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Published: November 19th 2005
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Surfari: Campsite #1
Here is the first campsite at sunset Finally a holiday!
After the wonderful experience of packing my life up in boxes and bags, moving out of my unit ("bumping" my car in a typical nami fashion so that I had to get it fixed before I left Australia...I time things so that I can get the most stress out of a short space of time....) I managed to get on the Surfari bus with my "little" brother Tim on Monday 31st October and we began our trip up north with about 22 other people all keen to learn or practice surfing.
The big yellow bus (named "Capt Good Vibes") drove over the harbour bridge, past the opera house and out of Sydney towards our first campsite near Kempsey on the north coast of NSW. After hours and hours of driving we were all eagerly waiting for a glimpse of the sea and campsite so we could get into the water.
We arrived at the campsite, quickly set up the tents grabbed the boards and hit beach for our first lesson. As you can imagine, long legs, long arms, lack of coordination generally did not work in my favour......I also seem to have a lot of
Surfari: Campsite #1
Big 2 comp begins.....Clcokwise from bottom left: Martin, Sam, John, Simon, Evelyn, Tim, and Esther. bones that stick out of the wrong places and by the end of the first day I was covered in bruises, my shoulders were sore from constant paddling but for those that have seen me in my "determined" mode I wasn't about to give up....
That night we feasted on burritos and sat around the campfire while the two canadian guys on the trip (Sam and Simon) jammed on the drum and guitar they brought along. It was around this first evening that the group addiction to Big 2 (card game) was born and it was clear there were some hardcore players (Esther, Sam, Tim, Martin, Evelyn).
We got up early the next morning and hit the beach again. I discovered the wonders of a soft board (for bruised and battered bodies.....) and manage to have some success actually catching waves (albeit not exactly standing up....more like still lying down... :-). It was in the later evening that I made it up onto my knees, and once actually managed to stand (for 3 seconds! I was impressed at the time!!!! It made the pain all worthwhile)
My surfing prowess was perhaps somewhat hampered by the slight feeling
Surfari: beachlife
By the end of the week a few of us were completely exhausted and began to prefer spending time lying under the "tent"...or some of the boys discovered the joys of "tumbleweed" racing. of sea sickness after sitting/lying on my board for extended periods of time with a belly full of the bacon, sausages and fried eggs we had gorged on for lunch.
That afternoon we had a bit of a break for the Melbourne cup which was fun. Fred (French swimming coach now living in Australia) won the sweep and had the privelege of having Brooke as his slave for the rest of the day as we assumed she had won the wooden spoon. It turned out she didn't but......it was too late by then.
The next morning we grabbed the boards before 7am and started practicing again. I could definitely feel like I was improving (albeit a little...a very little... :-) ....). That was when Pat the guide man brought out the tandem board and took a few of us "battlers" for a ride....It was so much fun....it wasn't until my brother pointed it out later that we realised that he had only given tandem rides to the girls who were struggling....the guys didn't get a go at all....hmmmm
After lunch we packed up, moaned about our sunburnt, aching, rashy, bruised and battered bodies and headed off to
Surfari: Hello? Is anyone else here?
It seems hard to believe that we were the only people on the beach! It was at this beach that a pod of dolphins were swimming around just beyond the break. The fins gave a few people a bit of a heart attack at first...... :-) the next campsite which apprarently had no running water for showers. To get around this we basically bought all the fresh water we could push in a trolley...we were hardcore campers....It was at this pit stop that darling brother Tim bought his infamous white "captains hat" which he surfed in for the next 2 days. I must say, the white hat complemented his half BRIGHT red, half ghost white arms very well..... :-)
That night, we sat around the camp fire, Tim, Nic, Sander, Lisa became obsessed with standing on one foot and bending down to pick up a beer bottle in their mouth, and lovely Fred bought massess of marshmellows from his win with the Diva from the Melbourne Cup and Jess showed us all how to make the perfect marshmellow....I definitley agree the only way to eat marshmellows is to pull them out of the fire with a burning blue flame letting the outside turn into a sticky sweet charcoal mess that oozes down the stick.....yumm....
It was at this site that we discovered we were the only group on the entire beach (until of course the campload of primar school kids turned up - but
for some reason they didn't stay on the beach). Rosco, who had been filming us all learning how to find our feet on the boards all week drove the Surfaris truck down to the beach and set up a makeshift tent for the day. We all ended up surfing a bit in the morning, but there seemed to be a lot less surfing than the previous days, and a lot more lying down sleeping and holding tumbleweed races down the beach.
I am resigned to write this but it is so uncanny it kind of needs to be written. This was the day that it happened. What was predicted came true. Thank you Cramp for your confidence that I would injure others around me with my surfboard.... I was heading out into the waves which seemed to have grown somewhat since the morning. I saw a wave, turned around to catch it, saw Evelyn right behind me, tried to jump off, my boad flew into the air, landing on her face, her board flew up and smacked straight onto her arm. I remained uninjured of course......
Evelyn ended up with a swollen cheekbone and a bit of bruising
Surfari: Surfing Cpt Timmy style pt2
oops...down down down he goes......... around her eye, and a mega amazing bruise on her arm. She was fine though, but a bit shocked. So...anyone want to come surfing with me?! :-)
We had a bit of a beach party that night, sitting around the campfire, a bit of singing, few people swimming, watching the shooting stars,...although it worries me I saw so many and others didn't....hmmmm...
surfing on the final day was pretty amazing. A couple of people noticed fins in the water and freaked out. Tim was one and he headed right back into shore. It turned out to not be a killer shark, but a pod of friendly dolphins who hung around just beyond the break for a while.
It was a great group of people, lots of fun and when we hit Byron Bay we all stuck together and went out to a see a pretty cool band, and dance on table tops at Cheeky Monkeys. The next night we watched Rosco's DVD of the trip and hung out at Pat the guide man's house with his girlfriend (who was also helping on the trip) Ann Maree where we danced to 80s classics and people played table tennis.
All in all a great trip I would recommend to anyone who just wants to spend a week surfing all day at beautiful remote beaches......
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wombat
non-member comment
but you should see the movie
very interesting, watched the DVD last night and it was quite good too. Good to see that you both managed to improve your surfing skills and had a great time. Tim continues surfing sans board at the moment with plans to get one soon.