After 50 years, we finally made it!
5 March 2026: Nine older hard-core fans were the world’s first to recreate the Tropical Loveland film clip in Sydney, Australia, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of ABBA’s visit in 1976.
Link to Tropical Loveland video: https://youtu.be/MEjptZfKonE?si=BTPiNvRHFqhZMKgU
During this trip, ABBA filmed at a secluded beach and made the ABBA Down Under/ABBA Bandstand TV special.
Why hadn’t we ever done this before? Because none of us had been able to find the beach until recently, thanks to drone technology and YouTube!
We’d done numerous ferry trips over the years to find the location, but none had matched up. Fans had travelled along the 1,100km-long river which has so many beaches that the total number has never been counted! Many are unnamed and can only be reached by boat.
The main obstacle was that we’d been searching the Hawkesbury River, which was mentioned in Press Releases as being where they went. But the ABBA beach turned out to not be on the Hawkesbury River at all!
ABBA BOAT STILL AFLOAT!
I tracked down the boat ABBA travelled on, the MV Kangaroo, which is easy to find as it’s been beautifully restored and is used for special events and filming Home and Away episodes. I rang the owner, Michele, who said she’d been informed ABBA had visited Hallets Beach, which is on the 12-km-long Cowan Creek, which runs off the Hawkesbury River. Cowan Creek also has numerous unnamed beaches, which appear and disappear at different times on different days, according to the tides.
I needed to confirm this information as it was expensive to hire the boat.
In the Tropical Loveland video there’s a line of steep hills with an unusual ridge in the background behind Benny’s head when he steps out of the dinghy. I freeze-framed the brief glimpses.
FINALLY FOUND THE BEACH!!
In December 2023, I was searching YouTube for new drone videos of Hallets Beach, which were rare, but finally there saw an old upload (by Truth To All in 2022) that showed the unusual ridge and they matched! Further video research showed it is such a strange beach that sometimes it mostly appears only in the middle of the night! I shared this news on social media (and ABBA news sites updated their facts to include “Hallets Beach”), as I was hoping it would generate cheaper ideas of getting there. But alas, nothing eventuated.
TOOK CONTROL OF THE FERRY!
The next weekend I took fan Harold on the Postman ferry and begged them to change their normal route from the Hawkesbury to Cowan Creek so we could check out Hallets Beach. They did, and the whole boat of 100 passengers were oblivious as they tucked into their ploughman’s lunch as we hung out on the bow, frantically taking video as the ferry quickly passed by. There was no mobile phone coverage. This first sighting was very fleeting.
ABANDON SHIP!
Now the location was confirmed, we were energised into action, and four of us hired a boat from Cottage Point on a busy holiday weekend in January 2024, but on the day we were advised that Hallets Beach was too far away (45 minutes in a slow 10kph boat). We tried anyway and nearly crashed into several very expensive yachts on our way out from the jetty.
That experience convinced us we needed to hire the original ABBA boat. It was a steep price for us and initially it was difficult to find enough fans who could afford it/were available on a weekday/not sea-sick/unafraid of killer wildlife. Luckily, ABBA boat owner Michele gave us a great deal, as she wanted the trip to go ahead to honour the boat’s legacy.
As the 50th anniversary date drew closer, nine fans signed up (the boat can legally hold 12, including crew), and all of us had known each other for many years.
ABBA FLAGS
Angus and I had a lot of fun designing the bright yellow and purple flag, “ABBA Hawkesbury 1976”, to replace the boat’s usual “Just Married” flag. We met in a trendy Sydney cafe and I unfurled the Rainbow Pride ABBA flag across the table and we took out our measuring tapes. We wrote notes and double-checked the spelling, doing a mock-up on Angus’ laptop. We wanted it to look perfect. We added “Hawkesbury” instead of Cowan Creek, as it is better recognised by fans, and the creek is within the Hawkesbury Council area. Our collaboration on crazy ABBA antics began back in the 1990s, causing disruption and giggles in our workplace, and has continued ever since!
1970s VIDEO PRODUCTION TECHNIQUES
I wanted the video to look like a 1970s production and dug out my university notes from film studies in 1980 when I’d made a 3-minute Super-8 film. I copied the old techniques and did a 14-page “storyboard” with 50 of my shot ideas.
I’d brushed up my editing skills in 2013 when submitting an entry in Agnetha’s Dance Your Pain Away video competition (didn’t get included), and practised a lot after that, editing a version of Someone Else’s Story and lots of fan videos.
I filmed on my iPhone12 and a friend did backup with his iPhone and briefly used a drone. I edited it with free iMovie software.
PREPARATION
We took 1976 memorabilia and dug out T-shirts from that era (finding any that still fitted was the priority!) I owned a rainbow ABBA Pride flag.
Everyone brought their favourite Australian snack foods, which mostly stayed in the packaging, due to the large lizards and wildlife which were keen to eat everything, including us!
NO MOBILE PHONE COVERAGE
Hallets Beach is only accessible by boat ā there are no bush tracks and the area is riddled with paralysis ticks. The official advice is to take a satellite phone, as coverage drops out due to the steep terrain. For example, while standing on the beach we were unable to contact the nearby ABBA boat to bring out extra equipment by dinghy.
“EVERYTHING IS OUT TO KILL YOU”
A couple of months earlier, I’d been on a Hawkesbury ferry and the captain talked about the wildlife and warned: “Everything here is out to kill you.”
BABY SHARK NURSERY
Opposite Hallets Beach is Little Shark Point, which is a nursery for baby bull sharks!
The week before we went, three people were attacked by aggressive bull sharks at Sydney beaches within 24 hours, (one fatally) and we felt nervous.
The bull sharks use Cowan Creek as a breeding ground, as there are fewer large predators to attack the babies. When the babies grow bigger, they swim upstream to salty water.
Bull sharks are most active when water temperatures rise from January to April, the exact time when we were there!
PARALYSIS TICKS
The week before we went, a local had died from a tick-bite and Pharmacies had run out of tick repellent. Cowan Creek is a known hotspot for paralysis ticks all-year round, especially from September to March.
The Australian Government’s Scientific Research Department, the CSIRO, developed a powerful insecticide specifically to protect against venomous Australian insects, called Tropical Strength Aerogard. We wore this on the beach.
Paralysis ticks, including the tiny babies, wait on the edges of leaves and grass with outstretched claws to latch onto passing humans. After two bites, there’s a 50% chance you’ll become allergic to meat and dairy, which can be fatal. There was a 60 Minutes Australia TV report on the dangers of these ticks a couple of months after our trip, calling them “Tiny monsters lurking in the bush… they’re as dangerous as a brown snake!” (the deadliest snake in Australia). See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cIB2qU6T3k
You need to spray with Australian-made Aerogard (including behind the ears) and tuck your trousers into your socks when walking in bushland, as ticks love to jump onto your legs. Check armpits, the groin, behind the ears and in your hair. If a tick is on you, “freeze, don’t squeeze”, using a freezing spray.
THE DAY BEGINS…
On the day, we had 1970s-style prawn cocktails at the Hawkesbury Marina for lunch, then headed off to the ABBA boat moored at the jetty.
The weather was on the hot side (30 degrees Celsius/86 Fahrenheit), with an “extreme risk” UV of 10.5.)
We all felt hyper-excited as the boat approached and we first saw the beach. When we landed via dinghy, there was something very magical about being on the same beach ABBA had walked on 50 years ago!
The sand was mostly wet and firm as the beach is underwater twice a day at different times, depending on the tides.
It’s a biodiversity hotspot, known for its breathtaking scenery. The amount of wildlife there was crazy ā three large lizards walked out as soon as we landed. It’s classified as “rugged bushland” with ants, jelly fish, spiders, ticks, snakes ā everything was out to kill us. It’s all National Park, covering 37,000 acres (15,000 hectares) and for most of it, nobody has lived there since the area’s Traditional Owners, the Darug and Guringai people. There are more than 800 Aboriginal sites with rock engravings and burial sites and, after colonisation, Cowan Creek was popular for smugglers.
SINGING SECTION
The singing section included a couple of fans who are serious musicians/singers (Harold and David), so that went smoothly, and I practised guitar skills I’d learnt in 1976/7. My nun teacher used an ABBA songbook (ABBA for Guitar Greatest Hits), which appears in the video.
SWIM!
A couple of brave souls went for a dip, only to be scared out of the water by a stingray! Cowan Creek is also a nursery for baby stingrays! The local breeding season is October to late March (when we were there!)
The pregnant stingrays and babies love sitting on the bottom of the creek in the mud and the biggest danger is stepping on one, as you’ll get a painful venomous serrated barb in your leg.
If you get stung, flush the wound with salt water and remove any sand and bits of the barb. Then run hot water over your leg for at least 30 minutes. The heat breaks down the venom and reduces pain.
If hit in the chest, ring for emergency medical help and do not remove the barb. (We were mindful that Aussie wildlife legend Steve Irwin had been killed by a stingray.)
OUR BIGGEST HIGHLIGHTS
Fan highlights included taking turns on the same steering wheel Agnetha and Frida had used and recreating the famous TV Week poster pose at the back of the boat.
We all had a great time and were very keen to go back again.
SPIDER SPINS WEB OF GOLD!
At 6:50mins on the video, you can see a Golden Orb spider’s web in the centre, a shiny whisp between branches of a fallen tree. These spiders are famous for spinning golden webs! They mostly live at people’s “head height”, so it’s very easy to accidentally walk into their webs and get hit with a huge spider on your face!
ABBA DOLLS INJURED!
Three of my ABBA dolls’ hips cracked and their legs fell off, as they are 48 years old and the plastic disintegrated when I moved them into a sitting position in their little boat. (Agnetha survived!) I sent them 4000km by plane to a retired mining engineer, Ali, to have a look at and try to repair.
LIVE CRAB STOWS AWAY IN MY BAG!
I got home and found a tiny sand dollar crab had crawled into my bag! I caught a train the next day back to the Hawkesbury marina, a two-hour trip which I used to sort over 150 short videos of the event. There were other sand dollar crabs on the mud flats and the crab was reunited with his “family”.
SEE A “BIT OF THE COUNTRY”
Lifelong ABBA fan, George Kokkinos, told me he’d rented a flat owned by Producer and Director of the 1976 Bandstand Special Tony Culliton (died in 2020), who actually took ABBA to Halletts Beach. Culliton told George that ABBA had asked to “see a bit of the country”. Cowan Creek was also near ABBA’s Australian promoter Reg Grundy’s home in Narrabeen.
ABBA ADVENTURERS
The fans who attended were: Cotton Ward, Angus Kidman, Harold Hanlon, Judy Sawyer, Louise Newman, David Joseph, Allison Pyke, Donna Glass, Sandra Bassam.
A big thank you to Michele, boat owner, who went out of her way to help us achieve this goal.
Cotton Ward 