Blog 17 – Philip Island

Sunday afternoon I left Tathra. I didn’t really want to leave, because I had such a great time with Phil and Susan, but well, that’s what travelling is about: meeting new friends and leaving them behind.. that doesn’t mean you’ll never see them again obviously!
Sunday night I slept in my car again in the Ben Boyd National Park at Saltwater Creek, but only after a surf. There was nobody in the water and the surf looked not too bad. The fact that I’d be the only person in the water did scare me a little and of course it felt a bit sharky. So as I was surfing I looked around me a lot and just didn’t feel comfy. As I saw a big wave just about 10 meters further nearly breaking, a really big grey fish with a fin on it’s back appeared in the wave. I didn’t know how fast to paddle back to shore! When I looked out over the bay a couple of minutes later I couldn’t see any fish at all…. So the question of the day was: was it a dolphin or a shark? You normally recognize dolphins by the fact that they move in a different way: a shark ploughs through the water: straight forward and a dolphin breach the surface and then go down again. Another difference is that dolphins are normally not alone, while sharks often are. Because I didn’t see the fish at the surface at all after the surf, I still have doubts about it being a shark or a dolphin.
Later on, Dan, a man that was camping in the National Park with his wife and children and with whom I had a surf the next morning, told me that there were hypes of dolphins around lately.
Anyway, after that short evening surf, I had a good night sleep and woke up about 6 am to go for another surf together with Dan. A really nice surf session! Two hours later I got out, reorganized the car and headed of for Mallacoota, ‘cause Dan told me that was the place to go. Quite a long drive, but worth it. As I was quite tired from getting up so early, I crashed in my car for a bit before jumping in the surf.
After the surf (with some dolphins) I was on a mission: find a nice spot to stay overnight. I found a nice place next to a boat ramp where I did my yoga (on the grass in font of some pelicans) and made my dinner.
The next day I had another surf at Bastion Point Mallacoota. At that point the swell really picked up and the waves were pretty heavy, but lots of fun. After that I headed for Lake Tyers (Lakes Entrance), but Phil told me the day before to visit the caves of Buchan and that was on my way to Lakes Entrance, so I turned of and arrived around 4.30 pm in Buchan. I thought I recognized two girls sitting on a picnic table as being Dutch, but I wasn’t completely sure, so I went over there and found out to be right. Naomi and Lenneke travelled together and had about 6 months to discover Australia. They went to see the caves that morning, but said it wasn’t really amazing..
Still I decided to stay the night there and I had a really nice hot shower before going to bed. The next day I got up early and did a 3 km walking track before doing the cave tour. There were only two other (Australian) tourists (and our personal guide) and the cave was really cool. All the stalactites (from the ceiling) and stalagmites: a beautiful sight. After that I checked the surf at Lake Tyers, but there was not much going on, so I decided to go for the long drive: all the way to visit Ernst at Philip Island. I arrived here about 7 pm. Ernst is living together with Nick and with his boss Ash: both really nice guys. That evening we didn’t do much, but the next morning we did go for a morning surf. We went to Powlett, a secret spot and had an amazing surf! The waves were about 3 ft (not ‘Dutch’ ft obviously, so quite big I’d say) or head high and I had some really nice waves… one of the best surfs so far.
In the afternoon, Ash and I went for a surf at Woolamai Beach, but there was a lot of wind and currents, which wasn’t great. In the evening we went to see the penguin parade: the touristic attraction of the island. The ‘little penguins’ are 30 cm high, weight about one kilo and are the quietist animals ever!! Thanks to Ash and Nick, both rangers over there, Ernst and I could get in for free  ‘the Dutch way’.
Yesterday Ernst and I had another morning surf at Pawlett, but the swell dropped a foot, so the waves weren’t as great as the day before, but we had fun anyway. In the afternoon, Ernst was teaching, so Ash, Esther (Ash’s fiancée) and I went for a surf/ surf kayak. We took out one 7’6 soft top and a big yellow surf kayak. At first I was just cruising the soft top and had lot’s of fun on the small waves at Woolamai Beach and after that Esther and I had a go at surf kayaking. Later on Esther swopped with Ash and we caught a couple really cool waves. It’s a whole different experience. After that, I took the kayak out alone and caught a couple of lefthanders by myself. That surprised me, but the waves are much more forgiving when you are in a surf kayak. Later on we saw a really big seal swimming near the beach.
That evening I was knackered and I just had a quite evening alone watching TV and using skype for a bit. I went to bed quite early and had a really long sleep. This morning I woke up around 9.30, did my yoga and laundry and started writing my blog. A friend of Ernst, Shaun, came over later on and we just went to the beach to check the surf, but as predicted it was flat. Now we’re just chilling and tonight we’ll have diner with Ernst and Suzan.

Some Ozzie (rhyming) slang and where they got it:

Tomato sauce – dead horse
Meat pie – dog’s eye
Great white shark – Noah: rhymes with noah’s arc
No wuckars – no wocking furries – no f***ing worries
Dog and bone – phone
Frog and toad – road
Captain Cook – have a look