The Thirty-Five Year Old Grommet

Grommet - Surfer slang (although also extends to other boardsports, and surf sports) for a young surfer. Can also be used to refer to children in general, although usually they have some association with surfing/etc. (urbandictionary.com)

As soon as you take a surfboard off the roof of your car, you feel totally cool like you're about to do something that defies nature. You're going to walk on water. You're going to fly across the waves and defy gravity. At least that what you think will happen.

When Giovannina and I first started planning our 5 month round the world trip, I had one stipulation - I wanted to spend an entire week at a warm-water beach and surf every day. With the exception of a couple times out at Hobuck Beach, WA messing around in the white water, I've never surfed. Growing up in Narragansett, I did a lot of boogey boarding, but no surfing, and I've always regretted it. Now living in Seattle, it's 3 hours to the nearest surf beach and you need multiple layers of neoprene to avoid severe hypothermia. So, I figured if we were traveling around the world's oceans, it would be a great chance to surf.

In support of my dream, Giovannina gave me a week's surfboard rental for Christmas and when we were planning our trip down the East Coast of Australia we decided to spend a week at Byron Bay, NSW. Byron came highly recommended from many folks and so we booked a campsite at the Brokenhead Campground about 10 minutes south of Byron Bay and right on the beach.

After setting up camp, I headed into town and rented a board for the week. I wanted something hot and sleek, but I ended up with a soft-top 8' surfboard, bright blue and weighing half as much as my first car. Stable. That's how they described it at the shop. To me, it looked more like a pool toy, but I figured I'd trust the experts. I took it straight back to Brokenhead, put on my shorts and headed for the waves.


I sat on the beach for about 15 minutes scoping the waves, seeing where the locals went. They paddled straight through the breakers and hung out about a hundred yards offshore, bobbing in the swell and catching really nice 5' to 6' waves. It looked great. So I hopped in and started paddling. I felt wonderful. Sun. Waves. Surfboard. Then the first wave hit and I don't think I breathed dry air for the next two hours. I felt like I was in a washing machine, but instead of clothes I had a huge styrofoam door attached to my ankle. Sometimes I was on top of it, sometimes it was on top of me. But most of the time I was swimming and try to stay off the bottom .

I never made it out with the other surfers, and realized I probably wasn't going to, so the next day I decided to head to The Pass, the beginners spot. Actually, there were lots of surfers there - all types, beginners like me flailing away on their own blue or red spongy surfboards, and really good surfers twisting and turning on their short boards and gliding over the water on their longboards like they were driving a Cadillac.

It took me a while to get a feel for the beach. The waves broke off a point, but then curled around towards the beach in nice three to four foot crumbly breakers. Great waves for a newby like me. And because of the way they broke, I could ride one wave - or actually try to catch it, tumble off and get dragged twenty feet - for a while, then catch another without having to paddle back out. This was great. Or at least it was until I found myself sitting in the lineup with other surfers, but these surfers weren't like me. They were good. I mean GOOD. They knew exactly where to catch waves and when they did, they did very cool moves.


As for me, it didn't go as smoothly. A wave would come. It would look like it would break right where I wanted. I'd start to paddle, pushing harder and harder, and then the wave would pass underneath me. Nothing. I did this for about an hour when I finally found a wave that looked just right. I turned and paddled and paddle, muscles aching, back sore. I could hear the wave starting to break behind me. The sound got louder. I could feel the board swell up underneath me and then all of a sudden the board started moving on it's own. I pushed up and and slid my feet under me. I was up on the board! I was riding the wave! I was SURFING!

Then I heard a voice behind me say, "What the &#@! you doin', mate?" and this guy on a short board grabbed my leash and pulled me off my board.

Seems that I broke a cardinal rule of surfing:I dropped in on another guy's wave. I apologized profusely and upon hearing my American accent he frowned and turned away. A stupid foreigner. I felt bad for ruining his wave so I paddled straight to shore and walked back to the beginners' beach. I know I shoud've felt bad, but there was a little twinge of pride. I had that wave. And I had it well enough to piss off another surfer. That means, I was worth swearing at. That means, I was another surfer. Or at least appeared to be one. Yes.

I spent the next three days at The Pass, sticking to the beginner waves and improving, gradually. Giovannina, Mark and Julia came out surfing with me sometimes or went hiking.
On the last day, the four of us surfed all day. My back was sore and my feet were cut up, but I was finally getting it. By the end of the day I was catching waves regularly and even turning the board. I think another week of surfing and I might be ready for the big waves (ones that break where you can't stand up), but the road beckoned and it was time to move on.

It felt good to settle in and stay in one place for a week, the campground had a kitchen with fridge and freezer so we could buy fresh food to cook and keep it cold when we needed to (this was a struggle living in and out of the car). We also made some friends. We met a wonderful older couple that had been camping/traveling for the last four months, they were big birders and retired parks rangers/biologists so we had a lot to talk about.

We Also connected immediately with Mark and Julia, a German couple who had been in Australia for three months. After talking about our volunteer gig in Carins, they told us stories about being flown to a Island and left there for a few days to camp on there own. We spent most of the week hanging with them, surfing, hiking and even celebrating St. Paddy's Day. They met us at Lamington National Park, our next destination.

Heading South continued

On March 10th we drove to Mon Repos Beach arriving just in time to sign up for the evening Beach walk/loggerhead turtle observation. They didn't guarantee that we would see anything but in order to walk on the beach at night you had to be with a guide (because it was the season that mom logger heads were arriving to lay eggs on the beach and some of the babies from the early nests were emerging.)

It was a long night - they asked us to be there at 7:00pm but there were so many people and we had to go in shifts that we didn't get to walk the beach until 11:30pm. In the mean time they played movies for us in the out door theater and we enjoyed the museum. We didn't see any moms laying eggs but we got to see about 90 baby loggerheads emerging from the sand and making their way to the water. They wouldn't let us take any pictures of the turtles, except when they - the guides) picked up and passed around a few of them for us to see up close so sorry about the bad picture. We got back to our camp and crashed at 1:00am after a memorable evening.

That night we stayed at a camper park with laundry, showers and a pool - very extravagant for us. The next morning, Woody cooked me eggs and potatoes for breakfast while we did the laundry. What a treat!

Driving a bit further south, we entered into feral/wild Horse country. That night we camped on the Inskip peninsula and woke up the next morning to these two horses out side our tent. They left us alone as we ate our breakfast but looked curious when we took down the tent and drove off.

Before leaving the area we wanted to hike to the colored sand cliffs but it was high tide and we you could only get there at low tide so following the directions of a helpful couple we were told of another hike called the "sand blow". We didn't have any idea what a "sand blow" was but they told us we would be able to see the colored sand cliffs from above if we went on the hike so off we went. It was a short hike through rainforest and eucalyptus trees before we arrived at the sand blow - how to explain this phenomenon....... It was like we had walked into the dessert.

It wasn't very wide - we could see the other side (maybe 1/2 mile across) but it was a few miles long and daily it was getting longer. The wind was blowing the sand from the beach below us (we were up on a cliff above the beach) up the cliff and across the sand blow - it was a like a wind tunnel. As the sand blew inland it covered trees and forest in it's way. It was hot and windy and so cool we forgot all about looking for the colored sand cliffs and just took pictures of the sand blow.



Continuing south on our way to Byron Bay we drove through the town of Gympie, a town whose name has brought us many laughs.

One evening on the boat we were watching T.V. after dinner when a news reporter said " a gimpy family was rescued from the roof of their home...." I looked over at Woody and said "Did they just call that family gimpy?" He responded, "That's what I heard." Before I could ask how a family of invalids could climb onto the roof of their house, Kate - noticing our confusion- turned to us and without a trace of irony said, "There is a town called Gympie near Brisbane." "Oh...." I replied. Later that night, in the privacy of stateroom, Woody and I laughed so hard our teeth hurt.

Heading South: Townsville to Eungella

On our first night out of Townsville we took the advise of Kate and camped out at Bowling Green National Park. Thanks Kate it was a beautiful site with an amassing swimming hole. We watched the sky and guessed it was going to rain so when picking out our camp site we looked for the highest ground. The camp area was pretty flat but we found a nice spot under a tree and hoped for the best.

Around dinner time the rains began to fall and it was coming down hard. We cooked dinner and hung out playing cards for a few hours under a picnic shelter as it RAINED and didn't let up. Finally we went back to the tent to see how things were holding up and had to wade through a 4 inch deep puddle to get to the tent. The tent amazingly enough was on a tiny island of dry ground but the puddles on all sides were rising quickly. We decided to move the tent under the picnic shelter for the night. As we dragged the tent through the tempest, the ranger came by and invited us to stay at his house for the night. Yippee! We left the tent under the shelter and followed him to his house. Our guardian angel, Greg Croft, set us up with mattresses, a hot shower and a nice cuppa tea. Great guy, we stayed up late talking travel adventures, fine wine and politics.

The next day we continued on south to Eungella National Park in pursuit of the elusive duck-billed platypus (in case you're wondering, there is only one platypus, but it has a duck-like bill.) The road to Eungella took us through the cane fields of Queensland and then up and up to the McKay Highlands, a rainforest plateau perched above the farming villages and pastures of Queensland. The air cooled as we climbed in elevation and stepping out of the car at the Broken River information center, we felt instant relief from the muggy, suffocating heat of the tropical lowlands.

We arrived at Eungella in the late afternoon, perfect time for platypus spotting. We headed down to the platypus-viewing platform - other folks must want to see a monotreme too - along the river and waited. And waited. It was getting dark, and we still didn't have a campsite so we got back in the car. After many winding country roads, we found a place to camp, quickly made dinner and collapsed in our tent.

The next morning we drove back to the river in hopes of spying a platypus. Nothing. So we headed out on a hike through the rainforest. Gorgeous, dense, green foliage, water dripping from every leaf and our (or I should say my) first encounter with land leaches. Woody remarkably didn't have any on him. After finding half a dozen on my legs, I tucked my pants into my socks. They would brush off of the ground plants on to your shoes or pants and then climb up like an inch worm until they reached skin, they really were not that bad once we got used to them.
The trail on the other hand went from very nice to completely over grown but we kept going. When we made it back to the visitors center we bought a Fanta and a candy bar to take to the river with us and this time we were lucky enough to see a platypus swimming and playing in the water. Success!!!

Moving on.... we found a spot to camp at the beach near Green Hills, Made dinner, check our selves for leaches and fell asleep to the sound of the waves.

Maggie Island

On the first few days off the boat we decided to go to a small Island off the coast of Townsville to relax. Magnetic Island is known for its slow pace of life, numerous beaches and large National Park. It really reminded me of of living in Hawaii (Giovannina writing; Woody fantasizing).
We stayed at the backpackers hostel and got a room to ourselves. The fist day we spent mostly at the pool (yes it was a hostel with a pool!!! why are there not more of these?) and napping in the great hammocks they had hanging in the shade. It was hot, really hot - if you moved you were sweating - so laying around the pool was heaven.


We also went for a short hike into Horshoe Bay, the nearby town, and then over the ridge to Balding Bay that evening after it had cooled down a bit. We forgot to bring our headlamps so we didn't stay long.


At the hostel we saw our first flock of Lorikeets - someone was feeding them and so they filled the trees and were so loud! One of them landed on my head - they were pretty accustom to people.
Mama and Baby looking down at our dinner.

We also saw our first rock wallabies and tons of possums that would eat food out of your hand if you fed them. Of course we didn't feed them and abided by the signs but we got a few pictures as they waited for us to leave something behind.


On our second day we had a bit more energy and dcsided to head to the beach and then to do a hike that was in an area known for it's Koalas. We spent the day, snorkeling, reading our books and playing cards at Arthur Bay beach and then around 4:00pm - when it was starting to cool down - we headed up to the Forts Hike to see Koalas. We didn't find any Koala's but the sights were spectacular.

On our last morning there it was raining so we used the excuse to sleep in nice and late and pack up just in time to catch the bus to the ferry. We had a long day ahead of us - getting back to Townsville, picking up our rental car, picking up luggage that we had left with Alistair at AIMS, going shopping and getting on the road to find our first campsite for the trip south.

Washed Ashore

Our time on the boat has come to an end but not without more wonderful memories. In the last few days aboard the Floreat we had the chance to go ashore twice. Our first trip ashore could hardly be called "land" but after being at sea for three weeks it sufficed.



Thursday, after our manta tows were done, Alistair asked if we wanted to go see a nearby sand caye. Woody, Kate and I jumped in his boat and we headed out. The sand was brights white and the water glowed a beautiful color of aqua blue against it - absolutely gorgeous. The caye was about the size of a soccer field and filled with masked boobies, noddy terns, shearwaters, Brown boobies and a gull or two. There was a frigate bird too but it never landed just flew around looking for food to steal - there were no trees and Woody told us they can only land in trees.

On Saturday we anchored at Fitzroy Island. It was our last day of surveys and no diving because we had to fly back to Townsville the next day. So we had some extra time in between manta tows. The seas were flat around the Island so we got another chance to go Skurfing and Woody came this time too.

After skurfing Kate dropped us off at the Island and we went for a little hike to test out our legs on land. Fitzroy Island is a top tourist spot located just off of Cairns and was equipt with a resort, and tons of fun things to do. There was a giant trampoline in the water at the beach, you could rent snorkeling gear or go in a mini submarine to see the fishes. Really they were tiny yellow submarines that two people (and a pilot) fit into - click to check them out.
After walking just 1km we felt like we had run a 10 mile race and decided it was time to head back to the boat for lunch.

We landed in Cairns later that afternoon and had another great night out on the town including a stop at the local casino, which was quite the cultural experience. The next day - Sunday March 4 - we loaded up all the gear and headed back to Townsville, our Great Barrier Reef adventure finally over.

Now we're back on the road. Making our way south to Sydney. We'll update as we can.

Be well, everyone. Much love and many hugs and kisses.

-Woody and Giovannina