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Central Station, change trains, catch one to Sutherland and then surf at Cronulla Beach for a few hours on their surfboards. When Cronulla started to get crowded, they’d head back to the station and travel down the south coast, checking out the waves as they went, through one station after another. They’d choose whichever beach was pumping. ‘We just explored. We all went out and we surfed and we thought outside the lines.’
    Like many Australian kids, Greg learnt through experience, almost unconsciously, about the ocean. As he developed his skills as a surfer, he learnt where a wave would break and how it would behave. He would study the formations of waves and the characteristics of the different beaches, their rips and their best breaks. Greg knew where to enter and how to ‘duck dive’ or ‘dolphin’ through the beach break, how to harness a rip to travel out behind the breakers and how to position himself to take off for the right wave. He learnt to respect rips but not be frightened of them—how, if you were caught in one, to stay with it, not fight against it, let it take you ‘out the back’, and then swim off to the side and swim back in. Later, in his triathlon career, he would always embrace the ocean swims with great confidence. ‘Even when I wasn’t one of the faster swimmers, in my first couple of years in triathlon, from 1985 through to 1988, I felt comfortable because I knew I was in full control in the ocean.’
    Noelene noticed that Greg started to blossom in the early years of high school. ‘The school had never been into athletics. Greg used to get there early and persuade the kids that they had to run from Punchbowl to Bankstown before school. They ended up winning lots of cross-countries and developed some brilliant runners. He was like a Pied Piper.’
    These were hectic but wonderful days for Noelene and Pat, as they ferried the boys from sport to sport. Greg began to reveal his gift for connecting with people. He’d often sit with the older men and yarn away as they watched the games. He was a great listener, and would often surprise his parents with his powers of observation. They also began to notice Greg’s determination, as Pat recalls. ‘He was always a caring person, but if he made up his mind he wanted to do something, you could never say no. He had to do it to prove a point. I don’t know why, but he just had to prove that he could do it. He was like that with everything he did.’
    To Greg, it was all natural. ‘I always enjoyed talking to people, especially the older ones, because they could tell you so much. I only had to be told to do something once. I might have been a bit of a larrikin but I listened to people I respected.’

‘I T WAS A HUGE BREAKTHROUGH to get an apprenticeship. It didn’t matter what trade it was. I would have taken anything. I THOUGHT , “T HERE’S A FUTURE in an apprenticeship.”’

Chapter 4
A New Start
    S OON AFTER HE ENTERED HIGH SCHOOL , Greg’s world changed when Pop remarried. The ensuing accommodation changes saw Noelene, Pat and the three boys move to Ruse, a newly developed suburb of Campbelltown, a satellite city about an hour south-west of Sydney’s CBD. The Welch’s new home was on one of the first streets in the suburb—a new start in a new world. Close by, near the Georges River, was a beautiful wooded area with creeks and rivers. The kids found swimming holes and open spaces to explore on their bikes.
    The move meant Greg’s after-school jobs had to go, but he was determined to stay at Punchbowl High even though it meant a convoluted 50-km (31.1-mile) round trip each day. Every morning he bolted through breakfast and ran to catch the 6.22 am bus, which linked with the 7.07 am train to Regents Park. There he changed trains to Punchbowl. Luckily, Punchbowl Boys High was a stone’s throw from the station (sometimes