Located in the inland Queensland location of Yeppoon, 5 Waves Surf Lakes is the newest creation in wave pool technology and it’s also Australia’s first artificial wave pool. I mean, it’s a great idea and all, but it looks like a giant toilet plunger to me. When I look at it, I think of those nasty times when I had to plunge out my turd-blocked commode. Water would get everywhere when I did it. And it’s not just normal water, either. It’s that yucky brown colour with bits of white paper floating in it.

Usually, there’d be a big floater in there, but in the process of unclogging the toilet—I had to basically chop it in half so it could fit down the drain comfortably. The bathroom plunger is a multi-purpose tool and can be used for many situations—bad or good. This situation at hand is a good “surf” kind of situation, so the Surf Lakes plunger is used for creating waves and not for plumbing shit water.

 And the water at Surf Lakes is indeed the opposite of shit water—it’s really clear looking like somewhere in the South Pacific, Lemoore, or dare I say even Waco, Texas.

“Surf Lakes 5 Wave technology is the worlds first multi-break surf park, where 5 different levels of waves are created simultaneously. This allows for surfers of all levels and abilities to surf. You can have learners at one while running a pro competition at the other, something no other wave pool tech is capable of,” as it boldly states on the Surf Lakes website. “The project will boast the most waves in a wave pool with 10 separate waves (four left and four right reef breaks plus two beginner waves for those playing at home) and at 80 mega litres, it’s set to be the largest surfing lagoon in the world.”

 The largest surfing lagoon in the world? 80 mega what-ers? Yeah, we’ll see how that works out, corpo dudes. The cost to run Surf Lakes and keep that Big Ass Plunger all lubed up and going all day has got to be hella expensive. And that means that it’s probably gonna cost a shitload of money to surf there. Keep in the mind: The largest piles of shit are still just that—piles of shit.

Words by Aaron Shmidt