North Coast Xmas Holiday TR
I almost couldn’t be arsed to do this as it was a long trip and the sheer magnitude of TR’s I have done this year has probably resulted in several members thinking STFU NBG, we’re sick of hearing about it, sorry but here goes.
Finished work on Friday 21st of December, was a good finish to the work year, I got a verbal for a massive order at work but we wouldn’t get the actual PO till January which kinda suits me. My companies fin year runs Jan to Dec so I start the new year off with a massive bang. One of our suppliers took us out to lunch to what I thought was going to be restaurant but ended up being a higher end strip club that also did good food. Was my first time in a strip club in 7 years and will be more than happy with another period of similar length going past without going to another one to be honest. I won’t go into that as that nights an entirely different story.
The Saturday was spent dying all day with a huge hangover and I resolved to be good until I left for the boys trip up the coast on Boxing Day. Had the girlfriends family Xmas do on Xmas Eve so I avoided the usual boozefest at the Arms and woke up on Xmas Day for the first time since I turned 18 without a monster hangover. Was a bit of a novelty and I admit I liked it, had a SUP in the morning and then a surf and then family lunch which was pretty cruisy and spent the rest of the arvo packing for the next day.
Woke up at about 4am Boxing Day and headed off about 4:30am with a mate for my Xmas break to begin in earnest. Luckily we got to Yagon just after 7:30am and got the tent setup in a brief respite from the rain that morning.
The setup was particularly weatherproof this year.
We then headed off to find ourselves a few waves, seeing as it was dead south wind and south swell we had a look at south sandbar and found a few waves out there for a couple of hours. The weather was atrocious, at times it was hard to see it was raining that hard but we both had a couple of fun ones. After that surf we grabbed some food and headed back to Seal Rocks, we decided to have another surf as it was super clean and strangely even though it was small was very hollow and kinda heavy at times. Mostly closeouts but the odd one would open up a fast and racy wall.
Later that arvo one of the other boys turned up, this guy James is one of my best mates and we’ve been friends since knee high, he’s usually the full fitness nut and doesn’t really like to drink but occasionally will let his hair down. It appeared from the contents of the bag that he had brought with him it was one of those hair down moments, there were bottles and hip flasks ranging in fullness from unopened to only 1/4 full and included stuff like Malibu, Blue Sapphire Gin, Wild Turkey, Captain Morgans Rum and that shit that tastes like medicine, Southern Comfort.
That night was amusing, highly amusing much to the dismay off the group of inner city hipster types camping next to us, care factor from us was quite low and to be honest considering we went to bed before 11 and there was only 3 of us at that stage, they got off quite lightly. The next morning we got some love from the surf and the weather, it actually couldn’t have been much better weather and the surf was not far behind.
THis greeted us for the monring surf
Really fun rights breaking behind the point and running off for about 50m or so before ending in deeper water, some barrels were on offer and all three of us got some sick waves with only a couple of other guys coming out later. The lack of crowd was surprising considering the time of year, as we left though a bunch of other 4wd’s turned up for the full beach day with all kinds of beach paraphenalia and wives, children etc in tow.
We went in to Pacific Palms for a full cooked cafe brekky at Moby’s to wait on another mate who was on his way up but stuck in the traffic bottleneck south of Buladelah. Took so long that we ended up meeting him after brekky in the sandbar carpark where we shoved everyone in my 4wd and headed back down to the south end again. The tide had dropped considerably but it still looked fun and there was no one suring so we headed back out.
Despite appearances it was an absolute punish to get out the back, the monring couldn’t have been easier but it was super consistent and just heaving onto the bank. All of us bar one got out and had a surf which was to prove hilarious later that night.
Yet another mate, this time from Nelson Bay turned up that arvo and that night got quite messy. After two surfs though and starting on the beers about 3pm I was rooted and in bed by 10 which was a good thing in some respects considering this new development in the camp ground which I’m not 100% on.
It seems National Farks and Wildpricks in their infinite wisdom have decided to embark on a policy of having Camp Ground Volunteer Hosts in selected national parks throughout the holiday period with a view to rolling them out across all parks when they can. In conjunction with this they are moving all national park campgrounds across to a policy of online booking, how this will be enforced/policed is beyond me and I can see some serious altercation going down unless there is some serious marketing to go along with this to increase awareness.
Lets deal with the volunteer hosts first off, from what we could tell our host to all intents and purposes seemed like a fairly decent sort of an old fella to talk to. It become increasingly apparent that in reality his job seemed more to revolve around policing the joint the any real information or hosting service. I’m not too sure what sort of a person would take this role on without some sort of reimbursement of which he claimed there was none. To me it just sounds like a job for people with some sort of radical green ideals or a somewhat scary desire for power over others. Just what power they have will remain to be seen.
Our camp host told us the initiative was to make all the campsites family friendly etc etc. My mates and I discussed this and our conclusion rightly or wrongly was that we originally we started to travel to this out of the way campground so we could indulge in some antisocial behaviour without disturbing the peace and quiet of others and now they want to regulate, sanitise and generally wreck that outlet. With that said this is the first time since we started these annual trips over 10 years ago that the campground was completely full to the brim and people were being turned away that day from dawn till dusk. I guess this is the price we’re paying for overpopulation and we might have to sit in the car for another hour to get a little further away next year.
The online booking thing seems to be a way the govt can try to ensure that campers pay every time they stay without them having to pay for staff to go out and collect the fees from campers. I’m a little sick and tired of being asked to originally start to pay for something that used to be free and then asked to pay increasingly more and more for the same thing with no addition of amenities or ease of use and now they want to regulate any fun factor from it. I can only imagine the shitfight next year if it comes in and someone rocks up to a campsite they have booked that is full of a bogan setup that didn’t know it needed to be booked, would like to be there to see the reaction ha ha.
Anyway rant over, that’s a little bit sidetracked.
The next morning we had high hopes for the surf, the Friday was the day that had been earmarked by forecasts as being the day with good swell and most favourable winds. We headed off to middle Treach, me with my most savage hangover the trip to date. When we got there it was a little dissappointing, not quite as big as we expected and the banks weren’t quite as good either. With that said if you rocked up to that at your local break you probably woulda been pumped. Anyway due to my condition I elected to take the cam out and sit on my board and generally just much around filming until I felt better. That monring there was a heap of dolphins around so got some pretty nice shots of them close to the boys as they waited for waves.
Freeze frame of James at Treach
I ended up having a few waves towards the end of the surf and actually having a good time. Afterwards me and James and another mate elected to scoot off to Bungwahl for the full burger pigout, so glad we did, I felt a million bucks afterwards. When we got back to camp one of the boys had a surf check out the front and came back and said it looked ok. As it was hot everyone pretty much figured that it was worth it to cool off at any rate. Even walking down the beach and looking straight at it I still didn’t realise just how good it was. It wasn’t till we paddled out and I saw James get a good one that I started to get excited.
Paddling into the corner a bit more there was these sick lefts, really fun, really good shape and nice long walls. Something in me clicked and I had the best surf I’ve had all year, a combo of good waves and my surfing head finally being on straight turned me into a total surf stoked lunatic grommet. As per usual nothing of any real interest was caught of me on film ha ha. Twice my mate had the camera in his pocket and I went upside down man turn right in front of him. Camera out of pocket and no waves come, typical.
I surfed that arvo basically till I couldn’t paddle due to a combo of rash and exhaustion so I went in and had started carbo loading regime #3 with Corona and JB and Coke cans. Due to the physical exertions of the day beer tasted awesome, I took a couple up to the surf check spot to watch the southerly change and accompanying psycho storm front approach.
We got chased back to our camp by lightening and enormous raindrops that very quickly turned into hail, not big stuff but it turned the campground pretty white for a while. That disappeared almost as quickly as it had come and the arvo sun came back out making it even better beer drinking weather. Another mate turned up that arvo for a single power night of drinking, was all he could get from the wife so that night got really messy really quickly. I don’t even remember but the camp host came and asked me to turn the music off at 10pm which I did and then used that as my cue for bed. The other boys used that as a cue to turn someone elses car stereo on and continue drinking till midnight ha ha ha!
We woke up the next morning to discover the inner city hipsters moving their tent as far away as possible from our camp, was hilarious, we had been nice as pie to them when we got there letting them use our hammer for tent pegs and offerring them spare poles and guy ropes but then really weren’t particularly social at all so my conscience was entirely clear ha ha! The weather had taken another turn for the worse at this stage and everyone was trying to make up theri mind as to what to do.
We went and grabbed brekky and it was decided that there was going to be pretty much a mass exodus. The weather and surf were average and only the mate who drove up with me and his brother who’d turned up the night before were going to stay an extra night. After brekky James helped me put the trailer back together, we said our goodbyes to everyone and I set off solo towards Coffs Harbour.
I got to my mate Paddy’s place west of Sawtell in pretty good time and was pretty happy to score a queen size bed and a shower ha ha! Last time I saw him his eldest was only a few weeks old, now his eldest is pushing three and he has another 8 month old so it was good to see how they were all doing.
There was nowhere near enough beer in the house befitting a reunion a couple of years in the making so we headed off to the local shops which are about a 10 min drive taking his youngest with us in the back. His youngest kid is a real quiet baby, doesn’t cry or make much noise, just chills out and takes it all in. Up front Paddy and I were getting right into ctaching up and not paying too much attention to anything else. We got to the shops and went in, grabbed some snags, onions, bread rolls and a case of beer and headed back to the car.
Halfway back to the car I had a bit of a startling realisation and said to Paddy, “Hey dickhead, you’re a shoe in for father of the year award eh?” I saw the exact moment on Paddy’s face when he realised what he’d done and it was absolutely priceless, “FARK, I can’t believe I just left my kid in the car.” Luckily it was a cool day and we couldn’t have been gone much over 5mins, to the kids credit he didn’t even realise anything much had happened, he was just sitting in the car checking shit out, kinda funny in the end but Paddy was mortified with himself.
Had a fairly relaxed night that night and got a good nights sleep, the next day tried to have a surf at Murray in Sawtell but it was terrible, probably close to the worst surf I’ve had this year, ironic considering only two days before it was my best. Had been meaning to try to catch up with Dylan while I was there and had actually spoken to him the previous day but totally forgot that day until I had to go pick my girlfriend up from the airport and it was a bit late by then.
That night we had a nice fire on the front lawn and a BBQ again and lot more beer. Was a fun night and my chick got to have another go at playing Mum, it’s scary how much she likes it…..............
The benefits of rural living
The next morning we said our goodbyes and headed off further up the coast to a mates place out the back of Lennox Head. That was a mini nightmare of back roads and detours due to a fatality closing the Pacific Hwy between Grafton and Ballina, shitty part of the hwy there and the roadworks don’t make it any better.
We got there eventually and had a mal surf at Watego’s just round from the Pass. Dunno what it is about Mals but they make me feel the most massive kook ever but it was nice to be in the water again.
That night was NYE and we went to a private party down at a cafe in Lennox, friends of my mate Ryan we were staying with owned the cafe and were nice enough to let us come. Was a reasonably quiet night, my main worry was how we were going to get back to Ryan’s place. He reckoned the pub courtesy bus would let us hitch a ride and so we strolled down there close to 1am hoping it would work. The driver was like you guys weren’t even at the pub, I told him I had $80 that said we were and suddenly we were good to go ha ha ha!.
The next day one of Ryans mates who was also staying with him took his ski down to south wall so we all had a crack towing in to the beachies. It’s fun and all but 3ft tow ins sometimes don’t work that well, I got better waves just paddling to be honest.
The next 4 days or so were a blur of twice a day surfs and nightly drinking at Ryan’s, had fun waves at Boulders, Fltrock and south wall agin, I pretty much refused to go to the pass, my head would have literally exploded in rage dealing with the crowds there. It would seem somewhere along the line I misplaced my Sony cam as for the life of me I can’t find it and I know I had it there cause I took it to south wall planning to use it towing but didn’t. Bit devo about that as it hasn’t turned up yet either.
Lennox Sunset
We left Lennox on the 4th I think and went down to Hungry Head just the other side of Hat Head to camp on the way back to Sydney. Nice camping spot, kinda reminded me of what Yagon used to be!
Different locals to the goannas and dingos at Yagon
The next morning I had a sick little surf in the corner, was a great surf to end the trip on.
Got home, went to The Arms for a couple
Love your TR’s mate, don’t you ever stop !!!!!
Looks like a sweet break!!!!!
Did ya get some footage with the SONY?????
almost couldn’t be arsed to do this as it was a long trip and the sheer magnitude of TR’s I have done this year has probably resulted in several members thinking STFU NBG, we’re sick of hearing about it, sorry but here goes.
dude your TR are sick ... dont u dare stop lol ..... keep them coming as much as you can
Glad you guys like em.
Mizu yeah I did but have yet to do anything with the footage, there’s not much quality there unfortunately. I did work out the fogging issues though. If I just leave the thing in my pocket in the water it adjusts and no more fogging, perfect, took a while to cotton onto that though.
Be good to see some more of ya water film anyhows!!!!!
And on a day like today, it might make things a little more bearable?????
I’m cooking at home, woulda been better off in the office but I think I’m going to pull the pin and have a swim shortly!
Was a good read, thanks NBG!
Killer TR mate!
Had been meaning to try to catch up with Dylan while I was there and had actually spoken to him the previous day but totally forgot that day until I had to go pick my girlfriend up from the airport and it was a bit late by then.
Probably a good thing, i woulda been a shitty host considering i ended up in woopi blind as a bat and didnt get to bed until around 5am
Another awesome TR btw 
Put a bit of video together with the footage I got.
Hope it looks ok, there’s still some footage with foggy lens but next time should be sorted in thayt dept.