Surf's Up Dude!

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Australia is hot. Not nice summer hot, it is sweating-in-the-shade hot. No surprise there, coming here in the summer, but what a change from New Zealand! But at least we can now get some swimming in without needing wet suits...

Sydney is a big city. Fun for a day. We did the true tourist things, including walking the Harbour Bridge, and checking out the Opera House. The next day we got to the famous Blue Mountains National Park, but our excellent luck with the weather ended dramatically at this point. Supposedly the views are great. We got a great view of the inside of storm clouds and tourists wearing plastic bags. Oh well, the post cards look nice.

We picked up our new mode of transport in Syndey - our campervan, aka Space Shuttle. We've been camping since, which has provided a great relief from noisy hostels and city sleeping. However, it has also provided noisy birdlife and rainy sleeping, which is much nicer. Holy crap there are a lot of loud birds in this country. And they don't sleep in at all. The kangaroos tend to swarm campgrounds. This can make for a surreal experience when emerging groggily in the middle of the night for a whiz, when a herd of 'roos goes bouncing by at high speeds. Freaky.

We saw one absolutely huge python hanging out in the rafters of the campground office the other day - less than 100 metres from our van. He was massive! The ranger said the snake likely wouldn't kill us. Nancy didn't buy it.

We've worked our way a few hundred km up the coast from Sydney, there's been lots of beaches along the way - and after having been spoiled by all the beaches in NZ and Fiji, it was time to try something new. Catching waves! We took a lesson yesterday, and after a few good wipeouts and accidental inhalation of copious quantities of sea water, we are officially surfers and officially addicted. More surfing scheduled for later today, provided the impending cyclone doesn't interfere.
Gnarly Dude!

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Photos

Opera house
Sing it, sister

Post wipe-out
The invisible surfer

surfing headstands
Teaching the surf instructor a thing or two

Great white - really
This makes the python look tiny

Comments

[Kim]

More warning before snake shots please!!! Miss you guys.

[Lynn]

Thumbs up on the written reports...
Seriously...they are almost as entertaining as the pictures and scenery. Great description...and a career in stand up apparently.