Around The World In 80 Waves

I drive north trying to find a surfable wave anywhere on the New South Wales coast. It is getting blown flat everywhere and the howling wind is also making driving in a straight line far more challenging than it should be.

After checking out a number of breaks I pull off the Pacific Highway at Bombo, where there is at least something showing. I get into the back of the van to have a cup of tea whilst pondering whether to go in, only to discover that my van which has developed a bit of a talent for opening my beer bottles whilst they are in the fridge, has done it once more. I have to take the board out to clean the van and mop up all the liquid, but whilst I am doing this the wind catches my board bag sending it cartwheeling down the tarmac car park.

Repairing the damage I am spitting feathers and turning the air blue by the time this trio of Belgians arrive in their own van, parking up next to me. They are touring Australia like myself, but given Denis is sharing such a small van that he has bought with his girlfriend Marie and her sister Laura I can’t decide if he is the luckiest man in town or just the most tolerant.

We get on well and do a bit of traveller’s bartering. I exchange a spare leash and some wax for their recent surfboard purchase in exchange for some wine, and they join me in my van to enjoy sitting around a table for a while. 

We all get locked into the car park at the beach overnight and spend an exceedingly windy stay in our vans.

I stuck around here hoping that the light winds in the morning would allow for a decent surf session. I wasn’t disappointed as you can see by this picture of me leaning on the early morning sun for balance.

I am keen to put on a good show for my Belgian fan club, and don’t disappoint in the fun waves which at first I have to myself. I got off to a slow start but then bagged loads of great rides charging down the line working the waves from top to bottom.

When I get out I decide to sell the dive housing for my Gopro to Denis because he is going shark diving in a few weeks and struggling to get one for the older model we both own. I have only used mine once in a pool in Mexico and have to start lightening the load if I am going to avoid more obscene baggage charges on the way home. I am more interested in the shots above the water anyway, but will look forward to seeing his footage.

After I add my bulk to helping them push start their van we depart on our separate ways promising to keep in touch.

After a very shaky night in the van, which was being buffeted by the strong winds, I wake up to this gorgeous sunrise over the lake in Ulladullah. It is the perfect start to the day.

I treat myself to bacon and eggs in the van and then do a bit of planning to see where I can get in the water today. There isn’t much swell and the strong offshore winds are ruining what little waves are on offer.

I drive the short distance to Dolphin Point to see if there are any waves or wildlife on offer here.

It is virtually flat but there is a small wave breaking off the entrance to the lagoon.

There are already a couple of guys on it but it is desperation stakes all round!

In my clothes I walk and wade out across the rock shelf that you can see here to have a closer look and see if it worth getting into the water.

This one rolls through and persuades me into the water. I walk back across the rock shelf with my board and then throw myself out into the deeper water. The wind is making the whole experience a bit chilly as it bites through my wetsuit, but I sit there waiting for anything that is on offer.

There is very little available other than catching the wave and falling off straight afterwards, but I manage to get up on a couple.

Here is a picture of me on one of them in which I have more Chins than a Chinese telephone directory!

I don’t stay in long.

I took the road east, cutting across the corner of the landscape in South East Australia.

There really isn’t much here and I must have been driving for hours through a forest of Gum trees. I think it must have stretched for hundreds of kilometres and there was barely a soul along the road.

A little further I crossed the Snowy River although I was some way downstream from the massive dam and hydro electric power station.

Built in the Snowy Mountains it is similar in scale to the Hoover Dam which I had seen earlier on my travels. I don’t have the time to see it or the inclination to play with fire (in this case snow) up in the mountains again.

After a long day of driving I arrive at Eden on the southern coast of New South Wales. However it is no paradise for me because the sea is virtually flat.

I check out a couple of beaches but there really isn’t much going on and I decide to use some time catching up on the backlog of blog posts and doing some essential administration, hoping that the swell will have picked up tomorrow.

I spend the night at the camp site in Lakes Entrance, which is an inlet that is home to the local fishing fleet. I check out the local beaches but there are not any waves to interest me there.

The manageress of the camp site tells me how to find the best known surf break in the area which is called Red Bluff.

It is only a few miles down the road and armed with excellent directions I pull into the car park without issue.

It is a glorious day and there is a viewing platform in the car park from which you can check out the surf without walking down to the beach.

Seeing these lines rolling in I didn’t have to think for long before I was racing back to the van to get changed into my wetsuit. However what you cant see from the cliffs is how rocky it is here.

In this picture that was wave of the day, you can actually see the rocks through the water. Getting off your board at the end of each ride entails a belly flop to limit how far you fall through the water to avoid bouncing of the rocks. The waves weren’t too powerful so I managed not to maim myself doing so, although I had noticed with interest the monument to a 13 year old boy who had died whilst surfing here some years before on my way down to the beach.

There was just one other surfer out on the peak I had chosen. I got chatting with him and it turned out that Rory was from Ireland and had settled in the area about five years ago. We traded waves for about an hour before he got out leaving me with the waves to myself.

The water was surprisingly cold here today and at times I had to keep moving just to keep my hands warm.

Despite the constant fear of losing fins to the rocks this was a mellow session in small clean surf, which I really enjoyed, but it is time to leave the south coast and head back to New South Wales once more.

I am on the road again straight after watching Emma’s boys playing footie. I have to get back to the east coast once more but will be doing everything I can to go around the Great Dividing Range which caused me so much bother going the other way.

On my way towards Lakes Entrance, which is my objective for the day, I am delighted to see there is a place called Pearsondale en route. They should perhaps twin the town with Pearsonville back in the USA.

I follow the signs to have a look at it but it seems to be little more than fields and dirt roads so I don’t hang around long.

Driving into the next town along the highway I see this road sign right in the middle so clearly some of my distant family have made their mark in this area.

Australian Rules Football was a game devised to make use of cricket pitches all year round.

There are similarities with both rugby and football but unlike these games you actually score a ‘behind’ worth one point, when your kick at ‘goal’ (worth six points) is slightly off target and goes through gap between the smaller posts either side of the two goal posts and the goal posts themselves.

The state of Victoria is where the game is most popular in Australia with the majority of teams heralding from this area.

I am lucky that Richard has managed to get some free tickets for he, Emma and I to go and see a match at the ANZ stadium while I am in town.

The stadium is where the British and Irish Lions recently lost the second test against Australia, but I am here to see local side Hawthorn play St Kilda. It turns into a bit of a romp for Hawthorn who run away with the game in the end, but I can see that precise field and goal kicking is the most important skill in Australian football.

It is all the more impressive when done at pace. I used to watch Aussie rules in the UK when Channel 4 was first broadcasting and got a flavour of the game then, but it is much more interesting when you see all the play rather than just the narrow angle that the TV shows.

The games governing body the AFL do everything they can to encourage the local youngsters into the game and the following morning I went to watch the household’s two experts take part in their last Aus-Kicks session of the season.

I am a tad horrified at what playing the game does to the wicket in the centre of the pitch. (The groundsman at my old cricket club would have a seizure!) but am challenged by Richard to have a kick at goal myself whilst on the pitch.

Having spent a good part of my rugby career playing full back I think it will be easy to score, but it proves a tad more challenging that I was expecting. However I will blame the wearing of snug fitting jeans and walking boots for my lack of scoring prowess.

In stereotypical Australian style there is a BBQ after the session and all the youngsters are awarded certificates and trophies for their efforts through the season.

Here are William and Matthew in their Hawthorn colours proudly showing their awards off. I suspect they would have far less trouble scoring a goal than I did.

In Melbourne I meet up with and old school friend of mine called Emma. I am staying with her, her husband Richard and their lovely boys Matthew and William.

Emma and I haven’t seen one another since the sixth form at school, during which we probably spent far more time than was appropriate watching the Australian soap opera called Neighbours on BBC1.

As a consequence I suggested we go on a grail quest around Melbourne to try and find the street where the series is filmed.

Emma does a bit of research and discovers it it actually called Pinoak Court and it is just down the road from their own home.

As soon as we pull up in the car we are greeted by a friendly security guard, who tells us that we can take pictures of the houses but mustn’t photograph the residents or trespass on their property.

We discover that there is filming there one day a week but it has been necessary for there to be a security team there twenty four hours a day and seven days a week as a result of bonkers people attacking the houses of characters who have been given a wicked role in the story line.

Running through the houses you see here the top one is Dr Karl’s home (or Des and Daphne’s depending on which vintage you are more familiar with.

Next is Mrs Mangle’s house, and below that Paul Robinson’s home, which has been particularly afflicted with lunatics throwing rocks through the windows, etc.

Next is the Ramsey House where Kylie Minogue was first seen in British households trying to climb in through the window from the balcony.

However the security guard was good enough to get a picture of Emma, Matthew and I calling in on the Robinson’s house, where Jim, Helen, Scott and Lucy all called home.

There was no sign of Bouncer anywhere.

Melbourne is home to the Australian Open tennis and of course the Melbourne Cup, which is as close as horse racing gets here in Australia to the spectacle of the Grand National back in the UK, even if it is not raced over jumps.

There is not really any great surf breaks here because the city is in a quite a sheltered spot geographically speaking from the usual ocean swells, so I am not in the area for long, and as a consequence I don’t really have time to see much of the city because I am more interested in catching up with another old school friend than I am looking at these concrete towers.

I am gutted not to have got in the water at Bell’s Beach when it was working properly but that is what happens when you disobey the golden rule of surfing, passing up quality surf when it is available.

Sadly I have no time left in the area and must hit the road again.

I have promised to get my nephew a boomerang during my time in Australia so have to pull up at the Aboriginal Cultural Centre that I see on the road from Torquay towards Melbourne.

I quickly found one for him and also had a look around the centre’s gift shop learning about how to make didgeridoos, and enjoying some of the aboriginal art available there.

I have to resist buying loads of things though, because I have a ton of stuff to send back from Australia already.

Buying the boomerang I wanted I am delighted to discover that there is a boomerang throwing area at the back of the centre where they have supplied a number of them so that you can practise throwing the returning boomerangs without risking your own purchase.

Armed with the knowledge of the correct throwing technique you see here I launch one with all my might.

It turned as it is supposed to but as you see here got stuck in a tree!

I had a couple of attempts but think you need to throw with a little less gusto than I was using, because you have every chance of decapitating yourself otherwise when it returns at pace.

Those of you who have seen the last scene from the movie Point Break may think you know about Bell’s Beach because it is where Bodhi is intercepted by Johnny Utah trying to catch the 50 year storm.

However that scene was actually shot very far away from Australia at Indian Beach in Oregon in the USA.

The real Bell’s Beach has virtually no trees unlike the set of the movie, and is named after the Bell family who owned the land adjacent to the bay. 

It has now been designated a surfing reserve by the local government and as such is safe for all time from unwanted development.

I had been aware of the bay for some time before the movie because the Bell’s Beach surf contest held at Easter has been running for better part of fifty years now, and is still a regular stop on the ASP’s world tour.

Sadly when I arrive keen to bag the break for my scrapbook it was so calm at times that you could actually see all of the sea bed.

More 50mm trickle than 50 year storm! When it gets big you pick up the wave at the section known as Rincon in front of the headland and then surf it around into ‘the bowl’ directly in front of the bay.

I am kicking myself for not going in the other day when it had looked like this but I followed the crowd into Winki Pop. However “People trusted you” Rob. “You’ve got to go down.”

“I’m not going to paddle to New Zealand” in search of a wave but have to get in because like Bodhi I know I am not coming back.

I don’t attach the camera to the board and even consider taking the fins off because the water is so shallow above the rocks, but ride one wave lying prone on my board. Definitely not “Death on a stick out there mate!”