Surfing (or trying to) in Noosa

Seeing the end of our time in Australia approaching at high speed, we thought we'd better start learning how to surf! It's not that we absolutely wanted to become surfers nomatterwat, but it was more that we felt we needed to use that board we'd been carrying on the roof rack of our Nissan, all around Australia, even through the Red Centre, one of the driest parts of the world, where it rains like, once a century and where what are commonly recognised as lakes are no more than vast areas of dried salt. So if we didn't want to leave the country feeling like we'd been a bit silly to have kept the surfboard, we thought we'd better get wet.

But what we didn't know before making that decision, is that surfing is not just about getting wet; it's also about getting hurt! We'd surfed a bit in Scotland, and the water temperature being close to 10 below 0, we were wearing super-duper wetsuit, and were provided with ice-axes, because it's easier to surf if the ice is broken. But here, the water being 20 degres and all, no need for the thick wetsuit. And this is where it hurts, really hurts. Each time you throw yourself on the board, you make the bruises on you ribs a little bigger, darker and sorer.

Personally, I was just hopeless, no denying that. I managed to take a few waves, but would always fall trying to stand on the stupid board. I actually blame the size of the stupid thing, it's far too big for me. We didn't choose it, it came free with the car, so I can't really complain. But I can blame it :)
Phil was (a little bit) better, I don't know if it's because he's bigger, or feels the pain less than I do, or if it's because he's not afraid of having his head chopped off by fellow surfers... but he did better than me. But only slightly.


We have embraced some parts of the Aussie culture full-heartedly (like BBQs and beach) but surfing just won't be one of them. Oh well, never mind, at least I had a good laugh watching my husband falling off the board a good 1000 times (still not as funny as my husband running after a wild dog...) and it made cool photographs.

That's our board, but no one's on it

And when Phil was bruising himself in the water, I was enjoying reading my book, lying on the hot sand (Did it not just snow in London?). Of course, upon arrival on the beach, I covered myself of a thick layer of sunscreen, but it looks like the brainwashing hasn't completely worked on me as I forgot to put some again after splashing in the waves. The ozone layer being at its thinnest above Australia, pasty-English skins like mine don't do very well over here. This is why I quickly became the same colour as tomatoes.

And I'm still paying the price for it. In two ways. First, because the back of my thighs are so burnt, it hurts when I sit down on the toilet, and second, because my face is so red, parents hide the eyes of their children when seeing me in the street, and frown upon me, and tut-tut at me as for the Aussies, being sunburnt is a taboo, it means I made the grave error of not putting sunscreen on. It's much worse than eating with your elbows on the table, crossing the road when the little man is red, or farting in public. You just don't do it.


But heh, last weekend wasn't just about bruising and burning our bodies! We also saw something very rare: a koala on the move! Now, that's a scoop! And by some miracle, I had the camera handy at the time.



So please, ladies and gentlemen, consider yourselves extremely lucky, as I give you, in exclusivity, the premiere of 'A Koala on the Move'. (I didn't mention this in the post about koalas, but it is believed that koalas are stoned; all the time. Completely spaced-out. A bit like our friends, the French backpackers. But koalas find their supplies of hallucinogenic substance in eucalyptus leaves. And because this is all they eat, they are constantly high. This explains why they sleep most of the time, and move only very rarely.)
So, sit back, put your feet up, and enjoy this truly incredible sight.