Around The World In 80 Waves

It is the middle of winter here on the Gold Coast but there are still bikinis everywhere.

These two were walking in front of me on the way back to my van at Durunbah and I couldn’t resist a photo.)

There are plenty of them in the water too, where I am happy to cede my claim to a wave just to enjoy the view of one of the girls surfing past. It brings joy to my heart.

I have been feeling a wee bit guilty about enjoying all the lovely young ladies in their swimwear whilst on the Gold Coast. At which point does admiring the view become lecherous, etc.

However that was before I came across one of the Surfer’s Paradise Metermaids.

They were introduced by a local businessman in 1965 in response to the negative publicity surrounding the installation of parking meters by the City Council.

The controversial idea involved young women dressed in gold bikinis and tiaras, strolling the streets of Surfers Paradise feeding coins into expired parking meters.

An Akubra hat is more common head gear today but the bikini clad girls are still walking the town. I spotted this honey posing for photographs on the sea front.

The parking meters have long gone but the Metermaids have now become something of a Gold Coast institution.

www.metermaids.com

In 2015 they will celebrate their 50th year culminating in a golden anniversary party. Does anybody know how I can lay my hands on a ticket?

After visiting Australia Zoo I drive back down past Brisbane and head for Surfer’s Paradise where I am dying to get in the water. I don’t arrive until the evening so settle in for the night at the Main Beach Tourist Park.

I am made very welcome by the staff there, and after I explain what I am up to they want a picture of me and my board for their own website.

When I pull my board out of its bag to pose I am gutted to discover that the awkward wipeout I had in Marcoola not only took a chunk out of my knee but I must also have landed on the base of my board with my knee leaving a hole the size of my fist where I landed. Oops!!

I gave a quick call to Dirk at Dick Van Straalen because he is just down the road to see who he would recommend and am sent in the direction of the Ding Shop in Miami Beach.

It is a great tip because for $50 the guys there repair my board and hand it back to me later the same day.

They have even managed to match the red colour which the original shaper had mixed in with the fibreglass resin, so you can barely see that a repair has taken place at all.

I’m disappointed to have missed out on catching a wave at Surfer’s Paradise but decide that I still have almost 5 months of surfing left available to me so I should do my best to try and bag another eighty breaks in that time.

Which one should I start with?

Steve Irwin’s TV show The Crocodile Hunter was a worldwide success.

Off the back of the show’s success he was able to develop the Australia Zoo near Beerwah that had been established by his parents.

I have been in Australia for a month now and apart from still not getting used to seeing parrots and cockateels flying all over the place I haven’t seen any of the local wildlife.

As a result I decided to drive down Steve Irwin Way and check it out. One of the first things I saw was this surfboard in the gift shop.

Before his untimely demise due to a stingray attack (something else for me to think about!) Steve would put on shows in the Crocoseum, which is a huge arena in the Zoo where he would tempt fate with some of the huge crocodiles who live here.

Something you might not know about him is that a species of air-breathing land snail, Crikey Steveirwini, has been named in his honour after his death.

His daughter Bindi, has gone on to become a successful naturalist in her own right and there are sections of the Zoo designed by her too.

I am not always a fan of zoos but have to say all the animals here looked comfortable in their surroundings and I enjoyed a great afternoon here. the first thing I checked out were the spiders and snakes so I knew how worried I should be if encountering any later on this trip.

I checked out the wombats, koalas, emus, dingos, Tasmanian devils. The last of which is at least as manic as the cartoon character. So much so that I couldn’t get a picture of one because they don’t sit still for a second. 

The highlight for me however was the area called My Roo Heaven where you get to feed the kangaroos. For me this was worth the entrance fee alone.

You buy a bag of roo snacks for a couple of dollars and then offer a handful up to the grey and red kangaroos bouncing around. They bound over to you and then eat out of the palm of your hand

I made particularly good friends with this one. He liked being stroked and having his tummy rubbed whilst he was eating so much that he stuck around once the food was gone hugging on to me so that I wouldn’t stop.

I thought it would be very funny to try and get him to rev his giant hind leg like dogs do when you rub their belly so tried assorted strokes in order to do so.

However after about five minutes failing in my quest I realised it might have looked like I was interfering with the animal so thought I had better stop!

My new friend wasn’t pleased but I didn’t want to get thrown out!

On the way out however it seemed only appropriate that I pay fitting tribute to Steve Irwin by getting involved at the Crocoseum.

Crickey! He’s a big fella!

I am keen to catch at least one more wave on the Sunshine Coast before heading back south of Brisbane.

Stradbrook Island off the coast there would be one option because it catches most of the swell between the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast but I don’t think the $300 return ferry ticket for the van is worth it for the only break I would have time for.

As a consequence I pull up next to the surf lifesaving club in Marcoola on my way south.

The waves are a bit all over the place, but I paddle out anyway and am quickly joined by two young body-boarders.

The three of us have a bit of struggle to get clear of the shore break and white water but eventually get out back where we can relax, albeit briefly because the swell is being cut up by the choppy water.

As you can see I am having to work hard to get in front of the waves, but do manage to catch a couple of decent rides.

However it is so choppy I get bounced off one wave and then go over the falls rather awkwardly landing on the fins of my board.

The result of this is a big chunk missing from my knee and I’m bleeding so it is time to get out because there are definitely angry fish about and I don’t want to get them excited!

I have however hit my target for number of breaks I hoped to surf on this trip. Woo-hooo!

I pull into Noosa Heads just as the sun is going down, where I am treated to this sunset over the river.

Noosa Heads is where the British and Irish lions got their last surf session in before heading down to Sydney for the deciding match of the series that I was lucky enough to see. I also watch the deciding game of the State of Origin Rugby League series in the Surf Lifesaving club whilst in town, in which Queensland won for a record 8th straight year.

I found a place to park up for the night and am quickly joined by a young couple called Phil and Vanessa who are from North America and park up next to me.

I have a ton of food I am keen to cook up, so invite them to join me for dinner. We have a lovely meal where I think they were most impressed by being able to sit at a table, because their own van was a tad more compact and bijou than mine.

The waves appear to have dropped the following morning so we say our goodbyes and I drive around the headland into the National Park where more swell is on offer, although you can see how close to the rocks the waves are breaking.

After a short walk along the coastal path I decide not to walk onwards to the headland you see in the distance where the T-Tree Bay break is found because it looks ridiculously crowded even first thing in the morning and there is a never ending procession of boards walking that way.

Instead I wade out into the water at the Boiler Pot break which works at the next mini headland along.

The local flora has a real rainforest feel to it and the sea water is lovely and warm because I have now travelled so far north.

There are not too many people out here and after a very slow start without catching much I bag my share of waves.

Each one is skirting along the rocky edge of the coast even if the waves themselves are largely breaking over sand. It was so clear you could see everything beneath you in the water and thankfully there was no sign of any wildlife apart from a visiting turtle.

I am claiming two breaks here because with every wave you moved further along the coast and unless you were willing to paddle back in the sunshine, you might as well just keep going along the shore and then walk back along the coastal footpath before getting back in where you started.

I chose the latter option after surfing all the way back towards the town and through the break in front of car park in the Noosa National Park.

After a great session in the sunshine I enjoy a brew in the van and chat with everybody else doing the same.

Next I decide to turn southwards because the Great Barrier Reef stops most waves from breaking any further north, by doing exactly as its name might suggest it would.

Neil and I are staying in the Newmarket Gardens Caravan Park, which is the closest caravan park to the centre of Brisbane.

That is handy because it is already very late when we return from our night out in the city, and then suspect wake up half the camp site getting in and out of our ‘Whizz-banger’.

(I have discovered this is the nickname given to the sliding door on our type of campervan due to the noise people make when answering the call of nature in the middle of the night!) 

To say neither of us is feeling too clever the following morning is an understatement of epic proportions and I am only just feeling sober enough to drive by the time it is necessary to take Neil to the airport.

We get there with plenty of time before his flight north to Cairns to catch up with family there, and do so without getting lost. Doing so is most unlike me, but after saying goodbye and wishing each other well until we catch up again back in the UK, I quickly return to form. I get lost so many times that I keep having to go through the toll road under the airport annoyingly incurring toll charges each time I do so. I then have issues trying to pay because I cant tell them how many charges are due when I ring up to do so. 

By the time I get back to the camp site (where I have extended my stay for a few days to catch up on the blog because their technology and mine work without issue) I am shattered and do nothing more than get a take away from around the corner.

The following day I get the van rigged for solo running, and am very happy that I will not need to be sleeping in the coffin any more, or indeed having to go through the bikram yoga process that was entailed in me getting in or out of bed! Whilst relaxing there and writing a few posts I manage to get in touch with an old flat mate of mine called Susan who left London to return to Brisbane, who you see here.

Sadly Susan is too busy with temporary parental responsibilities to catch up with me whilst I am in town, but gives me some great recommendations for what else I should see whilst in the city.

I take one of the free ferry boats on a trip right up and down the length of the river to take in the sights. As well as admiring the impressive skyline I visit the south bank where there are loads of museums and other things going on.

Brisbane is actually some way inland, but being the beach loving nation that Australia is they don’t let that stop them having fun.

Halfway along the South Bank I discover this man made beach which has been installed so that you can still get sand in between your toes even in the middle of the city.

I have a lovely day wandering about in the sunshine and get out of town just before it starts to chuck it down with rain. Once more I am heading north in the direction of the Sunshine Coast.

It is time for Neil and I to leave the Gold Coast and head north to Brisbane from where he will be catching his ongoing flights. We arrive on Saturday night and have been given the recommendation that we head for the Fortitude Valley area of the city.

Upon arrival I can see why! The whole night I was staggered by the parade of legs marching past.

I have seen so many great pins knocking about since I was buying sewing supplies in California!

We dive straight into the action but have a bit of trouble getting into some places due to the licensing requirements of Australia where you need ID to get into most clubs and we sensibly decided to leave the important documents safely locked up in the campervan.

We turn on the charm though and despite our shoes preventing us getting into one place are generally allowed in due to being over twice the drinking age.

We eventually find our spot and then spend most of the evening in a club called The Press Club, whose interior you see here. It was however considerably busier that the picture I found on their website and in particular I will always remember one lady you seemed to have a voice that only dogs could hear who kept screeching in our ears. All good fun and plenty of eye candy whilst we had a beer or ten.

At the end of the night you can imagine my surprise when we stopped for a bite to eat at Pie Face on the way home, and I discovered that the answer to the time honoured question of “Who ate all the pies?” is in fact leggy Queensland females. Go figure!

It is a glorious day and it seems like the whole of the Gold Coast has got in the water at the south end of Rainbow Beach, which is known as Snapper Rocks.

Neil and I find a parking space in the car park on the Greenmount headland at the north end of the bay, and from there you can see why so many people were in the water here.

Snapper Rocks is one of the stops on the ASP world tour, and watching the glorious waves break right across the bay and then around the Greenmount headland you can see why.

It is particularly busy in the water because it is a Saturday and the whole surfing world wants to be in getting wet at the weekend. As a consequence I decide to leave that break for a mid week session and then paddle out next to the headland to have a crack at the waves that you can surf around into Greenmount Bay in front of the town of Coolangatta.

Even at this, the smaller end of the break, the waves were epic and under the scorching sun you can see that my camera was getting fogged up in the heat whilst I was having so much fun.

There was a good vibe in the water and I had a blast. I have consecutive pictures showing me riding one wave for nearly a minute of which this is one, but there is only so much looking at my shins that I think you want to do so I will save the rest just for myself.

Ever since my first surf back in North Wales in the early eighties I have always wondered about Burleigh Heads because its name was right under my nose whilst paddling out.

As a consequence I have been really looking forward to getting in the water at one of Australia’s classic right hand point breaks. 

Sadly on the day I am in town there is not much swell about and even though the waves are breaking along the rocks lining the shore there are not many people in the water, which in this surf mad part of the world means there were probably better waves on offer elsewhere.

However as soon as I get in the water I am not easily getting out past the broken waves and amazed by the sweeping current which sends me off down the coast towards Surfer’s Paradise.

One quick chat with the lifeguard later and I am aware that apparently it is nothing compared to normal. He was really helpful though and gave me a few pointers to get out which I did with relative ease after walking back around the bay to the rocky point.

The waves were far bigger and more powerful than I expected once there and I bagged a few peaches, charging down the line along the coast.

A lifetime’s surf career of expectation wasn’t disappointed in the end and I was on my game too, trying not to look too much of a kook to the people watching from the shore.

The waves were actually so powerful that in one wipeout my leash actually got ripped off my leg also sending my board careering off towards the rocks at the same time.

I had to give it my best Ian Thorpe impression to get to my board before it got damaged, only just managing to do so. However that left me on the inside section again and having already spent half an hour literally paddling against the tide I didn’t have too much appetite for more and caught the next one in.

During my travels my sister has scanned this blurry picture, which shows me surfing the north shore of Llandudno, which is in many ways a considerable distance from the north shore of Hawaii!

The quality of the scan is not that great but the things to note from it are that my wetsuit had no arms or legs despite me surfing in the middle of winter in the UK, and that I am proudly holding up my first board which was a Dick Van Straalen 7’2″ loaned to me by Peter Kraus.

The board was shaped in Burleigh Heads which is just south of Surfers Paradise so I convince Neil to join me on a grail quest to try and find the person who shaped it.

We head towards the original location of his workshop, only to discover that he is no longer based there, after a fire bombing incident in the eighties!

Asking around the area we are lucky that one of his former neighbours knows where the workshop moved to and he kindly passes the address on to us.

A short drive later and I am pulling up outside the Dick Van Straalen workshop.

I am lucky that the shaper who produced my board, whose real name is actually Dirk rather than Dick, is working when we arrive. I show him a picture of my old board and he can instantly tell me what it was made for, when and the history of the logo used at the time.

Many modern boards are mass produced using computer lathes, but the Dick Van Straalen brand continues to build bespoke boards now under the banner of Classic Waterman and I have a great chat with him about design development and some of the projects he is working on.

Dirk tells me how the local breaks have changed since the introduction of high rise blocks along the coastline, and the impact of dredging the sand off the coast, which is fascinating.

I’m not the only former customer to call by while I am there and Dirk makes time for all of us. A top bloke who I am thrilled to have met, and the whole experience takes me back to my first ever surfs.

Speaking of which time to get in the water again, me thinks.