All posts by Sara

Welcome to Sydney’s only private beach – Boat Harbour

How a beach can be owned by a private company itself… well anyways if you follow the beach as far north as you can from the south of cronulla you’ll get to Boat Harbour. That’s what we did on sunday after – deciding the surf was too small and full, going back home to pick up something someone forgot. Boat Harbour is a tiny community with a few small beach shacks that reminds me a bit of Christiania in Copenhagen but a bit more low key or maybe a lot. There’s no electricity and the people who live there’s pretty much off the grid I guess and I always find that so fascinating. Let me see where I can sign up for my own shipping container. Before they bulldoze it all away and build a business park.

Photos below I snaked from the internet. boat-harbour-image

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Summer is in Crescent Head!

Was a long weekend for us since I had the Monday off and Pax usually doesn’t work Mondays so – Hello to you again Crescent Head! Crescent Head is a sleepy beach town five hours drive north from us (depending on traffic ;)), somewhere in the middle of us and the Gold Coast maybe. I’ve been there a few times before but this is the first time I actually surfed the main point. It’s been so overcrowded when we’ve been there before and there’s so many good options for uncrowded waves in the area but Saturday morning I had some super duper fun waves again (hello right hand point break I missed you). Then the swell and some stormy weather rolled in and made a big mess of the ocean so we resorted to the pub for pool, drinks and a few games of shit head.

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Our on the road home.

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Stopping in Forster on our way back to Sydney.

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Cold pressed juice stop – so nice when you find some good food on the road.

the-sidewalk-secrets-pax-and-sara-in crescent-hed-nsw-australia-2155 Boomerang Beach outside Forster, we need to do some exploring around this area to.

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To the Snow

We went to the snow over the weekend, expression of the week – we’re going to the snow, you can simply say that because there’s just one place with snow! Being from Sweden and that people always think you’ve been skiing to school since before you could walk. Not the case with me, I’ve had sort of an attempt to snowboard a few years back, not that successful. But you know one forget so thought I’d give it a go again. Went alright I made it down that hill a couple of times without killing myself or anyone else (this is after spending most of the morning with my face in the snow). Day after every single bone in my body hurts!
/110% Beach Person

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Lighthouse walk in Kurnell

Weekend weather has been so nice, cold but sunny and sometimes you don’t have to travel very far to enjoy what’s around. We did a walk up to the lighthouse in Kurnell earlier today. Except for the dumb as people dumping their rubbish on the road there it’s an amazing walk and just around the corner. It’s also whale watching season and we spotted some big things very far away out at sea.

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Winter Magic from the Mountains

While many of my Swedish friends and family celebrate midsummer we’re doing the opposite over here. Back home it’s the longest day of the year and the sun doesn’t set until long after 10PM in most parts of the country. Here on the other hand it’s the shortest day of the year so we headed up to the Blue Mountains to join in on the annual Winter Festival that’s held in Katoomba. It’s a community driven event with street performances, live music and  one kick as parade and other happenings all through the day. The participants are encourage to dress in costumes to so we brought fellow vikings Sofia and Dan with us to! Magic day in the mountains I tell you, more parades and costumes for the people.

blue mountains winter magic festival 2014

blue mountains winter magic festival 2014

blue mountains winter magic festival 2014

blue mountains winter magic festival 2014

blue mountains winter magic festival 2014

blue mountains winter magic festival 2014

blue mountains winter magic festival 2014

blue mountains winter magic festival 2014

blue mountains winter magic festival 2014

blue mountains winter magic festival 2014

blue mountains winter magic festival 2014

blue mountains winter magic festival 2014

blue mountains winter magic festival 2014

blue mountains winter magic festival 2014

blue mountains winter magic festival 2014

blue mountains winter magic festival 2014

blue mountains winter magic festival 2014

blue mountains winter magic festival 2014

From where I’d rather be

Winter over here’s just started, it’s not winter like back in Sweden with minus 22 degrees and snow but still I’m freezing, they’ve forgotten about isolation and things like that over here… In our unit it’s colder than outside I’m pretty sure.

I’ve brought out my winter booties from the closet for yesterdays surf, the water is not that bad just the bloody wind makes it so chilly. I miss tropical waters, bikini surfs, nasi goreng, pocari sweat. Some photos from Bali below, it’s been way to long now. It used to be like my second home and now I haven’t been over for more than a year…

Lakey Peak sunset

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Qantas how did you manage this?!

Got off the plane on Sunday night in Sydney and went to pick up our boards. Pax thought the board bag looked a bit dusty and it did have a few holes in it so we opened it up to have a peek. Just to find out both surf boards were snapped in half! How is it even possible? We’ve seen from the plane window when they offloaded our luggage placing the board bag sideways in the carriage with one part sticking out so they must have driven into something to small, smashing the part sticking out to break I reckon. Anyways we headed over to the Qantas service desk just to be met by a grumpy lady that just said that since it’s fragile baggage Qantas takes no responsibility and we’ve signed the waiver and so on.

I’ve traveled so much with surf boards on different airlines for the last few years and a ding or a dent yeah that’s fair enough – it happens, but both our boards snapped in half?! That’s just not cool especially coming from an Australian airline that you would assume would be used to handling surf boards. We’ve sent a complaint through to the Qantas baggage claims so let’s see what they say.  On the bright side I’m glad it happened on the way back and I guess we need to shop for new boards now.

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East coast New Zealand, Mount Maunganui

The west coast side , Taranaki was windy, rainy, choppy and just to messy to surf so we cruised over to the east coast trying to find some waves. One really good thing with being on an island, two sides of coast.  How much fun can you have driving the kombi?! Ha ha I’ve lost the gears so many times, but everyone want’s to be your friend. I say let’s get one in Australia.

Nice sunny weather on the other side, perfect little offshore wind, waves where so clean and yeah pretty much no swell, we had a quick paddle but just to small. Wish we had a longboard with us. I want to come back and explore this side of the coast some more next time.

Walked up the mount instead, look at the lines of swell coming in… but not happening.

East coast New Zealand, Mount Maunganui

East coast New Zealand, Mount Maunganui

 

 

New Zealand, Part 1

We ended up bringing the left overs of the cyclone Isa with us from Australia to (weather was saying rain and wind for the week) so after picking up the rental Kombi in Wellington we decided to skip inland to see Pax’s family in Whangamomo… yep you try to spell or pronounce it. Muddy mission which included driving a golf car over the saddle (kiwi for big hill) and having way to many drinks with the locals… I also found a horse outside my window one night.

Our new home – a 1979 VW Kombi with pop top and all
Our home for the next 9 days in NZ, a Volkswagen Kombi from 1979

In the Republic
Whangamomona the republic

New truck anyone?
Nz (5 of 32)

Muddy chucks!
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Local hangout
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Mert, Pax and me on a mission, not sure who is driving.
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M&M is Pax’s Mum ans step Dad
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Nz (15 of 32)

 

Surf report from the weekend

Not really sure what is happening with time but it’s going quick, and it’s getting so dark now. To dark to surf in the morning and you have to be super quick to sneak in an after work surf in the week. We’re changing the clocks here in Sydney on Sunday so it will be better in the mornings for a bit. But we can really tell we’re going into winter over here. We had a few waves on Sunday, yours truly thought it looked to windy and crappy but had some fun once I got in. Anyways almost weekend again, we’re going north for a change, to Forster to cheer on Snoop in a triathlon and hopefully some waves and maybe some pies to, who knows!

The BB's going for a surf