Margret River

Am finally in the hallowed halls ( or tubes ) of surfing's Mecca. The Margret river region encompassing about 80 - 100 km of coastline has more crazy breaks than you could poke a broken femur at. My friend Dene who I met in Morroco has taken me out to some of the places and suitably scared me #%^!less. Three months of not surfing and my paddle power has gone and the sight of a well overhead wave bearing down on me with nothing but reef all around and below is something that gets my heart started. It hasn't been all fear and loathing. I have found a few surf breaks where I can match my skill and fear tolerance againt the local conditions and come out ahead.

At the moment it is raining and miserable here in Margret River. The surf is down and the wind is cooking up a Mr Whippy load of chop that makes trying to catch the waves in the more sheltered areas a pain in the neck. Still I did my duty and went and paddled around this morning to keep the muscles flexible.

I must thank Dene and Nicki and Dene's mum Pat for making sure I had a great birthday. Lots of beer and food and being looked after and even a good day surfing to top it off.

Counting down the days till I'm back in Melbourne. It will have been about 7 months since I've been away so it will be strange to be back in Melbourne again, civilization and all that. Then not long after I'm off to Austria to move into a house full of crazy people. Evelyn has just sent me the photo's of all her flatmates and I can garuntee that they are all 100% loopy doopy. They all look like a bunch of really nice people and I am so looking forward to meeting them all and cooking them one of my speciallty dishes though Evelyn has banned me from cooking for at least a week when I get there.

Hmmm what to do now. It is still raining. I think I'll go find a copy of the Australian and sit in a cafe somewhere sipping hot chocolates and eating fudge muffins .... yummy.

B

In Perth

Made the run from Kalbari to Perth in one day. The surf had completely dropped out and apart from a stop at a really nice beach called Sandy Cape to do a spot of snorkleing nothing along the way down caught my fancy enough to make me want to stay longer. Maybe I'm just sick of pitching a tent and living like a bum out of my car, then again maybe I'm just hungering for the surf down south of Perth, the magic promise of the Margret river area with waves the size of office building and trees .... yes trees, for a few months now I've hardly seen a tree that didn't have it's head bowed over and a shrivelled, dry and wasted demeanor for the punishment of living in such hostile climes as that of central and northen Aus. But here I am in Perth and the trees once again are big and green, jumping up to eat the sky with enthusiasm. Hey I sound a bit over excited but that is what outback fever does to you. Much too much sun and not enough water.

I've caught up with a couple of friends I met in Morocco and am staying with them for a week in Perth. Then next weekend we are heading down to Yallingup where there is a long left hander which I can surf all day until I'm too tired to paddle any more. BLISS!

B :)

Back to Europe 4 Love not Money!

Dear oh dear oh dear, maybe I've just got too much salt water into my brain or maybe I've met a really cool girl who's convinced me to come back to Vienna with her. Evelyn Wimmer, a tall sophisticated pink haired vegetarian lass, with a wicked smile and a pretty mean wrestling throw has captured my heart and I'm flying out there on the 22nd of January next year.

Not sure what I'm going to do for employment but perhapps I'll try digging snow or joining the boys choir or trying my hand at water colors like Vienna's other notorious vegatarian ;) I could always get myself behind a computer again and do what I'm really good at but hey, I'm a surf bum now and that would just be disrespectable to the slacker creed. Then again they never did send me my slacker membership card and my attempts to sun bleach my hair have resulted in more grey then golden blond dreadlocks. Well who knows what the future brings ( ok four more years of Dubbya ) but generally it all looks good so I'm sure everything will turn out.

Till then I'm gonna try and catch a few more waves down here on the west coast and then make the long lonely Nullabor run home to Melbourne. Anybody know a few good stops along the way?

Cheers

B

Kalbari and Surfing

Finally back where there is some serious surf, that is serious with a Kapital S. Kalbari is a sleepy little resort town a few hundred km south of Exmouth but without that really annoying reef to block all the swell. The premier break is this place called Jakes Point. Unfortunately I'm not good enough to mix it with the big boys on the proper wave out at the point.



Well over head high, very steep and breaking fast onto dry rock I am content and thrilled to watch the guys who know what they are doing do what they do. However well on the inside there is a right and left hander that is much more forgiving and where all the up and coming grommets hang out after school. This is where I belong. Still the little buggers are all much better than me and I will have to get there well before 3:30 today to get some waves. Still I had fun yesterday and it was great to be back in the water and flex those paddling muscles.

Now gotta look for a ticket to Austria around the 22nd of Jan.

Oh yeah .... dear oh dear those crazy yankees voted bush back in again. Hope he's mellowed out a bit for his second term but I fear we've only seen the beginning of all the trouble.

Monkey Mia, Dolphins, Dolphins Dolphins

Am at Monkey Mia at the moment. Last night I saw the first rain I remember for months. It wasn't really serious but the temperature dropped and there were dark and nasty looking clouds around and a few intermittent splashing but nothing to get your undies wet.

The dolphins here are really cool. They just swim up to the beach and turn on thier sides to expose one of thier eyes to you. Then it is a matter of who is more facinated in who. I'm not sure of the answer myself. There are only a handlfull of dolphins, all femle, who actually come regularly into the beach and they are generally the offspring of the original dolphins with whom the game started about 40 years ago. Now because of the numbers of people, about 100,000 each year there are strict rules in place on what you can and can't do with them. ie no touching or feeding. The rangers do the feeding but the dolphins obviously have a greater interest in visiting the beach than just food as they only get a fraction of thier fish requirements for the day from the hand feeding. They seem to enjoy the interaction and are avid attention seekers.

Going on a sailboat cruise this afternoon on a huge ocean going catarmeran to see the dugongs on the other side of the bay. That should be special.

And most importantly I'm off to Europe again early next year to move in with Evelyn in Vienna. Crazy girl doesn't know what she is letting herself into but I'm sure we'll have loads of fun and I'm really looking forward to going.

Till next time

B