Australian Van Tour

Hey guys its been awhile since I have blogged, but im going to try and get back into it. Here is a tour of my van I just bought here in Australia!

Week 1 | Lombok

This is how my trip started...
      Woke up at 4am on Wed, got to the airport and flew out of Brisbane by 6am. After a 2.5 hr flight I had a 7 hr layover in Adelaide south Australia which I spent skyping the family then grabbed a bus to the beach nearby for some lunch. I got back to the airport and boarded my 4pm flight, 5 hrs later I landed in Bali, Indonesia 7:30pm local time. After an hour of waiting in airport to get through customs and get my visa finally got outta there, grabbed my board bag and hired a taxi, heading

Traffic on the road

straight for the ferry terminal in Padang Bai. 2 hours later now 10:30pm I walked onto the ferry with about 150 Indonesians, during the passage a couple people came up to me just wanting to talk. One guy approached me and after a bit of chatting the best we could in English we went through a lil language book I have and we taught each other some words. A bit later another man sat next to me and asked about my bracelets after I told him where I got them from he left and returned with a bag of some he had made. He picked out two and tied one to my wrist, before I could give him a couple rupiahs he said "for you my friend I want no money..." Where this kindness came from idk but this is Indonesia, a beautiful country everywhere from the people that inhabit it, the land, and of course the waves. Arriving on the island of Lombok at 3:30am I met a very nice and pretty Argentinian girl traveling alone, we decided to split a taxi since where she was going was on the way to my destination. Arriving at a hotel in the middle of Indonesia at 4:30 in the morning, let's just say the reception guy sleeping was very surprised to be woken up and asked in what room are my friends staying. My friends Eric and Zac from back home in California have been here in Indonesia for over a month. They were even more surprised to get a knock on the door and see me standing there after I txted them a few days prior saying "see you soon". We all were so excited to see each other we stayed up and talked about each others travels until the sun rose and it was time to surf. Now this picture comes into the story, after 24 of traveling including 2 flights, a bus, 2 taxis, a ferry, and quite a bit of walking with a large surfboard bag I am about to paddle out to a surf a perfect 6-8 ft right hand point with 2 good friends on the complete other side of the world.
     I stayed on the island of Lombok for 5 days and we scored waves everyday, and it even got so big that almost every spot was maxed out! My last time to Indonesia last year I had wanted to explore other places than Bali, I got out to the island of Sumbawa which was a amazing with semi uncrowded waves. This time to back to Indo I wanted to go somewhere new and Lombok was definitely high on the list, I was stoked to find out my mates were there. Once your off Bali, you see a whole different side of the Indonesian culture, it's beautiful and something I highly recommend if your ever in Bali. 

Lombok, Indonesia

     
     During the 5 days on Lombok I stayed at an awesome hotel that I have recommend in my Travel Surf Live Surf Guide to Lombok. The village we were living in is mostly made for surfers, all you see is lil warungs, couple surf shops, small surf hotels, and advertisements for boat trips and transport to other islands. My friends Zac and Eric had been there for a week before I arrived so they already knew the surf spots and everything so that was nice. We surfed 4 different waves in the 5 days, all rights over reef/rock bottoms. The food was alright, I ate mostly local food which is fried rice or fried noodle, but we did try a few burger places and also a pizza place which was actually pretty good! It's awfully rare to head to these countries and not have an upset stomach, some how I have yet to have food poisoning in a foreign country. What I found from traveling in foreign country it is easy to change most comforts except food, if you aren't feeling comfortable with what your eating it makes your trip very hard. 
     Some friend's I had made in Byron, a few swedish girls Elin, Jasmine, and Amanda had happened to be in Indonesia the same time I was there. They were on the Gili Islands just a short boat and an hour taxi from where I was at the time, so they decided to come by for a couple days to hang out. It was awesome seeing them again, my friends and the girls all hung out for a few days. Lounging by the pool after a surf, going for lunch, riding the scooters around, and hanging at the beach. After a few days they headed to Bali where we would soon meet up again!
     The first couple days on Lombok we surfed an epic right hander that is a 15 minute scooter ride outside the village. The setup up is beautiful with cliffs all around you and a couple small islands off the coast. The paddle is about 10 minutes at least so definitely gets you warmed up for the epic surf session your about to have. The next few days we switched off between a big bay about 30 minutes away where you can grab a small boat to 4 different waves in the bay. Its always fun getting on and off a boat to go surf, its basically the epic surf session to jump of a boat into the lineup. And for only 5 bucks round trip out to the waves, you can't complain at all!
     Lombok was much better than I had imagined it, so many opportunities to get out in the water to semi uncrowded line ups. The scenery is lush, jagged, extreme, and just plain beautiful. There is so much to explore with little to no people around, I can't wait to venture further and further next time. But for now 6 days was a perfect intro to the potentional of this 1 of the 10,000 Indonesian islands, back to Bali.....

Finding work on the Gold Coast!

     After Bryce and I had been in Aus for over a month we started to look for work, we had a bit of luck as I have wrote about in previous updates. But not as much as we thought, it turns out you need to be qualified for almost every kind of work here, that's a decent pay at least. So as we both didn't have working visas anyways we couldn't apply for some things necessary to get qualified for proper work. But none the less we still searched for work in between going to the beach and adventures. Once I got back from the sailing/Melbourne road trip I stayed in Byron for one week and ended up finding a job. The job is working for a guy that has bought a few houses that he wants fixed up so he can rent them out. The houses are in Gold Coast about an hour north of Byron, so I decided to hit the road to find some work. Bryce wanted to chill in Byron for a bit longer because he had some plans later that week.

My ride to work for a day, thanks to my mate Dillon!

     I headed up to Gold Coast on a Friday evening to stay with some good friends I met a month earlier, and they had found jobs up here as well. My friend Dillon and I went for a surf at Burleigh Heads just a few km's down the road from there house. The waves were ok head high and a bit walled but fun to get in the water at a new spot none the less. After a lil surf sesh we headed up into Surfer's Paradise where his girlfriend Roxanne was working in the mall. We hit an Australian classic food spot called Nando's, basically really good bbq/smoked chicken, beef, ribs, etc accompanied by a handful of chips (french fries). Later that night I went up to Brisbane to go to a friends birthday party, it was nice meeting some new people, a majority of them being french! I always try to learn a bit of french so that when I get home I can speak some to my grandparents who speak it fluently.

D-Bah in Coolangatta!

     Sunday was a fun day I spent roaming the city of Brisbane with my friends Emilie, Roxanne, and Dillon. A pretty clean city with lots of good lil food joints, a beautiful botanical garden, and great beaches along the river the city is built on. On the other side of the river is an awesome lagoon style beach themed watering hole that hundred of kids and families gather around on the weekends. I've never seen anything like it, all man made but gives the feeling of being in paradise with a sky scrapper backdrop in the distance. Had a great time in the city but it was time to go back to the Gold Coast to have my first day of work in the morning.
     The house this guy had bought is beyond a fixer upper, termite damage everywhere, and nothing was put together right the first time. But it is work that I know how to do and all I can find at the moment so I'm giving it a shot. For the first few days me and another guy working Luke, just tore out existing kitchen/drywall and reinforced some of the rotten walls the best we could. Put up all new drywall, installed a kitchen he bought at a salvage yard, put in a new toilet, and did lots of painting! I worked for 8 days and saved enough money along with some money from another gig to go to Bali. Between working for a week and a half I got a couple fun sessions in at Burleigh Heads and D-Bah, both waves I have heard about and always wanted to surf. After finishing work on Tuesday I headed up to Brisbane and started packing my bags for my flight to Bali then next day!

Byron Bay.....

     It's been a couple weeks since I have got on the blog here and I have good reasons for that. I am currently in Byron Bay about 2 hours south of Brisbane and have been here for a couple weeks. When we arrived we instantly fell in love with the atmosphere, people, and scenery. The town has turned in a backpackers haven in the last decade, almost completely catering to a backpackers every need. The town is full of young people with stories from there travels around the world, I have met so many amazing people that are now friends for life.
     The first night we arrived in Byron we stayed at a hostel called Nomad's which is a well known world wide hostel business chain. It was a pretty cool spot, we grabbed some beer and had a couple drinks with friends before hitting the bars. The bar we went to was hilarious, it was a Wednesday night and it was packed, dancing on tables, pretty decent music, and 5 dollar beers. Basically danced the night away and had a last drink down on the beach before making our way back to the hostel and trying to find our room.

Art work all of over the hostel, its very inspiring.

     We had to leave our van at one of there other locations a couple minutes down the road at The Arts Factory Lodge, since it would fit in there underground car park. When we went to pick up the van we found out that at that hostel they have a car park where you can pay $15 a night to just camp in your van instead of the $46 a night bed in the dorms. You were still able to use all the amenities of the hostel including there showers, restrooms, laundry, cafe, pool tables, pool, ping pong, volleyball court, they have it all! We payed for a week since we knew we wanted to be here awhile then got some wifi to start looking for a couple lil jobs.
     We spent the first couple days meeting new people around the hostel, going to the beach, then to the library for some free wifi to look for small gigs to get some money. We struggled finding jobs for the first week and a half we were here, but finally the research and emails paid off with two labor jobs for 3 days of work! After a week at the hostel we were able to sign up to work for free accommodation at the hostel which would save us about $100 a week. Plus I was getting a lil bored and definitely wanted to do something, so we started working at the hostel last week. It has been a blast, the way it works is you work 2 days in a row 3 hrs each day, then you get two days off, then it starts over again. The 2 days you work gets you 4 nights accommodation, so it is really a good system plus when your working you get to meet some other great people that are working there as well and have been around for awhile.
    So the 3 days of work we had was going to be a crazy 60 hours but we decided to just push through it to make some good money! It went a lil something like this, woke up Monday morning and worked at the hostel for 4.5 hours since we weren't going to be there the next day. After we got in the van and headed straight to Burleigh Heads about 45 minutes north, we started work at 6pm. The job was renovating a section of a store called Big W (basically a Walmart), redoing the home entertainment section and moving things around. The work the first day was tough since we had to demolish some desks and clothing racks to throw away in a large dumpster, but the guys working were all really cool and easy to get along with. We finished at 4:30 am the next morning, 10 hours of work, when we got off we headed straight back to the Byron area and got a couple hours sleep. Our other job was helping an older lady move some of her things into a storage unit, cleaning her office, doing some yard work, and washing windows. The lady was awesome and had lived a very interesting life being married to an author for 45 years as well as traveling her self being a cook for archeologists on dig sites! We started at her house at 9:30, worked till noon and she made us a delicious lunch, worked a couple more hours and was off by 3:30 with $90 each in our pockets. We headed directly back to Burleigh again to work at the Big W for one more night, this time we started at 5:30pm and finished at 7:00am. After finishing in the early morning we jumped in the van and headed straight to the ocean for a refreshing morning swim! It woke us up a bit and then we cruised back down to the hostel to get some sleep.

Bryce taking the Go Pro out for fun in the water.

     The following days we definitely took it easy and relaxed at the hostel and hit the beach a couple times. The waves were picking up so I got down there for a couple of fun sessions. Thursday I had a feeling this one beach break right out front the hostel was going to be good so we went to check it out and it was so fun! Had a bunch of good waves and got some fun Go Pro shots as well, until I somehow snap my fin box on my board out and ended the session :( . After we grabbed some lunch I stopped by Patagonia where my friend Emilie works here in Byron. We chatted for awhile and I got a number form a good ding repair guy. I went to drop my boards off asap so I could get them back soon before the swell dropped!
     The next couple days we worked at the hostel in the morning and kept improving our tent setup we had going. It an awesome setup we have here at the hostel and couldn’t be more stoked to be in such an awesome environment where everyone is stoked everyday. A couple days earlier as Bryce and I were at the library getting some wifi, Bryce found an ad looking for a couple people interested in delivering a boat from Gold Coast to Melbourne. I instantly jumped on the opportunity since this is the career path I’m working to get into and it would be a great opportunity to get some great experience. We both sent emails and awaited a reply, the reply had come and I was going to be heading to the Gold Coast Sunday night to board the boat Monday morning.

Surfer's Paradise skyline

     Flash forward to Monday morning and I’m standing on the dock looking at a beautiful 43 foot catamaran that I will be sailing with 3 other crew members for the next 7-10 days down the east coast of Australia. The captain Ed Brennan is 28 years old from England, he has been sailing and on boats his whole life, and in the recent years doing deliveries all around Australia. He also heads of to the Mediterranean to work over there during there season as well, lots of experience and a super cool guy none the less. After I got my backpack on board and got a tour, we headed for the store to get food for the next week! The other two guys were flying in from Sydney and their plane was running a bit late so we decided to get some things done in the mean time. After a couple hours and $500 later at the store we made our way back to the boat to start putting everything away and get ready to depart later that evening.

Our way to Byron Bay

     After having a great night camping on the beach we got back on the road heading North! We stayed overnight in the town of Forester, pretty low key night cooking up some chicken rice and beans. We have been eating very well on this trip, all of our cooking while were camping is always delicious and filling. Waking up in Forester we headed down to the water for a morning dip and brought the mask to do a little diving. Nice relaxing morning before a couple hour drive up to our next destination Port Macquarie, where we were going to catch a ferry across the river! As we got into town we searched for a quick lunch and went to the mall to get some wifi for a bit. After chatting with the fam and some friends we decided to go down to a cool lil beach and get in the water and find out what to do for the night. As we got outta the water and had a look at the map we realized were only another 45 minutes or so from Crescent Heads.

     Flash forward an hour and I'm looking over at Bryce with the biggest smile on his face driving down this dirt road, the van shaking so much we wouldn't be surprised if it falls apart. After hoping on a quick ferry and dodging potholes for about an hour we had finally arrived in the lil town of Crescent head, we immediately left the town again in search of camp for the night. After finding a perfect spot on the beach outside of town we started cooking dinner under a tarp held down with a couple sticks and string as it started raining. When we had finally finished dinner the rain had stopped and the millons of stars had appeared behind the clouds. I thought being out in the middle of the desert I saw a lot of stars but nothing compares to the nights here on a deserted beach!

     Waking up to a couple cars nearby I knew there had to be some waves, I suited up and got out to head high peaks with 3 guys out and plenty of waves for everyone. Surfing is getting so popular nowadays, when surfing at home in Huntington Beach with a hundred people in the water and hassling for every wave, it makes me wonder. I wonder why don't more people stop complaining about going out to crowded waves, just being on this trip I've surfed by myself multiple times without

having to go that far to search for that wave. The waves were hardly perfect, but it makes you appreciate surfing and the ocean so much more when your relaxed and not getting angered by other people in the water. Anyways, we chilled on the beach for a bit cleaning up the van and making some improvement, and of course as I look back out at the water I see another fun head high wave roll through. Being a surfer seeing unridden waves coming you have to go out if it's the middle of Australia and there could be a shark out haha. It was hard leaving that beach since it was such a beautiful setup with nobody around, but I know I will come back here again soon and I'm sure it won't change.
     We hit the road back to the highway and to our next stop Coffs Harbor which was about 120km (75miles) so a pretty easy day. We try to not drive far or fast everyday so we can keep the van running good and not breaking down. Coffs harbor was a cool area but we didn't do much but take a nap and cook up some dinner before hitting the bed.

Iluke, NSW, Australia

     From Coffs Harbor we cruised for a couple hours to the town of Grafton where we stopped for awhile to get some good internet at the library. It's hard to find a decent internet spot on the road and that's also why I have had a hard time updating the blog! On our way towards Byron we had one more night to stop, we decided on a super chilled spot in Iluka, just north of Yamba. We got to the parking area and immediately headed down to the water to go for a dip, fun lil bodysurf waves out front. After chillen on the beach and taking in the sun and scenery we headed back to start cooking up dinner. Nobody around but the sound of the wind through the trees and birds chirping in the distance, after no time dinner was ready and we chowed. It started pouring rain during the night which sounds like guns shots on the metal roof of the van! In the morning I got up a bit early to check the surf, I met a guy named Pete down by the beach the only other person around for miles. He ended u being a super cool guy as we chatted for awhile about where we were from before deciding to hit the water with no one around. As I found out he had worked on private yachts for the last 8 years and has traveled the world by boat, we exchanged emails so I could send him my resume to potentially get a job around here. After surfing with 2 other guys out for 2 hours I finally headed in to snag some breakfast and decide where we were headed next.
     On the road again headed towards Byron with no plans what so ever, getting into town we already saw that this place was special! We parked the van and just walked around for awhile checking out all the shops, food, and went to a pawn shop to look at longboards (mauw, they call it here) for Bryce. Couple minutes later as Bryce was at the ATM I ran into my friend Emilie who had been living here for a couple months. I hadn't seen her since I was in Bali last year and it was awesome catching up and we planned to hang out while we were in town. After asking a couple people the best option for the night we ended up at Nomad's probably the most famous hostel in Australia. There were young fun people everywhere and we knew it was going to be a good night, stay tuned for what else to come from our stay in Byron!

Leaving Sydney and camping up the coast!

Hey everybody first off sorry for not getting to update the blog as often as I did last trip. This adventure has been awesome and totally different since were camping every night now. So as the first blog said we bought a van, 1991 Mitsubishi Express, stick shift, sliding door, everything locks, windows work, no leaks in ceiling. Were stoked, we spent 5 days setting it up to road trip up the coast to Brisbane, gutted the whole thing and started from scratch. Im trying to upload an awesome video i made of the restoration but haven't gotten decent internet to do so, but please stay posted!

After we set off from our friend Troy's house, which is about an hour and half south of sydney, we adventured to pick up the last couple things we needed for the van which included, an esky (what they call an ice chest here in aus), solar panel, and an extra battery. Found a nice lil park next to the harbor to setup camp for the first night, cooked up some pasta, threw the discs around, and watched a rugby team's late night practice.

Palm Beach, just before it started pouring rain!

The next morning we were up early and after a bowl of cereal headed towards the coast to check out the harbor and some of the sights on our way to Narrabeen! I have a couple friends in Narrabeen that I met while traveling in Indo last year. They met us for lunch and we chatted about our trip to Indo last year, there lives here in Sydney and any cool spots they could tell us about up the coast. They pointed us to a place  up the peninsula a bit, we got there and it was beautiful harbor with huge green lush mountains on one side then beach and hikes trails on the other. As we got set up and took a dip in the water it just started pouring, didn't stop for about an hour, we watched a movie and went to find camp. My buddy showed us a super legit camping spot in Narrabeen on the beach that we went back to to setup and cook diner for the night. It had now been raining on us on and off for about 5 days, we were pretty over it, but finished dinner, watched a movie and crashed out.  

Camping on the beach, next morning was beautiful, see below!

After the rain had finally stopped

Waking up the next morning it was finally beautiful, sunny, no wind, and a couple waves just out front. As I went for a surf Bryce went on a run down the the coastline trail hugging the cliffs going through the forest and rocks. Waves were small but water was warm and crystal clear and it was finally sunny so I didn't care! We got a bit of a later start but hit the road in no hurry which has been the idea of this trip so far, only doing about 80-100km fast (50-65mph) on they hwys. After a stretch of drving stopped off to jump in the water, fun little waves to body surf while parents were cheering on there kids doing a paddle around a buoy. The kids were in a program through the surf club similar to junior lifeguards like we have in the states. But here in Australia every good size beach has a surf club where the community has meetings, they serve food daily, have public restrooms/showers, and there always right on the beach! It was getting late so I looked on the maps and found a spot that looked like it could be perfect to crash for the night, and if you see the photo below, it was!

Camping outside of Newcastle, no photoshop needed!

After waking up on the lake and making some breakfast sandwiches we went to a disc golf course nearby, it was a super chill lil course with no one around! We got 18 holes in and had a goal to find a laundry place since we hadn't been able to the last couple days, found one and also got our laptops a little charged as well! While waiting we snagged a wrap for lunch at a lil spot around the corner, wraps are huge here in Aus basically its a burrito but inside they put either chicken, beef, or schnitzel (breaded chicken also very popular here). Most commonly they will also add tomato, carrot, cheese, some sort of salad, as well as all sorts of different dressings if your into that. Another cool thing is a couple towns we have been to have free Wi-Fi on a couple hundred meter stretch of the main city street near food, malls, and pubs it's genius! We heard there was a surf comp at the local beach so went to check it out, waves weren't to good, so decided to break out the solar panel and try to hook it up to the battery and inverter we had previously bought. It wasn't working out so we took the battery to a couple mechanics that told us it had a bad cell and wouldn't help us out to make a deal on a battery, we finally found a shop with these two legends pictured below!

They helped us with so much I could never thank them enough! We rolled up there with a shit battery and asked if he could check it for us, he assessed the battery and said it was shot and could not be used for our inverter and solar panel setup we wanted. So I chatted with him for a bit and we came to terms to buy a used battery twice the size of the one we had for $50, new ones here are $150! Right then his business partner rolled up in the work van, and offered to help us wire up the inverter to our new battery, he let us use his tools and some parts we needed no charge! We were all ready to go when I started checking out the boxes you can store the battery in thinking it was a good idea to keep it contained. An hour later and we have a piece of wood screwed down to the floor behind the driver seat, battery box strapped down with our new battery inside, inverter attached to the outside, and solar panel wires hooked up and ready to go! We were now set up to power our phones and laptops from an extra battery that gets charged from the solar panel! We thanked them so much and had a couple more laughs as we set out to find camp for the night.....

It was one of those times where I looked on the map and said hey that looks like a cool spot, and it ended up being legendary. Coming down a little dirt road and over a hill to see miles of dunes and a car park on the sand steps from the beach.

There were camels on the beach when we arrived, waiting for a group of people for a sunset ride, we set up camp on the sand with the beach 150 yards away and huge dunes surrounding us. After walking down to the water we starting chatting with some campers next to us, they told me about an app called wikiCamps (iphone and android, link here) which I ended up downloading. The app shows you all camp sites in Australia, with details about them, a comment section, rating system, pictures, and amenities they have all user base driven! Cooked yet another great meal with steak, potatoes, and corn while watching the camels riding over the dunes with the sun setting in the background!


There's nothing like waking up to the sun shining through the window, the sound of waves crashing in the background, then realizing your in the middle of Australia! It has honestly only been two weeks in this amazing country and everyday is something or someone new around every corner it makes me stoked to be alive everyday.

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Thanks for reading, stay tuned :)

Day 1 down under

Hey friends, family, and followers wanted to say thanks again to everyone for all the support and good luck we have been getting from everyone it means a lot! After a couple sleeping pills, neck aches, airplane food, and 24 hours of traveling we made it to Sydney and got picked up from my friend Troy. The 45 minute drive south of Sydney to the town he lives in was awesome not to much traffic and an immediate change of scenery.
The landscape where we are located at the moment just south of Sydney reminds me of Big Sur, roads right next to the ocean with big cliffs, lots of trees, and picturesque sand beaches filling in the valleys. After we grabbed a bit to eat, got a quick tour of his hometown, dropped our bags off we head straight for a dip in the ocean which is a 2 minute walk from his house.
After having a bit of fun and refreshing ourselves in the southern hemisphere water we hoped in the car again for a cruise to the next town to grab a couple beers. We finished off the night relaxing and chatting on the balcony which looks through a valley towards the beach, couldn't have pictured a better first day. Watch the quick clip below and ill update everyone on the next adventure!

And the time has come.....

...to leave home again and live what I dream about, this time with my best friend of 21 years Bryce! We have been planning an adventure like this since we were kids and the thought of being on a plane in a couple hours headed to a foreign land with no plans send shivers down my body. I could think for hours about what I ,want to do and where I want to go when we get there. but on this adventure were going with what ever happens at that moment and that's when you really feel alive. Once again thank you to all friends and family that has support Bryce and myself on this adventure, we love you all!

Don't Just Be Alive, Be Living........