Around The World In 80 Waves

From Byron I had driven on to spend another night in the truck stop at Ballina.

When I woke up in the morning I discovered I was parked next to this, which I am pretty sure was part of the set from Superman III. Can anybody tell me what they are? I don’t know, but for some reason I want one!

I drove straight to the site of the new Lismore and Ballina Surf Lifesaving Club, which is in the snagging list stage of its construction and looks fantastic.

The Richmond River runs out to sea at Ballina making a natural harbour, and to ensure the boats get in and out easily the entrance has been exaggerated by two rock groynes having been constructed.

The original beach has been segmented as a result and the club is on the part north of the river mouth.

While I am checking out the surf and trying to decide whether to go in, a steady stream of pensioners appear each in turn taking a swim in the ocean. This leaves me with no excuse so I paddle out

My board is still taped up, I am still sore from my fall the day before and in all honesty my attention is focused on meeting up again with my friend Kathleen later in the day so I don’t bother with the Gopro here.

I caught a hat trick of rides and then got out, but later discover that the break where I was surfing is widely regarded as one of the most dangerous in the area due to all the Bull sharks there. The species (also known as the Zambezi shark in Africa) is so aggressive it actually swims up rivers in search of food. It is also one of the species most likely to attack humans.

The pensioners of Ballina must have a death wish, because there must be loads of these angry fish hanging about the river mouth looking for an easy meal!

Driving south from Norries Head in the last light of the day I see this sign warning me about kangaroo activity, which seems to suggest they are capable of overturning cars.

My first though is that they don’t put that in the travel brochure when trying to entice tourists to Australia!

Next I’m wondering in a nod to the Quentin Tarantino & Robert Rodriguez’s film From Dusk Till Dawn if perhaps there is a supernatural reason for this strength beyond their size.

Probably not and the few that I did see on my drive south, which were my first in the wild, did not make any lunges for my throat.

I drove on until I got to Byron Bay where I watched the last round of the British Open golf on the telly over a couple of beers in the pub.

During which I had a phone call from a friend back in the UK who wanted to let me know some great news. I won’t share it because he hasn’t passed it on to everybody yet and he doesn’t want me stealing his thunder, but I couldn’t have been happier as I drifted off to sleep in my van later that evening. What a great day! 

After patching myself up at Durunbah it is only 1pm so I get back in the van and drive southward checking out the other breaks along the way.

I still have a dead leg and am quite sore so am not tempted by much that I see through the afternoon. That is until I drive past the town of Cabarita and see these waves breaking off the north of Norries Head as I come over the brow of the hill.

I can’t resist a surf here because there is hardly anybody out and it looks gorgeous. I’m not sure how well my leg is going to work but decide to give it a try anyway.

The rail is smashed in on my board where I landed on it, but because I don’t have the time to do a quick repair before the sun sets I opt for a gaff tape bodge job to try and keep as much water out of the foam on my board. (It can wreck your board once under the surface, stripping the fibreglass off the foam core.)

The water is not cold but soothes my leg and I have a brilliant surf in the late afternoon sun. All the waves are rights and I’m surfing towards the sun so I got a stack of great photo.

This is probably the best of the bunch but I have hundreds to choose from!

The wave might not look as impressive on this one but you can see how much I was having.

Three fantastic breaks in one day and I’m so stoked that I’m practically walking on air. I need to be because walking still hurts. (Strangely surfing didn’t.)

The next eighty waves are off to a flying start!

From Snapper Rocks I travel up the hill in the van to the Captain Cook Monument on the headland, which also marks the border between New South Wales and Queensland. Here I am with one foot in each state.

Durunbah is the break south of the headland known as Point Danger and I can see that there are two breaks in the bay.

One is mobbed down at the rock jetty at the south end where the surfers are desperately trying to get some tube time as the wave jacks up with the reflected swell.

I opt for the Point Danger end of the bay which is much quieter and where I can still see loads of tempting rides on offer. I think it may also be possible to surf from one state into another here.

(You can see the Captain Cook monument on the cliff behind me here.)

It is about chest high on the sets but the paddle out is so easy you can nearly walk out into the line up, saving your arms in the process.

I realise it is warm enough to once more be surfing in shorts without a wetsuit and have a great session in the sunshine.

I haven’t caught many lefts lately but am having so much fun catching these waves off the point and seeing how long I can ride them for on my backhand.

It is still only lunchtime but already having enjoyed my second session of the day I decide to catch one more and then go in. I hate paddling in at the end of a surf. It never feels right to do so.

It is a great ride but I take it that little bit too far in getting caught right in the shore dump. You can see the wave taking the board and my legs out from under me here, the result of which was going over the falls and then landing very heavily on the rail of my board with my hip.

I have a dead leg and blood is dripping off my arm so I think it just as well that I was getting out anyway.

I limp up the beach and back to the van where I fix the hole in me, but am gutted to discover I have put another one in my board. I only had it fixed yesterday!!!!

I have set up camp at the Kirra Tourist Park for two nights and have a great night there chatting with a young couple from the UK who are also passing through town.

I get to have a go on one of the Aussie griddle BBQs for the first time whilst there, cooking myself an awesome steak and stir fried vegetables in record time. We enjoy a chat over a few beers, but it isn’t a big night and I turn in relatively early.

I am up and away just after dawn and head straight to Snapper Rocks to try and beat the crowd because once again it is a weekend when I am visiting that break and it is bound to be busy as a consequence.

It is a fairly cold start by Gold Coast standards and I enjoy a relatively easy paddle out, although this shot would suggest otherwise.

There are already more than twenty guys in the water and because this is the home break of both Joel Parkinson, the current world champion, and Mick Fanning, a former world champion and another stop on the ASP’s world tour I know I am going to have to be on my game today.

Thankfully both the champions are at the US Open back in Huntington Beach so I stand half a chance of catching a wave, but I decide the only way forward is to paddle straight out into the line out and compete for everything. It works and I steal a wave from right under the noses of the local crew and shoot off across the beach through the section known as the superbanks where massive barrelling sections would be on offer if there was a bit more swell. 

I’m not complaining about the waves though because I have a fantastic session and am completely unaffected by the competition for the surf.

I catch loads of great rights all the way across Rainbow Beach going so far that at one stage I find myself right in the middle of a high school surf contest that is going on at the Greenmount end. Time and time again you just get out walk back along the sand and then get back in at the point to catch another. An absolutely awesome session which is a great way to start the next 80 waves (even if this is technically wave 80 because wave 1 was a wave goodbye!)

After my session I chill out by my van in the sunshine enjoying a cup of coffee. I’m glad of my early start as I watch hordes descending on the break, and to celebrate I cook an omelette  for breakfast. 

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.