a life in words: a weekend in avalon

16th - 18th March 2012

Avalon, Australia

In my ongoing, and so far successful mission of staying in Australia on a shoestring budget, it was necessary for me to head over to Avalon, a northern suburb of Sydney, on the 16th March while Oli was out of town visiting his dad in Perth over the weekend. I had been going undercover while staying at Oli's as his tyrannical and frankly barmy landlady - left little notes saying 'PLEASE CLEAN ME! on any glasses left in the lounge - would arrive at his shared house unannounced and apparently was not at all happy for people to stay over who weren't paying cold hard Australian dollars. This resulted in a few bizarre episodes during my stay in Surry Hills where upon hearing her enter the house with a prospective tenant, while Oli was at work, I would wait for her to walk downstairs before silently exiting Oli's room, which was luckily near the front of the house, and stealthily letting myself out the front door like the ginger ninja that I obviously am. Once out on the street I would wait about 100m up the road, spying on the front door as if I was in a Spooks episode, until I saw her leave before casually strolling back to the house leaving her none the wiser of my 'illegal' residence. Another more important reason for my little weekend trip to Avalon was that I wanted to catch up with a top lad I had first met whilst tubing in Vang Vieng, Laos who I remembered saying he lived fairly close to Sydney. Getting in touch over the traveller friendly FB, he kindly said that it would be cool for me stay a few days. So with my bags packed I bid farewell to The Guy and left Sydney mid-morning on the Friday, hopping on the L90 bus which would take me the 35km over to the Arthurian named beach at Avalon. The sun had once again formed a beautiful day in New South Wales and the scenic bus ride shuttled me past a few of the Northern beaches en route: Dee Why, Narrabeen, Warriewood, Mona Vale, Newport and Bilgola all flashed past the windows of the bus in a blur of golden sand and bright-blue water before I reached the beach at Avalon where I was dropped off at the local petrol station. Giving Jasper a call he drove down to meet me and we wandered down to the beach to catch up on what each of us had been up to since we had last seen each other during those lawless days we spent together in Vang Vieng.

Jasper is an avid surfer and upon his suggestion we headed back over to his house to grab a couple of surfboards which I was very keen to do as a trip to Australia without surfing would not, in my eyes, be complete. Getting back down to Avalon beach later that afternoon after meeting the rest of Jasper's family, we both set off into the crashing waves where he proceeded to catch a few waves with consummate ease whereas I spent the majority of the time languishing in the water like some retarded sea otter. Why a sea otter? Well your guess is as good as mine but they just don't look that coherent to me. I imagine that the business of surfing would be a lot of fun if you can get up on the board and surge down a barrel but I had great difficulty in actually catching a wave let alone reaching surfing nirvana. The first obstacle was getting out far enough to where the swells are starting to break as swimming out felt like taking two steps forward and one step back as I was constantly pushed towards the beach by the oncoming waves that crashed against me. Jasper did teach me a few techniques such as duck-diving, where you push the board under the wave or flipping myself and the board upside down upon impact to cut through the base of the wave in a streamline fashion. Once out far enough, the next step was to paddle like hell when a wave starts to form and it seems that this is the hardest part of the whole thing as whenever a wave started to pick me up I lacked the momentum to keep up with it and as a result would slide helplessly off it's back. When I did finally catch a wave, I hauled myself upwards in the 'explosive press up motion' Jasper had mentioned in my brief tutorial lesson on the sand, but as soon as I got one knee up I instantly stumbled over, clattering manically into the wave's open jaws. With a mouthful of water I resurfaced a few seconds later, spluttering idiotically in the foam only to be greeted by my board which after being pulled away from my body was returned fiercely - due to the cord that was attached to my leg - to give me a good clout round the back of the head. As if this wasn't bad enough, while still blind from the sea water that stung my eyes, I was then hit by another follow up wave that pulled me under again to repeat the whole punishing sequence. After awhile I gave up on my dreams of being the next Kelly Slater and collapsed on the beach exhausted but content that I did at least give it a go. Think I'll stick to snowboarding in the future.. Returning to the house absolutely famished I was treated to a hefty dose of genuine Australian hospitality as Jasper's mum, Anita, cooked us up some food and for the whole weekend I felt like a welcomed guest in the Lambe household. Even Betty, Jasper's wonderfully crazy black poodle (whoa Black Betty, bam-a-lam) made me feel welcome with her unending willingness to be patted and played with and I was only too happy to comply.

On the Saturday night, after picking up a crate of Carlton Draught with Jasper from the local Woolsworths mega store we headed over to a 19th birthday party that was going on in Mona Vale for one of Jasper's friends from school. The more I thought about it, catching up with Jasper was turning out to be a really good idea as it got me out of Sydney but more importantly the backpacker scene and the whole weekend gave me a small glimpse into Australian suburban life; meeting a whole load of people that I would never have met had I been staying in a hostel. It was funny to see that although on the other side of the world, the parent set-up party was exactly the same as the whole slew of marquee-set up parties that I used to go to up in Westbury/Stoke Bishop back when I was 18-19. Spent the evening chatting to Jasper's friends and the girl's, whose party it was, parents who kept calling me the 'Funny Pommy' which in turn led to some vintage banter with the Grandpa about the history that our two great nations share. Waking up the next day, my final day in Avalon saw me catching a bus over to Palm Beach to go and see the Barrenjoey lighthouse which had been recommended by Jasper, while he caught up with some Uni work. Getting off at the golf course a short walk led to the Palm Beach sand spit which connects the mainland to the Barrenjoey island - upon which the Lighthouse rests - that juts out into the Tasman Sea. On one side of the peninsula lay a vast golden stretch of sand which had attracted droves of sea worshipping surfers to it's choppy currents; their boards carving thin scars into the faces of surging waves that rolled into land. In the distance, ominous black crowds lurked menacingly but for the surfers this meant a healthy gust of wind that kicked up some mighty fine swells. After walking along the sand for about fifteen minutes, feeling the fine sand fill the gaps between my toes, I reached the headland and came across a small pathway known as 'Smugglers track' - named after the five convicts who had hacked it out of the the rock years ago - which curled up through the Hawkesbury sandstone to the top where the Barrenjoey lighthouse has been watching over seafaring souls since 1881. A viewing platform out the front of the lighthouse gave impressive views of the tombolo of sand that cut south through the Tasman Sea connecting the Barrenjoey island to the mainland and looking down at the water that lapped up against it's sides, layers of white foam gushed up towards the contrasting beige beach; darkened by specks of rain which had congealed it's grains together. The dark clouds had advanced since my ascent, encroaching upon Barrenjoey, and my descent back down to the beach was met by a brief of downpour. Back on the mainland I walked towards the bus stop and waited for the L90 which took me back to Jasper's and after gathering all my stuff together I headed back to Sydney to end a great couple of days in Avalon. Cheers Jasper and if you're ever in the UK mate, look me up!

Couple of surfers heading back after a day on the Tasman.

Jasper had a little outhouse of his own at his parents which he was good enough to let me crash in for my weekend up state.

Reaching Palm Beach, I entered what felt like a very exclusive little resort complete with it's very own live jazz band who serendaded happy walkers and restaurant customers.