Of all the wave pools in all the world, there is one that is so visually different it’s unmistakable. It’s the Mad Max pool, the dystopian one with the giant rusty plunger that belts out waves amid billowing clouds of steam. It clanks and groans and hisses, like something from that old, terrible Will Smith movie, Wild Wild West. If you’re a surfer who is also into steampunk, the wave pool in Yeppoon, Queensland, is right up your bowler-hat-and-19th-century-airship-goggles alley. But if you’re just a plain old surfer, it’s pretty good too, because it also creates waves — and good ones.
Surf Lakes, the ones behind the Mad Max pool, recently released a 13-minute look into the weirdest wave pool out there. And it’s interesting, to say the least. It appears to have just about everything, from cruisy longboard waves to barreling slabs and everything in between. And it’s even got a wave that Occy pulled back on.