Days 40 - 67

DAYS 40 – 46  CAM & TOM’S HOUSE, KELVIN GROVE, BRISBANE.

The Winnebago we have is a high tech piece of machinery.  Ours is a Ceduna and we chose it mainly because it has a queen size bed on a hoist that, at the press of a button, comes down from the roof, made up and ready to go.  The bed stops just above the table and lounging area, about 1200mm from the floor.  So the bed can operate properly space is required all around it.  At the ends this space is only 100mm or so.  Along one side though, which is at the back of the bus, there is a gap large enough so that one could easily become wedged into it.  This was a bit daunting at first but we soon got used to it.  Normally, I’d have to say, it posed no problem.  Normally, it should be pointed out, the ‘bago is parked on reasonably flat ground.

 

Kelvin Grove, an inner city suburb of Brisbane, is not a flat area.  Although I can be prone to exaggeration, I do not exaggerate when I say that many of the streets in Kelvin Grove must exist at the limits allowable for a car to ascend them. They truly are that steep. And, about two thirds of the way down one of the steepest streets, live Cam & Tom.  This is where we were staying for a week.

 

To be fair to Cam & Tom, it was organised that we had a bed in the house.  However, on the first night they had another house guest using the bed.  This posed a dilemma.

 

There was no way we could park out the front of the house and sleep on the street.  If ever a circumstance arose where someone would sleep roll during the night and wedge themselves in the space then that circumstance must surely involve angles such as these.   And, if we parked facing the other direction, then the same gravitational pull led to a 1200mm fall to the floor. So, as high tech as the ‘bago is, we had to admit that we’d exceeded the limits of its design.  It was agreed by all that we had to find a flat(ish) space somewhere nearby.

 

Now here I need to highlight another integral part of our dilemma.  Cam & Tom live near a university and their street is the closest one to the uni that provides free parking.  As you can imagine then, their road, and the surrounding area, quickly becomes clogged with parked cars.  And, naturally, the flatter streets, what few there are, become filled first. 

 

Already, on our arrival, we’d had to negotiate several steep, clogged and narrow streets in a ‘bago that struggled at times to reach the top.  This was just to find a parking spot to announce our arrival. There was nowhere to turn around, no route that didn’t involve monster hills and no spaces to park.  We felt like turtles trapped in a mouse maze and I wasn’t having fun. And Shana wasn’t having fun. And our each not having fun began snarling and butting heads.  Finally a space became available fairly close to the house.  It was on another steep road though.   I didn’t want to go out there again, this time seeking flat land.  We discussed the importance of timing – the quest should commence after most of the students finished uni but before the locals returned from work. 

 

The time chosen was 5pm.  Tom came with me (Shana, having had the experienced once, rapidly but gently declined).  With Tom riding shotgun and loaded with local knowledge we found a spot at the top of their road.  So that night, on a suburban street in Brisbane, out front of a house in which we knew no one, Shana and I drew the curtains, lowered the bed, and tried to act as inconspicuous as a thumping great Winnebago would allow.

 

We had a good time at Cam & Tom’s – a few drunken nights, a few music bios read, a walk into Brissie-town (and back - a minor and futile protest at the expense of public transport).   We emptied the ’bago’s fridge and slept inside for the duration, the ‘bago parked four houses up from Cam and Tom’s place.  It stayed there the whole time, much to the chagrin of the owner of the house who believed it blocked out the sun and thereby endangered the health of his lawn.

 

DAYS 47 – 54  NESS & K’S HOUSE, ENOGGERA, BRISBANE.

I don’t know from what language the word ‘ennogera’ came, or what it means in that language.  For Shana and I, though, ‘ennogera’ meant flat ground.  We could have easily parked in front of Ness & K’s house but we didn’t, because there was a beautifully flat and grassy space beside the house, right in front of their covered deck, which of course we made our own.  There was also a fenced yard so that Morrissey could be left to his own doggy devices without anyone having to worry where he would be or what he was up to.

 

 

 Although Ness and K also had a room available for us, Shanzie and I prefer to sleep in the ‘bago.  This is no reflection on Ness & K’s house, rather we have become fond of our little (unless driving it around) rectangular box.  Morrissey has probably become equally fond of it but we made him sleep on the deck instead.  We put his travel kennel up there and made a fuss of him before bedtime.  He was comfortable enough.

 

 For us having Morrissey on the deck meant we could sleep in a little later in the mornings.  He has been remarkable on this trip.  He wakes up earlier than us and paces up and down the corridor of the ‘bago until one of us says “Moz, back to bed”.  He then skulks back to his kennel and lays down until he hears any sound of movement from us again.  He then recommences walking the corridor, his claws creating a distinctive sound pattern against the hard floor. So we send him back to his kennel again.   This goes on until we either relent and tap the bed twice, giving him the signal to take a run-up to the ladder and then launch up on to the bed (he has only missed once, sliding along the floor and hitting his head on the table support) or we get up.  Originally we would get up and tend to him first, thinking that he was desperate to toilet in some manner.  And we were right in some respects.  He would always trot off and go to the toilet as soon as he was out the door.  But Morrissey is a dog who can control his ablutions with his mind.  If we allow him on the bed he promptly forgets about any pressing toileting issues and happily forces himself between us, thumping his tail and attempting to lick our faces until he settles back down to nap.  As long as he is on our bed, he could nap again for another two hours, or possibly more, without accident.  It is cute and endearing, but while at Ness & K’s we sought deeper and longer sleep.

 

We also set ourselves the task of doing ‘bago maintenance.  There were some things that needed fixing, some things needed tightening, some things that needed cleaning.  We had a list of things to do.  It was a good list too, well thought through and rationally discussed.  We didn’t do much of it though.  We took the Vespa off the rack and there were cafes nearby and Kieran has a good library and Nessy does Qi Gong and took Shanzie along and Kieran is in a band and he took me along and we helped around the house and we played with Henry and time just passed by.

 

In fact the whole time in Brisbane quickly passed by. As it does with friends.

 

DAYS 55 & 56  BURLEIGH HEADS CARAVAN PARK, BURLEIGH HEADS.

We’ve been travelling for almost two months now but in one very important way we feel the trip is yet to start.  It’s almost as if we are still practising for the real thing, which will only start once we pass Noosa Heads and I put the board away for a while.  Up until now we have mostly been visiting places I have been before, being guided by the promise or possibility of decent surf.  I’m a lot older than I was when I first visited these places, but I am also a more accomplished surfer, better able to utilise quality waves.  It’s like I’m on a very plush surf-trip, trekking around in ridiculous comfort, my girl and dog waiting for me like a scene from Puberty Blues.  In this vein there is no way I could miss going the Burleigh Beach.

 

In my late teens friends and I descended on Burleigh Beach Caravan Park three years in a row.  It was the culmination of a two week ‘surfing safari’.  We had a marquee sized tent, limited ability, and enough money to get continually messy.  We got continually messy and many of the ensuing incidents still live in our yearly retellings.

 

 I wasn’t drunk as we pulled into the park but my excited retellings filled Shanzies ears.   She smiled with her eyes and I knew that, even though she’d heard them before, she understood I couldn’t control my need to retell them.   Bless her.

 

It’s funny how memory works though.  Burleigh Heads was little like how I remembered it - not in major ways, but in the minor details.  For example I’d forgotten that to surf the point you had to scramble over rocks or paddle a long way around from the beach.  Not that it mattered because the surf was rubbish for the two days we were there and the only guys surfing the point were on stand up paddleboards, using paddles to fight their way onto not much at all.  And I’d forgotten that the Burleigh Caravan Park is overlooked by high rise buildings along three edges which is kind of eerie. And I’d forgotten the continual traffic noise thrown out by the Gold Coast highway. 

 

 

There are no dogs allowed in the park but Ness & K kindly volunteered to mind Morrissey.  This left Shan and I the rare pleasure of nights to ourselves.  On the first night Shana’s request was simple.  She felt like a meal of fish and chips.  You can’t go wrong there can you? 

 

Fish and chips are very versatile.  They can come wrapped in paper or served on the most delicate of china plates.  We walked past a restaurant called The Fishhouse.  It looked quite posh.  Shanzie and I are upmarket types so in we went.  Unusually, according to the maître de, we got a table without a booking.  We went for the $75 a head degustation menu, which was delicious but decidedly decadent with us eating and eating well beyond satisfying our hunger; eating and eating for the sole reason that delicious food kept arriving and we’d already paid for it.  There were nine courses of seafood starting with oysters and finishing with a very large whole snapper surrounded by mixed greens and (flash) potato bake.  By the time the snapper arrived we’d filled ourselves with prawns and whitebait and octopus and skate and squid ink pasta and more.  We ate the snapper – of course we ate the snapper – but left the restaurant feeling like the rotund middle class Westerners we were, waddling instead of walking.  (We also became well acquainted with the toilet block during the ensuing 12 hours).

 

The next evening we sought simpler fare.  I had a medium steak with mushroom gravy at The Burleigh Bowlo.  Shana had something she thinks was advertised as vegetarian lasagne.  I was there to watch the football but as Souths pummelled Brisbane a man and a woman took the stage and began singing and playing guitars.  Their songs were tinged with country and, during every song, a line would assemble and older folks would scoot their boots with gay abandon.  As patronising at it sounds, I found it cute and quaint.  These men and women were having fun, smiling and laughing and, if I’m not mistaken, flirting across tables and across the dancefloor.  I was taken in more by them than the football.  Some danced ahead of the beat and some danced behind, but everyone knew what they had to be doing at any given moment and were trying their hardest to do it.  I didn’t know bootscooting had variations, but it does.  I don’t know who decided which variation pertained to which song, but everyone followed along anyway.  I told Shana that when we finish this trip we will go to dance classes and learn a few formal dances.  She was for the idea.  Not bootscooting though.  Never bootscooting.  (Well, maybe just a dance or two).

We give Burleigh Heads Caravan Park 2 stars out of five.  It has fantastic amenities but they cut two large trees down while we were there which was very noisy and more than a little sad.  They were big old trees  - a fig and a eucalypt - that I thought added to the feel of the park. Someone, somewhere, obviously thought differently.

 

DAYS 57 & 58 – NESS & K’S HOUSE, ENOGGERA, BRISBANE

Back at Ness and K’s because we wanted to come back for a ‘Labour Day is Still in May’ party, held by friends Ado and Pam.  Here Shana has the opportunity to see a lot of people she may not otherwise get to see.  She lived in Brisbane for 6 years and so there are many people she’d love to catch up with.

 

Ado is in a band with Kieran (and Matt and Shawn) and they were playing at the party.  A band can’t perform at its peak without getting loud and so Ado put fliers in the surrounding letterboxes, inviting neighbours to the party.  I know at least one turned up because I ended up in his garage.

 

Maybe it’s a motorhome thing, or just guys being braggarts, but I started talking to this guy who was standing next to me.  At first we were talking about the band.  It somehow got to him owning a motorhome – I truly don’t know how the conversation got there – but I quickly countered with the fact that I did too.  His was a Winnebago.  Well, so was mine.  His was this, mine was that, blah this blah that.   I’m sure you can imagine the drunken conversation.  He became insistent that I go and see his motorhome immediately.  “I live over there” he said, pointing over across the laneway to a new house on the corner.  His model Winnebago was called a ‘Freewind’ (which reminds me of a fart) and I said I couldn’t picture that model.  He knew what a Ceduna was and I’m sure he wanted to show me how his was bigger and better.  “I just live there” he kept saying, “just there”.

 

The first thing I noticed about his house is that he has a double garage, but there are two different roof heights on it.  “It’s especially built to house the Winnie” he said.  He’s had the ‘bago for six years.  The house was built 3 years ago.  He built the garage especially so he could fit his ‘Winnie’ in it.

 

He showed me around it and I ooohed and aahed in all the right places.  It is bigger than ours, having a slide out loungeroom that is very impressive. It also had a bigger motor and more whiz-bangery. Back at the party I was met by two friends who said “we saw you in the neighbours garage”.  They’d seen me through the kitchen window and thought I’d gone over there for a session which, when you think about it, makes sense.  Why else would I be in the garage of someone I’d just met?  The truth disappointed them.  Maybe I should have garbled a few words together incoherently and retained some street cred.

 

On the Sunday Shana flew to New Zealand to attend to a family matter.  That meant I had to do the Byron leg of the trip alone.  Again Morrissey stayed with Ness & K. (Thanks Ness & K, and Henry).  I was on my own with a portable house and one destination firmly in mind.

 

DAYS  59, 60 & 61 – CLARKES BEACH CARAVAN PARK, BYRON BAY.

It wasn’t so much going to Byron Bay that compelled as a must-do aspect of the trip, but going to the Clarkes Beach Caravan Park.  I know it sounds like the same thing but it’s not really, or not in my mind anyway. Byron town is Byron town and I can take it or leave it.   It’s a busy place now, full of traffic and an over-riding impetus to buy and sell.  I had no desire for the town at all but I had decided early on that I must go to Clarkes.  Given that we have Morrissey, and there are no dogs allowed at Clarkes, I didn’t know exactly how it was going to happen, I just really wanted it and hoped it would come together somehow.  Thankfully it did.

 

Decades ago, during the same surfing trips that culminated at Burleigh Heads, we always visited Byron Bay and always stayed at the Clarkes Beach Caravan Park, although I don’t remember if it was called that then.  I don’t remember much about the park itself at all.  I remember the wild times and that we had the same humungous marquee tent, but where we pitched that tent and what the park looked like then I can’t remember.   I can remember The Pass though and how perfect the wave could be.  To be out in those waves was something I’ve never forgotten. They weren’t always great but, when they were, well, I’d never experienced anything like it.  If you like surfing, and The Pass is working, and you’re in the line-up, the effect is almost spiritual.  I’ve been to Byron many times since but always stayed in cabins in and around Bilongil.  It’s been thirty years since I camped at Clarkes Beach.  I left Brisbane full of hope and excitement. 

 

The three days turned on everything I wanted.  I’d say most people were at Clarkes for one major reason – to surf The Pass.  Beneath or beside every tent or caravan or bus or cabin was some form of surf craft.  There was the occasional booger rider, like myself, and every variety of surfboard from mals as big as battleships to stubby fat ‘fish’, almost as wide as they are long.  Most were thrusters but a surprising amount of boards were modern replicas of old single fins.  These weren’t all being ridden by older men.  In fact most single fins were being ridden by rake thin young guys with long straight hair and just enough whisp of whiskers to be recognised as a beard.  Maybe, for the younger surfer who sees themselves as alternative, the 70s has become cool again.

 

Stand up paddleboards were also fairly popular. I don’t know why.   It blew me out watching as these massive boards were lugged down the stairs and along the shore, their owners struggling all the way.  My booger may be considered childish by some but it is super light and easily carried.  I’d prefer to use my energy while in the surf rather than tire myself out just transporting my board.

 

For the most part the surf remained perfect, if not massive.  Classic stuff – metre high waves peeling one after another after another after another so that from the bottom of the bay you could see maybe six waves all breaking evenly and all with somebody surfing them in some way.  The closer to the headland you went, though, the bigger and more powerful the wave was. This is where I paddled out, into a crowd, all ignoring me and looking expectantly towards the horizon.

 

I couldn’t get a wave.  The weather was a perfect autumn day, the wave a perfect point break barrelling and rebuilding for 100mtrs or so into the bay, and I couldn’t get a wave to myself.  Everytime I looked to my inside, just as I thought the wave was mine, someone to my left took it.  Sometimes they paddled around me and on to my inside to get it (known as ‘snaking’ and generally frowned upon, unless you’re a shit hot local at an iconic break with an always slightly-pissed-off-at-the-never-thinning-crowd crew of co-locals behind you.  Then, apparently, it’s not only okay but should be expected).  On the first day I was becoming frustrated.  My goodwill vibe was rapidly diminishing.

 

I wasn’t going to give up though.  No bloody way.  I was determined to catch at least one of these perfect waves – hopefully many more – but at least one.  Then I saw the solution.  It only required that I paddle a little wider and about 3 metres closer to shore.

 

The biggest waves were being caught just out past the end rock and ridden through.  The ideal wave would link up through various sections and drive along the curve of the beach and into the bay.  These ideal waves existed but you had to be a fantastic surfer to make one hollow section that sucked steeply up off the sand.  Some made it– most didn’t.  After this section the wave reformed perfectly and continued on its way, barrelling and walling and offering itself happily to whoever took it.  This is where I sat - me and just a couple of others.  When someone fell on the inside section we took it in turns to stroke easily into what was a steep but makeable drop and off we’d go.  Yeeeehahhh!

 

The surf stayed pretty much the same for the three days I was there, the swell only becoming slightly smaller.  At every session I’d find this spot, or one similar, and I’d spend 2 to 3 hours with a manic smile on my face while my body groaned at all the paddling it was made to do.  By the end of the third day I was completely knackered.

 

So Clarkes Beach fulfilled one of my main dreams for this trip. I had surfed myself to a stasis on classic waves.   I don’t know to who or what or where to offer my appreciation but I offer it anyway.   Thank you.  I give Clarkes Beach Caravan Park 7 Stars out of five. It is expensive as caravan parks go but I think the gods live here, in one of the back cabins, away from the toilets and near the beach.

 

DAYS  62 & 63 – BROKEN HEAD CARAVAN PARK, BROKEN HEAD.

After Clarkes, poor Broken Head didn’t stand a chance.  You may be thinking ‘why does it even have to compete? Surely you can appreciate both places individually, on their own merits.  Just embrace difference’. I wish I could.  Like Robbie Williams, I wish I were a better man.  But I’m not and I can’t.  The beach breaks offered at Broken Head were insipid and uninspiring.  I paddled out on both days and joined way too many people trying their best on not much at all.  It is a beautiful place and relaxing, which is why I went there, but after eating cookies and cream drumsticks for days it’s hard to get excited over a small vanilla bucket eaten with a wooden spoon wrapped in plastic. I give the Broken Head Caravan Park 3 stars out of five.  It’s okay.  It’s clean and pretty.

 

 

DAY 64 – YELGUN REST AREA, PAST BYRON ON THE HIGHWAY.

I have a gift, or a skill, or an affliction, I’m not sure which.  I can, in the midst of a very, very good thing, always find something to complain about.  As such, in the middle of a surfing trip in which every day has provided surf of some description, I have had too much surf.  I am surfed out. I couldn’t paddle another stroke.  Thankfully the day is cold and grey and raining.  The weather informs me that I don’t have to think about surfing today.  Okay.  Good.  But what am I going to do all day?  And where I am I sleeping tonight?  I have nothing arranged and should really do a free camp to save money. 

 

The Yelgun Rest Area is on the Highway between Byron Bay and the Tweed Coast.  It was recommended to us by several people.  For good reason.  It is open and spacious yet positioned amongst the local bush.  It is set well off the highway and is quiet. After grocery shopping in Byron I pulled in at 1pm, lay down to read a book and woke up to darkness at 5:30 ish.  I ate corned beef on a white bread roll, listened to the rain, put the bed down, and then went to sleep again until 8 the next morning.

 

How’s that for living the dream!

 

I give the Yelgun Rest Area 2 stars out of five or 5 stars out of five.  2 stars when compared to everywhere we have stayed.  It’s a rest area that provides toilet facilities and a safe place to park and nothing more.  5 stars when compared to every other rest area we have been to.  Yelgun is quiet and well thought out.  It renews my faith in the possibilities of discovering more decent rest areas during the trip.

 

NIGHT 65 – CABARITA BEACH CARPARK

Back in Cabarita.  Back to the surf.  The swell had died down but there were still fun little waves sweeping around the point with hardly anyone out.  So I surfed again, my body resistant at first but warming to the task.  I’ve written before about Cabarita; about how it seems the perfect place to free camp but it remains empty.  Well, as I settled in for the night, sneaky camping beside the scrub, a ‘hippy camper’ van backed in beside me.  I never saw their faces but I was glad that they were there.  That night, in Cabarita carpark, a symbiosis of safety was created. (Unless they were murderers in a hire van, waiting until the dead of night to strike before escaping into the morning).  I refuse to repeat myself or say the same thing again.  See previous blog entry (Blog entry 3) for score and evaluation.

 

NIGHTS  66 & 67 – HASTINGS POINT CARAVAN PARK

I can trace why I am here, but retrospect is a bitch. I’ve driven through Hastings Point many times and never had a desire to pull over– not once.  So why was I here now? 

Firstly I wasn’t yet ready to return to Brisbane.  Although I had places I could stay, Shanzie wasn’t  due back for two days.  When the cat’s away, etc.

Secondly I wanted electricity again.  And a long hot shower.  And a working toilet recently cleaned.  It all pointed to a caravan park somewhere. 

Thirdly, rain.  It has rained every day for the past week.  Not all day but catch-you-by-surprise rain, where suddenly, within a minute or two, a blue sky becomes grey and rain pelts down for twenty minutes. I wanted somewhere to erect the canopy, assemble the clothesline, dry the clothes I have washed and the clothes that for days have remained limp and wet hanging from the bullbar.  Again, it all pointed to a caravan park somewhere.  But where?

 There were two main possibilities – Hastings Point or Kingscliff.  I consulted Surfing NSW; the essential guide for the travelling surfer, because books know things.  I paraphrase what it says - Kingscliff has only one noteworthy break.  It is a heavy reef that only comes alive in large swells and requires deft surfing ability.  Nothing is said about the beach breaks of the area.  Hastings Point, however, is written as offering quality, uncrowded beach breaks on both sides of the creek mouth.  Now, I do like a quality beach break, especially one that is uncrowded.  And, if I’m honest, I’m not the deftest of surfers and heavy reef breaks can be a bit full on.  The choice was logical: I’d spend the last days of my bachelor adventure surfing the quality beachies of Hastings Point. 

 

The caravan park is situated on a bend in the creek – the creek flows behind it, loops around to the north and continues back directly along the front of the park.  It looks lovely in the sunlight but means that you have to paddle across the creek to access the beach.  You could walk up the road, over the road bridge that crosses over the loop, up to where the cluster of rental units finally relents and allows a small path from the road to the beach.  It’s about 1.5km though and you must walk much the same distance back along the shore to the better waves at the creek mouth.  So, in effect, just to check what the waves are doing, you have to commit to getting wet by crossing the creek or to taking a lengthy walk. 

I did it a couple of times with no joy.  After that I couldn’t be arsed.   Instead, I stood in various places along the shore of the creek, casting and retrieving and failing to outwit fish.  I give the Hastings Point Caravan Park 1 ½ stars out of five.  It was unremarkable but cosy in the rain and it had a shop next to it that sold crispy hot chips.