Ewan and Mairi's Big Adventure: 02/02/12

The Great Ocean Road.

Hired a car from Rent a Wreck...It was pretty posh compared to the Berlingo, but still a wreck and headed out west, after a quick surf and a drive by visit to the flat Bells Beach (just realised ive been spelling beAch wrong Woopse, :-( turns out i cant spell board/bored either, Im glad my only weakness is in spelling). After stopping in at Lorne (because its my middle name) and finding it had a class wee point break perfect for getting used to the new board. We set about looking for the 'free' camping it turned out to be in the bush-like properly in a bush! On walking/hiking into the camp on the first night we saw in the late afternoon sunshine a real life wild koala, ON THE GROUND. The facts are wrong people, they do come down to drink! but (due to our/my amazing memory skills) had managed to forget to charge the camera. Arrggh AGAIN

First Surf Nerves

Bells Beach

Proof that its Bells!

We spent the next couple of days surfing, eating pizza and drinking Fat Yack. Life was good (well for me, I had a board! HaHa). Mairi was playing her part as a S.W.A.G. (surfer's, wife and girl friend) well, but was kept entertained by the freakishly small but talented kids who made me feel like a stiff old man in the surf, and possibly the biggest/best ice cream in the world. FACT. We also saw some wild kangaroos in the bush and experienced every night what can only be described as a koala orgie, which was less disturbing than the human neighbours! There was also some fancy birds ;-)

Lorne Right Point Break

Looking Peelywally with our beast of a car and its dodgie clutch!

Free BBQ

The result

The SNAKE at the Erskin Falls, which resembled a water fall far more than the 'phantom falls'

Mairi having a Lara Croft moment.

Couple of hotties

Pretty wee, but still surfable with the aid of jazz hands
Believe it or now this was actually a good wave...

The Great Ocean. (Torquay)

After the heat and confusion of Melbourne we decided to get back to what we did best-cruising about like a pair of gypsies looking for surf and free places to kip. So after consulting a map of sorts we headed on down to Torquay on the internet's assurances it was the best place for surf bargains and hopefully cheap boards. On Arriving we got our selves into the misleadingly named bells beech hostel...bells beech was like 7k away, but being the only hostel we weren't really in a position to argue!? And the search, negotiating and pondering began on what board, where to get it, how much, what conditions were we going to get etc etc

As a brake from the seemingly endless questions and options we went for inspiration (and some time in the air-conditioning) to the surf museum. Was pretty comprehensive when it came to the history of surfboard development, and the history of competitions at Bells Beech.

After a chat with possibly the most humble shaper we came across Wee Jimmy was welcomed into the family. At 5'11", 20 1/2", 2 3/4" rocket with thruster 2+1 fin set up and a big Jimmy Hendrix custom art graphic on the nose.

Jimmy Hendrix

2+1 fins :-S

Melbourne!

Hotel discovery! So much going on, so many people- a bit like HK all over again only more dreadlocks and sweatier! It turns out the art of map making hasn't quite filtered through to good people of Melbourne, NORTH is meant towards the top of the page...this is my excuse for getting hopelessly lost in our first excursion in search of food in the rudely hot and humid conditions. It ended up in resorting to basic navigation skills- head down hill and hope to find the sea. Eventually we found the coast and managed to cool off before meandering our way along to St Kilda and the blissful sea breeze!

Day 2. So after our 'experience' yesterday a helpful staff member was enlisted to draw the route to the tennis on the map and we ventured out again this time more prepared with water snacks and sun-cream to the Melbourne Open. Although I (ewan) have really no idea how tennis works I got completely caught up in the excitement of the day. Our first match we kinda dawndered into just before the players came out, not really knowing who was playing. It turned out to be a really close and exciting match between Mardy Fish and Alenjandro Falla. Some loud mouthed americans infornt of us were giving Fish alot of support and being the favorite naturally we supported Falla-who went on to win, all from our support. After wilting in the evil hot sun and falling victim to the $10 kebab we headed off to watch some girls make some weird noises and dance about in short skirts, kidding! They were very talented, if not slightly scary! The night market apparently finishes at 10pm, so arriving at 9.55 was probably a bit of a mistake, but it looked like it was a lot of fun!

Falla

Fish

Fish getting grumpy

Pretty

Street Dancers on the way home. (Katie you and Shona would have loved these guys)

Sydney!

So after braving the formidable public transport in HK with our bags we made it to the airport onto to Sydney. Being picked up AGAIN from the airport by Liz-Anne (my auntie) and enjoying a trendy breakfast on Potts Point and settled into our swanky lodgings (courtesy of Liz-Anne again!).