Erwin and Dorits' Endless Summer

Some pro’s freesurfing Snapper just a day before the WCT in Coolongatta starts:

Kelly Slater powersnap

Joel "Parko" Parkinson

Mick Fanning @ homebreak Snapper

Burleigh Pro, 4*WQS event, the first one of the season just one week before the WCT at Snapper:

Taj Burrow in the semi final; he would win the final aswell.

And the spectators worked hard aswell as you see.. it was so hot!!

Big crowds in Burleigh on the first event

After a nice week in Byron Bay we headed straight up north to the Sunshine Coast to a town called Noosa. Besides many big resorts and a fancy looking main street Noosa has a nice national park.  Perfect for a beautiful early morning walk when there are no waves.

Noosa

Due to the absence of swell we decided to have a look at the Hinterland (that’s how they actually call the countryside) of the Sunshine Coast. We wandered to some waterfalls and visited a nice little european influenced town called Montville.

cool off

home sweet home

It was here when we were woken up by 4 policemen at 2.30 at night, with guns and dogs. We thought a little bit too much fuss to scare away some backpackers because of ilelagal camping, but it seemd that they where looking for someone else. The police asked us a couple of questions and let us go back to sleep. The next morning we got to know that they were looking for a guy who had killed the husband of his love affair 9 years ago. Not something you would expect in beautiful Montville.

Full Moon rising over Burleigh Heads

On our way back south to the Gold Coast we spend some days at: Burleigh Heads (where Dorit lived 3 months when she did her work experience 4 years ago), Surfers Paradise (which doesn’t put up for its name) and Kirra and  Coolangatta. Last two are famous worldclass pointbreak surfspots. But the southern wind was  spoiling the fun of those surfspots and we heard Byron Bay had some protection for the wind. So we ended up spending another couple of beautiful days in this relaxed and alternative minded town.

Dogsitting Dolly in Byron Bay

Lighthouse Byron Bay

The last weeks of our australian episode we will spend at the Gold Coast. We will visit the Physio clinic, meet up with friends and start putting our home, which took us more than 13.000 km across the country. When the waves are fine we will surf the famous Burleigh, Kirra, Snapper or D-Bar,

Erwin @ Burleigh Point

and otherwise there is a lot of ‘Hinterland’ to explore, including Brisbane, a.k.a. Bris Vegas;-)

After we left Sawtell we spend two days in a little place called Mullawy next to Arrawarra. It was nice and quite in contrast to all other beachtowns in Australia which are very busy now due to the summer school holidays. We had the perfect spot once again with view on the ocean and dolphines every now and then also while surfing.

As we travelled further the swell dropped and we had to pass our time differntly in the well known surfspot called Lennox Head.

Our next stop was Byron Bay, the most eastern point of Australia and a well known village among travellers. Which explaines the crowds.

We had some days of really good surf and guess what…..

bumped into Chris again…

Sunset Watego's Beach

Blue bottles

Surf's up, Dorit

It took us a few days to find our well trained travelskills and old routine again. It seemed that we weren’t used to planning ahead anymore in terms of buying enough water, toilet paper and basic cooking stuff. Ending up in beautiful little places like Scotts Head with a tiny grocery store which is twice as dear or on a bush camping next to nothing exept the beach…;o)

Cresent Head, our free camp space at the beach, Beautiful!

We are stranded now in a little village called Sawtell near Coffs Harbour. Great for snorkeling and surfing and less croweded than other beaches on the coast. On the headland is a nice parking space with view on the ocean and the coastline which we have chosen as our new “front yard”. The nice seabreeze ie get here is welcome to cool of in those hot summer nights (last days have been 30 degrees).

Nambucka; lots of dolphins here!4 km dirt road, 1 km walk, and then this! WOW!

Erwin, diving deep..

Always the sun in the front yard; Sunset in Sawtell, not bad at all!

Bottle number 5

Just before X-mas we headed from Sydney to Forster, where Dorit spend 12 month 10 years ago. We checked in at “Bruce & Sharon’s Holiday Resort” (Dorit’s host dad and wife). We were spoiled with a room for our selfs including a bed, daily hot showers, BBQ’s and plenty of beer and red wine. Unfortunatly the weather wasn’t good (many towns in New South Wales were flooded). But the storms brought good waves, so we went surfing every day at One Mile Beach. After 2 weeks of luxuary, already 2 kilos heavier we thought we better get going again, before we get used to all the comfort to much.  Thanks to Bruce and Sharon for having us, Thanks to Hellen for knitting instructions and Ray for the fishing lesson…;o)

Biertje?!

Dinner time

When you travel, you have to work too..

Dolphins in Fosters' river mounth

Bondi Beach

The first day we stayed in Bondi. A very crowded part of town with a beach wellknown for the real-life soap on television about its lifesavers. Of course we had to surf here. That evening we had a nice hot shower and delicious dinner at Erins’ and Marks’ place. (Erin –who met Dorit 7 years ago- visited us back in Aachen when she was in Europe 3 years ago). From England she took Mark home with her…;o) Later that week we would meet them again and once more had a great time and the best burger ever.                

Sydney

Being in Sydney we had to go to “Circular Key”, the centre of the town with its famous “Opera House” and “Harbour Bridge”. At lunchtime “The Rocks” near the bridge is a good place to go. In one of the many restaurants we met Yarna, Dorits’ “australian” sister, and had a kangaroo pizza.

The next 3 nights we stayed in Cronaulla with Anna and Jarred (Dorit’s australian host mother and brother, where she lived 10 years ago). Jarred took us around and showed us the beautiful suroundings of Cronulla with its sandy and rocky beaches and pretty inlet with little boat yetties.

We applied for our Indonesian visa in Maroubra and had a coffee at the beach. A beach known among surfers because of the local “Bra-Boys”. Unfornatuly the surf and weather that day were bad and it wasn’t worth getting wet.

Lunch at Sonja's place

On friday we visited Sonja Jansen, a pen friend from Erwins’ dad Ad. She already had let him know that she would be pleased to have us over for lunch. It turned out to be something we did not expacted in the first place. A 6 hour visit with lunch, sangria, coffee, cake, selfmade plum pudding and a lots of laughing.

Our last days in Sydney we spend in Manly and in Curl Curl surfing and slowly travelling up the coast.

Surfing with Mark @ Bondi

Wish you al the best for 2010. Thank you for following us. We are allways happy to read your comments. Looking forward to hear from you!
Love Dorit & Erwin

Sunset in Eden, on our way to Merimbula

From Phillip Island we drove 600 km to the east coast. Our first stop was Merimbula, a beautiful little city. Unfortunaltly surf there is very rare.  We stayed for the weekend and headed  up north to the Murramarang Natinal Park enclosing Pretty Beach and Pebbly Beach. We stayed at a campsite south of the National Park which was free. After parking the car a wallabi joined us, which was very interested in what we had cooked. It was a very pretty campground, it took us 30 minutes on a winding dirt road through the forest

Brekky in Merimbula

to get there and was right next to a beach. The next day we visited Pretty beach, to find out that there were no waves but a lot of kangeroos.

camping in national park

We kept driving and ended up in a city called Ulladulla. Next to it lies Mollymook, where we stayed the night and went surfing the next morning. There were just two other people in the water. Erwin started talking to one of them. He was telling us that he had a knie replacement just a couple of months ago and was allready back in the water with

Dorit and Cliff at the campground

a body board. Of course this was interesting for us being physios. He told Erwin that he actually should be on a plane to Hawaii to watch his son compete on the surf world tour. Erwin asked: “Who is your son?” And the guy introduced himself as Mr. Fanning. 4 days later his son was world champion! Congratualations Mr. Fanning.

Fresh fisch on the bbq in Kiama

Surfspot "the Farm" in national park

The next day we travelled further to Kiama. There was a little bay where we could surf. We got fish from the Fishshop at the port and had a BBQ. We explored the area and ended up staying at Bombo Beach. Surfed here for 3 days before we went to Sydney.

Five weeks ago, near Adelaide, we met an american guy who is travelling through Australia aswell and surfs. We met him again (this when the coinsidence starts) in Apollo Bay about almost a week later and 600km further. We talked about what we did and what our plans were. We would actually head in the same direction as he did.

The third time we met Chris was a week later, 120km further in Torque at Black Beach (coinsidence?). This time our conversation was about shark attacks. Erwin was telling him the story about a shark attack in Margret River that we heard of on the west coast. A guy standing next to us interrupted and asked if we were talking about the attack at Magret River. He knew the story because he used to live there (coinsidence?). We talked about it for a while and it was very funny at that moment. We met Chris and David again the next day at Bells Beach (tiny coinsidence…;O)). Nice to have a little chat to someone, other than Dorit…:o) After the swell dropped (no waves anymore) we went to Melbourne to see the city and meet some people. One of those was Lisa, one of Dorits’ friends when she went to highschool in Australia 10 years ago. She moved to Melbourne a few mounths ago. Lisa is an upcommig DJ in the techno house scene in Australia. After Melbourne we went to Phillip Island and were lucky to find some waves again. The next morning waking up at the car park, we met David (from Margaret River) for the third time (coinsidence? wait!). It was thursday morning, so I asked David if he was travelling as we are. He said: ”No”, and said that he actually lives in Melbourne. (Melbourne lies in the middle of Torquay/Bells Beach and Phillip Island and it’s about 1 1/2 hour drive to either of them). We talked a bit to find out that David had been to Holland and Germany many times. He explained later that he was a professional DJ and playing at the love parade and in clubs in Holland. When we told Dr. Willis –which is his DJ name- that we were at a friends place 2 days ago who also is into that kind of music, he said: “Lisa? Oh yeah, I know Lisa.” When we told Lisa that we met Dr. Willis she said:” How do YOU know him? He is a famous DJ in Australia!”  COINSIDENCE?

We will let you know if we meet Chris again……;o)