5 Weeks in Australia

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A 14-hour flight departing the evening of November 3rd from Los Angles would put me in Sydney, Australia the morning of November 5th. Sitting with me in aisle 19 were Itzy, a German woman who lives in a beach suburb of Sydney, and Gai, a lady from Minnesota who was born in Australia and going down under to visit family. They were both really excited for me to visit Oz and gave me some great tips for my journey. Gai later put me in touch with a couple of her family members who have been so kind as to offer me help in obtaining a job when and if I decide to work in the Sydney area. Itzy and I had an interesting conversation about traveling, religion, philosophy, etc. before she drifted into a Valium induced coma. She gave me one, but I didn’t feel anything. I think I caught a few hours of shuteye…I think.

After landing, Gai was headed in the same direction as me, so we shared a taxi that she refused to let me pay for and I was dropped off at “Big Hostel”. Checked in, dropped my bags, and headed out to explore the city and snap some photos with my fancy new Canon SLR. Sydney is clean, green and vibrant. Met a fellow American named JR, a former high school principal from Houston,Texas who took a sabbatical for a couple of years to travel the world (he’s literally been everywhere and really loved South America, especially Colombia and Venezuela). JR and I talked and walked, taking in Sydney as we strolled thru grassy, tree-lined parks, the botanic gardens, a path along the harbor to Circular Quay and the Opera House, and finally thru busy city streets leading us to the bright lights of China Town.

The next day I took the ferry across the bay to Manly, the first of Sydney’s northern beaches. I walked thru the small town center, consisting of a wide brick promenade lined with shops and eateries until I reached the beach. Needed to find a place to stay and spotted the BoardRider Backpackers. Checked into a smelly dorm room with some English, Scottish and Irish boys…the trifecta. Later, there was a barbeque on the rooftop deck in celebration of Mo-vember (November is Prostate Cancer Awareness month). If you had a mustache, you got free beer. Luckily, my beard qualified. Some of the other guys just sharpied a stache on. Probably didn’t come off easily, but a small price to pay for free beer. Also provided, free goon (boxed wine) for everyone, mustache or not. As we ate hotdogs and burgers and got drunk on goon, I got to know some of the hostel’s permanent residents. Lots of English, many of them making Manly home and working construction or hospitality jobs. Other travelers included some Canadians, Irish, Scots, some Norwegian girls and a big group of Koreans who mostly kept to their own little posse.

I turned in early as I was still feeling the jet lag. This is not the type of hostel to get a good nights sleep in. Not many of them are, but this place was really raging. I was in and out of consciousness as my belligerent roommates were in out of the room smoking joints and drinking goon, talking their incoherent british/irish gibberish. They finally passed out around 5, but I couldn’t sleep any longer, so I walked out to the beach and took some photos of an incredible sunrise that painted the sky a neon orange-pink color. I tried to go back to sleep, but the drunken roommates were up by 6, as some of them had to work. This meant more goon, joints, gibberish and stumbling around to start the day for these guys.

I walked the coastal path around Manly. Beautiful place. I love the big pine trees that line the beach. They are the same trees that I’ve admired in the south of France and in California. There was a surfing festival in Manly with a couple of surf contests going on and surf merchandisers lining the beach with booths to promote surf gear, artwork, charities, etc. I demoed a board and surfed for a couple of hours in small, choppy waves.

Headed back to Sydney to sort out what the hell I was going to do with my monstrous suitcase. Budget airlines in Australia only allow checked baggage with a combined weight of 20-23 kilos (45-50 pounds). My suitcase, filled with clothes that I now realize I don’t even need, weighs 50 pounds and I have my old, trusty hiking backpack weighing in at about 18 pounds. And, of course I would need to buy a surfboard. So, if I planned to fly anywhere, the suitcase would have to go. I just bought the thing a few months earlier. It splits into two bags so that in the event that the bag is over 50 pounds, I can check two bags instead of paying excess baggage fees; does me no good here. I took it to the Australia Post Office planning to send it home via Sea Mail, but the cost was $140…not worth it. The other option was to leave it in the hostel’s long-term storage for $10 per week; Also not worth the cost as I had no idea when I would return to Sydney. So, I slapped a little pad lock on the main compartment’s zipper and stuck the bag in the hostel’s day storage locker with the hope that it would still be there whenever I returned. I didn't really care if it wasn't there…just a bunch of clothes. But I feel attached to my things for some reason, so I couldn't just throw it all away.

Took a flight to Coolangatta, the southernmost city of Queensland’s Gold Coast. Checked into the YHA hostel, which was a bit out of town but had shuttles throughout the day to the main surf breaks. This area is home to two world famous points breaks, Kirra and Snapper Rocks. When these two points and the one in between them have the right swell and wind, they connect into one really long, amazing wave known as Superbank. Interestingly, this area is the hometown of pro surfers Joel Parkinson and Mick Fanning. This year’s world title comes down to these two surfers at the final event of the year, the Pipeline Masters on Oahu’s north shore, happening right now.

I was very lucky to show up in Coolie and have Kirra and Snapper Rocks working for the first time in 6 months, according to the locals. The points face east, away from the predominant southerly swell direction. To work, they require a swell from the east or one from the southeast that wraps around enough to hit the points. These swells typically come during the Aussie cyclone season from January to May. November and December do not have much swell and have lots of wind out of the north, creating poor surf conditions. But I still got a great day of surfing at Kirra. The current was so strong that I had to paddle constantly to stay in the right position. If I lived here, I'd have shoulders and lats like an Olympic swimmer. The waves were head high and peeling perfectly. Snapper Rocks was much more crowded (these waves, only a kilometer or so apart, are some of the most crowded in the world), so I just watched the locals as they took off one at a time (most of the time) from the very small take off area and carved up the waves into the shore, got out, and ran back up the rocky point to jump in for another wave. Its ridiculous how crowded Snapper gets. When a guy takes off on a wave, he has to maneuver around 50 other surfers trying to duck out of his way. I saw one guy do an ollie over a surfer who was ducking under him.

Point breaks are fun to surf because they work like a wave machine, producing a wave in the same spot every time. The swell travels from deep water and hits the point (outcropping of rocks), leaving the water no place to go but up and sideways, creating a wave. The downside is that because the wave is always in the same place, there is only a small area from which to catch the wave and it becomes very crowded. On the other hand, a beach break is created by sandbars, which shift with the wind, changing the shape and location of the wave.

After a few days in Coolangatta, I caught a bus south, bound for Byron Bay- a notoriously hippie town with some good waves in the north of New South Wales. Before coming to Australia, I heard so much about what a great place Byron Bay is, and even more about what a great place it once was. I’ve heard the same things time and time again; Hawaii was incredible way back when; Indonesia in the 70’s; shoulda been in Costa Rica in the early 90’s. When I arrived in Byron Bay, I thought, "this can’t be the magical place I’ve heard so much about." It’s a busy tourist town, overrun with young British and German backpackers “on the piss”. Most of them are just traveling to party and drink their faces off with other like-minded travelers. Adding to this mess when I arrived was the beginning of “Schoolies”, the Aussie equivalent of Spring Break. Although unimpressed on arrival, I was able to grab a bike from the hostel and head out of town to the lighthouse. The area is incredibly beautiful. Very green and lush. Rolling hills covered in green trees meet rocky coastline and sandy beaches. Along the coastal path to the lighthouse are parking lots where the camper vans park, with nice barbeques and picnic areas. Getting a camper van with some friends is definitely the way to see Australia. There are places to camp all over and tons of cheap, old camper vans for sale. Usually they are Toyota or Mitsubishi vans made in the 80’s and converted into a camper by putting in a bed that can be converted into a table and by adding a sink and food preparation area in the back of the van. Ads are posted for them all over the place for sale between $3000 and $5000.

After surfing the beach break known as Tallows on the south side of the Byron Bay Headland, I was showering off and saw a few guys with big professional camera and video gear surrounding an SUV. Then I realized that I was standing a few feet from legendary surfer Mark Occhilupo, the 1999 world champion, better known as Occy. I hopped on my bike and rushed back to the hostel to grab my camera. Back at the beach, I snapped some really great photos of Occy making it look easy as he got barreled in small beach break waves. Getting barreled refers to the stuff surfers dream of: riding a wave hallow enough that the lip of the wave covers you up as you ride inside the wave.

When I arrived in Byron Bay, there was a guy representing a place called Lennox Lodge just 20 kms south of Byron. He told me that if I wanted un-crowded surf and a laid back backpacker place in a quiet town, that he would be at the bus stop shuttling willing travelers down to Lennox Head every morning between 8:30 and 10:30. After four days in busy Byron Bay, I was looking for just what he described and the surf report promised good swell, so I met him at the bus stop.

Lennox Lodge is more like a small hotel than a hostel. My room had two bunkbeds, a tv, kitchen and bathroom. None of this is typical of a backpackers. Adding to these nice amenities are a pool, bbq area, free wireless internet, and to top it all off, its only $20 per night- $10 less than most hostels I’ve stayed in so far. There are only 11 rooms and most of them are not dorm style, so there aren’t too many people here and everyone hangs out by the pool or on the front patio area of the rooms, so it’s easy to meet everyone. There’s a small group a surfers that have been here for a long time, working in the area and surfing the many uncrowded beaches and points. Tomo is Japanese and a seriously good surfer. He has spent a few winters on the North Shore in Hawaii. He’s been living at Lennox Lodge for a year and works in town as a sushi chef at a Japanese restaurant. Osher is Israeli, but has lived in Australia for the past 5 years and just became a citizen last week. He works as a cook in a Spanish tapas restaurant and drives the van for the lodge. Lars is a dreadlocked, tattooed, lanky German. He works picking fruit. They all drive absolute beater cars made in the 80’s that they paid less than $1000 for. It’s like a right of passage when living as a traveler in Australia to have a really crappy car. I love it.

Lennox Head is famous for its world-class point break and the very dangerous entrance to paddle out to that point break. I went there with Tomo on my first day in Lennox. For half an hour I sat and watched the locals as they walked down to the surf over sharp black boulders. Once they are close to the water the surfers have to wait for the last of a set of waves to come thru, then scurry out on the now coral covered rocks and leap off into the foaming water, being swept by the current immediately to the north, duck diving a few waves and then they’re out there. After studying the locals, I gathered my courage and made my way down the rocks, waited for the right moment, scrurried out over a few more rocks, leaped in, and paddled my way out with no problems. The surf was good, sometimes a little overhead. I didn’t want to piss any locals off by dropping in or by falling off of a good wave, so I sat on the outside and watched for a while. As the evening approached, the wind picked up, the temperature became cooler and many of the surfers headed in. I was shivering cold, but it was my chance to catch some waves. I took off late on a sizeable wave and made the chaotic drop as I passed by Tomo who was paddling back out and we smiled at each other- no words necessary. Then I got another good one which started off slow so I cut back to the left to get into the pocket of the wave and then shot back to the right and pumped a few times down the line until the wave closed out. The next day, I headed back to the point, this time in my wet suit and feeling confident having surfed well the day before. I carefully walked down the rocks and down to the water. But I got out on the rocks too far, too early and was met with powerful whitewater that knocked my legs out from under me and sent me and my board sliding over rocks covered in cheese grater-like coral that cut me up and snapped the nose of my board almost off. Finally I was able to paddle away from the danger zone after being raked over the rocks a couple of times. I hobbled back to the lodge bleeding from my hands and feet, with a tear in my suit and a broken board.

The next day Osher drove me to the next town over, Ballina, to have my board fixed. This was on a Thursday and the guy told me it would be ready early the next week. To me, this meant it would be ready Monday afternoon or Tuesday at the latest. But businesses don’t operate the way they do in the U.S. You cant get what you want, when you want it. I mean, the local grocery store closes at 8pm. So, the board was finally ready on Friday. Promise of a good swell brought me to Lennox Head to stay for a few days, and that same swell broke my board and kept me there for two weeks. It was a good place to be stuck and I enjoyed searching for surf with the Lennox Lodge crew, sitting around drinking beers, taking the time to make really good meals, and watching the nightly movie that the owner broadcasted to all of the rooms at 8:30 every night.

I have so much time on my hands when I travel that I’ve started taking the time to cook really good meals with healthy ingredients. And there are lots of temporary organic markets held throughout the week to buy fresh veggies. One day I volunteered on an organic farm with Osher, Marie from Germany, and a couple of the French guys, David and Greg. Marie and I were lucky enough to be the strawberry pickers for the day. We picked for a couple of hours, then had a cup of tea and chatted with the family who owned the farm and returned to picking for another hour or so. Afterwards, Lynne, who works the farm with her parents, took us all over the farm and picked all kinds of fresh veggies for us to take home and gave us all a basket of strawberries.

We surfed at what the guys refer to as “the secret spot”, a beach and point break that requires a long steep walk into a little cove in Broken Head Park. The beach is surrounded by beautiful green hills and has points on both the north and south of the bay, allowing for waves on many swell directions. David, a young French surfer has moved to the Lodge and surfed with us that day. He is the French junior champion and is sponsored by Quiksilver. He’s incredible to watch. Catches everything and beautifully carves the waves to the beach. As I paddled back out after catching a wave, I spotted a dolphin surfing the wave approaching me before shooting to the top of the wave and back out to sea- amazing.

I headed up the coast a couple of hours to Brisbane to interview with a 50 meter yacht for an open bosun position (second mate). The captain and crew were nice enough. I got a pretty good feeling about the program, despite having some serious reservations about getting back into yachting. I know it’s not what I want to do for a career and it can be really hard work and long hours. Also, it can be difficult living and working with the same people in a somewhat small space, especially if you don’t get along with some of them. But this boat is unique in that it’s traveling in parts of the world that yachts do not typically venture. They came from Greece thru the Suez Canal into the Red Sea and down to Seychelles, then on to Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and now Australia for a shipyard period. At this point, they will soon head back to Papua New Guinea and on to either Micronesia or to Polynesia. The great thing about this yacht is that the American owner wants the yacht and it’s crew to explore the areas they will visit before he arrives- surfing, fishing, diving, etc. The crew members are required to create a report detailing their experiences so that he can read the reports and determine what he would like to do when he travels the area. This does not happen on any yacht I’ve ever heard of and would be a really great opportunity to travel to remote places and to do some incredible surfing, diving and exploring. The interview went well, so hopefully I’ll hear back from them.

From Brisbane, I caught a bus up to Noosa Heads on the Sunshine Coast. Noosa is famous for its five point breaks, which reside in a protected, beautiful national park. I came to Noosa on the recommendation of a Kiwi friend named Stu, who lived there for a while. Noosa is a really posh resort area. Reminds me of Sandestin in Florida, but smaller and a bit more sheik. I stayed at the Halse Lodge, a really cool hostel in an old Victorian style building with a restaurant and bar attached. Met some cool Dutch guys and some winching British girls who were giving me shit for taking the time to prepare a really tasty, nutritious meal…ha! I guess they live on 20 cups of Earl Grey a day. Got one day of fun surf in at Sunshine Beach before the wind picked up too much the following two days.

Headed back down to Byron Bay to stay a couple of nights at Belongil Beach House with my British roommate from the Lennox Lodge, Dean-O, before taking off down to Sydney in his truck as he needs to get there to fly to India and I am flying to New Zealand to meet Tomo for a surfing/camping road trip around the North Island. Belongil is a bit out of town and right on the beach. It’s the kind of place that certain types of travelers find and end up sticking around for a while. While cooking some food on the bbq outside, I met a couple of Italian girls, Valentina and Stefania who were also grilling some grub. They offered me some corn and we all sat down and ate together. Stefania did not quite know how to eat corn on the cob, so I showed her how as we laughed about how awkward it is for someone unaccustomed to eating corn on the cob. We talked a long time about their three-month adventure traveling all over Australia. They had an amazing trip and do not want to go home yet. They recommended Cape Tribulation in the far north of Queensland and the Great Ocean Road way down south in Victoria. After dinner, I had to drive Dean-O’s truck down to Lennox to say bye to the guys and steal some music from some of their hard drives. Then I met “Vale” and “Stefi “at the Treeshouse, the pizza restaurant and bar at Belongil Beach House. I had not tried the pizza yet and the girls told me that it was the best they had ever had abroad; just as good as pizza in Italy. The restaurant was closed but Valentina told the Greek chef, Cristos, that I had not tried the pizza and was leaving the next day. He had just made a pizza for himself with pumpkin, pineapple and chicken (kinda weird) and offered me a slice. It was seriously delicious. Then he offered me another slice which he would not allow me to refuse, followed by another and then another. It’s rude in Greek and Italian cultures to refuse food that’s offered to you, so I gladly obliged. We had a beer and then decided to walk to town via the beach for a few more drinks. The moon was big and red as we walked thru the wet sand into town. Ended up not having beers and instead grabbed some chocolate croissants from the bakery. Then we decided we should buy some marshmallows and nutella to make a strange smore concoction over a fire and sleep on the beach. Too much wind and a broken lighter resulted in no fire. But we had our sleeping bags and talked on the beach until we passed out. We woke up to watch the sunrise. After cappuccinos at the Treehouse, we agreed to meet again in Sydney as they fly out the day after me. Then Dean-O and I were off on a 9-hour drive to Sydney.

I stayed at Big Hostel again and found my suitcase right where I left it. The next day, I headed to Cronulla, a beach suburb south of downtown Sydney where Itzy from my flight to Sydney lives. I got a good surf in and walked around the town and the beach; Its very similar to Manly. The next evening I met Itzy at the Mexican restaurant in town that she had previously promised we would go to if I ever came to Cronulla. We had some margaritas and I ate a really good burrito while we spent a couple of hours having another great conversation about traveling, religion, relationships, life, money, family. Afterwards we went back to her house and I met the two Greg’s in her life- her husband and son. We drank some red wine and chatted mostly about traveling. Itzy and Greg met in Hong Kong, traveled around China together, and were married 5 months after meeting. That was 20 years ago. Wonderful people.

I spent my last night in Sydney with Valentina and Stefi. We walked around the tourist areas, including the lit up Harbor Bridge and Opera House, and finally ended up at a place called Scubar where we danced the night away to some terrible techno and some classic rap songs(kinda funny that some rap songs are classics now…we’re talking some Dr. Dre, Snoop, and Cypress Hill). In the morning, excited to board my flight to New Zealand, I arrived at the check in counter and was told that I could not board my flight because I had only booked a one-way ticket and a round trip is required to enter the country. The Chilean airline I was to fly with did not handle any bookings at the airport and their reservations office is closed on weekends! Couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I spent $177 on the one-way ticket that I had to forfeit. After much deliberation, I determined that I would have to book the $700 Air New Zealand round trip ticket departing in the afternoon because I couldn’t leave Tomo hanging at the Auckland airport with no clue as to why I had not showed up for our road trip. It’s only money, right? A report on the road trip around New Zealand will be posted next month.

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