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You cannot come to the land downunder without learning to surf, can you? According to Andrew, yes. Lara says nope but a few days later Lara was surprised by Andrew booking us on a 5 day Surf Camp. After getting a bit of a taste in Broome it was only right to do it properly. So, on our final leg up the coast we rocked up at Crescent Head, one of Australia's top longboard surf breaks, and enrolled in Surf camp. Out in the middle of nowhere this is a purpose built surf shack full of surfer dudes living the bohemian lifestyle with the obligatory pom who fell in love with her surf instructor and 4 years later is joint camp manager. I don't know, what people will do to get a visa these days!
Life was hard for a few days...No really it was! Up at 7 am for breakfast (the alarm call went along the lines of "out of bed homo's"), surfing from 8am til 11ish. Back for lunch and a siesta in the hammock and then back out for 3 hours in the afternoon. Cruisey...not. For anyone who has watched surfing it looks like a piece of
Crescent Head
Check out the heavy sky! piss. NOOOOOOOO!!! The weather was very bad. It rained ALL week extremely hard which meant putting on a wetsuit when it is wet after you have finally gotten yourself dry was horrible. But, none of that mattered really when we were coming back to home cooked meals including a good ole fashioned shepherds pie to cure my home needs. Way to go Sarah!
There were several rules of surf camp, namely to look cool and have fun (others included no pubes in the vaseline tube see later). The fun bit was easy. We ruled supreme at jenga in the evenings and everyone wanted to be on our team because we avoided the washing up due to our skills. Even the nude camp runs (fines for various surfing/dinner misdemeanours) were not too bad. In fact we even scored ourselves $70 for having the weirdest marriage ever - Not bad I reckon! The surfing however .....Ouch Ouch Ouch...would summarise the first couple of days. It's been a fair few years since I've grazed my knees, but I trudged out of the water, feeling like I'd been in a cold fast spin cycle: bloody knees, red-raw arms, cramp in my legs, testicle
rash (thats what the vaseline is for), belly rash, cuts on your hands and your feet from slamming head first under the water against some rocks. It is exhausting. Just as you think you get the hang of it and are standing you are slammed off your board by another wave, sucked under and at times your life flashes in front of your eyes as you are begging the current to release you from her grip. But hey, none of that matters when you've had the experience of standing up on a surf board - even if it was only for 3 seconds! Especially when you realise that you are surfing in an amazing sunset with Dolphins crashing through the waves with you. Incredible. It is defo one of those sports that you can get hooked on. But, it can also get you down down down as one day you are cruising the waves and the next you cannot even lift yourself up. By day 3 we were all dreading the alarm call and stretchers were required to get us out of bed. My arms ached, my legs ached, my back ached and if Kimbo shouted "Paddle Paddle Paddle" one
more time I thought, "I'll paddle you in a minute, you hippy". But we paddled and up we went. By day 5 we are seasoned pro's!
Surf camp dumped us in the magical place of Byron Bay. A backpackers wet dream! We had heard many a tale of backpackers blowing hundreds of pounds in Byron and in fact spending their whole trip there.
Question: Have you seen much of Aus?
Answer: well, we went to Byron.
...Hmmmm. Well it has to be said. Byron rocks! Grandfather Captain Cook discovered Byron on a jaunt around the world in the 1760's. It is beautiful, relaxing and has lots of cool surf shops and restaurants and bars. For us that meant one night out to celebrate the end of camp but we are seriously skint and budgeting requires supernoodles if we want to see anything else before we go home. The surf in Byron was pretty poor as the big boy waves were drive in a car away. Luckily the walk to Cape Range was very nice and we stood on the most Easterly point of the Australian mainland where the water was chocka with Dolphins riding the waves
alongside the surfers and humpies on their northern migration. Sic! Unfortunately we were not able to watch the England game but we did see the Soceroos go out. Those cheating Italian poofs! The soceroos played really really well and if it wasn't for a girly dive they could have at least taken it to penalties. Bless them!
What else..... we went to Nimbin. What a fucking weird place! Nimbin is synonymous with hippies and weirdo's and pot and cookies. Its the only place in Australia where the police have discretionary powers re cannabis and as a result you walk along being offered weed at every turn. Thats on the street. In the Hemp Embassy, the Nimbin Museum (of sorts) or Bringabong you can just fire up a joint openly. Such a weird place and I seriously feel like I lost a day of my life here. It was like being in some weird film. A fellow bus mate freaked out totally and was found standing on a chair having an argument with himself by late afternoon (schitzo and phrenia come to mind). MTV were filming us all day and we stopped by some American freak's house on the way
home. If you can remember Denis Hopper's character in Apocalypse Now you would be close to this dude. He has grown himself some kind of rainforest and has various houses where he hangs out smoking pot all day every day and random fruit. He has obscure art amongst the trees and really should be locked up. It was just not normal! We were more than glad to get off Jims Happy Bus. So if you wanna go to Nimbin feel free but it is pretty surreal. Oh, did we mention the fact that this town in the middle of nowhere and literally has a perm pop of about 20 peeps. Just as we were commenting how little crime their must be we saw the police (all 2 of them) turning the local pub into a crime scene. Apparently the publican was subject to an armed robbery and kidnapping that morning. See..weird weird weird place.
From Byron we took off to Noosa. A little bit like a smaller and posher Byron. Again very nice, although the weather sucked again. It was not too bad, however, as when it rains you can surf like a bad ass. Yep, we are hooked.
Lara has her own wetty (black and pink of course) and Andrew has purchased a rashy to reduce at least the belly rash and sore nips. We thought about going to Australia Zoo to see that nob Steve Irwin but we are over the croc thing. Having seen them in their natural habitat in Kakadu we dont fancy seeing them turning tricks. Plus, we have learned that of course he can stand on their heads and put his kids in their mouth...it's too bloody cold for 'em to do owt else. Noosa is not that hot during the summer months and will never rival their natural habitats of the NT where summer temps exceed 50 degrees. So far the East coast has been a wash out other than the surfing. We are trying to cram in as much in as we can in only a few short days, so off to Fraser Island where we hear tales of sand fun and 4WD to be had....Sweet!
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