Another Gorgeous Day in Scotts Head

The kids are working hard on big batch of stone soup while I sit in a folding chair in the grass under paper bark eucalyptus. Shannon is off running.

I surfed uncrowded, head high beach break this morning. Winds were offshore at about 7-8 mph, gusting a bit more. Water temp has dropped to about 70, but the sun has been shining all day with only the occassional cumulus cloud drifting past. Got a few incredibly long rides. Very glad I brought my small pod-type board for high tide waves.

Yesterday I surfed Little Beach alone again! Got a few great, hollow lefts. It is a wave that's only suited to performance boards.

Secured rental houses for two of the three weeks my parents will be here. One is only about 300 meters from where I sit by the point now. 3 bd/2 ba with deck and laundry for $650 a week!
(google treetops Scotts Head). The other is a luxurious 3 bd/2 ba in the nicest part of Yamba with ocean views from the living room. It's more at $1025 for the week but we can walk to everything from there (google Belvedere 1 Yamba).

For those of you considering a visit you should know that I looked at 4bd/2ba house in a good neighborhood about 200 meters from the surf. Price in the winter? $400/week! Of course there's not much to do here except: surf, hike the coast, watch the sunrise and sunset, go to the cafe for fish and chips, make coffee and tea, go to the Bottle-O to get unfamialar wines, explore nearby beaches for surf, BBQ, explore nearby forestd for goannas and kangaroos, walk the beach, take the kids to the excellent beachside play park, repeat.

A whole week here for a hundred bucks more than one night in Sydney or Brisbane. What's more, I prefer life here.

Retirement going well so far. ;-)

Broken Head and Byron Bay

My Monkey

Wattle by the sea 

A good way to hide from the sun...

but you have to come back out sometime.

Broken Head Nature Preserve

 All the following surf photographs were taken one hour after my session. By then the tide and the swell had dropped about a foot, making the waves smaller and hollower. It was even better with more tide, but these photos will give you a sense of what it was like. Water is about 73 degrees!

Catalina at Cape Byron Lighthouse

The Happy Couple

The back beach at Broken Head: a great short hike to a private beach.

The native grassy headland vegetation is endangered. They work hard to keep weeds off of this. That's Cape Byron in the distance.

Sunshine, Breadfruit, Banksia, Prawns, Waves

The sun came out today and it was glorious. After a casual coffee I strolled the 20 meters to Broken Head beach to take a look and found...incredible beach break surf and offshore winds. Ran back to the camper, suited up, and surfed great waves for more than two hours.

After breakfast we took the kids to Byron Bay for a grocery run. We stopped by the magnificent Cape Byron Lighthouse and took in the view and the museum.

Mid afternoon was cheese, crackers, oaky Hunter Valley chardonnay, and beer battered jumbo prawns.

We followed this with a hike through Broken Head Nature Preserve to Broken Head and the secluded back beach and grassy headland out beyond. Along the way we hiked through tunnels of Banksia and Cotonwood forest, chased the kids, and I necked a bit with my cute wife.

In a minute, now that the sun is down, the wind is up, and the bush turkeys, myna birds, and seagulls have turned in, I will start cooking the wild Tasmanian salmon filet and local organic brussel sprouts. Shannon is working on the salad.

Yet another perfect day in New South Wales.

Photos soon...

Scotts Head Photos

Broken Head Trip Reflections

There have been great days of surf and sun and incredible streaks of intense rainfall and stormy winds. We seem to get three of rain and then three of surf and sun. Rain is predicted for tomorrow and for Thursday. Yikes it sure does rain here. Winds are howling offshore but the sea is very stormy. I saw some beach break that looked clean tonight in Byron Bay so I'll probably get to surf in the morning. 

Right now we're at Broken Head Caravan Park, just north of Lennox Head and just south of Byron Bay. Absolutely gorgeous beach and a headland that is completely forested and is a National Nature Preserve.

Basically, the trip has been very good so far, but we sure have had to hide from the rain. I had great surf in tiny crowds (as few as two!) at Scotts Head, Sandbar Beach, and Seal Rocks. We've found great beaches and really beautiful public parks. Everyone we've met has been friendly and even helpful, including guys in the water.

We're going back to rent houses at Scotts Head and at Boomerang Beach, which is near Sandbar and Seal Rocks (and Treachery, which I didn't surf, but which picks up winter south swells and is gorgeous). We'll rent in Yamba and Lennox Head too. I drove by our rental for May this morning in Lennox Head. You can check the surf from the front door! http://www.homehound.com.au/unit+2+60+allens+parade+lennox+head+nsw+2478/

We've just come from Yamba, which turns out to be a great surf and fishing village with a big headland and breaks with exposure to the northeast, east, southeast, and south. There's a big break wall by the harbor that breaks well, in addition to Town Beach, Turner's Beach, and Pippies. Right down the road, not four kilometers away, is Angourie. It's an amazing point break with a village of only 400 people. Yamba has only another 5,000. Angourie is actually the world's first "Surfing Preserve." It's essentially a surfing national park. We found a really nice beach house in Angourie, called Manyana (yes, that's the way they spelled it), that we hope to rent for a week. It's about 100 feet from the break and has incredible mountain views and a big deck: http://www.homeaway.com.au/holiday-rental/p404418152  For much less we can rent Drift: http://www.stayz.com.au/94252

The house we like best in Yamba is a brand new place across the street from the beach and a play park for the kids. We were quoted $920 a week for this place and a discount if we stay four weeks, which we may do: http://www.stayz.com.au/90956 Yamba has good restaurants, good pubs, coffee shops, a tiny movie theatre, good sailing, and tons of beaches. The pizza place is good and they have no licence to sell liquor so we can just walk across the street to Down Under Cellars and buy a bottle to take with us. We'll go back there for sure.

Basically things are really good, though I'm getting tired of navigating and driving all the time and it's hard for all four of us to live in this little camper. Definitely looking forward to our place in Lennox on May 8.

More pictures coming tonight or tomorrow.

Mike

Central Coast New South Wales - Sunny Days Photos!