Surf Camp 2.0

Back at Seven Mile Beach!

Back to Surf Camp! This month has been packed with activities, from my trip with BU to the Australian capital, Canberra, to canyoning in the Blue Mountains, and Surf Camp down the South Coast. After a long week at work (I'm now working 3 days a week at BU and 2 days a week at an osteo clinic), I was ready to get out of Sydney and head south! The Surf Camp bus picked up Friday night--between our 20 BU students and another 40 other people, we had a very international group. We had a lot of Scandinavians, a few Mexicans, some from the Netherlands and France, and one Australian. Saturday the weather was gorgeous, bright blue skies and a strong sun. With all the time we spent in the water, we all got a lot of sun. I tried desperately to re-apply every chance I got, but that much sun is too much to handle. By Saturday night, my cheeks and nose were bright pink and puffy. Saturday we had a morning lesson, going through the basics, and a Saturday arvo lesson with our instructor, Jordie, from South Africa. The girls in my group did great, by the afternoon they were all catching waves and looking like pros!
The arvo session the waves were quite flat, only a few baby waves every 10 min, so Jordie suggested we play the "ladder game" and hook all our surfboard together, and saw who could walk to the end and back without falling! The results were hillllllarious, especially when a wave would hit and send us flying!

Check out the footage about 1.5 minutes into this video!

After surfing all day Saturday, we packed it in and walked up the world's biggest hill to the Fisherman's Club, also known as The World's Greatest Pub. Well, the view, not the company. Barbecue on Saturday and early bed for me since I was truly exhausted after spending all day in the sun and on a surfboard!

Perfect day for surfing

Sunday morning early rise again at 6am, and in our wetties by 8am. This time the weather wasn't nearly as gorgeous but at least it wasn't raining! Surf in the morning, and our lesson in the afternoon about waves, rips and the best places to surf around Sydney.

Tropfest

On Sunday, I accompanied our group of students to the airport for their 4-day fieldtrip to Melbourne. Peace at last! I enjoyed having the building all to myself, the peace and quiet, while all the staff & students were in Melbourne. Sunday morning I had brunch at sunny Cafe Giulia, where they make a mean soy flatwhite and even better waffles. I biked to Newtown to feed the kitty cats, and then met up with my new friends Kaye and Claire to go to Camp Cove in Vaucluse. What a GORGEOUS drive to get there-- you're up high, looking out on the entire harbour and Sydney. It's stunning. We lounged on this quiet beach all day, my first time at a harbour beach! Since there are no waves, the water is calm and warm, perfect for swimming and a cool-down. We had famous Doyle's fish n' chips on the pier, and then hitched it to TROPFEST! This is the world's largest short film festival, started here in Sydney 20 years. The founder wanted to screen a friend's short film in Tropicana Cafe in Darlinghurst, and every year the crowd grew a little more until it finally became the world's largest festival in short film. They screen them out in the Domain, attached to the Royal Botanic Gardens, with the palm trees and Opera House as a backdrop. We got great seats despite showing up so late, right in front of the 4-sided screen. Claire bought a few cases of beers, and it felt like the perfect summer moment. Cold beers after a sunny beach day, good friends and free short films in the park.
I loved the first one, with this old couple who play practical jokes on each other about the other one dying. For example, the husband fakes a heart attack to make his wife laugh, and in turn, she pretends to fall down the stairs to get him to chuckle. You'll have to find out how it ends.... Very sweet.

There were 16 in all, and the festival had quite the star-studded panel: Cate Blanchett, Nicole Kidman, Geoffrey Rush, Toni Colette and others. Sammy and Az even got VIP tickets to sit just behind the celebs!
About halfway through the screening, clouds rolled in and we got a drizzle, then rain and then a DOWNPOUR, absolute deluge of rain. The girls left fairly early, I stayed to watch as many films as I could but high-tailed it outta there when thunder and lightning started to crack overhead. But with the lightning as a backdrop to "Min Min", a suspense film set in the Blue Mts...it was unreal.
"Lemonade Stand" ended up winning 1st place, a sweet, heart-warming, quirky film about a grandfather/grandson relationship....and the neighborhood bully.
Check it out online!

A Good Start to 2012

Rocky Creek Canyon

Has it really been 3 months since my last blog entry? Oops. Well, between rockclimbing in Yangshuo, China and sunbathing in Bali for a month, and the start of a busy semester here in Sydney, let's just say it hasn't exactly made the priority list! But I'm determined to blog and keep in touch about my recent activities, especially as the new year kicks off (Shhh, I know it's nearly March 1...)

Endless fun. You can climb up the right side and jump off as many ways as you'd like!

I had a great start to the New Year with a day-trip to two beautiful canyons in the Blue Mountains, with my new friends Glenn and Nathan (I met Glenn thanks to my sister Claire, they met in China at the Roctrip). I met up with Glenn for a day in the Blueys to get out and climb--to my dismay, I was absolutely rotten. I was already pumped during my first climb, and wasn't used to the rough edges of sandstone. Believe me, I was spoiled for choice over in Yangshuo with all that limestone goodness, and my fingers simply weren't ready for the cutting edge of sandstone. Still, I managed to claw my way to top, while Glenn looked on with a look of half pity, half revulsion -- not unlike seeing a parent throw up from drinking too much booze.

Water slide!

I was cuit as I like to say in French, or "cooked" by 2 climbs (pathetic, I know) but I was captivated by Glenn's climbing. He was trying to finish an incredibly hard climb, I could barely keep up with him on the belay end. It was like watching a monkey climb up a steep rock face! I've never seen anyone climb like that, and believe me it was inspiring.

The picturesque Rocky Creek canyon

I was back in the mountains that weekend, for a fun day of canyoning before Glenn kicked off to Thailand/China for 5 months (lucky bastard...) I met his friend Nathan, who also happens to be a guide for High n' Wild (the company BU uses to take our students canyoning every semester). His friend Amy was along for the ride, so we all hopped in and drove about an hour into the middle of the bush. The Blue Mts have the 2nd highest concentration of canyoning (after the Grand Canyon region in the US), and there are over 400 in the region. Luckily, canyoning is Nathan's passion and he has explored over 200 of them. Our day was pure fun and adventure-- we didn't need harnesses since there were no abseils, only wetsuits and LOTS of jumps. I love the jumps! In Twister canyon, we found a slide that you could climb back up, so you could do it as many times, to your heart's delight. There was also a very high jump, probably the highest I've ever jumped from...Maybe 10 ft? 12? No idea. Well it was high but I loved it.

My biggest jump yet!

Glenn thought it was a bright to climb into the tree high above and jump from there...Bright idea!
We bushwalked for another half hr to Rocky Creek, the second canyon for the day. It's a beautiful, picturesque canyon, but I found it wasn't as much fun as Twister. Not as many jumps!

In early Feb, I organized a BU trip to the Blue Mts to do Empress Falls. I must have talked it up because 40 students signed up! It was quite popular this semester. We had four groups, three of which did Empress Falls and another group who did Grand Canyon. The morning was beautiful weather for the lesson on how to abseil-- the sun was out, which meant all the eucalyptus were hazy blue in the distance. Luckily both Jimmy and Nathan were our guides, so we got to hang out all day.
A little rain and wind during lunch, but before we knew it, the rain had cleared and blue sky again! Weather in the Blueys can be quite temperamental..
This was by far the most fun I've had doing Empress (now my 3rd time). With all the rain, there was SO much water in the canyon, which made for better jumps and a more intense abseil at the end with the water pumping out of the 30m-high waterfall. Nathan showed me and the boys a little trip to climb back up through a rock (you have to crawl through a tiny hole, thru which all that water is gushing) to redo the jump. It added a new dimension and lot more intensity to the canyon.
Our students did a fantastic job with the abseil, they rocked it! It's amazing to see that only that morning they'd learnt how to abseil, and now they were doing down a 30m waterfall!

abseiling down the depths of Zorro Canyon

I stayed over Sat night and crashed on Jimmy & Nath's couch, up early with Nathan and Glenn's bro Neil to do another canyoning. The time it was my first "dry" canyon, which means there's little water in the canyon. There were a few abseils and lots of adventures traipsing around the bush trying to find this mythic canyon. But thanks to Nathan and Neil's orienteering skillz  using a map and compass (I was profoundly useless...sorry Girl Scouts) we found Zorro Canyon. As usual there was a surprise around every bend, and an hour later we abseiled our way out of the canyon and back into the bush. Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to do Sunnyside canyon, only one for the day. The road back was over an hour, and thankfully we were in a 4-wheel drive Land Rover because the terrain was rough. I've never been so tossed and turned in a car before, felt like we were on safari.