Part 13: The Legend of the Gnarloo OR How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Pee

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We woke up, thankfully not to the insane monkey chattering of kookaburras, but rather to the only mildly annoying squawks of a seagull-sized bird and his mate. When I woke up and walked towards the bathroom, said bird and his mate were escorting their three chicks across the pathway. The two parents spread their wings and walked towards me, aggressively posturing and squawking their disapproval that I would dare get so close to their babies. Which is all well and good, yet by abandoning their chicks to threaten me, a kookaburra swept down and started walking towards the chicks. I walked around the moronic parent birds and let them deal with their kookaburra issue.



Once everyone was up and at em, we drove into town and found some breakfast. My usual routine of eggs and toast in the morning has been disrupted for the past two weeks, so when I got to enjoy possibly the most delicious eggs on toast Australia has to offer. And I am not sure if I have mentioned this in a previous blog…but Australians do bacon right. They really do. None of these wimpy strips that have been heated up in a microwave before they give it to you. You get thick, crispy, perfect rashers of bacon that make your heart flutter like a young girl when she sees the Backstreet Boys for the first time. Australian bacon definitely cracks my top five list of things that I will miss coming back to Canada. Alison was feeling slightly worse for wear after her over-refreshment night, but she managed to haul down some delicious banana pancakes that I eventually finished, because as we all know, Alison is a big wimp.



After we crushed our respective breakfastuses, we made our way to the beach. After Whitehaven every beach seems kind of weak, but it was still a pretty legit beach. Ian and I were ready to get some surfing done, so we found a surf shop nice and close to the beach and rented our boards. And now, children, it is time to tell a tale…the legend of the Gnarloo…



It’s been said that the Gnarloo was forged using brick from the ancient Egyptian pyramids; ivory from the ancient statue of Zeus at Mount Olympus; rock from a pillar of the Coliseum of Rome; steel from Arthur’s Sword-in-the-Stone; and finally wood from a fallen branch of the Party Tree from the Shire. The surface was waxed using a mixture of earwax from Clint Eastwood, Teddy Roosevelt, Achilles, and that dude from the Dos Equis commercials. This is all held together by glue created from the hooves of the past ten winners of the Kentucky Derby. Needless to say, it is a force not to be reckoned with by the faint of heart.



No one knows for sure who created the Gnarloo…some say the gods of old…some believe the ancient Romans…others think Burt Reynolds played a role in its creation, but as it stands this is all just speculation. What is known is that the ancient Polynesians of Hawaii discovered it in a shipwreck of the coast of modern-day Oahu. They spent the next century perfecting the sport of surfing using the Gnarloo to guide the way. Kelly Slater, the Michael Jordan of surfing, broke down and cried the first time he gazed upon the Gnarloo. Laird Hamilton rode the Gnarloo in his youth, and was so completely blown away, his hair turned yellow.



How the Gnarloo came to a tiny Byron Bay surf shop, I cannot say. Perhaps it was fate, or mayhaps destiny…but somehow the Gnarloo found its way into my life. And let me just say…it was beyond description (despite my lengthy preceding descriptions).



So Ian and I proceeded to surf the complete hell out of Byron Bay. First wave, boom, standing like a champ. Alison came out and surfed a bunch as well. When Alison joined us, a German dude on a paddleboard cruised past and started yelling about a turtle. Luckily I had my goggles on (saltwater irritates my contacts, don’t judge me), so I popped underwater and I’m literally ten feet away from a sea turtle. Just this massive thing, swimming lazily about. I tossed my goggles over to Alison, so she and Ian got a good look at him too. He was gone in ten seconds, but it was an incredible experience.



We ate at the Hog’s Head for lunch then went back to the beach to crush the waves again. We found in the afternoon that the tide had receded a bit, and the waves were a lot less consistent than they had been. We wandered around trying to catch some elusive waves, but the surfing was not nearly as good as the morning. Also, there was the whole jellyfish incident…



As Ian and I were wading through the waves, we decided to start swimming towards the east side of the beach where it looked like the bigger waves were. As we were making our way over, I felt both my knees start to cramp a little bit. I chalked it up to just being sore from surfing, but within about ten seconds the cramping had morphed into a sharp pain, then in another ten seconds it changed into a throbbing sting, and finally a massive burn. I yelled to Ian that I think I may have been stung. He noticed a jellyfish floating about two feet away from me. We quickly got out of the water and made our way back to the girls. Everything we had read in our travel books about jellyfish was that if you got stung, you need to seek immediate medical attention. As the burn was getting increasingly painful and coming in waves (basically it felt like my knees were going into labor), so Alison and Ian ran into town to ask a local for advice. An off-duty nurse told Alison that the most immediate thing we could do would be to…pee on it.



I feel like most of you will recall the Friends episode where Monica gets stung by a jellyfish and Joey steps up to pee on her. Well Ceanna and Ian did not need to pee, nor did I…but Alison…well…she always needs to pee. Without even a moment’s hesitation, she plopped down onto my knees and let loose. She peed a surprisingly large amount, and I eventually took to directing her stream to where it burned most. She actually probably peed more than was necessary, but hey that’s love right?



The pee made the burn a little better, but as it was still pretty painful, so we headed over to the grocery and the pharmacy (chemist) to get some further advice. Ian ran in to buy vinegar (which was the other thing the nurse recommended), and Alison and I went into the chemist’s to figure out what the next step was. They basically just told me a jellyfish sting is like a bee sting…people react different ways, some just get a red line, some go into anaphylactic shock, and most people run the range between those two extremes. As I wasn’t having any trouble breathing, she told me to just pop an anti-histamine, denature the stinger protein with a hot shower, and take it easy. So Ian poured some vinegar on my legs, I showered, and then took it easy with a few beers*.



*I have not mentioned yet that we unfortunately do not have a cooler (no room in the vehicle) so Ian and I have been crushing warm beer for the past week. I wouldn’t wish warm beer on my worst enemies.

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