Rotorua and a Maori Meal

As soon as the bus doors open out to Rotorua the pungent smell of rotten eggs hits you. It’s the smell of Hydrogen Sulphide risen up from the ground and encompasses the entire town. You see Rotten-rua is built on crusts of earth that lay like eggshells above a supervolcano waiting to go off, hopefully not today.. The hostel we stayed in had its own hot tub and swimming pool heated by the Earth. Next door to the hostel was lava bar a good place to get your drink on.To pass the time we went luging, this is basically where you squeeze into a tiny go-kart and career down a 5km track weaving through tight corners. I have to be honest and say that my competitive steak shone a little too much and I almost drove a few people off the track, got some air on the slopes and leaned on only two wheels a few too many times. It was a blast though and no one got majorly injured which is nice. Later we went to the geothermic park full of steam and bubbling mud, we boiled eggs in the pools and ate them with a pinch of salt and pepper.  Nearby a on a plateau of perspiring rock a geyser erupts with flashes of steam and spits superheated water 20 meters into the air.

A busride outside the town, deep within the Tawa forest lies a 200 year old Maori village. You stand outside the surrounding fortifications not daring to enter the sacred circle drawn in the earth just outside the gates. One lone warrior emerges from within and moves towards our ‘clan’ he edges slowly starring with intimidating wide eyes and brandishing a sharpened wooden staff. He is wearing war paint and tradition clothing occasionally grunting and wields the staff menacingly towards us. More warriors have appeared above the fortifications and more coming out of the gates, there is a chanting from within that is growing louder by the second. We trade offering and chiefs greet each other with the Maori welcome (touching noses twice) and the intimidation abruptly ends. Their chief a man with an orca’s tooth around his neck, he welcomes us ‘Kia Ora’ and invites us into the village and the women greet us. Within there are simple timber huts and tall thin trees.

I played a traditional stick game that requires quick reactions and remembering your Maori left from Maori right but only managed to beat an old lady. I saw the intricate tribal tattoos etched deep in the faces of the Maori and discovered they used to us dog poo as ink. We learnt about Maori weaponry and the sharp wooden clubs that would find the back of enemy’s necks and invade rib cages so hearts could better be snatched. I had a go at learning the Haka war dance. The iconic wide eyes and tongue out is meant to represent what the enemy will look like once a battle has been won.

Haka

Ka Mate! Ka Mate! Ka ora! Ka ora!
Ka Mate! Ka Mate! Ka ora! Ka ora!
Tenei te tangata puhuru huru
Nana nei tiki mai
Whakawhiti t era 

A upa... ne! ka upa… ne!
A upane kaupane whiti t era!

I die! I die! I live! I live!
I die! I die! I live! I live!
This is the hairy man
Who fetched the sun
And caused it to shine again
One upward step! Another upward step!
An upward step, another… the sun rises

We entered the ancestral meeting house that looked like what you might imagine a Viking to live in. We learned more about the Maori culture and way of life and they performed a ceremony of dances and songs. Once over we proceeded to the dining area and had a traditional Hangi meal that had sat for several hours on hot stones within an earthen pit. The food was amazing with sweet potatoes, fish and pavlova (first made in NZ). The evening came to a close with speeches of farewell, songs and dances.

Caving

On the surface there doesn’t appear to be anything significant about Waitomo but people come here because it’s one of the best places in the world for caving. I guess I am one of those people. Zipping up the thickest wetsuits I’ve ever worn and given an unsettlingly brief safety talk and instructions on how to abseil we took it in turns descending 35 meters down into the black abyss. The first 5 meters you are praying that that the rope holds and getting used to slowly edging yourself down, then everything closes up and the earth swallows you whole, eventually the tight limestone gullet ends and you emerge into the cavernous belly of the cave with a ceiling of cathedral proportions. More confident now I kicked off the wall and dropped down fast. On the bottom I switched the headlight off and looked up at the countless glow maggots smoldering with their individual bioluminescent droplets. The entrance from which I had just come was now only a pinhole and the light barely scratched at the cave walls. Safe in the knowledge that there are pretty much no deadly animals in New Zealand I picked up a long legged insect that apparently when scared would attempt to jump into the warm moist darkness of your mouth.

Shuffling deeper down and hugging narrow subterranean cliff edge we reached a Witchline that crossed a seemingly bottomless chasm. I had the honor of going first and once all lights were extinguished I hurtled into the all encompassing darkness, I came to a sudden halt at the edge of a ledge and once everyone was safely across we sat and shared a thermos of hot chocolate and a flatjack. The hot liquid and sustenance would be greatly appreciated in a few seconds because we were about to jump into a bitter cold underground river. It was defiantly the best way to enter, like ripping off a plaster we hit the water from a height and with a echoing thud, landing on rubber rings. I felt the icy chill rushed down my neck and flooded around my whole body. Needless to say it took a while to warm up but we floated around on rubber rings for a time staring up at maggot shit. To elaborate these glowmaggots are a carnivorous and cannibalistic species of fly in their first stages of life and this beautiful luminescent substance that recieves ooooh's and ahhhh's is in fact their poo and beneath hang fishing lines of sticky beads to catch confused mosquitoes that are drawn to what they imagine to be night sky. After this stage of their life is over they hide in their pupas and materialise as flies to reproduce but unfortunately they have neither a mouths nor a digestive system and so die within a few days. Bit of a design flaw but circle of life I guess.

We continued to swim whilst gazing at the sinister constellations shining from the vaulted stone galleries, occasionally you would spot an eel or two slipping away into black. Further along the river the water came up to knee level and I took the opportunity to have the deepest pee of my life. venturing through what now had become a labyrinth of pathways we reached a point where things got really tight and you had to clamber on hands and knees squeezing though a half submerged fissure that the guides named the rebirth canal and I wouldn’t recommended to anyone who is at all claustrophobic. For me the best bit was the underground waterfalls that gushed directly through the rock, it was more like a natural pipeline than a conventional waterfall you might imagine. There was just enough room to climb up taking great care not to slip and grasping for firm rocks while the flow of water rushed over already numb hands. At the halfway point you had to crawl between a splinter in the rock. Admittedly I did think to myself with all the seismic and geothermic activity New Zealand is notorious for, what would happen if there was an earthquake, best not to think too much down here. We climbed a second easier waterfall into more persistent darkness, but there where trees and bushes. It took me a few seconds to grasp that we had surfaced deep in Waitomo forest, but it was now night and the branches of trees masked the stars, I could see my breath in the crisp night air. Altogether we had spent 5 hours below ground delving as deep as 60 meters, a incredible experience.

The Land of The Long White Cloud (Aoteroa) New Zealand

We touched down in Auckland and swiftly boarded the Kiwi Experience Bus that will be our transport for the entirety of New Zealand. Walking onto the bus my first impressions were simply I had made a mistake. The buses passengers were made around 95% British people and they came packing hair dryers and Hollister hoodies, after being immersed in so many different nationalities for so long it dawned on me just how much I am going to miss the diverse melting pot of travellers once I return to the UK. The nature of travelling has changed drastically also; on the Kiwi Bus everything is taken care of for you; from accommodation to activities so it does feels slightly like a school trip and I am not sure if I overly like it. But hindsight is a wondrous thing and I can tell you my first impressions were skewed and very unfair, in fact I had little to worry about and within a few days I’d realise that the people on this bus were pretty great all the way down to our driver Flea; she's got a wicked sense of humor, drinks like a fish and very to the point with all manner of conversation.

First stop on the big green bus was Hot Water Beach out in the countryside, and out here you appreciate New Zealand's unparallelled natural beauty, the lush green rolling hills and well.. lots of sheep. Down on the beach during low tide the sand belched hot water from deep below and waves meet the heat creating a misty ghostly scene. It's a lot chillier in here! on the walk back I pick up the familiar scent of damp earth, It's a brisk clear night and the skies are alight with stars.

Cairns and The Great Barrier Reef

The final destination on the Australian tour was tropical Cairns. We staying at Gilligan’s which is the biggest hostel around and gives free daily meals and free gym! (I kind of miss exercise). We reunited with Clara and Tina and met Rich, Chrissi and many others and together had many some pretty big nights drinking good ol’goon on the balconies and stairwells. At daybreak we soaked up the sunshine on the edge of a man-made lagoon (they have these all over the place in the tropics to keep you out the sea). Every evening a rippling screeching cloud of fruit bats would swarm overhead and almost blotch out the twilight sky. We took a bus out of town to a stretch of beach and staying within the netted area went for a swim, for me Cairns was a place to relax during the day and let off steam at night.

Off course my favorite thing about Cairns was our trip to The Great Barrier Reef. Within 20 minutes of sailing we’d found an ideal site. The skies were bruised and threatened a downpour, undeterred we suited up; fins, mask, weight belt, BCD, regulator, octopus, air tank with over 180psi, final checks done, high five and took the plunge. Immediately you saw that abundance of biodiversity but the vivid colours I had imagined seemed muted and dull, perhaps due to the weather and poor visibility however this did little to spoil the experience and I honestly don’t think that diving will ever get old for me. By now I had learnt not to eagerly chase after the first big fish I saw, rather to take it easy and appreciate the smaller things because they are often missed but the most interesting. I focused on the nursery fish with completely transparent bodies and the clown fish family (nemo) as they rolled around within anemies that they have immunity but remain deadly to others, I followed a trigger fish that will change sex once the big territorial female dies or moves on. Cruising along in a trance before I knew it I had come face to face with a turtle resting on the reef, the surprise made me inhaled deeply and involuntarily rise towards the surface, eventually I managing to compose my excitement and my breathing. I rested beside the reptile for a good five or ten minutes watching her gently sway with the tide, her beak slowly open and close and her big yellowish eyes follow my shape. Little did I know that sharks had been spotted close to the boat but now too far away from us to find. We followed the seabed under the lip of the reef giving away stingray’s hiding places and rose alongside a aquatic canyon finally surfacing beneath the underbelly of our catamaran that large angel fish where also using for shelter.

The cool thing about the barrier reef is that many areas are shallow enough that you can free dive to the bottom and watch the fish for as long as you can hold your breath. I spotted a few more turtles (I know pretty lucky) and stayed with them as they swam down. I went on the search for sharks but to no avail and took in as much as I could. Before the trip was out we visited a sandy island protected by surrounding reef, on the island all you could see was shades of blue varying in depth and dark clouds closing in, by the time we got back aboard we had a torrential downpour, Whilst a million shards of rain drenched everything (including me) I sat out on the main deck drinking tea, eating cheese and cashews and thinking to myself how amazing this all was. Cairns did have one parting gift for us on our flight out; while we flew up into the clear sky the scale of the reef slowly became apparent. Something that you really cannot comprehend from a boat, on that day as we left it looked so fragile and almost otherworldly.

Cape Tribulation

Just outside Cairns is a place where two World Heritage Sites meet; The Great Barrier Reef and the national park containing one of the oldest rainforests in the world. Cape Tribulation was named by Captain Cook because just offshore from here is where the Endeavor came to grief on the reef and Cook remarked that this is where ‘my trails and tribulations began’. Along the way we took a small boat along the brackish river waters. We managed to spot a few young saltwater crocs basking on logs and hidden in mangroves but no monsters, It’s not surprising really as the larger crocs don’t like to be bothered and can stay submerged for over 2 hours slowing their heart rate down to 2 beats per minute and being cold blooded only require 150 calories per day. So although not visible, they were out there somewhere, hidden in the murky waters. What’s pretty cool is that here two apex predators come together; the Salt Water Crocodile and the Bull Shark share these water. This is because the bull sharks (that can grow to over 2 meters in length) through osmotic regulation (unique to this species) is able to swim well upstream into fresh water.

On a walk immersed in the rainforest we were exposed to a living museum of ancient plant life. In fact many species of plant thought extinct recently been rediscovered here and even thriving. There are gigantic king fern and a prehistoric plant who’s fruit can no longer be digested (and thus spread) by any known animal living today without said animal expiring. We stayed in small huts off the main roadway and made our way to the water hole, checking locals where swimming (sure sign there aren't any crocs around) we splashed into the cool crystal water from a rope swing. Later I foolishly climbed between the mangrove maze during low tide trying to discover I don’t know quite what and quickly ran away when I heard a noise that sounded like air escaping a balloon. Walking along the beach I had thick rainforest on my left and ocean on my right, I chased poisonous crabs back into their lairs and came across an ominous life raft washed up on the beach. It was still so strange to walk along a beach and see a ocean forbidden to enter, it just seems so unnatural not to be swimming about in those waters.

The Whitsundays

I am back on land but am missing the ebbs and sways of my short nautical adventure, I’ve spent three days and two nights onboard the Tongarra sailing though tropical Whitsundays. The Tongarra (aboriginal for wildcat) catamaran doesn’t have the same pedigree as the other adapted racing boat and is modest in both size and speed. We were around twenty deckhands watched over by skipper Ash and Dave who brought personality to the yacht.

Throughout the voyage the sea was restless and unsettled but it was never worse than when we departed the marina. Wave erupted onto the deck drenching all in cool spray. It took a while for my sealegs to return but once they did we tried to make a human pyramid on the bow of the ship. On our first night we’d nestled close to the shelter of an island and enjoyed goon with our crewmates, but eventually when everyone became tired from the sea air and wanted to retire so we pulled out bedding from below deck, hoisted canvases to shield the elements and we slept beneath the stars. For what seemed only like a few hours of rest we awoke at the break of dawn to ‘good morning Vietnam’ and sailed with the tide to Whitehaven beach. This seemingly unassuming beach is pretty special, the sand is the purest on earth with the grains being 95% silica so pure you can brush your teeth with it if you so wish. This stretch of sand has been harvested only once and that was to create the most powerful lens in the world that sits inside the Hubble Space Telescope. Before swimming for shore to the sound of the jaws theme we had to pull on our stinger suits to protect us from Box Jellyfish, Iracongi and Man of War. These guys are very interesting, first the Box jellyfish, it preys on crabs so comes equipped with a particularly severe sting that can penetrate and overwhelm a tough crab's hide, unfortunately this also has a rather detrimental effect on our own soft fleshy bodies and can cause instant cardiac arrest. The Iracongi isn’t native to Australian waters and little was known about this little bastard until a few year ago. They make their trip to oz as stow aways smuggled in ballast tanks of cargo ships. They are actually indigenous to Asia meaning these guys have been my swimming buddies for the past 5 months. Practically invisible and tiny in size (smaller than your smallest fingernail) apparently being stung merely feels like a hair being plucked, but within a few hours the nausea and excruciating pain set in and you can only be dosed up on morphine to ease the pain, so apparently the Man of War is pretty tame compared to these two! But luckily we didn’t encounter anything more dangerous than a clump of seaweed. Beyond the beach was dense rainforest and walking along a trail we had to duck under Golden Orb Spiders with thick mandibles and fully spread out over their webs where about the size of a dinner plate, we came across patrolling monitor lizards with tongue whipping back and forth tasting the air and ants with green backs that if you put your tongue to their bums they tasted like sour lime, I can confirm this to be true.

We snorkeled in Manta Ray Bay. The crew fed the fish creating a flurry of colours and scales that brushed past my face. Lower down the big predatory fish took the chaotic frenzy as an opportunity to snap up the distracted and vulnerable, further away a face of a turtle broke the water’s surface, took breath and disappeared. By evening the clouds bled crimson and splinters of light met with the ocean’s surface, we devoted the night to drinking games that, within teams we wore fancy dress, licked vegemite from bellybuttons and tried to pop balloons, by the end of the games the majority had forfeited most of their clothes and all our team where butt naked. We won. Our last morning I got stuck in with the crew jobs, singing the gay pirate song but mainly relaxed on the brilliant white bow where the sun shone and a few icy showers pelted us until we returned to the marina.

Fraser Island

I am sat in Peter Pans Travel Agents, lips parched from the constant exposure to air conditioning units, eyelids heavy and I am having trouble staying upright let alone attempting to describe to you my recent stay on Fraser Island, perhaps it’s because I am slowly succumbing to the exhaustion of a memorable but lengthy coach journey or maybe it’s the fact that sand remains lodged somewhere between my ear canal and brain. I think it will help if I start by telling you that Fraser is my favorite part of my Australian travels thus far, a time when fine people, situ and weather all amalgamated together to make an awesome few days. But when I signed up for this all I really knew was that I would be camping for a couple of nights on the world’s largest sand island with a couple of offroad cars to get around in.

There were just over thirty of us in the group with eight people packed into each of the four Toyota Land Cruisers. After a short crossing across a choppy sea, the tires rolled onto hard glassy sand that had been smoothed and compacted by lapping waves. Jimi Hendrix complimented the car’s rumbling engine and while our convoy continued ride along fringe of the island dried up jellyfish would pop under wheels and a combination of sand and salt would spray though the window, you would have the omnipresent taste of grit in your mouth and the sand left no surface untouched. Looking seaward it was so strange to see such a beautiful stretch of coastline and no swimmers but off course the seemingly inviting water concealed hazards of bull sharks, jellyfish and currents. Sometimes the tide would creep in too far and we’d have to penetrate the islands interior making runups to scramble up forest tracks so steep that the only thing windscreen showed was sky and sun, upon leaving the relative smoothness of shore, the bumps, jumps and ditches became far more frequent and depending on your disposition it was better to sit up front as the slightest jolt is magnified 10 fold by the time it reached the back, on more than one occasion the whole back row of seats came clean away from the floor and my head made firm contact with the roof. There were hairier moments like when one wave took us all by surprise and swept in rapidly; going at a considerable speed we aquaplaned swerving from side to side until finally coming to a halt in a soft sandy bank. It was one of those things that seemed to happen in slow motion.

The vehicle’s confined interior combined with the continuous jolts and served to break down any personal boundaries whilst we rolled over each other, thus I got to know our eight man team pretty well and realised that they were actually a decent bunch. I got on particularly well with a couple of lads from the Netherlands; Redmer and Erwin with unique personalities and always up for a laugh and then off course the Swedes; Tina and Clara, both a lot of fun, both possess remarkably malleable faces and have excellent tastes in music the great communicator. We would eat, drink and camp on the beach behind the dunes and palm tree, the tents were often invaded by translucent crabs that had shells of frosted glass, our grounds where encircled by dingoes who waited until we were all asleep to make off with any leftovers. The food that wasn’t stolen by wild dog or picked at by vultures we cooked ourselves and washed our plates in surf and sand. There were a fair few Irish in our group so when the night came so did the drinking games, sharing from the communal ‘goon’ esky, we drank and ran around the beach whilst I attempted to demonstrate rugby Clara showed her handball skills before we collapsed in a heap, later due to a ring of fire forfeit a New Yorker would pose in a compromising position on top of a car bonnet drinking a heinous concoction of alcohol out of a unwashed saucepan leftover from dinner… sooo ahnyway as you can imagine the evenings where pretty messy. 

Apart from drinking and the driving we trekked through a sea of sand that had ripples carved by wind, its probably the closest I’ve been to a desert and I had a little Laurence of Arabia moment. I dived into the serene freshwater of Lake McKenzie, where catfish glide along the bottom. We climbed some spectacular dunes; impossible to conquer by car they were almost vertical in height, a wall of sand that we all stumbled up whilst the sun baked down on perspiring bodies, it was exhausting but if you stopped you’d sink in a micro-avalanche of cascading sand. At the summit the views are beautiful; sunlight glistens over the bay picking up the shadows of other dunes and capturing the crests of waves far from shore. I sat here for a while. The way down was far more fun than the way up. Just take a run and jump, a leap of faith, when you land you are at the mercy of the laws of physics and hurtle like a ragdoll to the bottom, by the end you don’t know which way was up and sand has entered every orifice, but I guess it’s nice to know you’re taking a bit of Fraser with you wherever you go.

Run. Jump. Hope for the Best

The Sand Dune Wall

Team C. Best Team

Steve Irwin Zoo

Australia Zoo was set up and made famous by the Crocodile Hunter, a cross between David Attenborough and Chuck Norris this guy was an absolute hero of mine and had me glued to the TV as a kid. The zoo itself is unlike any other, trainers stand in a pen feeding young and boisterous tigers with milk bottles. We fed elephants and hung out with koalas, we crouched low in the kangaroo enclosure and fed the roos admiring their razor sharp claws. It’s really cool because everything here is so hands on. The main attraction of course is the Crocotorium and you’ve probably seen clips of it before, It’s a clear water pool about 4 feet in depth and has gentle slopes onto land. The show begins with Elephants standing to attention whilst macaws and birds of prey swoop around the audience, then Terri and her two children burst into the arena, they soon entices Monty onto land, he’s a 12ft long, 600kg Salt Water croc and he swallows rats whole and devours chunks of pig, death-rolling to tear apart the flesh. Once outstretched on land you really appreciate the sheer scale of this reptilian titan, he dwarfs everyone and everything, a present day dinosaur. The trainers dangle meat from an overhang and he rises up on his powerful tail waiting patiently until the morsel drops and the jaws snap shut with a satisfying thud. Because the water is so clear you can see exactly where Monty is, but imagine in the wild murky waters he would remain completely undetected, every time a trainer walks to the water’s edge or enters it Monty responds by immediately and effortlessly moving towards the vibrations with impressive speed, the water directly above him isn’t agitated in the slightest, in the wild you would never see him coming.

 






















The final part of the zoo, the wildlife hospital left the most lasting impression on me; when you walk through the spotless corridors there are walls of glass where you can see the inner workings of the care units. There are many incubators and injured animals but the first thing that caught my eye was what appeared to be someones tatty old umbrella that had been left in a request, however on closer inspection you see the ragged umbrella move and a face pops out, it's an orphaned baby fruitbat that clings to its creche with talon like claws and nuzzling close to a hot water bottle, his jet black eyes blink up at me. Venturing further into the hospital and there is a operating table that wouldn’t look out of place in a episode of E.R. The only difference is the operating table is a little smaller. Glancing past a sedated dove there are injured koala on the road to recovery, some of them had fallen victim to dog attacks and car strikes, some had even been purposely shot out of trees. Many were still hooked up to IV’s. I remember reading a quote on the operating table that summed up the zoo’s message better than I can.

For our wildlife "we are both their greatest enemy and their only hope.
These wonderful creatures will not argue their case.
They will not put up a fight.
They will not beg for reprieve.
They will not say goodbye.
They will not cry out.
They will just vanish.
And after they are gone there will be silence.
And there will be stillness.
And there will be empty places.
And nothing you can say will change this.
Nothing you can do will bring them back.
Their future is entirely in our hands"

Bradley Trevor Greive

Through the Gold Coast

Surfer’s Paradise as the name suggest is coined as a mecca for waveriders, it has a long golden beach, waterways that break up the mainland into small interconnecting islands and heaps of sunshine. Sounds great, but what also comes with it is many curved skyscrapers that look ridiculously out of place and seem to be built to no particular masterplan (the council appear to have conceded this fact as a major redevelopment is underway) . There are hundreds of holiday homes and apartments, trashy strip clubs and fast food alleys. It is, if anything a paradise lost, Australia’s answer to Magaluf, so if it’s clubbing your after then this maybe your stop. Apart from that it seems to be a town that has grown from nothing and remains a little bit pointless. Perhaps the most ironic thing about Surfer’s is that the waves down here aren’t even that good. The days before our arrive the lifeguards had to close the beach due to a dangerous rip, it was still present now but the lifeguards had opened up a small segment of beach, under their watchful eye I waded out to shoulder height and joined the other swimmers in the choppy water (there were no surfers here). You could really feel the rip and it’s enough to pull you down the beach the minute your feet become unanchored by a wave, swimming against it is exhausting. I simply body surfed for a while.

Brisbane was a fleeting visit and I recall it like a hazy daydream, we arrived in Bunk Hostel and soon met a good few travelers. We decided to wander the streets in our big group to discover what this city has to offer. What we discovered in the centre and overlooking a river (and a ferrous wheel that look uncannily like our London Eye) was an artificial lagoon. I went for a swim entering the water from the imported sand beach and sat under a palm tree looking out at the metropolis. When I returned to grassy park where to others were spread out a barbeque was well underway along with four boxes of ‘goon’ wine to share between us. After the boxes were emptied we ended up watching American Pie Reunion and stumbled home.

Next stop Noosa, it's an easy going surfer's town with a national park nearby. But if Noosa taught me nothing else it was never attempt to travel in Australia during Easter holidays, just stay well away because  everywhere is closed, literally everywhere all the supermarkets and there was not a single empty bed in this town. Our effort to find a place to rest proved fruitless so we made the decision to take only essentials and leave our backpacks in an information kiosk. We headed over to a park next to Sunshine Beach and prepared for a rough night. But by chance we stumble upon another full hostel and thought it worth seeing if we could use internet, fortunately the dude behind the desk was pretty cool and managed to find us a couple of old mattresses and we slept in a utility room attached to the hostel for a couple of nights. Many other backpackers weren’t so lucky and gathered on the park bench, but I guess there are worse places to be homeless. Whilst absolutely nothing was open I took time to relax on the beach and do little else watching waves break during the full moon.

Byron Bay

Cities are great but for me this was more like it, back where a beach bum belongs, and what a beach.. Byron’s bay is vast and stretches wide enough that you can take in the bay and see one half shrouded in dark clouds that threaten rain whilst the other side remains pale blue. The town itself reminds me of Brekenridge Co with the same style timber shops running along it’s boulevard and it’s boardcentric residence. We slept in a chilled out beach hut village a few hundred metres from the main beach. My mode of transportation round town was a single geared low-rider bike, great for cruising with the guys riding longboard and carrying shortboards but a herculean effort when attempting to reach the pinnacle to which Byron Lighthouse shines. Looking around the cliff edges of the lighthouse there are handgliders suspended high in the thermals and fierce messy waves far below them. Towards the bay, near offshore rocks experienced surfers are tackling less frequent but equally intimidating waves and sharing their surf with pods of dolphins, from my vantage point I can only see the silhouette of the surfer and finned torpedos cutting through the crests of waves. In the morning I awoke early and ran on the seemingly endless stretch of sand disturbing flocks of seagulls and cooling off in the sea, the water here had risen in temperature from Melbourne's 18 to 26 degrees and its so nice not to require a wetsuit when surfing, I retreated from the midday sun and kicked back with a couple of Estonians but by afternoon sad news reached us that two lads had been swept out by the rip current and drowned on the same beach I had been running on. From our beach hut I had heard a helicopter or two but this was a usual occurrence and so thought nothing of it.

We returned to the lighthouse with the our Estonian friends, together we trekked along a coastal path that lead us to the most Easterly point in Australia, further down was a hidden beach where pristine sands had a fine film of water covering them. The beach is partially protected from the barrage of waves by a rocky alcove and at the point where the defenses meet the ocean the waves explode into an eruption of white water, foam and spray. We spent a day with hired out boards and went surfing out on the point. With surprise I managed to catch the first wave I tried and as soon as I was up all the reasons why I love surfing immediately came flooding back. The second wave reminded me to be respectful as it flipped me over a few times before dumping me on the seabed. We continued to surf till dusk and it was so much fun, the skies remained spotless for the duration with the exception of a small helicopter that hovered a little further out. I discovered the next morning that it was shadowing a shark that was combing the shallows. I now have two pieces of advice for you. If you see dolphins in the bay, then sharks will stay away. But if you see fishes start to jump from the water, do likewise.