Jaw-dropping moment ray launches itself out of the water to avoid hammerhead shark after being chased into the shallows
Brody Sutton was fishing off the coast of Cape York in Queensland last week when he spotted the shark set its sights on the ray.
He pulled out his camera and began filming as the hammerhead swam through the shallows on pursuit of its prey.
In a stunning moment, the ray propelled itself out of the water in order to evade the clutches of the fierce predator.
The unexpected movement caused the shark to become disoriented and saved the ray's life.
'It was great to watch,' Mr Sutton told Yahoo News. 'I've seen it many times just not that close to the boat.'
Mr Sutton's jaw-dropping clip has gone viral around the world with commentators as far as the UK and US amazed by the ray 'taking flight'.
One commented: 'Never thought I'd see something flying while swimming at the same time!!! Like literally flying under the water!'
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'Athlete of the year goes to..... Flying Stingray,' another remarked.
A third said: 'That shark was BAMBOOZLED.'
'Since when could stingrays jump? Or even swim that fast,' someone else added.
Mr Sutton confirmed the ray evaded the shark for good by seeking shelter under his boat.
'The ray escaped under my boat,' he said.
Lawrence Chlebeck, a marine biologist from Humane World for Animals, explained the ray is likely a cownose or mobula ray.
These species are known to use their fins like wings as opposed to a stingray which stays close to the seafloor.
He explained the ray's flying move helps to break the hammerhead's line of vision.
'By quickly exiting the water, it can break that focus that the shark has, and you can tell the predator loses it shortly after because of it,' Mr Chlebeck explained.
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Daily Mail
26 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
The rented mansion was splattered with blood and strewn with broken glass. Johnny Depp's severed fingertip was wrapped in a paper towel... 'Safe to say we've lost our deposit!' his butler sighed
Adapted from Hollywood Vampires – a sensational new book, which charts, in unsparing detail, the car-crash marriage between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard – yesterday's extract revealed the drug-taking mayhem that characterised their relationship from the start. And, as we reveal today, it wasn't long before their rage-fuelled arguments descended into violence... While Amber and Johnny were still celebrating their wedding in the Bahamas, Johnny's butler Ben King pulled into the palatial car port at Diamond Head, a riverfront mega-mansion on the Gold Coast of Australia, just south of Brisbane. Palm trees swayed in the breeze as he opened the grandiose oak door and scoped out the ten bedrooms and bathrooms. Soon, the happy couple – whose wedding photos were already splashed across the pages of People magazine – would arrive. Diamond Head's owner, Mick Doohan, an Aussie motorcycling champion, had previously rented his place to Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Pink. Now the mansion would be Johnny and Amber's home for several months while Johnny filmed the fifth instalment of the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise, Dead Men Tell No Tales. Ben dusted off the pool table and checked the home cinema and gym. He was surrounded by stacks of suitcases, one filled entirely with candles. He unpacked Johnny's clothes, an assortment of tattered, patched and stained bohemian garb. As far as British butlers went, Ben was the creme de la creme. He had worked at Buckingham Palace and for clients including Andrew Lloyd Webber and Nelson Mandela. Also in Australia was Johnny's assistant Nathan Holmes and other members of Johnny's staff, including his chief of security, Jerry Judge, and bodyguard, Malcolm Connolly. The staff would live off-site, but two local security guards never left the grounds, circling the property like clockwork. Nathan got the Apple TV set up with YouTube and Netflix, Johnny's favourites. He made some bedside flower arrangements, rented go-karts for the race track outside and found an art teacher for Amber, who wanted to take painting classes. They were soon joined by Russell Borrill, Johnny's chef, fresh from the chaos on Johnny's private island, Little Hall's Pond Cay. Johnny arrived first and began filming in mid-February. Amber was in London for a couple of weeks, working on The Danish Girl. Johnny texted Nathan looking for drugs. 'Any ONE of ANY of you guys start to lecture me... I just do not want to hear it... No stupid bulls***.' A few days later he texted again. 'May I be ecstatic again?' he asked, referring to ecstasy. Later, he pleaded, 'NEED more whitey stuff ASAP brotherman... and the e-business!!! Please I'm in a bad bad shape. Say NOTHING to NOBODY!!!!' On the Pirates set, things were off to a rocky start. Ten days into filming, the president of Disney called Johnny's agent to say that on one day Johnny had been four to six hours late to set and 300 extras sat for hours waiting. The following day, Johnny was late again, this time by eight hours. As soon as Amber arrived, on March 3, 2015, she and Johnny began to fight. According to Johnny, Amber was 'irate' and 'possessed' over discussions of a postnuptial agreement following their failure to execute a prenup before marrying. He said Amber believed he was trying to 'trick her' into receiving nothing. 'All I could do was try to calm her down and say that I was not out to screw her over or put her in a position that was uncomfortable,' Johnny said later. Amber would say she was the one who spearheaded the postnuptial agreement conversation. On the evening of Friday, March 6, Russell made sure the house was stocked with groceries as Johnny and Amber had the weekend off. He put the finishing touches on a selection of food on a coffee table in front of the TV. Johnny and Amber were snuggled under a blanket as Russell said goodbye for the weekend. He reminded them that he'd prepared meals for the weekend that only needed to be reheated. On Sunday, Malcolm got a call from Jerry Judge, Johnny's head of security, who was out scouting locations. 'Something's happened with the boss, man,' Jerry said. 'You need to extract him. Just extract him, take him out of there.' Malcolm raced with Johnny's driver to Diamond Head. What happened there was to become one of the most contentious episodes in the couple's marriage – one which loomed large in their later court battles in the UK and the US, in which both accused the other of domestic violence. When Malcolm walked in the door, Amber was wearing a cardigan and a shiny slip, screaming at Johnny. Johnny was screaming back at Amber, clutching one of his fingers. 'She cut my finger clean off...' Johnny said. 'She slapped me with a vodka bottle.' He leaned over to Malcolm showing him the injured finger. Johnny and Amber continued to argue as Malcolm tried to pull Johnny away and into the car outside. 'Johnny, that's all you do. You f*** off. You f*** off with your guys. You're a f***ing coward, you big man,' Amber shouted. Johnny kept running back up the stairs to continue the fight, begging Malcolm, 'Let me stay for a few more minutes.' 'Johnny, LET'S GO!' Malcolm demanded, this time with more force. He pulled him back outside, locked him into the back seat of the car, jumped in and told the driver to speed away. Fast. With Johnny in the back seat wailing, Malcolm and the driver raced back to Malcolm's apartment in Broadbeach. As Malcolm washed Johnny's bloody hand, he could see the bone sticking out of his finger. There was dirt and paint in the wound too. He sat Johnny down on his bed and phoned Nurse Debbie and David Kipper, Johnny's addiction specialist, who had been flown out to Australia to be on call. 'Get here fast,' he said. They took one look at Johnny's hand and drove him to hospital. In A&E, Johnny, still wearing his sunglasses, lay on a stretcher, his bloody finger wrapped in a green napkin laid on top of a large fabric pad. Malcolm stood next to Johnny, fuming. 'I stood on top of a chair and I took pictures of him. I had enough. She could have killed him.' Malcolm was convinced Amber was responsible and wanted to document Johnny's injuries. 'Every time I see him he's got marks or scratches. She had a scary, scary temper… I thought, I could show up one morning and he'll be dead. She could kill him.' Since he'd met her, Malcolm had observed Amber as upbeat and happy, while Johnny looked like he was dying inside. 'She was la-la-ing around like Mary Poppins,' he said. Back at the Diamond Head mansion, Dr Kipper and Nurse Debbie tried to locate Johnny's missing fingertip while fending off Amber, who was fixated on returning to Johnny and being by his side. 'He needs me right now! Me!' Kipper and Debbie discussed what meds to give her to calm her down. Amber would later assert that on that morning she was fresh out of a 'three-day hostage situation', in which Johnny inflicted grievous bodily harm on her, including rape with a glass bottle. Jerry then called Christi, Johnny's sister. An audio recording captured his end of the conversation. 'There's been bottles thrown, and she – she admits to me she threw the first – she threw a bottle at him. She did it first.' He continued: 'She has scratches on her left arm, which Debbie told me about. Look, I've seen those scratches before on other people, and as far as I'm concerned, they're self-inflicted.' He told Christi about another injury to Johnny's face. 'She said on Friday he got a cigarette and put it out on his own face. With a cigarette, he was so out of it.' Johnny would later claim that Amber was the one who put the cigarette out on his cheek after throwing the vodka bottle at him and slicing his finger; it was all part of the same rageful outburst. But Amber would say Johnny was out of his mind on drugs, having taken ten ecstasy pills at once, as well as cocaine and liquor. She said she'd watched him smash a wall phone into pieces and lose his fingertip that way, though no evidence was found of a smashed phone. Jerry persuaded Amber to go back to Los Angeles. Plans were made for her to fly out early the next morning, March 9. Hours later, while Dr Kipper and Nurse Debbie continued looking for the missing piece of Johnny's finger, Ben King returned to Diamond Head to find the rental home destroyed. Inside the art room, Johnny had drawn a penis on top of a picture of Amber in a bikini, and drips of black paint covered the cream carpets. Red wine was splashed across the fabric wallpaper and white shag rug. Expensive lampshades had been painted with globs of black paint. Inside the bedrooms, drops of blood dotted the white duvets. A flatscreen TV hanging on the wall had a hole in the middle where a coffee mug had been hurled at it. Written on the mirrors in the bathrooms were disjointed phrases scrawled in black paint and blood: 'Starring Billy Bob Easy Amber,' 'She loves naked photos of herself, she's an artist,' 'So modern, So hot.' Then, written in different handwriting with red lipstick over the paint: 'Call Carly Simon, she said it better, babe.' Ben said that when he walked through the aftermath, there was a trail of blood leading from one bedroom to the next and in and out of several bathrooms. Inside one bedroom, the bed linens were covered in blood, and there was also a bloody iPad and a blood-smeared guitar. Broken glass and crushed cans littered the polished marble floor, the ping-pong table was collapsed in half, a window had been smashed, more expensive textiles were splattered with blood and paint. 'I think it's safe to say we lost our deposit,' Ben said aloud, trying to make light of it. He followed another trail of blood to the downstairs bar, which was set back from a pool table and lit with blue bulbs. On the floor was a bloody paper towel sitting next to cans, bottles and broken glass. Inside the towel was Johnny's fingertip. Ben went upstairs and placed it in a ziplock bag in a bowl of ice inside a plastic container. The fingertip was rushed to the hospital to give to the doctors. 'But it was too late.' Ben pulled an all-nighter cleaning up blood, broken glass, paint stains and booze. Next day, he escorted Amber back to LA. As they taxied down the runway, Ben asked, 'What happened?' Amber turned to look at him. 'Have you ever been so angry with someone you just lost it with them?' Just before they landed, Ben spotted the scratches on Amber's left forearm, the same wounds Jerry had seen and which he'd called 'self-inflicted'. They were long, thin, uniform vertical scratches. They stuck out to him because they were so consistent. Back at her penthouse, Amber gave Ben a tour before writing him a list of restaurants he should check out while in town. The next day, Amber had dinner with friends, including her personal nurse, Erin Falati. Erin's notes from the dinner read, 'Ct [client] appears in good spirits; laughing, socialising. Appetite normal.' Johnny would be back in LA soon for medical treatment, and Kipper, his addiction specialist, firmly requested that Nurse Erin keep Amber away from Johnny while he saw the hand surgeon and got 'his meds balanced'. In a message to Amber, Kipper stated: 'If you are convinced that all problems between the two of you stem from his drug abuse, why would you have participated with mushrooms on the island during the wedding and ecstasy in Australia? I want to help you both so please help me.' Apparently, Amber had also consumed ecstasy during the three-day 'hostage situation'. In his medical notes, Kipper wrote: 'Johnny romanticises the entire drug culture and has no accountability for his behaviour.' Meanwhile, the film company needed a story to give the public explaining why production on Pirates 5 had come to a halt. Three days after the finger incident a press release gave the 'official' story: 'Pirate steers off course! Johnny Depp injured his hand GO-KARTING with Mick Doohan at Australian motorbike champion's luxury estate – forcing the star to fly home.' Incredibly, four-and-a-half weeks later, Johnny and Amber returned to the house where the nightmare had unfolded. Ben had made good the damage. 'When they came back together in April, it was like a honeymoon. It was tickety-boo and lovey smiley,' he said. A few months later, on May 22, 2015, Amber addressed Johnny as 'My One and Only' in the couple's shared love journal, telling him that in him she found 'the madness of passion' as well as 'the safety of peace'. Amber would later allege that five more incidents of violence occurred after writing those words. One of those incidents happened during their belated honeymoon trip in July 2015, aboard the luxury Eastern Oriental train through Malaysia. As evidence, Amber produced for the court a handwritten page from her diary in which she wrote that he had choked and hit her. Johnny denied the allegation and presented honeymoon photos showing himself with an injured eye. At the end of the honeymoon, Amber wrote in their love journal: 'What a beautiful, extraordinary, magical, memorable, wonderful, stunning, surprisingly evolving and impulsive adventure. I couldn't have imagined a more gorgeous honeymoon.' Not surprisingly, the honeymoon didn't last. 'It hurt bad... I was so depressed': How Amber Heard broke Elon Musk's heart Soon after a restraining order against Johnny was granted in May 2016, a large plant was delivered to Amber's Los Angeles apartment, with a card reading: 'I had a wonderful weekend with you – E.' According to the sworn testimony of the concierge, Elon Musk already had his own key fob for the penthouse garage and had been visiting Amber regularly for over a year, late at night, when Johnny was away. In late June, Amber surprised Elon for his birthday. She flew to the Tesla factory in Fremont, California. On the way she picked wildflowers, and when she arrived, his security team helped her hide in the back of a Tesla. As Elon approached the car, Amber popped out of the back, clutching a bouquet. Two weeks later, in mid-July, Elon and Amber were spotted together in Miami, Florida. Amber was there with her sister, Whitney. The trio stayed in poolside villas at the Delano Hotel in South Beach, and Elon flew Amber and Whitney up to Cape Canaveral, where a SpaceX launch of Falcon 9 was scheduled to take place. Amber told Elon's biographer Walter Isaacson that it was 'the most interesting date' she'd ever been on. These were the first buds of a relationship that would grow into something serious. What no one knew until much later was that Amber and Elon's relationship was also turbulent and toxic, plagued by fighting, jealousy and dramatic accusations. Elon's inner circle would go on to state strikingly similar things about Amber's character as Johnny's people. As she was rebuilding her life and leaning into activism – when she briefly became an icon for the MeToo movement – things were heating up with Elon. Soon she'd be returning to Australia's Gold Coast to film Aquaman, only this time she'd be travelling with Elon instead of Johnny. In Australia, Elon rented Amber a beautiful home. Here, away from the office, his infatuation became problematic for executives at SpaceX and Tesla. For the first time, Elon was distracted from his life's work. 'It would be a Tuesday night and she would keep him up all night. There was a blatant disregard for the fact he had tens of thousands of employees and he had responsibilities,' said a source. 'She did more to slow the advancement of electric cars than the CEO of Exxon Mobil.' Elon himself later described the relationship with Amber as the most agonising of all his romantic relationships. 'It was brutal,' he said. For a man who has trouble accessing his humanity, Elon found that Amber evoked the most human of emotions: he was lovesick. A few months after the Australia trip, during an interview for Rolling Stone, a flustered Elon excused himself and had a pep talk with his chief of staff, Sam Teller. A few minutes later, he confessed to the reporter: he and Amber had just broken up and he 'was really in love and it hurt bad'. In fact, he'd barely been able to function at the launch of his Tesla Model 3 the night before. 'I've been in severe emotional pain for the last few weeks. Severe. It took every ounce of will to be able to do the Model 3 event and not look like the most depressed guy around. 'For most of that day, I was morbid. And then I had to psych myself up: drink a couple of Red Bulls, hang out with positive people and then tell myself, 'I have all these people depending on me. All right, do it!' ' This breakup wouldn't be their last – Amber and Elon continued to see each other, on and off, throughout the rest of 2017. A friend of Amber's who asked us not to use her name remembered a conversation in which Amber told her Elon was crazy, possessive and jealous, and that he'd placed cameras in her house, bugged her car, and was following her. But Amber's friend was sceptical: 'This is exactly the same s*** we just did with this other guy, Johnny. How is no one seeing this?' On a trip to Rio de Janeiro in December 2017, Amber and Elon had a fight that ended their relationship for good. Amber locked herself in their hotel room and started screaming that Elon had taken her passport and that she was scared she'd be attacked. Hotel security guards and Elon's sister-in-law, who was also on the trip, assured Amber that no one was trying to hurt her, she was safe, her passport was securely in her bag. She could leave whenever she wanted. But Kimbal, Elon's brother, said Amber's ability to shift her own reality was shocking. 'She really is a very good actress, so she will say things that you're like 'Wow, maybe she's telling you the truth' but she isn't.' After the split, Amber texted her agent, Christian Carino, who had arranged mediation between her and Johnny the year before: 'Dealing with breakup. I hate when things go public. See I'm so sad.' 'You weren't in love with [Elon],' Christian replied. 'You told me 1,000 times you were just filling space. Why would you be sad if you weren't in love with him to begin with?' Amber asked Christian to give Johnny a letter she wrote expressing her love for him and apologising for what happened. 'God I miss him,' she said. © Kelly Loudenberg and Makiko Wholey, 2025
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Australia's reckoning with Indigenous people takes one cultural glide forward, two political steps back
For several decades First Nations artists have done much of the heavy lifting in Australian cultural diplomacy. And now Wesley Enoch as chair of Creative Australia has to fix a damaged sector. Archie Moore, Tracey Moffatt, Warwick Thornton, Deborah Mailman, William Barton, Tony Albert, Judy Watson, David Gulpilil, Christian Thompson, Ivan Sen, Emily Kam Kngwarray, to name just some of the many who have won accolades for their stunning, original work and taken their place at the peaks of cultural power and influence. Winning hearts and changing minds as they went. Not so long ago this suggested a long overdue reckoning with the First Peoples; a reckoning that the rest of the world was watching in the detached way that those who can be bothered note what is happening elsewhere. Australia is diffident about cultural diplomacy, reluctant to exercise its soft power (in anything other than sport), as the abandonment of ABC Asia Pacific TV demonstrated – although the ABC has since revamped its international service. The global celebration of First Nations artists was a powerful way of showing that modern Australia had thrown off its colonial legacy, had grown into a truly mature and reconciled nation and come to terms with the ancient human heritage that makes it truly unique. Creative Australia put First Nations stories first in its strategic priorities, Dfat's cultural grants emphasised the persuasive power of 65,000 years of unique civilisation, and Australia lobbied hard for Unesco recognition of cultural heritage at Gunditjmara and now Murujuga. Yet as we approach the second anniversary of the decision by most Australians to reject meaningful recognition of First Peoples, the tension at the heart of this international celebration of the talent, stories and unique ways of seeing, being and doing comes clearly into focus. Is it simple hypocrisy or the old Australian way – one glide forward, two quick steps back? There are markers. The silence about discussing the referendum or to even consider national truth-telling. The ratty politics rejecting welcomes to country and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags. The patchy reporting of the coronial findings of institutional racism in the NT Police and the Yoorrook inquiry's findings of historic genocide. The federal court's hand-wringing decision that accepted government policies caused wilful destruction of culture and environment in the Torres Strait Islands but that it was unable to do anything about it. These recent events suggest that coming to terms with the enduring impact of the past is at best the latter, two quick steps back. At worst, to me, it suggests further signs of what Jeremy Bentham once called an 'incurable flaw'. All this came to mind as I stood outside Tate Modern waiting in line under an unusually hot summer sun for my bag to be checked. My English friend and I were on our way to the third floor of the vast former turbine to see the Emily Kam Kngwarray exhibition. 'Why is it on now?' he asked. He knows Australia, has spent time in central Australia and understood how the voice referendum hung heavily there. It's a reasonable question. And there are many answers. Some practical, others freighted with meaning. The director of the Tate told the press it was part of her plan to celebrate older female artists who should be considered great masters (mistresses?). The art press buzzed that this was one of three major exhibitions of Indigenous artists in London this summer – the others from Canada and Peru. Indigeneity is 'a thing'. The collaboration to celebrate the 'old lady's' work between the Tate, National Gallery of Australia and the women of Alhalker country began not long after the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, declared there would be a referendum to secure meaningful recognition of First Peoples in the Australian constitution. These big retrospective shows are years in the making, especially ones that require the active involvement of local communities as well as major galleries and high-profile owners around the world. When the extraordinary show first opened in Canberra just months after the vote, there was sadness about what might have been, about how the exhibition might have celebrated a new beginning. In London two years later, this is a barely acknowledged backdrop. Those seeing her work for the first time grapple with what it represents, how someone who only started painting in her 70s produced work as fresh and innovative as any major 20th-century artist – but how it grew out of her knowledge, skill and dreaming. Like all great artists the work is truly hers, grounded in her unique perspective. What comes as a surprise, to those who have only seen her images in books and posters, is their three-dimensional quality. Kngwarray layered paint to evoke stories of such extraordinary depth that they carry a fourth dimension of infinite time, 'everywhen'. It invites the viewer into a unique way of seeing and being. Another Australian artist is also celebrated on level 3 of the Tate. Leigh Bowery, who in his short life became a London gay style icon. Both Emily and Leigh speak to a distinctive Australian sensibility and energy. They prove that from an unlikely starting point anything is possible. Answering my friend's question, I said I wished the curators had projected The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, where flamboyant gay culture meets the outback, on the wall between the two iconoclastic Australians, to help viewers literally join the dots between the two exhibitions. Culture is complicated, cultural diplomacy can take time, but culture might still lead politics. Julianne Schultz an emeritus professor at Griffith University and the author of The Idea of Australia
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘How did I feel giving the baby away? I never thought of it like that': inside a weekend retreat for surrogate mothers
As I walk out of Hobart airport's small arrivals hall, I immediately spot the person I'm looking for. My contact, Mollie D'Arcy, is standing at the exit, heavily pregnant. Her baby bump isn't the only giveaway – she's holding up a laminated sign in hot pink writing, sticky taped to a retractable light sabre toy. It reads, 'Surrogates on Tour.' It's mid-September 2024 and D'Arcy is this year's Surrogacy Sisterhood Retreat organiser and captain. Since its inception in 2018, it's the first time this event, a roving annual weekend away for surrogates past and present, has made it to Tasmania. 'I'm pretty happy to shout loud and proud that I'm a surrogate,' D'Arcy says. I've been liaising with D'Arcy for weeks. She has helped me gain the other surrogates' consent for me to be the first journalist allowed access to the retreat for a podcast series, Secrets We Keep, on the fertility industry. As we make our way to the luggage collection area, about a dozen excited surrogates begin to trickle in. Most have taken early flights from Queensland and Victoria and two have made it all the way from Western Australia and New Zealand. In no time, the carousel area is gushing with surrogates from all walks of life, ranging from their early 30 to late 40s – admin officers, educators, PR specialists, entrepreneurs and lawyers. Most already know each other, having met at previous retreats or online. All tick the one entry criterion for being here: they've carried a baby for someone else. 'I don't think there's another word that could describe it better than sisterhood,' says family creation lawyer, former surrogate and egg donor, Sarah Jefford. Jefford is one of the Surrogacy Sisterhood Retreat's founders, inspired by a retreat for Canadian surrogates. 'We'll have some surrogates who are pregnant, some that have just birthed, some that haven't even gone through the process yet, and we share all the different aspects of good, positive journeys or challenging or negative journeys,' she says. 'It's all welcome.' Sign up for our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning Altruistic surrogacy is the only legal option for surrogacy in Australia; it's rare and heavily regulated. Jefford estimates there are between 130 and 150 altruistic surrogacy births in Australia each year and roughly 80% of these arrangements are between family members and friends, while 20% occur among strangers. Laws differ between states, but hopeful parents in Australia cannot pay a surrogate for carrying, or advertise they need a one to create a family. Women who wish to become surrogates must offer voluntarily. The regulatory environment has meant those seeking a surrogate, and those keen to be one, must turn to informal structures to find each other – the most significant one being a closed Facebook group where intended parents and surrogate candidates post their photos, introductions and bona fides as potential parents or surrogates. Then, interested parties slide into each other's DMs, hoping to match with each other. I was curious to learn more about the women who lend their wombs to carry a baby for strangers they'd met online. As we climb into a convoy of cars to head to the farm in Bothwell, an hour's drive from Hobart, where the retreat is being held, D'Arcy is busily pasting up 'Surrogacy Express' signs on each vehicle – also in hot pink writing. D'Arcy was exposed to surrogacy through working at an IVF clinic. She became fascinated by the concept after witnessing some of the first Tasmanian surrogacy arrangements come through the clinic, shortly after it became legal in 2012. 'I felt so deeply for these people who couldn't have a baby, knowing that I have always wanted a family. I really thought maybe I could be a surrogate. It felt like something I was capable of.' At the time, she had not yet had her own two children. 'Then, when I fell pregnant [with my first child] so easily, I thought, 'Wow, I could really help someone else do this',' she says. 'And then, when I was pregnant with my second child, I started researching how to become a surrogate.' D'Arcy stumbled across the Australian Surrogacy Community group on Facebook. She met some couples, but they didn't hit it off. Then she connected with a same-sex couple. 'I just really liked them. And after conversations via social media, when I met them in person, I just clicked with them really, really well.' When I met D'Arcy at the retreat, she was almost seven months into her second surrogacy pregnancy for the same couple. Over the weekend, the activities include chats around the fireplace, communal meals, nature walks, yoga and crafts. Every activity is optional, and some take place simultaneously. While the bulk of the Queensland contingent decides to drive out to see the snow, the Victorian and Tasmanian surrogates opt for a yoga class. Apart from mealtimes, no schedule is set. Through it all, there are deep and candid conversations about womanhood and motherhood. From the mundane logistics of parenting to surrogate heart-to-hearts: the venting of niggles or annoyances of their relationships (with their partners and with the intended parents they carried for) to detailed and graphic descriptions of intimate medical procedures. The mood is one of total release. But the one topic that dominates every conversation is pregnancy, and how pregnancy affected each of these surrogates. Even under the best, low-risk circumstances, pregnancy takes its toll on mind and body, so I ask, 'Why go through all that for someone else?' Time and time again, the women report that they want to help someone else create a family. But that isn't the only reason – another powerful driver many raise is the need to satiate a deep, personal feeling of 'not being done'. Sarah Jefford became a surrogate and an egg donor after an excruciating IVF experience. Once she finally became a mother of two, she felt she wanted 'to have another pregnancy and birth and not raise the baby'. 'If you're wanting to be pregnant and then you find out you're pregnant, it's just the best,' Jefford adds. She describes this feeling as 'baby lust'. Some surrogates, such as Queensland educator SJ, who did not want to use her real name, told me that upon birthing her two children, she experienced a persistent feeling of 'being unfinished'. Although she felt her own family was complete, she couldn't shake a yearning to experience pregnancy and childbirth again. She would wake in the middle of the night to research how to become a surrogate. Tasmanian trail runner Chelsea had a daughter and didn't want any more children of her own, but also wanted to experience birthing again, while helping someone else experience parenthood. 'Now that I knew the course of the race, I thought I could try and do it and be a bit more present within my body and run a better race, so to speak.' Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion Chelsea offered to carry for a same-sex couple she knew. They used an egg donor (also a friend) and the sperm of one parent. She found out she was carrying twins during a check-up, where the dads and egg donor were also present. 'The reaction from everyone was slightly different. They had tears of joy. I had tears of joy, but a little bit of fear of the unknown, because [twins weren't] something we had talked about beforehand as a possibility.' The babies were monochorionic diamniotic (MCDA) twins; they shared one placenta. That meant Chealsea required significantly more medical monitoring. She gave birth to healthy identical twin girls three months before the retreat. 'The number one question that I get about being a surrogate is how did you feel about giving the baby away? Or in this case, babies. And I never, ever thought of it that way. I always thought of it that I was growing their babies, not that I was giving anything away. 'And once the girls were here it was just amazing to see them [the parents] within the space of a day, just become the amazing dads that I knew that they would be.' Chelsea refers to the four people – the two dads, the egg donor and herself – who created the twins as a 'team'. They experienced the whole process together: from the embryo transfer to monitoring appointments, and they continue to spend time with each other. But as I sat around the fireplace and shared meals with these women at various stages of pregnancy and postpartum, I couldn't help but think they'd giving up a lot to carry for free. Pregnancy and childbirth are not free. In Australia, while payment for surrogates is illegal, intended parents must pay for all their surrogate's 'reasonable expenses', including medical expenses, maternity clothes and lost wages. 'But then there's a question mark because the legislation says it must be reasonable. What's reasonable? Reasonable for you might be different to reasonable for somebody else,' Jefford explains. 'Most surrogates will use their own money to pay for things, not because the intended parents are stingy, but because we are the sort of people that will just be like, 'I'll just pay for hospital parking myself, or I'll pay for the maternity pads.'' In December last year, the federal government announced a review of Australia's surrogacy laws. The review aims to identify reforms and propose harmonised laws across the country. A response to the review is due by the end of July. When Australia's surrogacy laws were drafted, legislators opted for the altruistic surrogacy model as it's often deemed ethically superior to commercial surrogacy, which is susceptible to human trafficking and the exploitation of vulnerable women. Jefford has long been opposed to paid surrogacy but recently has come to favour a compensated model of surrogacy in which surrogates are perhaps paid some amount of money, 'as if it's a job'. 'I used to say, when we introduce money into surrogacy, we commodify women and children. What I say now is it's much more nuanced than that,' she says. Jefford explains the idea of compensated surrogacy is different from paying a fee in exchange for a baby. 'That is human trafficking and it's illegal. 'Pregnancy is hard work and risky,' she says. 'This woman comes along and says, 'I'll do this for free'. And I think, 'Well, I'm not giving legal advice for free, and the IVF clinic is not giving free IVF treatment. Why is it that we think that she should be unpaid for what she's doing?'' In Australia, before intended parents and surrogates are legally allowed to undergo surrogacy, they must attend various counselling sessions to ensure they are emotionally equipped to go through the process, that it is consensual and there is no exploitation. During these sessions, intended parents and surrogates discuss thorny issues such as body autonomy, what happens if anything goes wrong with the pregnancy, what happens if there are signs of genetic abnormalities in the embryo, or any complications that could endanger the life of the surrogate. The aim is to set expectations beforehand, to avoid issues once the baby is born. Despite all the guardrails, things can go sour. At the retreat, surrogates share horror stories about some relationship breakdowns. There was one case in which the surrogate and intended parents had fallen out and were not on speaking terms until shortly before the birth. Another in which the intended parents failed to show up on the day of the birth, leaving the surrogate and her family to care for the baby for a few days, which was distressing. There have been more serious incidents that have ended up in court, one in which a surrogate absconded with the baby, another where a surrogate refused to relinquish the child and consent to a parentage order, the legal document that transfers parentage from the birth parents (usually the surrogate and her partner) to the intended parents. In both cases, the courts ruled in favour of the intended parents, after establishing it had been a surrogacy arrangement. The majority of surrogacy arrangements are successful, however. Surrogates at the retreat, such as D'Arcy, say their lives have been enriched by the experience. 'It's been beautiful to watch this modern family created and seeing all the love that's involved,' she says. Claudianna Blanco is a senior journalist and producer for LiSTNR. Secrets We Keep: By Any Means podcast is out now.
