Freo

First thing the next morning, I was up and moving the gear from our room in anticipation of our drive to Bunbury while Dan busied himself getting ready to head into hospital to get his new, more solid cast put on by one of Australia’s more competent medical professionals…or so we thought…

I’d managed to leave a hoodie (the only one I’d brought out to Oz) in Dunsborough, so I dropped Dan at the hospital before I shot back south, feeling like a total idiot.  By the time I got back, two hours later, Dan had just made it into radiology to get a new set of x-rays which showed his leg was healing really well and the bone had already started knitting back together.  He emerged an hour later with his new fiberglass cast, much happier to feel more stable.

With both of our spirits buoyed, we jumped back in our totally rad hard-man car, the Kia (which had picked up the most unbelievable smell of butter somewhere along the way between Dunsborough and Bunbury), and headed north for Fremantle, having heard good things about the town from the Irish and Kiwi kids Dan had met at Yallingup.

We pitched up at the Sundancer in Freo, dumped our gear and made a beeline south to checkout one of WA’s meccas for wakestyle ridin - Woodman’s point, or Woodies.  I had an epic session on the flat water, despite feeling way less than average in my kiting ability. 

The standard was phenomenal.  Unless you were throwing and landing 313s, blind judges, or KGBs, you were miles off point.  Which is exactly where I was.  I felt a lot better when it turned out that most of the people there were pros who were training for various impending world kiting tours but still felt like a total kook.  I couldn’t tell you who most of the crew were, but Paddy, Tom and Paul arrived on the scene a little later to fill in the gaps. 

The next few days were superb – cranking wind, flat water and decent nightlife – all the things Bunbury sorely lacked!  In fact, the wind was so good at Woodies, the only time I got the camera out was when we went to Beach One, just around the corner from Woodies.

Having spent a few days knocking around the city, Dan and I decided to head south again.  This time we were on our way to Rockingham to check out the other wakestyle spot we’d heard so much about – Safety Bay. 

We bid farewell to the Retardz and started towards Rockingham with no clue what to expect from the notoriously busy kitespot or the accommodation we’d booked in to.  We were just sure that it would hold another random night in another random town in WA.  But as long as it was warm and windy, we could’ve been staying Blackpool for all I cared!

Sunny Dunny & Bung Bunbury

We awoke the next morning to the placid, aquamarine waters of Geographe Bay and I anxiously checked the wind forecast in the hope the tranquil glass belied some howling gale that would arrive later on that afternoon. Despite my prayers, it didn’t.

Dan and I began our attempt to work out what we were going to do to keep ourselves occupied and out of trouble over the next couple of days. What to do in WA was a topic of conversation we seemed of often find ourselves discussing – in no small part due to the fact that unless you’re kiting or surfing, there’s really not a hell of a lot to do on the west coast of Australia. This was something more emphasized by Dan’s mobility issues - likely helped by his sudden inability to do anything more active than climb four or five stairs, attempt playing his newly acquired ukulele, and occasionally casting a fishing rod.

I’m not trying to take the piss at Dan’s expense here. I’ve got nothing but sympathy for my brother’s plight. How impossible I’d find it to be on an eight-week kitesurfing trip, only to spend the remaining six weeks (and bulk of the trip) watching from the sidelines doesn’t even bear thinking about. Fair play to him and his decision to tough out the rest of the trip. As I asked him a couple of times, “Would you rather be sitting in Texas with a broken leg, or traveling around Australia with a broken leg?” No prizes for guessing what his immediate answer was…

As we were in wine country, Dan and I decided to start our first day up at the Wise Vineyard, a large-scale operation that had a fantastic vantage on a hilltop, overlooking all of the bay and everything that lay between the vineyard and the Indian Ocean.


Dan and I had a couple of cups of coffee, James arrived (still brandishing the facepaint from the previous night’s revelry) and we headed down to the beach with a slab of Coronas, armed with a couple of fishing rods, and proceded to while away the rest of the day by boozing in the sunshine.

James had a real knack for catching blowfish and Dan came to the realisation that he didn’t really like touching fish, and didn’t really fancy fishing all that much, for that matter. James and I decided to go out for a paddle on the surfboards in an effort to reach some slightly deeper water. I somehow managed to hook a Blue Swimmer crab and James caught a herring, which we took back with grand plan of cooking up for dinner…we ended up getting Thai instead.

 The next few days were spent pretty much like this. We’d wake up, check the forecast, see there was no wind and no surf, get some beer, and go fishing. In the process, we managed to hook up with a couple of English girls and a token Belgian girl (Belgium’s got over 600 beers, you know…) and arranged for a day of wine tasting around Margaret River. 

Dan was stoked! Finally something he was really good at and could participate in. Somehow, and I’ve still got no idea how, I ended up drawing the short straw and was the designated driver for the day. In Australia they call it being the Skipper. No two ways about it, it wasn’t the most hetero title I’d ever received and it was definitely one I took reluctantly.  We had a great time knocking around Dunsborough, but the time came to head north to Bunbury so Dan could get his plaster cast swapped for a fiberglass one. 

On arrival in Bunbury, we went to have a quick look at the hostel we’d booked into. A quick crutch-through revealed it wasn’t somewhere we were all that likely to hang around for five minutes, let alone a night. It was like some sort of half-way house. A word of warning, if you find yourself in Bunbury, looking for budget accommodation, don’t book in to the Dolphins Backerpackers. Get the other one. You won’t be sorry.

We spent the rest of the day at a park north of the Bunbury city centre, as the city of Bunbury is pretty much a collection of strip-malls and discount automotive part stores. We lolled around in the sun and spent most of the day intimidating the 5 year-olds from sharing the playground while we were on it (they’ve got to learn sometime) and butchering songs on James’ guitar. After a few hours of waiting for the wind to come up, James made the decision to head back to Scarborough and we headed back to the new hostel to reheat the curry from a couple of nights before, do some laundry and get an early night before heading to the third hospital of the trip…the rock and roll lifestyle rages on…

Dunsborough via Yallingup...

Dan and I woke up early, ready to hit the road again to see what more we could find in the Margaret River area in the way of fun.  We met James for a quick cup of coffee on the main road and then drove down to the river mouth, not expecting much, only to have our suspicions totally confirmed.  It was as flat as glass and there wasn’t a breath of wind.  With no reason to hang around, we set off north on the Caves Road towards Yallingup, putting in a quick stop at Moses Rocks on the way to check out the coastline. 

Moses Rocks didn’t disappoint, but the path to the beach was going to prove fairly difficult to the most able-bodied of us, let alone the human tripod.  We got back in our cars after a couple of obligatory “I’m in Australia, in the middle of nowhere, check me out”-type photos and carried on towards Yallingup, with the promise of free wine at the various vineyards along the way as an added incentive. 

We got to the car park at Yallingup Beach to find enough wind blowing for a potential session with a 3 foot left breaking on the reef right in front of the beach.  There was a bit of a walk down to the water, so rather than venture down to the beach, Dan took up residence at one of the park benches with his book, his newly acquired ukulele (a new project to help wile away the days) and a six pack of Heineken to simultaneously aid the musical process and dull the pain of watching James and I set off for another wave sailing session.

It was by no means an epic session (I managed to get slammed pretty well in the shorebreak on the way back in) but then a crap session is always better than no session at all!  Just ask Dan… 

James and I made our way back to the car park to find Dan had made pals with a bunch of Kiwis and Irish kids (and a token Canadian who’d spent the last summer in Polzeath – random) and was getting stuck into some booze and some thumping drum and bass emanating from a massive sub in the back of the Kiwis’ van.  As tempted as we were to get properly involved in the impromptu car park party, neither Dan nor I fancied sleeping in the hired engineering marvel that was the Kia, so we hung around for the sunset, packed up the car and were on our way to the Dunsborough YHA for the night with a case of beer and all the makings of a banging stir-fry.  

Margaret River - Day Two

Margie’s Day Two

Dan and I met James, Paul, Tom and Paddy down at the beach the following day after finding out we couldn’t ride at the river mouth because there was a pole-dancer’s competition on. I think it was the Australian Wave Sailing Masters, but we didn’t hang around to find out and drove a couple of kilometers south to Gnarapub. The swell had dropped a little and had cleaned up a lot as a result. Also, the wind seemed to have sorted itself out and the gusty conditions had all but disappeared completely.

I was really looking forward to some down the line sailing and grabbed my 7, 9, and my surfboard, planning not to get caught out by the wind as I had the day before. I went out on my 7, but immediately had to come back in and grab my 9 and was soon out playing in the waves despite a slight error in judgment. It wasn’t to be the only one for the day as it turned out.

James, two local guys and I were all playing on Boodjidup, a reef break just north of the Gnarabup car park. After hanging around in the rolling swell out back for 15 minutes and watching two of the local guys line up, I pulled in to my first wave. It was a fairly slabby left with a 9 foot face which was quickly rising up behind me. I pushed the bar out in an attempt to drop some power out of the kite, stepped hard on the tail of the board, trying to get into the pocket, and looked over my right shoulder to judge my position on the wave. I was pretty well set up so I looked forward to pick my line. As I did, I saw a slab of reef pop up about 5 feet in front of me. It was only about 8’ x 6’ but it was bone dry! I pulled the bar back in, pushed my weight on to my front foot, jammed down on my left rail and shot out in to the flat, narrowly avoiding disaster. With eyes as wide as dinner plates, I pushed back on to my heelside rail and just managed to snatch a couple of seconds and a final turn on the shoulder before the wave died out completely. I headed out back, ready for the next one only to see James lining up for another wave in the set, totally loving life.

We hung around on the reef for another half an hour, trying to get the line-up dialed when I noticed the two locals had disappeared from the surf and were heading back to the beach. I tried shouting to James but he was too far out back to hear me…

The reason for their departure quickly became patently obvious – the wind was dropping off at an incredible rate. It was almost as if some one had shut off a fan somewhere southwest of us and we were riding the end of the breeze as the blades of the fan wound down.

I made a beeline for the beach, narrowly missing a huge section of reef in the process, and just pulled into the channel in order to body-drag the last few hundred meters, trying to expel all thoughts of sharks from my mind in the process. As my kite peeked over the shoreline, the wind gave its final death rattle and my kite fell out of the sky, gently landing on to the soft white sand. I staggered up on to the beach and turned around to see James struggling to stay on a plane and heading straight for the section of reef I’d narrowly avoided, or potentially more catastrophic, the impact zone of the next break. After a couple of dicey minutes, he just managed to get up-wind of the large rock reef and ended up walking back over the slab towards the beach with his kite high above his head and his surfboard under his arm. I dumped my harness, grabbed my surfboard and paddled out to keep him company on his long drag back to the shore.

Fortunately it took hardly anytime at all for James to get back in to the beach so we packed down and started our 2 kilometer walk along the coastal path back to the car park at Gnarabup for some beer, some guitar, a catch-up with fisherman Dan (who was totally oblivious to the dicey end to the session) and a quick sunset before heading back to Maggie’s to carry on boozing.

All said and done it was just another day living the good life in WA…

Margaret River - Day One

Dan and I pulled into Margaret River as the sun was setting across the vineyards of southwest WA and, as tempted as I was to stop for a photo, the threat of rogue kangaroos throwing themselves in front of tourists’ rental cars was too great to warrant hanging around - even for a couple of minutes.  We pulled into the dimly lit main drag of the town around 8, grabbed a slab of beer from the drive through bottle-shop and settled into our hostel for the night.  Dan was looking as forward to getting stuck in to the beer as I was about the promise of big waves and a cranking wind forecast for the next morning.  I was not going to be disappointed.

The next morning, at the crack of 11, we blitzed through the 15km drive to Prevelley Beach after a hastily slung together breakfast of coco-pops and apples.  I couldn’t believe what I saw as we pulled into the car park above the point where the Margaret River spilled into the Southern Ocean. 

Everywhere we looked along the rugged coast were huge rights and lefts – a combination of enormous 10-foot faces and heavy barreling lips, primed for surfers and spongers bobbing around in the water.  Unfortunately, the wind was yet to really start blowing (shown by the windsurfer wobbling out in the photo just beyond the cripple’s head on the left) and I realised I’d left the fins for my board back at the hostel in Margaret River.  How convenient…

We shot back to Margaret River, grabbed a quick sandwich at the hostel and wasted no time getting back down to the beach.  As we turned off the main road to head to a southern section of reef break at Gnarrabup Beach, just south of Prevelley, we saw the hideous curtains of Paul, Tom and Paddy’s van flapping in the breeze in the motor just ahead of us.  Unreal - in a country the size of Australia, with as much kiteable coastline as WA, we randomly bumped into the Bristol Boys - again!

Both of our cars parked up at Gnarabup Beach and Dan was all too happy to show the guys his newly acquired X-rays.  I snapped a couple of shots for posterity’s sake and grabbed my gear to head down to the beach with the first case of kite-inspired butterflies I’d suffered from in as long as I could remember.  The water was fairly flat on the inside, but the wind was coming over the headland and gusting like hell.  Things were not helped by the fact that the wind line seemed to coincide with a section of reef that was sucking dry between thunderous sets.  

I walked down towards the thin ribbon of sand that made up the beach, laden with my surfboard, Dan’s twintip, and my 7 and 9.  As I got onto the coastal path I saw that there were a couple of guys pumping up 7s on the beach.  Knowing there were going to be other people out with me had a fairly calming effect on the butterflies slamming into the wall of my stomach lining until I found out they were locals who were totally new to kitesurfing and couldn’t even get off the beach due to the wind swirling off the headland.  No matter, though.

I grabbed my 9, pumped up, took Dan’s twinnie (mainly so I wouldn’t have to worry about the gusting wind, the reef, AND trying to gybe a directional in the mahoosive waves) and ran towards the water.  Paul and Paddy had come down to have a look and decide whether or not it was worth going out after I’d gone out as the team guinea pig.  Again. 

Paddy launched my kite, which was intermittently luffing and shooting forward in the gusts, and I attempted a beach start that saw me fly off the beach (leaving the board behind) and slam face-first in to the water about twenty feet off the shoreline.  I resurfaced to the howls of the boys’ laughter from the beach.

After body dragging back in with a head full of water continuously spilling from my sinuses, I legged it back up the beach, fighting both to keep the 9 flying and keep my feet on the ground to begin my second attempt.  I stood on the beach, moving the kite to keep it falling from the sky above me and…..success! 

I wasn’t feeling brave enough to go out strapless on my surfboard due to the gusts (and also due to my being a total pansy) but had a pretty good session anyway, switching between my 9 and 7 and trying to avoid the massive walls of white water washing in over the reef. It was pretty decent on the inside once I got out of the wind shadow coming off the point and I even managed to throw a couple of unhooked raileys in for good measure.  (Thanks for the photos, Brenzo!)   

Even Paddy managed to choke down a spoonful of cement and hardened up enough to pump up a 7 and come and kite until he was too cold to stay on the water.

Dan spent the afternoon fishing from the pier off the boat ramp, with Paul and Tom keeping him company, and I kited until the wind got too gusty to even attempt anything hooked in, let alone unhooked.  We retreated to the car park to grab a couple of beers and watch the sunset only to get stopped by a guy who’d seen a another kiter go down in the surf out back by the reef.  This cued a fairly frantic half an hour looking for him in the blinding light that was bouncing off the water from the setting sun.  Long story short – he was fine.  Tired and a little embarrassed, but fine.  Suddenly I felt fairly justified in my decision to play it safe. 

No sooner than I put my gear down behind the hire car and began to struggle out of my knackered wetsuit, James (another English kiter we’d met in Lancelin) pulled into the car park in his battered Jeep Cherokee, having just driven down from a few days of kiting in Scarborough.  I think he was pretty gutted to have missed the day’s session but was stoked to have a second bite at the cherry on the following day, a day which promised cleaner waves and wind. 

We finished our beers and headed back to Margaret River to carry on the drinking for the night, both looking forward to the promise of another windy day on the horizon, stoked in the fact that this was only day one and the next was looking even better.

Lano to Joondalup

I woke up early enough to see the sun rise over Lancelin one last time, then used the remainder of our internet credit to check the wind forecast for Margaret River before starting to pack up all our gear.  It was looking very promising, indeed - 25 knots from the southwest with a 3 metre swell running.  With a forecast like that, we couldn’t get moving south fast enough for my liking.

As I stumbled around in the cool, early morning air (after staying up til 3 to watch United beat Arsenal 3-1 at the Emirates), I managed to pack up all of our gear and load the van bound for Joondalup.  The plan was to arrive in the suburb north of Perth, drop Dan at the hospital to check out his sprained ankle to make sure he’d be back on his feet in a couple of weeks, then pick up a hire car, swing by the bank and get on the road for Margaret River.  Shouldn’t take more than a few hours, right?  Wrong.

We pulled up at the door of the emergency room and Dan hobbled off to the reception while I unloaded two massive kite bags, a surfboard, a cooler full of beer (a prerequisite when in Australia, regardless of the distance you’re traveling), Dan’s duffel bag, Dan’s computer bag, my camera gear and a few other bags I’d hastily packed that morning, dumping them onto the pavement leading into the hospital doors.  I found a nice spot in the shade, pulled out a magazine and settled down to wait for Dan to get the all clear from the Joondulup Hospital osteopath.  It looked like it was going to be a long wait…  Everyone who walked past my street-side gypsy encampment couldn’t resist passing comment… “Odd place to camp, mate.”  “Not gonna catch much in the way of waves there mate!” Each one funnier than the last…

After sitting on the pavement for an hour, one of the nurses came outside to tell me Dan had broken his ankle and I might as well move everything into the hospital while we waited for him to see a consultant.  I groaned, asked if she was joking about the break, but obviously didn’t have to wait for a second invitation to get out of the sun and into the AC.  The nurse was really helpful and reassuring.  She had gone to Bellaire High School in Houston and had already struck up a great rapport with Dan.  We were lucky enough to have caught the hospital on the first day of a brand new six-month rotation of recently qualified doctors.  It has to be said, the nurses looked as excited as we were at the prospect. 

So, after spending the last 12 months in various hospitals around the UK, this was not the auspicious start to our two month West Australian kitesurfing trip I had anticipated.  No matter now, though. 

Dan dealt with the news quite well and seemed to be enjoying telling anyone who would listen that he’d broken his ankle doing some gnarly kitesurfing in Lancelin.  As the hours got higher on the clock, so did the height of his jump. 20, 30, 40, 50 feet…I think by the time we got seen he’d done a 120 foot, double handle-pass kiteloop or something along similar lines…  The only people who were getting a slightly different version of this story were the hospital doctors (for obvious reasons – the main one being insurance coverage).  The version for them was that he’d fallen off a kerb, into a drain and broken his ankle.  The collective looks of the medical staff suggested that they didn’t believe a word of it.  Particularly when we told them there wasn’t even alcohol involved.

So shortly after Dan was discharged from the hospital with crutches and a temporary cast, I managed to get us a hire car and we were en route to Margaret River with only rush-hour traffic and a few hundred km standing in our way…

Lano, WA

>

After an hour in the van, driving through burnt out forests and past kangaroo carcasses on the side of the highway, we arrived in Lancelin with Trev’s tales of three and a half weeks of relentless wind still ringing in our ears, to find absolutely cranking gales in Lano.  The good Fremantle Doctor hadn’t let us down – it was glass flat on the inside with a nice wave breaking on the outer reef and 30 knots of wind howling across the bay.  Perfection.  Despite the lure of the beach, the sun was setting and we thought it best to grab some beer and some food before the shops closed, convincing ourselves we’d be better fresh for the next day, rather than tempting fate by kiting with the sharks at dinnertime.  We woke the next morning, chomping at the bit, only to find it was the first the still day in nearly a month...  Here's Dan looking pretty unimpressed by the lack of wind.

Dan and I were wilting in the 40 degree heat, but were placated by the fact that Paul, Tom and Paddy were cooking in the concrete jungle of Perth while they continued their search for a van worthy of taking them around the country.  We were feeling a little smug, despite the thermometer-breaking temperatures, and spent most of the day lolling around in hammocks or swimming in the pool at one of the best-equipped hostels I’ve ever stayed in.

Thank God, too, cause Lano doesn’t have a hell of a lot to offer when the wind’s not blowing.   The sign here tells you pretty much everything on offer.  There are only two pubs, a pizzeria, a fish and chip shop, a petrol station, a post office and the ubiquitous Aussie surf shop. It’s an old fishing town that’s turned in to a bit of a beach town with a population of 700.  And that’s on the weekend…during school holidays…when there’s a fishing tournament on. 

So far it’s been a ritual of waking up around 10, riding one of the pink bikes down the beach, having breakfast/lunch, then heading down to the beach with one of the other kiters here, JP, for a 5 hour session on the water before coming back for BBQ, beers, and watching the Australian Open.  Not the most raucous existence but definitely a lot of fun and a lot better than being in the UK at this time of year!

Two days later the wind kicked back in and we’ve been kiting every day since.  It’s been 12 consecutive days on 7s and 9s, riding freestyle in the flat and a surfboard in 3-5 foot waves breaking on the outer reef.  The kit count so far is one trashed spreader bar (kiteloop - Joe), one snapped kiteboard (S-bend - Joe), and one sprained – we hope - ankle (Dan).  While I was out on the reef, Dan did a jump (60 feet by all accounts) and one of his feet popped out of the foot strap, while the other stayed in.  As the board twisted, so did his ankle – giving him a nicely swollen foot.  Luckily Tom, Paul and Paddy were on hand to help him land the kite and give him a ride back to the hostel so he could ice his foot while we kited the rest of the day away.  With friends like these… 

The boys went south this morning to go catch the Core Rail Jam at Woodies while Dan and I stayed in Lano for a couple more days so he could see a doctor and I could catch the imminent swell. 

It’s supposed to be picking up to 3 meters tomorrow, so we’ll see what that actually translates to on the reef and whether or not I’m feeling brave enough to head out.  Dan, in the mean time, has kindly loaned me his board on the condition that I’m not to snap it, and has become the trip photographer.  After a quick trip to the emergency room this morning,  Dan’s been loaned some crutches for a few days and we’re going to stop by the hospital in Joondalup on Monday so he can get an X-ray, if necessary.  Here’s praying for a miraculous recovery. 

The plan is to make the most of the swell over the next couple of days, then head south to pick up a car for a couple of weeks.  We’re going to hit Esperance (9 hours southeast of Perth), via a quick stop in Margaret River, and then make our way back up the coast, stopping at the national parks and checking out the best beaches and breaks we can find.  The adventure continues...