The last week of Qld
Trip Start
Jul 04, 2004
1
4
Trip End
Jul 16, 2004
Coolangatta, Australia
Saturday, July 17, 2004
Well, the flu that I started getting hit pretty heavy on the weekend which was ok as the surf was pretty large and stormy. We had planned to have a large night in Surfers Paradise on Saturday, so we gave it our best shot...Drugged up to the eyeballs on Codral and Herbal flu relief pills (me that is), Shimmy, Richard Telfmeister, Vost and myself headed into the neon malls and spew stained streets to join in the festivities of a Saturday night. After a few mugs of froth at a traditional Irish pub complete with river dancing sheilas (you could almost forget your were in Australia if it wasn´t for the souped up Ozzie muscle cars with bush pipes and chimneys driving past repeatedly) we headed into a more sophisticted venue called Players to watch some girls perform...stuff, dances etc. Yeah, alright, I had a lapdance (courstesy of Mr Vost, cheers maate!) but only because my medication suggested so and boy did I feel better! The night fizzed out rather fast after because of the rain so we had some hot-cold-hot-cold pizza slices from a steamed up bayer-marie and called it a night. Sunday was bed and television with a slight head and tummy wog.
Monday morning woke to feel %100 and blow me down if the surf wasn´t cranking. We checked the coast all the way up to the Spit to find a place working well and surfed at Main Beach (Narrowneck) where waves were peeling from the sand bagged reef out the back through to the shore. Figured out that surfing in Perth every two weeks or so isn´t the best way to achieve peak surfing fitness and I struggled with the paddleouts but scored some long walled up rides regardless. Its such a surreal place to surf, warm water, good waves but looking to the shore the towering skyine of holiday apartments looms over the beach and all those attempting to tan up on the sand below.
Byron Bay was the call for Tuesday. Its only a 35 minute drive from Coolangatta at 140kmh but it seems a world apart. Away from the hustle and bustle of the Gold Coast with helicopters flying overhead evey five minutes, traffic jams and gimmics, Byron has a really calm atmosphere. The town is pretty surf and hippie orientated, with good bakeries, a great pub and lots of shops pushing alternative lifestyles. We surfed at Broken head, a 10 minute drive south, where there is a righthand point break and a stretch of beachbreak peaks all the way up to Tallows beach. We surfed with only a few other peoples and both came in stoked and starving. After filling our faces with pastries we played tourists and went to the Cape Byron lighthouse. This is the most eastern point in Australia and has huge views of the horizon, coast and hinterland with all the hilly peaks covered in subtropical rainforest. Afterwards we sank up some rays whilst watching the folks of Byron Bay (Euro backpacker chicks and the odd wizard from Nimbin) at the Byron Beach hotel. Topped off a sweet day by catching up with Trev and Chris Sinclair in Broadbeach and losing a fiver down the mouths of the pokies trying to figure out how to play.
The swell settled for the next two days but Duranbah was perfect and I had the best surfs I´ve honestly had in a long while. As the swell direction changes from south to more of an easterly swell it allows the points of the Gold Coast to start working and even Burleigh Heads had a wave which is rare for this time of year - but it also allows the crowds to spread out a bit. Feeling surfed out after the last few days, I sorted my gear and Shimmie and myself went back to the Surf Club overlooking Snapper Rocks and the faded superbank to watch the action, and ponder the thrills and spills ahead of me in the land of the Incas.
Í´m here anyway and loving it, just looking out the frosty windows now to the snow capped peaks of the Andes looming over Santiago (the sun has just started to rise and its 7.30 now)
Stay tuned!
