Almost in Sydney

Tomorrow night I'll make my way to Sydney and my hunt for job will start again, hopefully more successful than in Cairns.

Since Coolangatta I have stopped in Murwillembah and did a very nice hike in what was a volcano 20 million years ago, Byron Bay, a really famous surf spot that has become another backpacker pit and now Yamba, the Byron Bay of 20 years ago, much more to my taste.

I'm having really nice days here and if I did not want to work I would probably stay longer. Apart from beautiful sunsets, many whales and dolphins, the highlight of this last week is that I have tried surfing.
Tried is here the most important word because god this is not easy especially for me who has never done any sport where you need balance.
As a consequence I had to learn to lie on the board (I happen to tip it over still a couple of times), get carried by the wave (this is not too difficult but when they are big they play with me like a toy, throwing me in the sand or just kick me out of the board) and stand on the board which I managed to do like 7/8 times over 5 days. By the way if you think I play like real surfers at the point the waves break, well, I have to disappoint you, I just go with waves already broken, this is so much easier.

There are unfortunately no pictures to show my performances but here is my board (that would probably suit very well with my bike).

One very cool thing we did was a tour of Yamba, its beaches by Shane of the hostel (next to me on picture). We went to a couple of natural pools and did some jumps there. Shane made me believe (I was the most naive of the 3) that there were crocos in one pool. So the idea was to scare them with rocks each time we saw bubbles in the water, jump quickly and then get out of the water even more quickly. I did not want to jump the second time but because everyone had done it and we were doing "figures" for pictures I did it and it's only later on that Shane told me the crocos story was bullshit.

I also add a few pictures of Byron and Murwillembah, more in the albums on the right hand side