The Ash of Flight

14 hour plane rides are something to be reckoned with; rarely are they comfortable, but as with most things, when you buy the ticket, you take the ride.  After a few complimentary beverages, wack food and bad movies, you arrive at the destination many time zones in the future or the past, causing some to wonder whether or not time travel has actually been invented…

Upon departing the plane, I was greeted with the air born excrement of the Chilean Volcano, Puyehue-Cordón Caulle, also know as ash clouds.  Qantas Airlines determined it was unsafe to fly to NZ, which was total bullshit seeing as Air New Zealand was making the effort to fly throughout NZ over the course of the past month with no safety issues, but that is beside the point.  (Note to future flyers, don’t fly with Qantas!)  Those of us with no intentions of staying in Australia for more than a couple hours now had a different agenda…  Fortunately I had contacted my Irish friends Andy and Helen before departing, letting them know the ash cloud may be an issue and thankfully they opened up their penthouse in Sydney Central for as many nights as I needed.

I also happened to have a sly Australian Visa buried in the passport pages, allowing me to slip into the convict country.  One of the customs agents must have seen me coming as he handed me a get out of jail free card which gave me the privilege of skipping the 300 person line and hour + wait to have your bags searched!   I had been in Sydney just about six months prior, so it was easy to navigate the public transport with board bags etc…  An overnight stay folded into a couple weeks, but it was a blast.  Here are a couple photos from around the city:

I guess I won’t be eating bananas today…

Australia Mate

Saturday morning fritata sessions with the crew

New South Wales Gallery of Modern Art

Dolla Dolla

John Boyd was even there!

Caught some cheeky waves the last night in town with a bunch of dolphins.

Nearly two 1/2 weeks later, I finally made it back to NZ.  

Hello Ozzy

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So I flew outta NZ in early November for my first legitimate stop in Australia – in hopes that all the exotic Australian tales were true; mainly lethal animals, perfect barrels and gorgeous women.  I was a bit perturbed to find that Australia was ranked one of the fattest countries in the world, crocodiles do not live in Sydney and the ocean decided to make like a pancake – though way more salty than savory.

Illusions aside, Australia proved to be a fantastic week.  Thanks to some great Irish mates in downtown Sydney, I was able to get amongst some killer skylight views and only had to lug my gear a few blocks through the city.  I spent a large portion of my time on the Sydney train system as well, and found out well and truly why not to get on the wrong line.

I spent 2 nights in Avoca Beach, about 1.5 hours north of the city.  It was a perfect place to lay out my first turns in Australian water on a fun chunky right point break.

This was followed up with 2 nights in Gerringong, 2.5 hours south of Sydney.  This leg of the trip opened my eyes to the apron of the real Ozzy experience.  I wish I had a photo of the sunset from the surf on the first night.  Compared to the mountainous town of Wanaka, the hour log sunset refracted a gorgeous ocre from the desert sands below and gifted us a beautiful night session.  I think one day I may find some camels and get local in the desert.  Anyone keen?

One more debauchorous night in Sydney with a Scotchman and an Irishman capped off the trip in fine fashion.  We even got thrown out of one of the weirdest bars ever in Kings Cross.  Maori-Jackson AKA stomach puncher was not a fan of our anti-lasagne antics….  What kind of bar serves free lasagna anyway – weird….

Anyway – back to the US of A.  Its been awhile.