Australia - Surfers Paradise and Sand Castles

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Its nearly been a month since I’ve arrived in Australia and not much has happened. When we first arrived we went straight to the town called Surfers Paradise on the east coast. It’s a nice little town right on the water with a beautiful beach. Even though its winter here the temperature is still around 20 every day and there’s still lots of people at the beach. The plan was to not travel around right away just relax in one place and try and find a job. We stayed a hostel for the first week and bought surfboards right away for the beach.

Surfing is by far one of the hardest things I have tried to learn. After being pounded by the waves for the first week and ingesting more salt than ever I finally started to be able to catch a wave and maneuverer around out there, but still no where near close to standing up. It looks very easy, but when you get out there the waves get bigger and end up tossing you around. After a few weeks Im getting a little better but still have a lot of learning to do.

I meet two guys from New Zealand in the hostel and soon enough I had moved in with them and I’m sleeping on their couch. These guys both love surfing so my days consist of waking up and going surfing with them then coming back for food and then going out for another surf later. I’ve learnt a lot about surfing from these guys because it’s all they really talk about. A few other things I’ve been up too is we have been watching a few rugby games on the big screen because the people are nuts out here for their rugby and there was a concert on the beach one night which was pretty cool.

I was hit with a stroke of bad luck though when the apartment I was staying in was robbed. This took a chunk out of my bank account and is the reason I haven’t really been doing much or had anything to update about. All I can afford right now is to be a beach bum because it’s free. I’m still on the job hunt here so hopefully that will change things.

But a big thanks goes to Aunt Cathy and Uncle Mike, they helped me out when I wasn’t doing much and paid for a five hour fishing charter. This was a real treat after not spending much money for a few weeks and I had been wanting to do it for a while now. After a few days of rain the sun came out for a perfect day and I was ready to catch some fish. The boat wasn’t that big and the waves were huge rollers which made a few people on the boat get sick. We got out to the spot and you could see the skyline where Surfers Paradise was beautifully. We all dropped the lines in and started fishing. After about 2 and a half hours no one had caught any keepers, just small little ones. And then finally I got a nice sized flathead which was the only keeper on the boat that day. The guides explained to us this usually doesn’t happen and usually everyone maxes out with 5 fish each but today was just a bad day. I guess I carried my bad luck streak with me onto the boat. Even though the fishing didn’t turn our great, being on a boat fishing in the sun and cooking a nice fish dinner put a huge smile on my face for the day. Thanks again Mike and Cathy for helping me out, sorry there’s no pictures of huge fish to show for it.

Another thing Ive been doing is building huge sand castles on the beach because its free as well and I’m living with a sand artist who made incredible ones. After I made one or two and got the hang of it people started giving me money as donations because they were starting to get really good. So basically to sum up Australia right now would be to say I’m surf bum pursuing a sand artist career while sleeping on a couch.

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Comments

[Mike & Cathy DeVos]

Hi Josh, Thanks for letting us know how your fishing adventure went, happy that you caught a fish and enjoyed a dinner! Glad we were able to create a memorable event for you while you are away. Thanks for keeping your blog updated we love reading about what you are doing!! xox Uncle Mike and Aunt Cathy, and cousins