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!

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. 

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.

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.

Just past Byron Bay we stopped at a quiet stretch of sand known as Belongil Beach, where there seemed to be a degree of doubt about the need for swimwear.

There is a time and a place for everything but I don’t think Neil or I would ever want a Gopro shot of our giblets from the front of my board!

The waves were still small here, but because they were not too daunting Neil decide to have another go on my board.

I picked up this shot of us both looking rather confused as we were getting ready.

Neil felt the water was warm enough not to bother with a wetsuit, and took the first shift in the water. I didn’t mind because straight after he did so a fantastic looking young lady came bouncing down the beach in a bikini, so skimpy it barely contained her on her lunchtime run. She was obviously taking the advice re wearing clothing at this beach very seriously!

I don’t mind telling you it was a joy to behold, and sadly my efforts at getting Neil back out of the water with the camera so that you could share the experience were woefully too slow.

Meanwhile Neil was trying to battle out past the shore break, as you see here. However I must report that he wasn’t in the water that long on this occasion. During his session Neil was afflicted with an experience I know all too well on this trip. You are sat on the board waiting for a wave when an un-expecting arm or leg gets brushed by an innocuous bit of seaweed or equivalent drifting in the water.

Given some of the wildlife knocking around it puts a shiver down your spine which is quite unsettling, and then places a whole host of thoughts in your head that are not great travelling companions at such time!

Once the baton had been passed I paddled out and snagged a couple of tiny waves. this was the best picture, but it flatters to deceive about how poor conditions actually were.

Not to worry though it is another wave towards my target which is now within sight.