Advertisement
Published: February 13th 2009
Well the free surf lesson in Newcastle never materialized so i packed up and left to get one at Byron Bay! Unfortunately it wasn't free but it was amazing! First of all Byron Bay is really cool - v.small with great beach but kinda hippyish as well! And everyone seems to go there as well which means accommodation is very hard to come by and I could only stay there for one night. So anyway I signed up for a surf lesson with a company called Kool Katz and as u'd expect they rocked up about 20 mins late in a battered old van! There were 2 guys taking us out to a beach that was good to learn on cos the waves aren't that big. Their names were Tazzy and Hodge and they never shut up, talking about the swell and the northeasterly and stuff constantly - Hodge was exactly the long-haired laid-back guy you'd imagine when you think of a surfer and i'd describe Tazzy as the crocodile dundee of surfing (he even looked a bit like him!). Whenever he spoke to me he'd keep saying blimey guv'nor cos I'm english and he put on the worst irish accent
when talking to a group of irish guys that were there! Anyway when we finally arrived at the beach after all that hilarious banter it was about as still as a lake and there were a lot of worried-looking faces and the two instructors were talking even more bull at this point! But after about half an hour of waiting and messing about the waves did come and it was quality - they started off pushing us into the waves and telling us when to stand up but after about half an hour i was catching my own waves and riding a few of them right into shore. So i picked it up pretty quickly and it was loads of fun but the best bit was still to come! Mum you would have died - we were just waiting for a decent wave when these fins appeared out of the water about 20 metres away! There was some panic among a few people but Hodge assured us they were dolphins and they were - it was amazing, they were so close and just swam right past - amazing! So all in all the surf lesson's was one of the best
DSC01066
I couldn't arrange to go and see the famous big banana at Coff's Harbour but this was the big prawn at a motorway service station on way to Byron Bay - v.random!things i've ever done! When I got back to my hostel after that though, I just about had time to have a shower before heading north to Surfer's Paradise. The lights were incredibly tacky as we approached it on the bus and there were so many high-rise buildings, it was insane - it looked like Ibiza on steroids! So I had a few beers in a bar and went to bed ready to explore the place the next day. As it turns out, it is pretty much just tacky lights, bars and high-rises and not much to do unless you want theme parks that are imitations of those in America. But the beach is long and has beautiful white sand and is really nice so I spent most time there except for the few heavy showers when I sheltered in a coffee shop - i'm back in Queensland now so it's a bit wet again but not anywhere near as bad as cairns! So not much more to say about Surfer's and then it was off to Brisbane. Brisbane's a great city and reminds me a lot of London with the river running through it and the eye, etc. More
DSC01067
Rhino wanted to learn to surf at Byron Bay too so I lent him my flip flop! culture here than elsewhere it seems! So i've just spent the day here walking round the parks and museums and art galleries - the south bank is especially nice, like in London. I wanted to do a tour of the Castlemaine xxxx brewery in the afternoon but unfortunately it was fully booked so just had to take in some more culture and get beers at a regular bar instead! And tomorrow it's off to Australia Zoo - the home of Steve Irwin RIP - for the day, on the way to Hervey Bay and hopefully Fraser Island!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.039s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0172s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb
