Aquaholics Surfing Blog

Update from OZ

Posted on 03/22/2009 at 05:41 pm by Nanci Boutet Viewed 5,940 times | 7 comments

Well, Friday Bex and I bought two all day travel tickets for $14 each, hopped on a train here in Cronulla and took it to Circular Cay (with two transfers). Got off the train and onto the Manly Beach Ferry (included in the all day travel tix). SO fun and touristy! We passed right by the Sydney Opera House. We also passed near the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which apparently is more famous here. Bex says the acoustics in the Opera House aren’t that good. Go figure!

Me on the "Manly" ferry. Lot's of "Girly Men" on the ferry.

 

Sydney Harbour Bridge

 

Bex and me on the ferry

We got to Manly, an adorable upscale touristy beach town.

 

 Manly Harbor

Loads of cute stores and food malls (mmm, gelato). We headed straight for the beach. There were a dozen volleyball nets. If you know me, you know I want to play volleyball if there’s no surf. Well, the surf has been marginal. The volleyball was good (meaning the players were skilled). I got a few games in while Bex rented a nice board for $25 for two hours. I watched and listened to a surf lesson, looking for indeas and improvements on our lesson curriculum. The main focus was on rip currents. These are a huge problem here, and the swimming areas change hourly according to the rips.

Headed out for a lesson

It was hot and sunny and the volleyball was delightfully exhausting. Bex surfed a little more than two hours, but the nice surf shop people let her slide for the extra time.
We headed back to the ferry, stopping at an Aboriginal Artisans Gallery where I bought a pair of carved percussion sticks for Marc’s instrument collection. It’ll be his birthday while we are in New Zealand. If I get by another similar store, I may try to get a “mother of the groom” type dress in an aboriginal print for my son’s wedding in June at Bufflehead Cove in Kennebunk (Erin Gott’s family place. We’ll be looking for Erin out in the surf at Raglan in New Zealand when we get there.)
We got back to Cronulla just as Marc was getting “home” from work at the Nuclear Research Facility.

Saturday, Marc and I went for a drive. We decided to head to the North side of Sydney. We went over the Harbour Bridge with the Sydney Opera House down on our right. We went to Manly again, where there was a volleyball tournament going on, and the surf looked junky. We stayed only a few minutes, and headed North, stopping at North Curl Curl, the beach our friend Lara represented in the Western Australia Surf Boat Competitions. What a beautiful beach! Unfortunately, my camera had a little malfunction, so no photos of that one! We went directly to a mall, where we purchased a 2GB card so I could take more photos. We visited Narrabeen, Avalon, Whale Beach, and Palm Beach. All these beaches are on a peninsula to the North of Sydney. The coast is a series of headlands and bays, very rugged and beautiful.

Sydney Colonial Architecture

 

Careel Bay, the body of water behind the peninsula

 

Palm Beach

Whale Beach

Beach life in OZ, Cronulla

The population here is totally focused on the ocean and all ages enjoy it. It seems all forms of watersports are highly encouraged. The lifeguard presence is massive. There are towers everywhere. There are huge stations at every beach, with “Surf Lifesaver Clubs” at the stations. There are volunteer groups, lots of teenagers. There are weekend adult volunteer groups who seem to have a great time driving through the surf in Zodiac type rubber boats, jumping the waves and getting airborn. There are patrol boats driving back and forth constantly as well as helicopters patrolling constantly along the shore. They are all looking for sharks and swimmers in trouble. There are signposts which the guards move according to the appearance and location of rips, and surfers are not allowed to surf in the swim areas. The guards have blowhorns and speaker systems that they use to warn swimmers of rip locations and to clear the water in the event of shark sightings. Most beaches have “shark nets” across the whole bay, but the nets do not go to the bottom, do not come to the surface and do not reach the sides of the bay. Bex said that 40% of the sharks caught in the nets are LEAVING THE AREA!

Sunday, Marc and I surfed Cronulla early. We wore wetsuits. The crowds are amazing, considering the surf wasn’t very good. We caught a few, got yelled at by the guards for being in the “swim zone”. Well, MARC WAS, I was legal. We decided it wasn’t that great anyway, so we went in the “bath” the closed in swimming area that fills with the tide and waves. These baths are at just about every beach, people swim laps and kids play unhindered by currents and predators.

Later, Marc, Bex and I went off to The Royal National Park. We went surfing at Garie Beach. The water was warm, the wind was offshore and the surf was fun. Garie is a little out of the way, so it’s less crowded. We surfed a couple of hours and left. We took Marc for a little tour of Bundeena and headed back to Cronulla.

Today, I’ll probably surf some and I may head to Coogie Beach to see about some volleyball. Marc has a few more day’s work and then we’re headed to Melbourne to visit our BRAINIAC friend, Zane Andrews. Zane is a “Neuro-Endocrinologist at Monash University. He’s studying the correlation between brain function and obesity. Hope he can provide some diet tips!

The drive will probably take about ten hours on the way, driving the coast (it’s the South East coast, like the distance between DC and Florida or so) and we’ll be driving along the edge of the “Outback” on the highway back. The highway should take about six hours. We may take some side trips if we have time. Sunday early morning, we’re off to New Zealand. Whare says the surf has been really nice. Head high, lined up, and offshore. YEEHAW!

Surf's looking pretty enticing. I'm going to lather up and head out.

...Later!

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