Dunes, rain and the washing machine

First off, yes I'm still alive. Despite the wide variety of things that can kill you here (sharks, snakes, spiders, boxed wine, etc...) I've managed to ward off death and am making my way up the east coast of Australia. The east coast is basically a big tourist highway, with a particular emphasis on catering to the cheap backpacker. Its maybe not the most adventuresome place to travel, but its fun as hell! After finally prying myself and my rapidly lightening wallet away from the Sydney party hostel I was staying at, I moved north to a small town called Anna Bay. I met a couple cool friends on the way and we stayed at a small backpackers place a little ways outside of the city. The quietness was a welcome change and I was finally able to catch up on some much needed sleep. Also, the people who ran the backpackers had a pet kangaroo! The three of us met up with a couple guy driving up the coast in a beat up old jeep and ended up traveling with them for a few days. We took the jeep out to these immense and beautiful sand dunes near Anna Bay pounded 'er around for a bit until (I'm sure you can see this coming) we got stuck. No worries though! With a little digging, and 4 of us pushing, we got it out. Too easy! I'm trying to pick up as much Aussi slang as possible, by the way. The backpackers had a bunch of sand boards they lent us, so we gave that a go while we were out there. It was pretty fun, though I learned that sand isn't always as soft as you might think.

After Anna Bay, we camped out a couple night in some amazing national parks further up the coast. Australia really is a beautiful country. We were even lucky enough to experience an authentic sub-tropical rainstorm! In tents! Yay! Actually, its been raining quite a lot since I've been here, which I guess makes sense, since they call this the rainy season. At least its warm rain though and it usually doesn't last that long.

I've been in a little town called Coffs Harbour for the last few days. I found a cheap hostel to stay in that has free surfboard rentals, so thats pretty much what I've been doing during the day. Surfing is awesome, but very hard work. I'm a pretty terrible swimmer too, so its a bit of an uphill battle tring to get waves. Oh, also, the waves here are huge. I still have no idea what I'm doing but am really keen to learn. A couple says ago I paddled out to where I saw some other surfers floating around waiting waves. The waves were looking pretty big, but I figured if they were out there, I should be too. So after a good 15 minutes or so of furious paddling, and swallowing way too much saltwater, I made it out. I was pretty exhausted from the effort, so I just sat around for a bit on the board before trying to get a wave. After a couple minutes, I saw a good one coming, so I started paddling, but my timing was way off and the wave broke right on top of me. Then came the washing machine. This is what they call it when you're just tossed around under water like you're... well, you know. Its a crazy feeling and you lose all your sense of orientation. When the water settled down, I started swimming for what I thought was the surface, only to touch the bottom! I did a 180 and popped up to the surface with lots of breath left, but it was still a bit of a shake up. The next day I decided it would be a good idea to take a couple lessons. I've had one so far and it was definately worthwhile. I told the guy teaching the lesson about my washing machine experience and he told was pretty surrprised I had been out there. Apparantly they call the area where I was 'great white' or something like that. Anyways, I think I'm going to stick to some smaller stuff for a while.

Life's a party!

Dave