Happy New Year From Iconic Cottesloe Beach in WA

New Year’s Eve, 2012. 

A lovely still, balmy night and one of Australia’s iconic beaches: Cottesloe. 

We arrive at ‘Cott’ around 10pm to see young people splashing in the calm waters below us and other kids playing cricket on the sand under the lights.  

The beachfront lawns are packed with families sitting on rugs, enjoying a glass of wine and food; either fish ‘n chips Aussie-style or some of the delicious ‘hawker’ food being sold by the vendors who had been given council approval to bring their food-carts to the beach for the evening. Arincini balls, prawns, satay and other delicacies...Delightful! 

By 10.30pm a local ‘family’ band is playing music to the delight of the crowd as the stars shine above on a classic Perth evening. At midnight, the Indiana Tea House is lit-up as the first of the fireworks explodes above the beach to welcome-in 2013. Children watch in awe as the colours burst into the sky.  

Happy, laughing people, hugging, cheering and having a great beach party under the stars. 

Our overseas guests can’t believe that this is how we West Aussies celebrate and bring-in the New Year. Perfect! 

At 1am, with belly’s full and feeling weary, we head-off home after one of the best beach parties we have ever experienced at one of our nation’s best seaside locations. 

Then I awoke. 

It was 6am on New Year’s morning, and yes, we had been to ‘Cott’ Beach the previous night but the reality had been very different to my dream: 

We had arrived at 10pm, and apart from the Cottesloe Hotel, that was doing a noisy but active trade, the rest of the beachfront was simply ‘dead’. The car park had been partly barricaded and was occupied by cars of patrons at the pub. The lawns along the beach were deserted with not even one family sitting under the stars on this ‘perfect’ balmy night. The cafes were all shut. 

In the middle section of the car park was a giant illuminate sign: “Absolutely no drinking. On-the-spot fine $500.00”. Getting drunk at the pub is ‘fine’ but if you are a middle-aged couple with friends who simply want to sit on a blanket and welcome-in the New Year as you sip on a glass of sav., blanc, you will end up with a large fine! 

Welcome to WA’s premier beach on New Year’s Eve 2012. 

And why was it like this? 

Well, simply because our authorities had (correctly) decided that we, as a community of Australians, were totally incapable of having a fun beach party night at Cottesloe even though the weather conditions were almost perfect.  

They had based this on experience and a belief that, had my dream been a reality, it would have ended with drunken young and middle-aged yobbo’s bashing each other senseless, whilst screaming young girls pulled each other’s hair and fling punches as police reinforcements were called in to break-up the melee. 

So my wife, Katherine and I - along with our overseas guests - sat on a bench in silence gazing out over the smooth and moonlit sea towards Rotto, wondering just what our New Year would have been like had our gorgeous beach been home to people from France, Spain or Asia? 

What has gone wrong with us when our major tourist attraction has to be ‘killed-off’ on New Year’s Eve simply because we can’t have a party without getting ourselves paralytic and then wanting to bash each other? 

Aussies have always enjoyed a reputation for being easy-going and fun-loving people, but this perception appears to be changing dramatically as we become addicted to binge drinking, and aggression. 

So now its New Year’s week and I sit and reflect on what our New Year’s Eve could have been. 

 

Ross B. Taylor is an author and philanthropist and lives in Perth.