February 23-39: On Surfari!

When my sailing trip got cancelled do to monsoons, I shifted my plans for that week to surfing. Purely because their departures matched up nicely with my trip schedule, I decided to take a week-long surf lesson from Surfaris.com. < http://surfaris.com/ :> The Surfaris shuttle bus picks you up in Byron Bay, takes you to their surfinglodge on the coast, and teach you surfing for a week at great beginners' breaks. You get all meals, lodging, transport, gear and lessons for under $100 a day. And you meet a lot of cool fellow travelers. Here's a little music representative of my week:



Surfaris' lodge is located in Crescent Head, a small town 6 hours north of Sydney a with a campsite right beside the surf break! If you don't want to bring camping gear, you can rent cabins here too.

Most of my photos were taken at nearby Point Plomer. This beach is renowned for its consistently good surf, but has pretty good wildlife too: you see goanas wandering around (they look like big iguanas or small monitor lizards), kangaroos hopping, and the odd dingo nosing around for babies to steal. (OK, no one has ever proven that dingos eat human babies. But it is a popular rumor in Australia.) Dolphins like to play in the local surf, though we only saw them while hiking on the cliffs above the point. The combination of a good right-hand point break and a beach break makes this spot surfable a high S-SE swell is ideal for surfing here, and that tends to be best in fall and winter.