one of the better psychedelic records we’ve wrapped our ears in for some time now and goes hand in hand with some of our Aussie favs in Tame Impala and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard.

One of the great proponents of the album is that there is consistency throughout; no real low points, just a continuum of interconnected reflections. If anything, the album has a couple of its more noteworthy tracks towards the tail end. Imaginary Girl and Cheesy Love Song are case in point with the former offering a rhythmic selection of keys and even some background acoustic guitar. Yeah this stuff is layered and duly stacked; the more you listen, the more you hear!

Cheesy Love Song is good, and probably the track of the album, and a great closer too. A paced slow build, that is enveloped by a series of strings before a crescendo of sorts. Whatever matter you’ve enjoyed to this point, you have probably really hit peak flight at this point!

Overall, a great album and worthy of praise for these young lads….enjoy! 7.5/10

2/91 Scenic Dr Budgewoi (Down the laneway next to Coles)

@thelazyeyesband

Good Days. Always.

Central Coast, NSW

bennysupplyco.com.au

Subculture X Stupid Baby

On February 3rd, SUBCULTURE AGENCY & AVERAGE SHOTS teamed up to bring Long Jetty an event called LUCKY SHOT where 22 film photographers (locally and nationally) were selected to have their works shown at Lucky Surf Supply in Long Jetty.

Electronic Artist and Producer Kilter played a DJ set while people rolled through to vote for their favourite photo of the night with Central Coast local and filmmaker Ian Tyley (www.iantyley.com) taking home the first prize. Victoria Campelo picked up second prize and Hannah Griffiths landed third prize. All whom are incredible upcoming film photographers that you should check out!

Once 8pm pulled around and sun started to make tracks setting for the evening, Long Jetty based band STUPID BABY hit the stage for a 45 minute set that echoed from Lucky Surf to Blue Bay, picking up a few extra punters out of the surf.

JB: Hey, how are ya? Who do we have today? SB: Hey mate, you’ve got Eli (bass), Jake (vocals/drums) and Will (guitar) and I’ve gotta say we are happier than a butcher's dog, life's good.

JB: How'd you enjoy the gig on Friday behind Lucky Surf Shop for Lucky Shot for SUBCULTURE & Average Shots? SB: Couldn’t have enjoyed ourselves more. It really felt like the community was coming back together, the team put on a top shelf event. It was really nice to see the young kids and families coming out and enjoying the event.

JB: Are you excited for more local events and gigs to start happening around the coast? SB: It feels like everyone has been waiting for the coast to recover and get back on its feet with local gigs and events. The punters are here and keen, we just need the right people to hold the torch and make it happen.

JB: I saw you are performing at the Long Jetty Festival in March, what can you tell us about that? SB : The festival is an opportunity for the coast to celebrate the best of what we have to offer. Every year it gets better and better. Please keep an eye out for a couple of surprises from your favourite babies this year.

JONNY BLACKWELL OF SUBCULTURE AGENCY CHATS WITH STUPID BABY

JB: What are some places that you recommend readers check out around Long Jetty/your area? What's the go? SB: Perfect day in the 2261 - start your day right at our favourite  Bateau Beach Cafe , followed by a walk through Wyrrabalong National Park to go and burn one down at Crackneck or Forries Tower, afterwards swim the afternoon away at Blue Bay and sink a couple at  The Jetto  with kick ons at  The Savoy  if you don't have work in the morning.

JB: Can you tell us your plans to release more music? SB: We are always in the studio at our second home Lake House Audio, so we have a couple of songs in the bank ready to put out this year so keep an eye on our Spotify and socials!

JB: What does the future hold for Stupid Baby? SB: The only plan SB has ever had is to have as much fun as we can and play music to as many people as we can.

JB: What are your top records on rotation at the moment? SB: Dinosaur JR - Beyond. The Melvins - A Senile Animal. The Smile - A Light For Attracting Attention.

JB: Any final words? SB: Thanks to everyone who have taken the time to listen to or shown interest in what we are doing, it means the world to us and special thanks to the crew at Subculture and Average Shots!

SUBCULTURE consists of Jonny Blackwell and Ashley Cooper, WE are SUBCULTURE? YOU are SUBCULTURE? We have officially launched and are operating on the Central Coast to provide tools, and experience to Creatives, Artists and Musicians within the Australian Music Community. We are planning a number of upcoming events, and activations for the coming months, with announcements every month. We currently work with Dream Frankie Dream, Big Skeez, Kilter, Rage, Glu, Billie Eternal, LoveLoveLove + many more, and will be continuing to bring local, and national performances to the Central Coast Region. Stay tuned.

subcultureagency.co

IG // @subculture.agency + @stupidbaby666