Admiring Koalas and Surf Camp Sucks Really Sucks

According to the trusty guidebook, koalas spend 20% of their metabolism just fighting off the toxins in their all-eucalyptus diet. Humans spend 20% of their metabolism on their brains, but koalas can't afford that luxury and therefore sleep 20 hours a day. This is why they are pretty hard to spot and some Australians look for 20 years or more before seeing one in the wild. So we gave up on the idea of seeing a koala in the wild and decided just to imitate their lifestyle. Seal Rocks was the perfect spot!

We got in late to our old campsite on a Saturday night and were amazed to find the place was packed with about 100 people! Australians really do use their own parks! Luckily we found a spot and got up early to get out of there. Unfortunately for Sam but luckily for me the swell was very small. The point at Seal Rocks was not breaking, but the beach was perfect for pushing me into tiny waves. I had a great time actually getting some waves without getting pummeled or exhausted and finally even stood up for a few seconds. Yes, I have to shamefacedly admit that up until this point I hadn't even managed that particular feat.

When we got out of the water, I saw a van with blue markings all over it that said RBT on the back. That's funny, I thought, another RBT van - wait a minute! That's our van! And somebody taped over the titties! Sure enough, it was. The person who had rented it after us had been embarrassed enough to tape over all the boobs with blue masking tape. Surprisingly, it was a single guy, Jen, from Maui. He had actually rented a different van which had broken down 10 km from the Wicked lot (gotta love Wicked vans) so they gave him the booby van. He was in Australia for 2 months so you couldn't really blame him for taping over the titties. Anyway Jen was super nice and we hung out with him for the rest of our stay at Seal Rocks. It turned out we weren't the only ones who recognized the van; there were some crazy dudes from Byron Bay there who gave poor Jen a lot of crap for taping over the boobs.

We spent the next few days just hanging out on the beach, occasionally driving into town to get ice or shop, surfing, cooking, surfing again...it was very relaxing. By Sunday noon the place had emptied out completely, and we had the campsite virtually to ourselves again, with only a few other campers arriving late on Sunday night. There was a really spectacular lightning storm that night, with pretty much continuous lightning and thunder. On Monday we made steaks with Jen and this time I successfully defended them from both kookaberras and monitor lizards. There were a lot of monitor lizards at the campground and since they made Sam scream like a little girl, it was up to me to protect the steaks.

Over the next few days I got lots of surf practice, and we hung out with some crazy older ladies surfing in kayaks (again, those Australians!) The only trouble was twice a day one of two different surf camp buses would appear. These were packed full of tourists with huge foam boards learning to surf and would completely take over a spot on the beach. They were nice though and mainly kept to themselves, not taking up too much of the waves, except on one day when there were really no waves to be had. We quickly learned to all get out of the water at 10am and 2pm so that they would think there were no waves and keep moving. Really they weren't too bad, though clearly they had irritated the locals in the past, because painted on a telephone pole on the road into town, in huge letters, was "Surf Camp Sucks" and on the other side "Really Sucks."

We would have liked to stay in Seal Rocks forever, but we really didn't get a lot of sympathy that we had to leave, since our next stop was New Zealand. So we headed back into Sydney where we stayed for one day and went to the zoo to finally see some koalas. The koalas were every bit as cute as people make them out to be, and sleep just as much too. We also got to see more kangaroos - in Australian zoos they don't even fence them off; they just stick them in a revolving door-bird-like enclosure with some of the other natives! Fortunately all the native highly poisonous snakes were in separate cages.

We had one last nice dinner with Roy, Kimberley, and Jenny. Then Sam dropped me off at the airport with all the surfboards and luggage. He returned the Wicked Van and caught the train back in no time, and we were off to New Zealand!

Mission: Kangaroo

So admittedly this wasn't the most well-planned tour of Australia. Thankfully we'd gotten lots of good advice on the way. Our main purpose in heading south was to finally see some kangaroos! There is a famous beach where kangaroos supposedly just hang out. Envisioning roos in boxing gloves on surfboards, off we went.

Against Kimberley's advice, we took the Grand Pacific Drive and Prince's coast highway, because our guidebook made it out to be spectacular. We imagined something like Big Sur, with kangaroos. Again, we were failing to take into account Australia's idea of scenery! There was one impressive bit driving right along a huge cliff, where they'd got so sick of rock slides they just built a bridge out over the water. After that, it was mainly driving slowly through beach towns with an occasional glimpse of water over the horizon. Finally we made it to Jervis Bay, a nice beach front state park. It wasn't famous for its surf so we weren't to disappointed to find no swell. We admired the beaches and camped at a nice spot, hooked up by the lady at the visitor's center. (For once, you actually had to pay to camp in advance, so we finally made our contribution to Australia's park system.)

In the morning I got up to go for a run, and actually spotted two little wallabies running away through the bushes. Sam got to see one too at the campsite. I was so busy admiring the forest and looking for koalas that I missed my turn back, and had a bit of a scary time wondering when I should turn back and whether I would end up as foxbait. Fortunately I found my turn the second time!

Wallabies are nice, but we wanted kangaroos, so we drove down to Murramarang National Park and the famed Pebbly Beach of the roos. There were no kangaroos on the beach! Noooo! So we decided to camp at Depot Beach instead. Shoot, we had to pay again, so we headed to the campground office, and there, lo and behold, lazing on the lawn right outside the office: a few dozen kangaroos! Success! We took pictures and hoped they didn't come out looking like we were at a zoo. Stupid kangaroos couldn't even be bothered to walk down to the nice scenic beach background! Oh well. At least we got our fill of kangaroos. After a nice beach walk, it was time to camp and cook some kangaroo steaks, no just kidding, we had regular steaks. Though apparently kangaroo steaks are more environmentally friendly there because there are so many kangaroos that they are somewhat of a pest, and they can live off native flora efficiently, unlike cattle. Still we stuck with beef - the roos were too cute!



As we cooked our steaks, we admired a particularly photogenic kookaberra happily posing for us. Or so we thought, until we turned our backs for 2 seconds and the beastly bird flew off with one of our steaks. Sam laughed but I was mad! That was my steak! Luckily the steaks were small and we had four more of them.




Now what? Mission accomplished, we felt so empty and purposeless. During our beach walk we had learned that the ocean down south really was cold - not California cold, but not bearable in just boardshorts either. Also there was no surf unless we drove quite a bit further south. Originally we were planning on doing some 4WDing in our fancy new van in the parks down south, but we quickly realized that Australians are absolutely not kidding when they say 4WD. Heck they'll take an ancient Honda Prelude towing a boat on American "4WD" roads! And drive 80 kph to boot! When they say 4WD, they mean, Land Rover commercial complete with deep river crossings! Given that our tires were bald, our van was useless, so we studied the guide book, and decided screw it, what we really wanted was to go back to Seal Rocks and just stay in one place for awhile to end our trip. So we drove all the way back up to Seal Rocks in one very long day. This time we went through Kangaroo Valley as per Kimberley's advice. There was some nice, actually fairly really mountainous country (really I swear) and pretty waterfalls on the way. The guidebook warned that there were no kangaroos there, but now we didn't care so much. Now if only we could see a koala....

Searching for the Blue Mountains

With no swell anywhere, it was time to drag Sam kicking and screaming on some actual hikes in some actual mountains. So we headed off to the Blue Mountains, only to discover that Australia's idea of actual mountains is rather generous. See, according to the Lonely Planet, Australia is a very old continent with little volcanic or glacial action to renew mountains or topsoil. Which finally explains why candy is so expensive there! No corn for corn syrup! Though this did not deter me from trying every kind of Cadbury candy bar they have! And there's a lot!

Anyway we headed up to the so-called mountains and to the most famous view point, where we stared intently into the complete whiteout but failed to discern anything at all. We were going to take a picture to prove the complete lack of a view but figured we could just take a photo of a blank sheet of paper later and the time would be better spent fleeing in terror from the hordes of tour buses full of pissed off tourists. The guidebook said that Blackheath was a little mellower so we went there to find a caravan park for the night. Here we met our first unfriendly Australians (though maybe they were immigrants, not sure) who accused us of trespassing when we decided to drive through the caravan park to see it before paying, even though we'd checked in at the office first. We explained that we just wanted to check for any loud campers who had somehow wandered out of Byron Bay and this mollified them somewhat. Anyway it turned out to be a great caravan park, very clean and well-run, and we thoroughly enjoyed the hot showers, as well as the amusing commentary on the owners written by other campers on the shower doors.

The next day we drove back to the view point where we managed to see a little bit, and hung out in town waiting to see what the weather would do. Fortunately it cleared a bit, so we returned to Blackheath to do the "Grand Canyon" hike. We were a little afraid of what Australia's idea of a grand canyon would turn out to be, but it turned out to be totally awesome. We hiked through dense forests and winding canyons with verdant foliage, clear streams, and elaborate rock formations - caves, overhangs, cliffs, buttresses, and so forth. Despite being one of the best and most famous hikes in the area, the hordes of tourists were not in evidence - we only saw five other hikers the whole time. The hike was so nice Sam even enjoyed it and that is saying a lot. The bit where some older ladies kicked our butts on the way up was great too. Those Australians! Luckily we had hot showers to ease our aching muscles back at the caravan park. The park proprietors were getting friendlier by the minute as they realized that despite our scruffy appearances (well, Sam's scruffy appearance) we were not going to try to sneak in 10 friends without paying.

The day after that: whiteout again. So we drove back to Sydney, where it was raining also, and caught a movie at the pimp theater with huge sofa sized seats and side tables. Then it was back to the Wicked lot to finally, gratefully, ditch the titty van and get a nice 4WD van with relative mild artwork - some aborginal looking stick figures hunting, playing with kids, etc. We headed south at an amazing 110 kmh! Finally we could drive at the speed limit! Yay!

Seal Rocks ROCK!

The drive to Seal Rocks from Crescent was only a few hours on the main HWY 1 so we arrived by mid afternoon. The entire drive I couldn't get Byron out of my mind with its' nice beaches and uncrowded surf. I really didn't want to go to Seal Rocks where there is no surf due to sharks wanting to eat the seals. What are we going to do for a few days at this place since we heard it's a tiny little place without even a grocery store and no one really knows about it (other travelers). I guess I can drink beers all day and fantasize about surfing. It will be a good time to finally pull out my guitar and learn some songs. Oh well, life goes on.

When we pulled up to this little bay I noticed a few things:

The water was crystal clear
There was absolutely no seals
There was a head with a barrier reef around it
The waves were waist to chest high and peeling around the head
There was 3 people out

It was on! I pulled into the parking lot and slamed the van into park. Jumped out, grabbed my board, and ran into the water. I forgot if I turned off the engine or not, oh well, Amy will take care of it.

Seal Rocks is pretty much a smaller version of every popular "head" in Eastern OZ. You can walk all the way to the head and jump off the rocks right at the main peak. No paddling required. When I jumped in the other 3 guys were all smiles and really friendly. I guess safety in numbers against great whitey. We all talked, cheered each other on, and took turns catching the set waves that came every 10 minutes or so. It was super mellow and fun. The water was only about 5 feet deep due to the reef protecting the break. No sharks in site and if one was brave enough to come near, we could see it 100 yards away due to water clarity. We surfed and talked until the sun went over the hill and the wind picked up. It was time to get out and look for a place to park for the night before doing it all over again the next day.

None of the surfers I talked to was a local there since the only thing around was a caravan park with some cabins. There were a few homes scattered here and there but most of them were empty vacation homes. Over the hill from Seal rocks was another bay that was just as nice minus the waves. There were a few homes here and half of them were occupied year round by people who fished for a living out of the area. The other half belonged to very wealthy Sydneysiders who built vacation homes here since it was within driving distance for weekend trip. I later found out from one of the few locals that there was bad blood brewing between them and the Sydneysiders. The locals want to keep the place pristine and undeveloped (explaining why the only road into town was a gravel road until you get into town) while the Sydneysiders wanted to build up more shops and turn the place into a resort town. I have to take the locals side on this one and we all planned on getting together later for some beers before burning down the vacation homes! Just kidding, I do wish the people find a balance and keep the place undeveloped for our next visit.

We found a nice campsite with free bbq's and only two other group of campers. It was nice and quiet so we set up shop. More of the same: cook, wine, talk stories, then sleep. I love this lifestyle. Oh, the reason we slept early (around 9 PM usually) wasn't just due to having nothing to do at night, it was because we wanted to get up early to split the camping area before the rangers came in to collect fees. Sly little bastards we were.

The next day wasn't as nice since the wind picked up and the swell went completely flat. Water skiing would be more appropriate than surfing. We hung out and made breakfast to see what the weather and waves would do. Nothing changed for a few hours so it was time to get out of town and head into the mountains since Amy was dying for some hiking. I'm not a big fan of walking around for no reason but convinced myself that the skin on my stomach and chest could use a break from the sun and rubbing on my board to the point of feeling like leather. Time to head to the Blue Mountains for some hiking, yay!

Byron and Crescent Part Deux

Well, we loved Byron so much that we had to return and get more surfing in. The fact that we had a house to stay at was a bonus also (thanks so much to our new adopted Australian family).

Here's our daily routine in Byron:

-Wake up at 7 or 8 at the house and use the facilities (bathroom, espresso machine, etc)
-Head to Watego and surf for a few hours
-Cook lunch right on the beach using the free propane bbq grills
-Climb in the sin bin (boobie van) and sleep for an hour
-Surf for a few more hours until your arms felt like noodles
-Head to Woolworths (it's a grocery store here) and pick up some groceries
-Drive to Clarks beach and make dinner
-Head back to the house to shower and sleep
-Do all over again the next day

After a few days of this it was time to head south to Crescent Head to see if the swell hit. Guess what? It did and the waves were pumping about head and a half high to double plus at the longest right hander in OZ (about 200 yard ride if your wave connects). The only drawback was that the main peak had about 100 guys sitting at it while the inside was scattered with another hundred. Of course I had to test the biscuit out on the main peak. Got a nice head high ride almost right away but it didn't connect so the ride was only about 50 yards. Paddled back out and sat with the rest of the fools for over an hour trying to pick off a wave. The problem was that the longboarders would sit about 20 yards further out and take all the waves. I mean ALL the waves while only a few brave short boarders would drop in on them on the inside and hope they dont make the section. There was no shortage of screaming and threats in the water. After an hour and a half I finally got cold and dropped in on a longboarder who I knew couldn't make the section. Fortunate for me he couldnt get around the whitewater and the wave was all mine. All mine and all the way into the river mouth, thats almost 200 yards of dodging people and yelling at the ones trying to drop in on you. I had enough and headed back in after only 2 waves in an hour and a half. I'll get up early and surf in the AM when it's less crowded. I really miss the small, clean, empty waves up at Byron Bay!

We headed out to our camp site and realized that it was a weekend (we lost all sense of days by now) and the place was packed. Campsites were pretty much piled on top of each other but for some strange reason our spot was open. It must be the fact that it was under a tree that would barely fit a mini van and could only host 2-3 persons around the fire pit. Nice! Time to park, make a fire, cook, have some wine, and set up the muskie net. Early to bed equals early rise to beat out the crowds in the water.

We woke up nice and not so early at 8 and headed to the beach. Holy crap, there was only about 10 guys out at the main peak. The swell did drop a bit and waves were only head high but clean looking. I washed up real quick at the beach bathroom and was getting the jitters about surfing Crescent with only 10 others at the peak. Inside section had about 100 people but who cares. As I pulled my board out of the van I heard something that really sounded like a air horn. As I turned to look at the waves again I realized that it was a hooter that I heard and the surfers in the water had on jerseys. WTF! There was a contest going on and I'm the last to find out. No wonder the lineup was so damn empty while the inside section was packed. F-this, we are out of here. We load up the van and headed south to Seal Rocks. I'm really going to surf at a spot only a few hours north of Sydney called "SEAL ROCKS" after all the shark attacks in the past 2 weeks. Hell no, we only want to camp there and look at the pretty landscape since everyone who has been there highly recommended it.

Byron Bay and the Sunshine and High Rise Coasts

Byron Bay was the only spot in Australia that everyone actually warned us about - saying it was too touristy and, gasp, they did not let you sleep in your car there. It also turned out to be a long drive so we got there quite late, in the dark, in the middle of a downpour. No couple could manage this without a fight and I thought we had quite a nice one while driving around for hours trying to figure out where to sleep. There were a ton of other Wicked Campers there but we started to see why they don't allow people to sleep in their vans in Byron - all the tourists we saw we're drunk and very very high, leaving trash everywhere, and genuinely incapable of intelligible speech. When we asked them where we could park overnight we just provoked fits of the giggles. Finally we heard about a spot from a few folks who hadn't yet visited the smoke shop, and we did eventually find it - rows of campervans lined up on a side street in the dark. But first we had to cook dinner, which we did in a carpark in the pitch dark, because we kept switching off the light in fear of getting fined every time we heard a car.



The next morning the sun came out and things were looking up. The main beach was packed so we drove up to the lighthouse, which is at the easternmost point in Australia, and boasted views down the coast on both sides of the point. It was amazing to see how much windier the Tallows beach side of the point was compared to the Byron side. Looking straight down the cliffs, Sam spotted some excellent waves so we burned rubber out of there down to the beach, which turned out to be Watego's. There Sam caught some good waves while I stayed on the inside, not catching anything because I was too afraid of hitting a small child, boogie boarder, miscellaneous tourist, or swimmer (those crazy Australians sit there and do the crawl stroke through the beach break!) Then we headed into town to do laundry and call up some friends we met in Cambodia who were from Byron Bay. They were two typically Australian sisters, generous and outgoing and fun-loving, called Lorien and Malaika. They were swimming on the beach and immediately came to meet us and brought us home to their parents' house where they offered us parking in the driveway, use of the bathroom, and even a spare bedroom! Their parents were just as nice - mom immediately offered us a choice of desserts and then dad took us on a guided beachwalk on Tallows. Their dad had travelled and lived in Asia and spent all his time in a sarong at home, it was interesting to hear about China from him and we definitely want to go there on our next trip.

In the afternoon Sam surfed Watego's again while I did the lighthouse loop walk, which was very scenic. We made dinner there on the free gas barbecues, then headed back to Lorien and Malaika's for more dessert and a peaceful sleep parked in Byron! Priceless! The next morning we attempted to surf at The Pass, a nice long point break with long rides and a million gazillion people in the water. It would have been a great spot for me, since you can just stand on the inside and push yourself into little knee high waves, but once again I was petrified of killing some poor child with the huge fin on my wombat board. Deciding the weekend crowds were just too much at Byron, we headed north to check out the opening day of the Quicksilver Pro up at Snappers on the Gold Coast. The contest was quite a scene, and they were surfing even though the conditions were horrible, because it was the first day. We got to see our stalker Joel Parkinson, also Chris Ward and some other surfers that Sam knows all about but weren't in my surfing video game so I don't know them or their abilities.

The sun was super hot on the beach so we continued driving nonstop through the Gold Coast. Nonstop because the place was a zoo, like Waikiki but going on forever and ever. We reached the Sunshine Coast which was supposed to be better but still looked horribly built up after New South Wales, so we just kept driving all the way to the north end of the Sunshine Coast at Noosa. By this point it was late and time for another fight. Luckily our guidebook served us well for once and pointed us to the mellowest spot in Noosa, Sunshine Beach. When we asked a local if we could park and sleep there, they looked at us like we were crazy for even asking - why not?! It was a great spot - the bathrooms were clean, the girls even had an indoor shower, and there was a nice coffee shop and a mini grocery store just up the road.

The next day we stayed there to surf. Even though it was an open beach, the beach break was actually quite good. Though there was a surf lifeguard camp right there, it never got too crowded because there were many peaks. Paddling out through the beachbreak and then fighting the current to stay in place was good paddling exercise for me, though I could usually only catch three or four waves before getting too exhausted. Sam was a good sport and helped push me into waves and even gave me the occasional tow when I got tired of paddling. When I went in, Sam had a lot of fun on his biscuit. We stayed there the whole day, though we did drive into Noosa Heads to see the town and buy me a rashguard so I could stop caking layers of sunscreen on my back. The next day - more of same!

After some debate we decided not to head further north. The Great Barrier Reef sounded awesome but expensive to reach and that time of year you need to wear a full-body jellyfish suit. We decided we'd rather spend more time in Byron and some of the places we'd missed in New South Wales. So we headed back south to Brisbane, to visit guess who? Lorien and Malaika were back at university so we went to stay with them in their apartment! The thing with Australians is they are so nice you don't even feel bad mooching off them! It was nice to hang out with them and spend a whole day using up their bandwidth uploading all our pictures and catching up on the blog - so everybody thank them for the pictures dating up to Brisbane! However on a big screen we could now see that most of our pictures, taken on Sam's ancient Canon Elph, had not come out, so we went shopping at the mall and bought a new camera on sale there. We also checked out the city a bit, and best of all went out to steaks with the girls. Mmm, steaks!



We didn't want to leave Brisbane but unfortunately we had to return our booby van. Ok maybe fortunately. When we booked the van the Wicked staff said that they weren't busy at all and it would be easy to extend our booking, so we decided to book just two and a half weeks in case we didn't like the campervan life. When we called them, we learned that everything is always cool and ok with the Wicked staff and no, they were completely booked, but they could upgrade us to a 4 wheel drive van for the rest of the trip. We were so happy to be free of the boobies we agreed! But first, we had a little time before needing to be back in Sydney, so it was back to Byron. Again, we pretty much skipped the Gold Coast, stopping only to sell Sam's Bali board for a measly $150 Australian - probably all it was worth!

Haustralia: Myall Lakes->Coffs Harbour->Crescent Head

So, we hop into the boobie van and off we go. Myall lakes national park was desti one and only a few hours north of Syd. Man the boobie van gets a lot of attention. Some drive by giving the thumbs up while others hoot and laugh. Then there are those that gives that dirty stare as if we had a wooden penis bottle opener from Bali glued to our foreheads. All good times though.

We arrived at Myall lakes and discovered it has flooded over from the storms. Well, what can you do but to make dinner, have some wine, and try to pass out. Oh, one problem mate, you got no muskie net (Haustralian for mosquitos). No worries, we got tons of REI bug juice and started lathering it on. Deet is good for the skin, makes you age 20 years over night. That went well and we slept for about 20 minutes until the muskies started biting through jeans and sweaters. Up all night putting on Deet every 30 minutes, slapping muskies, and bitching about how bad Myall lakes suck. Out of here at first light for sure. Amy actually got up and went running in the AM despite the 2 large dingos running around the camp site. They are wussie house trained Dingos, even Louie (my attack dog) would kick their dingo butts.

Amy showed up nice and sweaty from her run while I did my morning exercise which consisted of rolling a drum, making coffee, and bitching and moaning about how many muskie bites I have. I hate you Haustralia! We heading into town (Hawks Nest) to use the public facilities which are quite nice. Pulling up into the beach parking lot made me feel a lot better and the thought nice waves took my mind off the itching. WOW! Crystal clear waters, tons of dolphins surfing the little waves. This was beautiful and Amy whipped out the Vid camera and took some nice footage. We watched for a while as the dolphines cruised up and down the beach only about 10 feet offshore. I really felt at peace except having to relieve my bladder of the morning coffee. I took my nice stroll to the beach bathroom and HOLY CRAP, there is a 6 feet Python right outside of it! I'm not f-ing peeing in that bathroom or going anywhere near it. I yelled at Amy to bring the vidi so we can document our first wild encouter. The locals came over and laughed, "thats just a baby one, we have bigger ones in our attics". Well guess what, I'm not moving here and if I do my house will not have an attic. Lets get out of this town was the first thing on my mind. Off to the beach to pee where I can see if anything will approach to bite me. We hopped in the boobie van and headed north as quickly as possible with the sole mission of finding a camping store that sells muskie nets.

Coffs Harbour:

A few hours north of Myall Lakes is a pretty little town called Coffs Harbour. The downtown harbour area itself is quite touristy so we decided to head to the beach north of it. Nice small beach break with chest high waves. There was only 4 guys out in the water so we decided to join and get our first Haustralian surf session and test out on our new boards. Soooooooo much fun. I love my expensive Channel Island Biscut since the exchange rate made it affordable. That thing surfs as if I'm a monkey on acid strapped to and elephant on crack running away from micies. Now we are starting to enjoy this country the way it should be. An hour in the water was enough since we were both starving. Oh, it's Haustralia and they have free gas barbies at every darn park and street side. Grill up some chooks (what they call there chickens) and make some nice chook and cheese sandwiches. MMMMMMMMM. We hopped in the boobie van with full bellies, tan faces, and head a few hours north to Crescent Head.

Crescent Head:

This is a tiny little town with the longest right hander in Haustralia. I'm talking about 150-200 yard ride from the main peak to the inside if your wave connects. The beauty of it was that you could catch the wave all the way in, get out of the water and walk to the point, hop in from the rocks and do it all over again. The only time you need to paddle is to get the wave. One problem though, when the swell pumps, so do the crowds. One main peak + 100 surfers trying to take off in a 20 feet area = no waves for you. The waves were small and it was windy that day so we decided to head into the campgrounds and set up shop. Oh such a lovely campground, free firewood, showers, clean bathroom, etc. We make dinner, enjoy some wine, and test out our new Muskie net. Ahhh, real sleep with no bites. Nice. The next morning we head into town to check out the waves and found..........ankle high wind slop. Well, time to hop in the "BOOBIE VAN" and head north to Byron. Off we go.

Sydney and the Titty Van

Australia! Talk about culture shock! Luckily we had not come straight from Laos or it would have been worse. Our flight was not too bad; it was another ValuAir (cheapo) flight. Luckily we were now forewarned from the last flight that blankets, pillows, and sandwiches were $10 each! The only issue was a problem with the airline in Bali that left us in the check in line for hours - plenty of time for the Arak to wear off and leave us wondering if they would really delay the flight for economy passengers. Luckily they did.

We arrived in Sydney in the morning, bleary eyed and droopy tailed. It would ultimately take us some time to get used to Western prices again. At first it was extra shocking because even though the exchange rate gives our dollar 50% more buying power, everything is 50% more expensive, so if you don't do the exchange rate mentally in your head, you have a heart attack, at least after Bali prices. I can't imagine traveling in Australia when the exchange rate was 1-1! Anyway long story short: we were super cheap for the first week! So we took the train from the airport. It was extremely easy and when we asked one passenger when we were to get off, all of the other passengers started offering directions, help, and advice. This was our first experience of Australian insane super-niceness. We got off at Circular Quay to catch the ferry, and got to admire the opera house and the didgeridoo players accompanied by techno beats (we bought the CD so you can all savor the music with us later.) The opera house looked a lot smaller in real life, especially from the side, and was dwarfed by a huge cruise ship in the harbor. I was sure it was just a tourist cafe with a fake opera house roof at first until we moved around and saw the front!

We then easily transferred to the ferry and were off to Neutral Bay, where some friends of my parents had kindly offered us their spare bedroom. Downtown Sydney had been just another city - cleaner than Bangkok, and everyone speaks English (sort of) but not too shocking. Neutral Bay, a nice suburb just a short ferry ride from downtown, was major culture shock! We wandered about for a bit before selecting the most likely candidate for the correct house and letting ourselves in. Luckily we had guessed right! It was so strange to stay in a nice old Victorian in a quiet suburban area - hard to explain really! It was just little things, like hot water coming out of the sink as well as the shower, and tap water you can drink, and a microwave, quiet tree-lined sidewalks outside, drivers that stop for pedestrians in crosswalks, and red lights too! After a nap we walked up to the supermarket which was also a big change from Asia, leaving us in awe of all the food. Luckily we couldn't carry too much or we would have bought everything, especially cheese and steaks! And don't even get me started on all the Cadbury candy bars! And then there's the wines! Mmmm....

We learned that in Australia grocery stores are not allowed to sell alcohol so there is usually a liquor store basically inside the grocery store. If you buy six bottles of wine you get 30% off. And the wines are already only $8 Australian or so for a decent wine like Yellowtail. Also it is cheaper to actually go to the butcher shops to buy steaks where you can get three big tee-bones for only $15 Australian. Conveniently there is a grocery store, butcher, and greengrocer in every shopping mall, not just clothes like in America. There is also a town library in almost every shopping mall! This is just one of many examples of how (to us anyway) Australia just seemed to make sense. Some other examples:

• Toilets have two flush buttons, half flush for #1, full flush for #2! (There is a major drought there just like at home in California.)
  
• ATMs will not give you your cash until you take your card back.
  
• Voting is mandatory.
• There are frequent nice rest areas on all highways and major roads.
• Small cars and car trucks! There are not so many gas guzzlers in Australia. The national car seems to be a white Holden Commodore station wagon, sometimes seen with a hitch towing same. And I've never seen so many small cars with the backseats replaced by a utility bed. Even regular Toyota pickups sometimes have the stock bed replaced with a utility bed!
  
• Cell phones are mostly pre-paid.
• Free gas bbqs at most beach and town parks. Ok, maybe this wouldn't make sense in California.
• Speed cameras on the road. I've never seen speed limits so carefully obeyed before!
  
• And, though it takes some getting used to, instead of 4-way stop signs that cause tons of traffic and where the right of way is always contested, you just sail through a roundabout, often without even stopping, and the right of way is always clear! (If you get hit from the right then it's your fault, and that's that.) The only problem will be if we ever go to France, we'll probably drive through the roundabouts in the wrong direction (clockwise) and die.

Anyway, after grocery shopping, we had another nap, and woke up to find our host Kimberley had made us and the downstairs tenant Jenny a delicious chicken dinner, with peaches and ice cream for dessert. Example #2 of Australian super-niceness! This quickly convinced us to stay with them for a few days and catch up on little things we'd pretty much given up on, like laundry, personal grooming, and our blog. On the first day, we caught the ferry into downtown Sydney, and went to King's Cross, the backpacker area, which made us even more grateful for our nice place to stay. King's Cross is a lot like the Tenderloin in San Francisco, full of shanty boarding houses, drunks, pimps, and whores. And I think we saw the nice half of it! We went there looking for a used travel guide but all we could find was an Adult Book Exchange - which we did try (I mean "Lonely Planet" and "Rough Guide" - maybe they would have one by mistake!) But no luck, until we eventually found a bookstore down the street.

We spent the next few days hanging out in Sydney, where we visited all the free museums and saw a movie in a real movie theater - the first movie theater since leaving home! We also went to the celebrity cricket match, where we found out that non-cricketing celebrities were also players! For example, Joel Parkinson (pro Australian surfer we saw in Bali) was apparently still following us around, and couldn't bowl for anything. This was probably the wrong introduction to cricket since the already confusing opaque rules were made more confusing by the general madness of the celebrity match, in which the announcer attempted to catch fly balls and some kid kept coming out to bowl. It was apparent even to us ignorant Americans that the kid was better than poor Parko though.

We also went out to Manly beach one day. We did not get in the water, partly because of the serial killer sharks around Sydney (four attacks just while we were in Australia) and partly because it would have been like paddling in Hong Kong crowds. However we did find great surfboards for a good price! In Australia boards are cheaper than in California even before you do the currency conversion. Sam picked up his dream board - a Channel Islands Biscuit - for $680 Australian. It was a beautiful board, custom ordered with a nice resin swirl but never picked up, and on sale since the down payment had already been made. It was similar to his Bali board, but with three finds so Sam wouldn't die in bigger waves. I got a barely used imitation Wombat - basically a longboard chopped in half. Perfect for a learner while still convenient for travelling around.

Even though we could have happily stayed in Neutral Bay for longer, soon it was time to pick up our campervan we had reserved from Wicked Campers. Campervans are a popular way to travel in Australia since they can be rented or bought cheaply there ($40 a day rental), and campgrounds and beachparks are nice while the hotels are fairly expensive (even a shared communal dorm room is $25 a person.) Wicked was one of the original iconic brands and still retains its hippie heritage, with laid-back staff, lots of freebies left by previous travellers, and brightly painted vans. When we arrived, the worst paintjob in the lot by far was a van covered in rows of, well, naked titties, in all colors, with huge nipples, and on the back: RBT Random Breast Testing. (A play on Random Breath Testing, a common way to combat drunk driving in Australia.) We laughed and prayed that it wasn't our van. But guess what? It was our van, due to being the only automatic and my dumb ass not being able to drive a stick, especially not left-handed.

The van came equipped with everything you might need - sleeping mats, a little gas stove, a sink and water container, a cooler or "Eskie," pot, pan, silverware, plates, mugs, pillows, sheets, and even two folding chairs. So there wasn't too much we needed to do to get on the road. Except start the van, hmm. After some efforts to get the poor old titty van started, we slowly drove off the lot. Because the van didn't go any faster! It had over 400,000 kilometers on it, but at least it helped us avoid speeding tickets by shaking like crazy above 85 kph, and top speed on all hills was 40 kph. This was a little scary in 110 kph zones! Anyway we drove the van rather shamefacedly to Neutral Bay where we parked it in front of the fancy apartments there and tried not to meet anyone's eye. Though we soon realized that the best bet was simply to make eye contact, laugh sheepishly, and explain that the van was a rental! We did get some glares, but most people got a kick out of the van - some stared and honked while narrowly avoiding wrecking their cars, and one group of girls wanted their picture taken in front of it! But all that later. For now, we packed up the van, and then headed off on the Pacific Highway, well equipped with towels and travel advice from our hosts.

Last of Bali

Once we got off the ferry from hell, we headed strait to a little tourist town called Ubud. This is the artsy-fartsy town that most tourists end up moving to. Tons of art galleries, restaurants, and just about every building was a "home stay" or guest house. Rice paddies in this town are strictly planted for asthetics so tourists could feel like they are staying in the "wild".

The shuttle van dropped us off at the edge of town in front of a Circle K and the first thing I did was grabbed a $2US Bintang (Best Bali Beer). A local driver/guide approached us and offered to show us his buddies guest house. Being so hungry and exhausted (the rain didn't help either), we agreed and went along since it was 2 blocks away. Nice little place for the price of $15US so we took it. Our tummies made us ran to the nearest restaurant for a quick meal before a cold shower and bed. Damn we were so tired from that ferry ride through hell.

The next day we walked around and found a really nice guest house with a swimming pool that we fell in love with. The sun was out and super hot so the pool sold itself. I think we spent more time in that pool then in our room or anywhere else in town. The next few days consisted of swimming, walking around town, swimming, eating, swimming, sleeping, swimming and more swimming. I think we were both water logged by the time we left Ubud.

We did manage to go to a "traditional dance show". There is a different dance every night but we got lucky and got the most popular dance the night we went. What was amazing was that there were about 1000 people all dressed in white marching down the main street. This parade was the intro to the dance show that we were attending. We thought "WOW, there must be a lottery system where half the town needs to do this parade as a civil duty such as jury duty for us back at home". "Billy and his family has been doing it for the past 20 years but Mike's family hasn't participated in over 5 years". I guess everyone in town hates Mike and doesn't buy shrimp chips from his warung even though it's fresh. The actual dance show itself was very interesting also.

Monkeys at the monkey sanctuary weren't as feisty as their reputation puts them. They are well behaved and will only take banana's that you hand them. None of them threw poop at anyone, and the baby monkeys weren't crying. Those little suckers are so cute and we have wayyyyyyy too many pictures of them. Oh, we took one back to the guest house with us as a pet but he ended up not knowing how to "wipe his own ass" so I kicked him out. Damn monkeys!

It would be a sin not to visit the volcanic Mount Batur and Kintamani lake so we hired a driver for the day to take us there. The drive up was very interesting and we stopped at a few different temples. The problem with temples in Bali is that you can buy the exact replica stones at the corner store and build your own. Most homes and shops are built to look identical to the "real" temples. Since you see it all around you (the architectural design of the temples), when you actually visit a temple you aren't as impressed. Did I mention you can buy wooden penis bottle openers at all the temples?

Mount Batur itself was spectacular, the views were amazing, and boy was it windy and cold. We managed to get about 20 minutes worth of beautiful views until the clouds blew in and visibility became zero. You had a hard time seeing 5 feet in front of you so it was quite scary when we were driving back down to town, the driver listens for an oncoming vehicle rather than watching for one. We managed to survive the descend and stopped off at the most picturesque rice paddies on a hillside. The vendors and street hawkers were really pushy but everything was only one dollar. Motorcycle toy=one dollar, penis bottle opener=one dollar, silk sarong=one dollar. What we found out later was that nothing was one dollar, it was there way of getting you to touch the item so you'll have to buy it for $20US. Once you touch the item and it's in your hands, they will not take it back and demand the higher price. Lucky for us we refused to even look at anything and our driver informed us of the "bait and switch" one dollar scam. Who wants a very large wooden penis bottle opener anyways?


After four days of sitting on our butts and swimming way too much, we decided that it was time to get out of town. We booked a driver to Medewi, a small surfing village on the south eastern part of the island. This was perfect since it's really close to Balian River where our large bags were being stored at "Mike from Canada" guest house. Did I mention that I have been traveling though Bali with a small backpack with only 2 shorts, 2 shirts, 1 underwear, an ipod, and my surfboard? Yeah, it's really nice to travel lite except when both shorts are wet, I had to wear the towel as a sarong to the restaurant. I fit right in.

We surfed, ate, and basically sat on our asses for a few days in Medewi. The waves were soft head high waves that was a lot of fun. Windy as hell in the late afternoon so you need to get it early. There were about 15 tourist in the entire town when we were there so everyone kind of hung out and talked at the only restaurant on the beach. Nice and convenient since it was cheap, good food, and right in front of the waves. I surfed, ate, drank more Bintangs, and slept most the time. It was a really rocky beach so Amy didn't surf, she spent here days reading, drawing, eating, and drinking fruit shakes by the gallons. Life was good!

The wind picked up too much for the surf break on the third day so we packed up and headed to Balian River. We caught the local bemo (bus) to Balian which was only 30 minutes away and it cost us $1.50 for the both of us. Amy did punk out the driver who wanted more money by saying "We only paid $1 on the way here last time" and jumped out of the bemo and walked away. The actual "local cost" was $.50 each but they usually charge tourists double to triple the price. Good job Amy!

Balian was nice, we ordered food and I hit the water since the waves were head high and super clean. I figured the food will be ready in 45 min and I'll get out of the water then. I caught a few nice waves that were head high to a few feet overhead. Man I was loving it, my single fin was loose and fun. All of a sudden, the swell everyone was talking about was coming in. It was within 20 minutes that the waves went from fun head high waves to triple overhead bombs. I spent the next 30 minutes sprint paddling over the set waves and tried desperately to get over to the channel. No luck since the current was pulling you right to the peak so I took off on a smaller (double over head) set wave and slid down the face sideways on my board. "Stupid single fin board, all looks and no go" I bitched to myself as I splat on the water. The lip of the wave that drove me down and ragged dolled me for 20 feet was no fun for me, Amy seem to be having a kick watching from the restaurant. She laughed in between bites of her damn burrito every time I had to swim under to avoid wave after wave on the head. I finally manage to get a little ripple wave on the inside and took it all the way in to the beach. I'm buying a real board once we get to Australia!

We didn't stay the night in Balian since the room we wanted was booked for a few days. The people at the restaurant was super nice and like us a lot (we tipped them $10US on our first stay) and arranged for a driver to take us to Sanur. Off we go and as usual, it rained like crazy the whole way there and we had to look for a place to stay in the rain.

Our driver was very nice and drove us from guest house to guest house to find a place we liked and could afford. The rain was really coming down hard and it was already dark, I thought for sure that we would end up having to settle for an overpriced shitty place again. Not this time, the fourth place we looked at was amazing for only $18US a night. It had a nice pool in the garden and our room had huge french doors that led to a big balcony overlooking the pool/garden. We'll take it!

We spent the next few days swimming, eating, and getting Arak drinks (local rice wiskey) at the "Honeymoon Bar" across the street from our hotel. The bartenders were really nice and we seemed to be the only patrons there most the time. We tipped well, got free drinks, heard interesting stories from the bartenders, choose the music we wanted to hear and had a great time. Of all the towns in Bali, Sanur would be one of the most laid back places. The expat call Sanure "Sa-nore" as in snoring since it's boring. We loved it, quiet and peaceful. We walked the beaches and decided "lets get massages just to say we did". This was the first massage I have ever had and lucky for me it was by a husky woman with very strong hands. I was hooked instantly! I had no idea one could fall asleep on a nice bed on the beach, in the shade, while someone is beating the crap out of your muscles. It felt so good that we looked over to each other and decided we'll have to just come back again tomorrow for our $6US hour long massages.

Time to go! What? We finally fell in love with Bali and learned how to relax. It was sad packing up and heading to the airport. In fact, we were so sad that we made our driver wait at the hotel while we walked across the street for a couple of "goodbye" drinks at Honeymoon. A few Arak later we stumbled into our van and headed to the airport. Boy are we gonna miss Bali, the cheap food and accommodations, nice people, surf, and just about everything you ever wanted including very large wooden penis bottle openers! next time we stay for 2 months. Off to Oz.

Pictures

Pictures from Southeast Asia are finally up: http://www.tripntale.com/me/amy

We'll put them in the blog itself soon!

Island Islands and the Ferry Ride from Hell

From Kuta Lombok, we were off to the Gilis for some R&R. The Gilis are three very small islands off the coast of Lombok and are a famous spot for super-chilling, diving, and snorkelling. Gili is Indonesian for, you guessed it, island. So when we refer to the Gili Islands we are really saying Island Islands and the Indonesians are probably laughing at us. No motorized vehicles are allowed on the islands, only bicycles and horse carts. This may not sound like a big deal if you haven't been to Indonesia, but not having to constantly dodge cars and worse motorbikes coming from all directions, driving on either side of the road, with usually no sidewalk, was a huge relief. There are also no police, I guess because there is no income from giving tourists traffic tickets.

We hired a driver from the Kuta Lombok mafia to take us out there. It was a stormy day, so we thought it was perfect for travel since we wouldn't want to surf anyway. Obviously all the tropical air had messed with our brains since if you wouldn't want to surf, would you really want to hop in a boat? The drive went fine and we got to see some beautiful scenery and also lots of monkeys. When we arrived at the ferry landing, we were mobbed by a huge crowd of locals trying to sell us all kind of confusing moto rides and expensive boat rides. Luckily we had been prepared by the guidebook - which said that the ferry landing was so unpleasant there were frequent fist fights, and just to ignore everyone and buy a ticket from the ticket office. So we walked right by them all to the ticket office. Except it was boarded up and there was nobody in sight. Panicked, we ran back to our driver and demanded to be taken to the real ferry landing, but some tourists coming from the island informed us this was it, and the ferry was not running. The guidebook failed to mention that the ferry only runs once a day, if at all, during the rainy season! And of course the local mafia there knows that! So we had to get the moto ride to the local harbor, poor Sam struggling with the surfboard, and then pay $30 to get out to the nearest island, Gili Air. This doesn't sound like much but when the ferry is running the cost to charter a boat for the whole day and go wherever you want around all the islands is only $15! However all the locals have a no-compete agreement and wouldn't take us for less. If you try to bargain with a different guy, the first guy follows you and tells the other guy in Indonesian something along the lines of "The price I quoted is $30, so I'll break your kneecaps if you offer less than $35."

Once we agreed to go, a bunch of locals who had clearly been waiting all day hopped into the little fishing boat with us - at least this made us feel that the ride might be surviveable. Why they were using the only boat without outriggers was not clear to us, maybe it was too stormy for outriggers? Anyway we did in fact survive the short ride to the island, though the boat got swamped by every third wave. When we got to the island, we finally caught one of the pony carts, our first and only horsecart ride. Most horsecarts in Indonesia just have to haul supplies, but the poor Gili ponies have to lug fat tourists!

We stayed at Coconut, which has a very pleasant secluded garden, though it costs a little more than some of the places closer to the beach. We got delicious empanadas at the Thai cafe (I know, it makes no sense.) Sam tried to surf the little ankle-to-knee-high waves breaking off the island along with all the locals under 14 years/100 pounds, with only a little luck. Unfortunately it was too stormy for snorkeling but we did take a walk around the island. The crystal blue waters we'd heard of were all a storm tossed uniform gray, but it was kind of fun because the whole place was pretty deserted, especially the stormier north and west shores, and we could pretend we were shipwrecked adventurers on sabbatical.



The next day our friends from B.C. showed up, having gone through exactly the same ferry hell, and Sam and Kyle commiserated over their sore assholes. Except their horsecart driver had hit a tree and nearly broken their surfboards! Anyway we stayed and relaxed for a bit, but the weather did not improve, so we decided to take off for Ubud ahead of our friends as soon as the weather improved enough for the Bali slow ferry to run. Usually the fast ferry is the way to go, but it doesn't seem to run during the rainy season. You can still buy tickets for it though! You just end up taking the slow ferry for double the price - we ran into a bunch of people in this situation. In retrospect we should have flown again. First we had to take a ferry to Lombok, then drive on a bus for hours to the main harbor south of Mataram, then get on the big ferry which was completely overloaded with the huge transport trucks. The trucks were backed up along the road for 3 miles in an impromptu truck driver village, because the ferry had not been running the last few days.

All those stories about Indonesian ferries capsizing? True and believable - we had a calm day but the ferry still rolled like crazy when a swell came up. Luckily it died back down when the rain hit, and the swell actually helped us arrive on Bali in only four hours instead of the usual five. Unfortunately we then had to float around for hours while we awaited our turn at the ferry landing, which was similarly crazy to the Lombok side with a line of trucks. We'd booked all the way to Ubud, so we got in a minivan with a family of tourists with tired young kids, and finally made it to Ubud!