Around The World In 80 Waves

Pretty much the first thing I did after checking in to my caravan park in Torquay was go back a short distance along the Great Ocean Road to check out Bell’s Beach.

I was somewhat surprised however that nobody had paddled out there and instead all the surfers had opted for the adjacent break known as Winki Pop. I asked two local guys why that might be and at first they seemed really helpful however it turned out they were more interested in saving my soul.

I managed to swerve their faith chat by offering my ‘having a religion is like having a penis’ speech, and before long I had put my wetsuit on and had decided to paddle out with everybody else in case they knew something I didn’t.

Access to the water is down a wooden stairway and then out across the rocks you see here. It is my first surf on the south coast and because I have no idea what the water will be like here I am wearing boots and gloves for the first time in Australia. It turned out that I needn’t have worried about the sea temperature which is still the same as it gets in the summer back in the UK. However the real concern turned out to be the rocks.

This picture was taken a couple of days later and shows the rock shelf and assorted boulders that I was paddling out over and attempting to surf above throughout my session here. It made for uncertain footing when wading into the water which never does much for your confidence because you can’t tell what might be underneath or ahead of you at any point later in the session

However the paddle out was actually quite easy and I made it out back with dry hair feeling quite smug with myself.

All is good at this point until you find yourself slightly caught inside on one of the bigger waves and then there is nowhere to go. Even with my bulk it would be impossible to duck dive under the waves with an 8’0″ board so you have no choice but get swept in a bit.

Not normally a problem but I then got stuck inside and as the current sweeps you down the cliffs things start to get a bit problematic.

Where I started the waves are actually breaking away from the shore, but where I ended up they actually break against the cliffs leaving me literally between a rock and a hard place, with a few jagged boulders thrown in for good measure!

I’m not feeling too clever today generally and not at all in the mood for getting obliterated on rocks so pick my board out of the water and then scramble back along the base of the cliffs to the bottom of the stairs where I had go in. It wasn’t too bad for me but three guys I had been chatting to in the water got the same treatment and it took them nearly half an hour just to get safe.

I didn’t blank but there really wasn’t anything to get excited about here and not many picture to share other than the usual ones of me gurning as I try to paddle for a wave. I have seen enough of them even if you haven’t.

A large section of the Great Ocean Road is under the control of Surf Coast Shire which is a real place as opposed to a figment of my imagination.

The centre of the county and the capital of Australia’s surfing scene is Torquay which also marks one end of the Great Ocean Road.

As well as being the home of Rip Curl’s headquarters there is an entire shopping mall here in Torquay, which is called Surf City.

It is dedicated to all things wave riding, and all the usual suspects have a massive retail outlet here. Quiksilver, Billabong, Rip Curl, etc.

It is like surf porn!

The plaza is also home to the Surf World museum, which I can’t resist checking out.

There is a fantastic selection of old surf boards and a wealth of surfing memorabilia from the last hundred years. 

The Bells Beach contest held at Easter just down the road each year is the longest running surf competition contest in the world and there plenty of souvenirs from that event. However I also learned that the beach would not even be in use if the local surfers had not clubbed together to hire a tractor in order to put a road down to the break in the fifties.

Surf world also host the Australian Surfing Hall of Fame in which each of the inductees are presented on a board of their own style.

There is a biography of these outstanding surfers and a detailing the highlights of their wave riding lives

The names in this room are legends of Australian surfing for all kinds of reasons, but there is more than their fair share of world title holders. Nat Young, Tom Carroll, Mark Richards, Wayne ‘Rabbit’ Bartholemew, …

This is a great opportunity to introduce the term BOBFOC to you. (It stands for Body off Baywatch, Face off Crimewatch.) It is a favourite of mine, but Neil hadn’t heard it. Enjoy.

However this is a far more serious post. The local police have been in touch with our programme and have asked for our assistance in solving a couple of open cases. 

New South Wales Police are looking for these two men who were last seen raiding the sugar sachets at the local MacDonalds.

They are described as in need of a shave and heavily armed with hamburgers.

They have a history of not being afraid to indiscriminately use their tomato sauce so please do not approach them.

The New Zealand Police force believe that there may be a link to this maniac seen doing nearly 20 kilometres per hour over the legal limit.

Whilst they suspect he was (as usual) late for a connecting travel arrangement, they suggested a warning be issued to Kangaroos throughout Australia where it is believed he headed next.

Please remember that crimes such as these are unusual so please don’t have nightmares, do sleep well.

After Apollo Bay I keep following coast road until see signs for the town of Anglesea. It is also the name of a large island off the coast of North Wales where I learned my trade in the breaks at Rhosneigr, Aberffraw and Cable Bay.

As a consequence I cant resist stopping the van and going for a surf here. A brief walk to the top of the sand dunes next to the car park and I discover clean thigh high waves right along the bay.

I climb back into my wetsuit which is still cold and wet from Apollo Bay, which is never a pleasant experience.

The battery on the gppro is flat by this stage so I don’t have any pictures to share of the fun waves I caught here but I had so much fun in the water with the break all to myself for an hour. That is until a Surf School arrived and my bliss was gone forever as thirty teenage beginners dropped in on everything with out the slightest care about me or my board.

I decide to get out shortly afterwards, but discover that if I thought that was busy I should have been here last November, when the for the twenty fifth anniversary of the surf school.

They set a world record with at least one hundred and twenty people surfing the same wave here. The local ding repair shop must have done a roaring trade for weeks!

I haven’t been surfing in nearly a week and I’m almost going cold turkey and will consider anything at this point.

Once I am east of the lighthouse at Cape Otway the waves are sheltered from the wind and I my expectation level rises.

When I arrive at Apollo Bay I am delighted to see small but clean lines wrapping into the bay.

When I say small, I mean thigh high waves at best, but probably knee high for the majority of the ones rolling through the bay.

I’m desperate though and the Gopro which is attached to the windscreen of the van gets this picture of me trying to convince myself into the water.

I’m not persuaded by the first place I see that might have potential but a little further around the main beach of Apollo Bay there are already a trio of surfers out and I can’t resist the urge any longer.

It is a pretty spot but I don’t have any pictures of the death defying rides I was chancing my life on because I couldn’t be bothered to unattach the windscreen camera and prep it for the water for something so small.

The water here is the coldest I have experienced to date in Australia and I treat myself to wearing my booties for the first time since New Zealand.

I caught a few quick rides just to remind myself that I came on this trip to surf but don’t stay in that long because the waves were so naff.

There had been a couple of vaguely decent rides though, and if you look closely you will see somebody riding this wave in a picture that I took from the shore.

Once I have filled up with petrol I start the day with a kangaroo warning, which is just as well because one bounces across the front of the van about twenty seconds later.

The road is pretty run of the mill but the landforms on the coast just south of it are out of this world. I see the Bay of Martyrs, the Bay of Islands, London Bridge, The Arch, The Grotto and many more.

The Twelve Apostles that you see here are particularly well known and there is a visitor centre there too.

I pull up and go to have a look for myself.

As pillars of rock sticking out the sea go they aren’t bad at all.

Sadly though the wind that had been such a problem on the roads the day before is still blowing and causing me problems.

There are no waves on offer for me along the western end of the Great Ocean Road as a consequence because everywhere is blown out. Denied!

I see a couple of unusual sights as I make my way along the road.

First a group of cockatiels is harassing everybody at the beach car park like the seagulls used to do to me on my paper round back in North Wales. There isn’t another sea bird in sight.

Then I spot this house as I’m driving towards Apollo Bay.

I’m not sure I’d fancy the walk back along that gangway after I had a few pints down at the local.

Surely and accident waiting to happen.

I will leave you with a few shot taken along the road itself because the geography here is the real star of the show.

I liked the natural arches particularly and wondered if anybody had ever tried to surf through them.

I cross the border and drive westward into the state of Victoria, continuing past Melbourne toward the far end of The Great Ocean Road.

It is extremely windy and the van, which has aerodynamic qualities equivalent to those of a house brick, is getting blown all over the road. I am having to saw at the wheel at times just to keep it moving vaguely in a straight line. The wind is coming from the Antarctic so it isn’t the warmest either.

I headed for Warrnambool, near which I turn back on myself and start driving eastward in search of a place to stay the night.

However with concentrating on the driving conditions I hadn’t noticed the fuel gauge which was actually below empty.

I head for Peterborough confident that I will make the short journey there, but arrive at the petrol station to see the lights being turned out and somebody running into the back as I do so, which isn’t very helpful.

There isn’t much I can do in Peterborough without fuel or a place to stay the night, so I decide to gamble on the remaining 15 kilometres between Peterborough and Port Campbell, which as you can see means I was attempting to do nearly 60km on vapours!

Generally my luck has been running well on such issues on this trip, so after lots of breath holding and coaxing the car along without touching the accelerator unless absolutely necessary I’m not too surprised to roll into the seaside town.

I go into the Port Campbell Hotel to ask where I might get some unleaded petrol for the van, but soon discover that the fuel stations in town are closed for the day and so are the receptions for the camp site and the local hostel. I ponder what to do next over a few beers, whilst chatting to the staff and locals at the pub who are enjoying the last day of play in the third test of The Ashes.

It isn’t long before the usual Manchester weather stops play, (and it turns out the match) which means that the England and Wales Cricket Team draw the game and retain The Ashes. Congratulations to the team and to the British weather that certainly played its part in this test match.

I daren’t even turn the ignition after leaving the pub so spend the night parked in front of somebody ‘s house where I had pulled up upon arrival. The owners of the house on the town’s high street then don’t look too pleased when the see me cooking bacon and eggs in front of their house whilst I was waiting for the garage to open the following morning!

Edward “Ned” Kelly was an Irish Australian bushranger in the late nineteenth century, who is considered a ruthless killer or something of Robin Hood style folk hero depending on your perspective.

His exploits have been portrayed several times in movies, most recently by the late Heath Ledger, but most amusingly by Mick Jagger.

Following an incident at his home the police searched for him in the bush, three of the officers were killed by Kelly.

Victoria proclaimed Kelly and his gang wanted outlaws as a result.

Hostility between Australians of Irish and English heritage meant the gang was supported locally and they evaded capture for some time.

However after his final violent confrontation with the police, which took place at Glenrowan, he was famously captured wearing home made armour and a helmet, which were made from plate metal.

He was convicted of murder and hanged at Old Melbourne Gaol in November 1880.

More by luck than judgement I find myself in Glenrowan on the road to Melbourne. (Last night’s exploits in the mountains have put me off pushing on to Adelaide.)

The town have erected this huge statue to him on the main street.

It is massive.

That is a building behind it!

There is a museum and shop there too, from which I can’t resist adding this Ned Kelly themed thimble to my sewing kit.

After all the events in the Snowy Mountains I had turned in pretty quickly and in the morning had forgotten where I had parked.

It therefore came as a bit of a surprise when I opened the sliding door to see a submarine next to me first thing in the morning.

You might not think that a surfer who spends so much time at the coast should find a submarine neighbour all that surprising but at this point I am in Holbrook.

It is the red arrow on this map and we are nearly 200 miles from the nearest coast!

There is also a submarine museum here but I am needing to get moving before they are open so cant enlighten you further as to the whole story behind the submarine.

I can tell you it is HMAS Otway and can only assume they brought it here in sections because there is no way you would get it a whole submarine down the mountain roads and there are no sizeable rivers or inland waterways that it could have travelled along.

You can see the grass either side of it here which I stroll across to check it out.

Nobody seems to mind me climbing all over it in the first light of day with my morning coffee.

I get a stack of pictures but sadly cant find anyway of getting inside it.

Very odd!

Adam & Rossana suggested that I should check out the snowy mountains on my way south. It doesn’t take long after leaving Canberra before I am in the foothills and steadily climbing.

The road is quiet on my side but really busy going the other way with people coming down after having spent the weekend skiing and snow boarding. I am quite tempted by the idea of doing the same, but listening to the forecasts on the radio I can’t quite as excited by the additional 5cm of snow that has landed today on top of the existing 63cm. I am a tad more used to talking about such things in metres in Europe and North America.

There are signs to warn me about Kangaroos crossing the road and it isn’t long before I see why. There is roo’d kill everywhere.

I stopped to to take a snap of this one who looked like he might be having a kip, but I suspect he was slightly more than stunned!

I must have counted at least a dozen kangaroos and a handful of wombats too all getting a bit bloated in the sun. It was a bit grim.

However I didn’t create anything of my own and arrived at my target town of Cooma a couple of hours earlier than I had expected to. I have a long way to go in the van so decided to push on through the Great Dividing Range and cover some of the ground towards Adelaide.

I took the option of following the instructions given by my satellite navigation application on my phone and spent the next couple of hours climbing in the dusk being watched by scores of Kangaroos lounging around either side of the road.

At the point when there was snow on the ground everywhere I was instructed to turn left onto the Alpine Way. The roads were initially clear but conditions worsened by the minute and I ended up lost in the woods with the back end of the van being a bit frisky on the slippery road. When I eventually found a town I discovered I was in Cabramurra which is actually the highest town in Australia and about to be in the middle of a blizzard!

It transpires that the Alpine way is already blocked and only me could get so lost on a surf trip that I am the single furthest point from sea level on an entire continent! I manage to get some directions and have to get out of there quickly to avoid being stranded for days in the snow. (At this point I am thinking enviously a great deal about the heat wave going on at home in the UK)

The road down is just as slippery as it was on the way up, largely a single track road in the trees where all of a sudden you will come across bridges such as this one.

I am just getting below the snow line and starting to relax when I come around one bend to see a huge stag deer directly in front of me in the middle of the road.

I stamp on the brakes and am skidding all over the place. All the while the deer in the headlights is looking like a deer in the headlights and doesn’t move.

I eventually come to a halt alongside him, when he and his huge set of antlers are looking in through the drivers window.

I didn’t even know they had deer in Australia (they were introduced I later discover) and am more concerned with my heart rate to get a good picture, and he wanders off through the trees in the night as soon as I reach for my phone to try and snap him.

I’m still not out of the woods in more ways than one though and just as I am getting confident on the road again two of the local wild horses, known as brumbies, decide that they are also up for a game of chicken with me in the campervan.

Another swervy, skiddy stop later and I have managed to avoid notches in the steering wheel once more, and the horse stare at me before joining their mate the stag in the woods.

I do get out of the mountains and then push on a little further and eventually find somewhere to stop for the night where I will be able to answer the call of nature myself the following morning. An interesting night!