catching some waves!!

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G'day everybody!!

Righty ho, well ill continue from when we arrived in Sydney on the 19th December.
The plane landed at about 10 o clock and Jacub (my friend from Sydney the previous time I was there) met us at the airport and gave us a lift into the city. Duncan, my friend from university had said we could crash at his for the night as we were getting in so late. So we stopped at Sidebar and I ran inside and got Duncan’s apartment key, after I got us lost a couple of times, we got to his apartment building, which was very plush and posh and went up to the 31st floor. There are 9 people living there and if you lean out over the balcony you can just about claim to have a harbour bridge view!!

So me and gemma met his house mates and finally got in the shower.. (our 2nd in almost a week!! I even washed my hair!! woooo!) We were pretty tired so spent the evening just chilling in front of the TV and enjoying the feel of carpet under our feet! We eventually fell asleep on the sofas in the lounge! The next morning we went for a wonder round Sydney and I met up for a coffee with Craig (one of the Scottish lads I met in St.Kilda).

I caught up with gem in town and we made our way back to dunc’s house, its quite a high security place, you need a key to open the main doors and use the lifts etc or you can ring the apartment and ask someone to buzz you up, but as we arrived at the door someone was just going in, we hopped in behind him and got in the lift. But because we didn’t have the key, the lift wouldn’t stop at level 31 so we went all the way to floor 57. We had no choice but to get out, but the trouble was, there was no-where to go from there!! I found the fire stairwell so we thought we could just walk down to level 31. However… as usual, it all ended in a palava!! When we got to floor 31 the door wouldn’t open!!! Our legs were killing and our only option was to walk the rest of the way down! We tried every door on the way down but to no avail!!! We were in hysterics and in pain at the same time!! 40 minutes later we eventually got to the bottom… and this time pressed the buzzer on the front door to be let in properly!!!

We left our big suitcases in dunc’s apartment and just packed a small backpack to take with us (it was still heavy tho!!) At about 5 o clock we walked down to Circular Quay to catch the ferry to manly (the walk took us an hour and to say our feet were killing us was a complete understatement!!) the ferry ride was fun, I think we provided the entertainment for the passengers on board and we even made some poor old man take a photo of us doing the ‘titanic’ pose at the front of the ship!! He he!!
We arrived in manly and finally got to our hostel, after checking in we went for a wonder around the town and stopped at a nice restaurant by the beach. We had some dinner and bottle of wine… yes we actually had a real meal, and real wine rather than goon…It was lovely!!
Manly is one of my favourite places so far, it’s a really chilled out beach town with everything you need just to hand. We stayed in Manly backpackers and it’s a pretty nice hostel, we had our own balcony, which me and gem spent most of our time sitting on putting the world to rights.
Now, I would like to say this was because there was a lovely view but truthfully it was mostly due to the fact that we had to share our room with a girl who had the most unbelievably smelly feet! Now, im not talking about the normal cheesiness, but a smell that made you heave just opening the door!! Urgh!!!

The next day we hired some body boards and went to the beach and it was so nice just to chill out!! That evening we decided to hit the town so had some drinks at the hostel first… it was a pretty crazy place! I won a pack of 6 corona for cheating on a quiz question (but who’s complaining?!?!) We then headed out to the shark bar, it played really old school music and was full of neon lights and colourful drinks!! After I got my cheesy music fix, gem dragged me off to a “proper” club!! It was actually really good, and we managed to steal santa hats off of two unsuspecting ozzie blokes! (which we then wore religiously every single day from then on!!)

The next morning we dragged ourselves out of bed and went for a surf lesson. We decided we wanted to have a little lesson before the course so we arranged for the instructor to take us both out for a 2 hour lesson. After donning random rash vests and plastering white sunblock all over our faces we were ready!! He took us out one at a time, while the other one watched, there was a storm as we were out in the sea, and it was pretty cool! I managed to stand up which I was pretty chuffed about and it made us really excited for the course! It was tipping it down as we walked back to the hostel but we were in our bikinis and im sure people thought we were crazy!!
That night we were pretty exhausted so we got a big pizza and watched a dvd (kes… it’s the most random film ever!!)
The next day we chilled on the beach (again!) and then made our way back on the ferry to Sydney… this time however we got the train rather than face the long treck!! On the way back to duncans we got KFC and sat in the apartment and went on the internet etc and tried to have an early night as we had such an early start the next morning, but as always, it didn’t happen!!


We had to get up at 6 o clock on Christmas eve and it was a big effort to get ready. I had tried to pack all my stuff the night before, but for those of you who know me… im a disaster area when it comes to being organised, and had to upload my suitcase a few times before I was ready to go (gem is exactly the same, so you can imagine the pickle we were in!!)
We had a bit of a walk to get to the meeting place and made it just in time!!

Wooo… so our surf course adventure begins!!
Everyone was pretty tired on the way there but gem had met two Swedish guys gudstav (but as everyone had difficulty pronouncing his name, he was known as ‘goodstuff’) and Marcus previously in sydney, so atleast we knew a couple of people!!
There was 27 people on the course and we also got good friends with two Swedish girls (Anna and Josie). There were people from all over the world, France, Sweden, Norway, England, Australia, Denmark etc… even another lad from Bristol!! We all had to get on the microphone and introduce ourselves, there was a guy (who wasn’t quite all there) who introduced himself as … “my names mark, marky mark, but you can call me dave!!)
We stopped a few times on the way to Cresent head and the journey took about 7 hours. The camp was amazing, it was like a little haven in the middle of nowhere! It was made up of wood cabin type things, there was an outside kitchen area, campfire and we all shared two big rooms. There was a place called the Humpy, which was a big campfire where we all went to party in the evening, it was really close to the beach and all in all was awesome!! After we put our bags in the room we all gathered around to have a briefing session with the instructors (Andy, the guy who drove us there, and Kim, who ran the camp) the main thing they told us was to “have fun and look cool!” so we all got kitted out into wet suits and headed down to the beach.. it was a bit of a treck and when we got to the best surf sport we then had to go and collect boards from the van.

We all laid our boards in a circle and Andy showed us how to get on the boards etc and explained about the currents and rips etc. he told us to take off watches and any other valuables, and Mark shouted out ‘Andy can you look after these for me’ andy held out his hand, probably expecting a mobile or keys, but mark promptly took out both sets of his teeth and put them in andys hand!!!!! You probably had to be there, but it was hilarious!! ;-)

We then got in the water and were left to our own devices, it was great fun and the determination you have to surf is amazing!! Most people managed to stand up and surf in the white wash and after a few hours we were knackered!! We headed back to camp and peeled off our wet suits, we were all starving and had the best meal ever.. lasagne!! Yummy!! That evening we all headed down to the humpy and played drinking games, about half of us headed down to the beach just before 12 and we had a count down.. at exactly midnight we all ran into the sea and went skinny dipping!!! He he!!

Well, we got rudely awaken on Christmas day at 6:15!!!! We had about 2 seconds to get ready before breakfast and then donned our wetsuits and were in the water by 7! Ha! santa clause, eat your heart out!! Christmas day surfing was awesome, me and gem were wearing our Christmas hats and everyone was in good spirits! Kim got the camera out so we had some pictures of us surfing, it was only our second session, so the waves are pretty small, but the wipeouts are funny to watch!!!

After a few hours we headed back to the camp for lunch, again the food was delicious… everyone agreed that they had never eaten so much, but because we were surfing for so long, we were starving each time the gong went for dinner!! We then we had a couple of hours to chill, the weather was gorgeous so most people sunbathed, and in no time it was time to hit the surf again, as we had had a long time out in the water in the morning, instructors took loads of beers to the beach in the afternoon and we did a bit of surfing first, then chilled out on the beach and had a few Christmas drinks!!
When we got back and showered, it was time for Christmas dinner…. Guess what.. we had “Shrimps on the Barby”!!! how cool!! To be fair, they looked a bit weird with their black sticky out eyes and bendy legs, but after I (got someone else) to de-shell them, they were lovely! ;-)
Me and Gem donned ourselves with tinsel and looked as tacky as we possibly could (representing the English Christmas spirit!) although half way through dinner, gem suddenly realised her whole skin was blue and after talks of what could possibly have bitten her to give her such a rash (blue bottles were indeed mentioned quite a lot!!) we realised it was from her tinsel, but it was literally everywhere… arms, neck face!!! It was only earlier that morning that kimbo asked us if we knew what a blue bottle was, of course, us English said of course we had, big flies that we get at home! But no, in Australia they are kind of jellyfish things they only come over in certain winds but they travel in the air and by the sea and just have one long tendril which wraps itself around your arm, leg etc… and stings, but its really sticky, so if you try to pull it off, it’ll just get stuck to your fingers!!

Christmas evening we went to the humpy again and sat round the campfire with a few drinks, singing Christmas songs (well, gemma and I were singing… every one else just had to listen!!!)

The next morning (again at 7 o clock!) we were woken up (after being allowed a slight lie-in!! and it was back to the serious surfing!! We went to the other end of the beach, and it was at least a 2 mile walk!! It was actually really nice, there was no-one else there and the beach was gorgeous, but with your wetsuit on and the sun blaring, it was pretty tough going!! When we arrived at the correct spot everyone dumped their stuff and headed up to the van, parked on the road above the beach, and collected a surf board. We then had to carry it back down to the beach (I tell you, I think im soon going to be able to make my fortune as a freak who can walk over glass! We had to do all that over sharp stones… barefoot!!) But despite the feet, we had a brilliant session in the sea, by this time I realised its not all about simply standing up on the board that is important, but actually catching a wave! Its pretty easy to do one or the other, but both at the same time… now that’s the mission!! I did it a few times and it feels pretty god damn sweet!!

We headed back to camp at about 12 and had free time till 3:30. Back in the water in the afternoon, I must admit sometimes, when you’re knackered from your morning surf, you’re finally dry and warm and you’ve been well fed, the last thing in the world you want to do is get back in the water!! It took quite a lot of will power but I suppose its mostly due to the fact that when you get out there, you know its going to be brilliant!! And that afternoon was no disappointment…. this time the waves were massive! It actually a bit scary heading out (ok, that’s an understatement…. Imagine trying to run along the road, and every 5 seconds getting hit by a 5 foot wall of concrete!!) It literally took about 10 minutes to actually get out beyond the breaking waves (so you had to make sure you caught a good one to make the mission worth while!) there was a lot of wipeouts as you can imagine, but one of the instructors took me out pretty far, and with a helping push I caught the best wave ever and rode it all the way into the shore! Woooo! J

That evening was pretty chilled out, a lot of people were feeling a bit worse for wear!!
The next morning we had to get up super early if we wanted to get a surf in before we moved on to the next camp. So again, we had to trundle down to the far away beach and we were in the water by 7:30!!! The waves were great again, and the weather was really hot! We surfed till about 10 and then started our mission back along the beach to the camp. We arrived back and were treated to a proper barbeque, burgers and the full works! (one weird thing ive noticed is that despite the ozzies have loads and loads of barbies (in fact almost every thing is cooked on a barby) the don’t have baps for the burgers or rolls for the sausages, I mean they don’t even sell them in the supermarkets… they just have bread!!). after lunch, we packed our stuff and then spent about an hour taking loads of group fotos! It was actually really sad to leave the camp as we had had such an awesome time there and the instructors were cool! But at about 1 o’clock, the whole group got back in the mojo bus and headed to ‘spot x’ about 2 hours north. On the way we watched ‘kenny’, and Australian film about poo!! It was probably the most random thing ive ever seen, but us and the Swedish lads thought it was hilarious!!

I tell you what, I am quite worried that I may come home looking like good old Arnie if I keep this up!! My muscles feel massive and for all you ladies, its an instant cure to bats wings (or what ever the flappy bits under the top of your arms are called!!) It feels brilliant to be this active and addicted to something, the adrenaline and determination you feel out in the water is immense.

So anyway, we arrived at spot x and were shown to our rooms, I was staying with gem, josie and anna and it was literally a metal box with bunk beds in! The ‘boxes’ were all along the side of the river next to the main camp. We got our wetsuits and headed down to the beach, which was right next to the camp. The waves were pretty small and so most of us just chilled on the beach ( I think it was actually a good idea to give my body a little rest, as it meant the next day I was raring to go again, and it was felling very tired that afternoon!) the difference with this camp was that there were about 3 other groups there at the same time, which made about 100 people, instead of just our group of 25. We had all grown pretty close in the last few days and so it was weird to have others there!! That evening we had fajitas and then all headed down to the beach for a party! It was really cool, they took big, old fashioned sticks with flames on them to light it up, and had a stereo and we genuinely caused havoc (yes, skinny dipping was involved again!!) he he!!
Me and gem were the last ones standing, as im sure you’ll be proud to hear!!

The next morning we got woken up at 6:30 and headed down to the beach, the waves this time were great and I probably had my best surf of the trip, every wave just seemed to go right! At 11ish, we headed back to camp, showered, had lunch and then it was back in the bus where we headed another 2 hour up the coast to Byron Bay. Andy took us through the town and then dropped us off at our hostel, Aquarius (which was the place I wanted to stay the last time I was up in Byron). It was a really cool hostel and they put all of us in adjacent rooms, so that was great! The rooms were on 2 levels, with a bathroom, small kitchen and 4 beds downstairs, and 4 beds up in the roof. Me, gem, marcs and Goodstuff
Had beds in the roof of room 16, and it worked out well, as we were all staying for a week.
That evening, everyone from the surf course met at the bar downstairs and Andy did a little presentation, he gave 3 awards, 2 awards went to two foreign people for surfing, and the next was the party animal award… and guess who won..!! me and gem! Wooo!! Though I don’t think it was too much of a surprise!!
So we won a free bar tab in the club that night!! Andy then took us on a bit of a bar crawl, we stayed in the hostel bar for a while, and then headed to the beach hotel (which soon became a firm favourite of ours) and then to cocamungas,, a pretty random club!

The next day we chilled out and in the afternoon, me, gem, Marcus, goodstuff and josie hired a car and drove to Nimbin! It was quite late by the time we got there, but I really wanted the guys to see the place before we left and it was still cool.
We still had the car the next morning so me and Gemma went for a drive to Lennox head, it’s a renowned surfing spot about half an hour south of Byron. We paid it a visit because Andy, the surf instructor, has a house there and wanted to rent it out so we went to check the place out. It was raining which was a bit of a shame, but the surf was amazing, so we watched and marvelled at the waves for a while!!

That night of course was new years eve and as we didn’t really have any plans, we decided to stay at the hostel, as it turns out, that was by far the best choice, as all our mates from the surf course were there, plus others we had met! Me and gem decided to dress up (ha, standard!!) so we bought hulu outfits and wore those, it was quite funny considering it was tipping down with rain!!! We were the only two dressed up, but after the first few double takes, it was cool!! They organised a game where boys had to get certain things and it ended up with about 4 teams left, each with a boy and a girl in them. So the end of the story is that me and Marcus, playing against the other 4 teams, had to swap all our clothes with each other!! And of course we won! Wooo! So we got some free jagerbombs!!!

New year was amazing, earlier that day, we had bought some party poppers and sparklers and everyone got on the tables and partied… no other nationalities had heard of ‘old-langs-eye’ or however its spelt… but we soon got them all humming along!!!
We also all jumped in the pool, well, the surf lot did, the other people in the hostel looked at us like we were crazy!! He he!!
So all in all in was amazing night!
And to top it off, the next day we decided we wanted to spend the 1st of Jan with how we’d like the rest of the year to continue… so we got loads of beers, some music and headed down to the beach!! To be fair, the weather was pretty rubbish, it was on / off raining and so windy it nearly blew my new atlas beach ball away (great present mum!!) but it was brilliant fun and we had a great day!!

So everybody, that’s my Christmas and new year for you….. I hope you all had fun too!

Lots and lots of love… im drinking a toast to you all, in fact ive got a sherry in my hand right now… (well, theoretically speaking, its actually a glass of goon, but for toasting purposes, we’ll pretend its sherry!)

and sorry about the thousands of pics, but its been an exciting couple of weeks!! ;-)

HAPPY NEW YEAR ! ! ! !

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Photos

sydney...
the thousands of stairs we had to climb down!!!

on our way to manly
the sydney harbor bridge!

titanic pose!!
me and gem on the boat to manly!

sunblock!!
do you think we over did it??
just so you know im staying safe in the sun mum!!

getting ready for christmas!!
awww... was it cold in england???!

big red
the mojo bus!

the camp
the camp we stayed in for the first 3 nights.. on the right is reception and on the left if the kitchen!

the gang!
celebrating christmas in style!!

christmas eve
round the campfire on christmas eve!!

yeah christmas day!!
me riding a wave on the second day!! woo!!

shrimps on the barby!!
yeah, this is my christmas dinner!!

mojo crew!!
everyone who was on the course!!

stage one...
looking troubled!!

stage two...
wipeout!!!