washing machine

We went down to Coolum this morning and found nothing but whitewater. Noosa Main Beach is just about the only place to get away from the mess at the moment.

dave bless you noosa tri, have a cup of tea

Last day of this visit to noosa for me and some swell around but all blown out on the open beaches. The only chance of a wave was Noosa National Park. But one small complication: today the road to the park was totally closed for the triathlon. Desparate times call for desparate means (or is it necessity is the mother of invention?) - I decided to park at Sunshine Beach and walk through the park from the other end. Almost an hour of walking later I find Tea Tree at low tide. Swell holding up not too bad but surprisingly about eight blokes out. Still, that's not too bad for a Sunday at Tea Tree!

Low tide and just a few nice ones peeping around the corner and on the aeroplane wing not too much trouble catching them. Definitely a lot less trouble than carrying the mofo 9'10'' board 3km to get there. Not everyone's cup of tea but I say "worth it".

STZ

By the way if you are looking for the connection between Dave the bogan god of surfing, a cup of tea, and Noosa national park, this article may help explain it.

John Witzig took the photograph in 1966 when Hastings Street was just a few shops with a caravan park at the end, the Noosa River teemed with fish that kindly threw themselves onto unbaited hooks and the few lucky enough to surf the Noosa bays thought it not dissimilar to having a "cup of tea with God".

sunshine sucks

Actually it doesn't always suck, just on the outgoing tide. Very small swell on the Sunshine Coast today so no choice but to hit the open beaches: this morning was at Sunshine Beach. Paddling out past the boot campers I was thinking about how posh it is up here, something confirmed later when I paid $8 for a small tub of taboulli at the local deli.

Back in the water, we were spared the onshore (easterlies) today so nice and glassy, but tough to get much out of the 1 foot swell. Chatting with a local (nee kiwi) mal rider he told me that the incoming tide fills in the holes closer to shore so no bank to break on. Better after the next cyclone comes through and cleans everything up.

Did you ever stop to think about the social phenomenon that is the out the back chat? Here in 1ft Sunshine, very relaxed, with sentences cut short by "you take this one mate". Usually its much the same at Tea Tree except when the bogans descend to escape onshore blowouts. Then you see some tribes forming and the nice thing here is that the geriatric (usually more relaxed) mal riders are in the dominance so attitude usually kept under control.


Sorry still no surfing shots (busy surfing) but here is one of Luca swimming.

lazy Tuesday

I am SO lazy that I didn't surf this arvo but here is the view from Noosa main beach.

Wind

It has been a mighty long time since I blogged anything about noosa on this site so here is a snapshot of life in Noosa right now.

There has been some pretty good surf in the national park and I was there to witness some champagne conditions last Sunday with all of the points from Tea Tree back to Main Beach going off.

Notable this week has been the prevalence of grommets. I think I heard something about "pupil free day", so I hope it doesn't turn into pupil free week. This morning it was a bit hairy turning around on the "aeroplane wing" to find a sea of grommets in front madly paddling to get in my way. Brave and more than a little suicidal. The whole situation is worsened by 25 knot onshore winds which hacked up everywhere on the coast but Noosa, so it seems like every skeg from Caloundra northwards made their way here today. Praying for the wind to drop off so we have a bit more choice. Hopefully swell will stay up too.

Anyway managed to avoid any major collisions so not a bad day. Swells about 3-4 foot but Tea Tree stops working on the high tide, which we had at 9am.

Millhouse is staying at the Sheraton for the week, which is nice but probably not enough for Luca to do to justify moving in! For now its more fun staying with the wrinklies who love having him around and lots of splashing in the pool. Tried checking him in at the local kiddie motel for a morning but he bawled when I picked him up so not sure if I will do that again.

Finally I wish to draw your attention to a new variation on Mal riding which I had not seen before Sunday. Saw this guy out at main beach on a 12ft board (complete with Hawaiian flag) paddling out standing up with one long oar. How is this guy going to catch anything? Easy, just turn the thing around, a couple of big strokes and away as easy as a goat boat. Wouldn't mind trying that myself but have to wonder how many years of practice needed to stand up going out!

Comments welcome and I hope to get some snaps later in the week. Have been a bit slack especially considering the quality of the conditions on Sunday which I would have liked to show you.

Matt

Dumpling

Zombie was out on Friday night with fellow travellers cyclone Katrina, Koilie, Scott and Hamish (who apparently does travel every Wednesday night).

After a couple of hours at Transport Zombie, becoming a bit soaked, suggested that dinner would be a good idea. Cyclone said she know a place that served great dumpling. Dumpling! show me the way, replied Zombie.

We headed to Shanghai Dumpling Restaurant, a place with genuine Shanghai decor, to hear the most frightening words:"we have no dumplings". As it happened there were vegetarian dumplings so we shortly found ourselves in dumpling heaven.

I know you won't believe it from the bill, but we did have something besides dumpling. Seriously.

Mysore arse

Why is my arse sore? Not a big night in Darlinghurst, just that I spent most of yesterday in a Tata Indicar having my arse hauled up and down the Bangalore-Mysore highway.




The day started out pretty well, passing such fantastic sights as India's premier fun park Wonder la, and Srirangapatnam - the place where the British defeated Tipu in 1799 to conquor Southern India.

Lots of temples, a catholic church, a wagon ride and a blessing from Lakshmi later, we arrived at the spectaluar Maharaja's palace - famous for corrupt puppet Taj and elephant shows. The assertion by my guides that the palace is 500 years old was only slightly contradicted by LP's assertion that the current building was completed in 1912.

It was only on the way home that things got... interesting. Every night hundreds of people visit Brindivan Gardens to see the illuminated fountains and - i discovered - even during monsoon season.

Being soaked through was a laugh until the Indicar became the Indiboat on the way back, and later still - when asked why he was driving at 40kph on an open highway - my driver Rajesh confessed that he hadn't slept in three days.

Thankfully he eventually agreed with me that stopping for a sleep was a good idea. But I am here to tell the TAC that the powernap nearly wasn't enough to save my life, with the rest of the 150km to Bangalore punctuated by lots of drifting to the verge and last moment braking for loaded trucks.

With a bit of luck and a lot of arse we at least made it back - in one piece - taking only 5.5 hours to do the two hour trip.