And more sharks still

Trip Start Aug 15, 2006
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Trip End Feb 09, 2007


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Friday, October 13, 2006

All in all we spent 3 nights in Crescent heads relaxing at 'the house'...and eating fine meals cooked for us by a crazy chef named Mick (who once fractured a guy's skull with "me steel"..but that's another story). Crescent Heads was great...very quiet and a welcome change from Byron. We spent the days exploring every inch of the town and driving dirt roads in search of surf. We didn't fins much...the conditions weren't very favourable - it was far too windy. On our first full day in the town we drove 45 mins south to a place called Queens Head and were a little perturbed when 3 body boarders rushed out of the water after spotting a shark.
Wednesday morning was a different story. Jeff and I awoke and went for a surf at the point at about 7am...the waves weren't great but it was fun and you could see the potential of the place (Crescent is the site of the Australian National Longboarding Championships- and with good reason too...the wave can be perfect). We managed to catch some real good ones before A giant dark and moving shadow in the water spurred us to paddle into shore. Here we go again. We got out of the water and looked out to see a huge school of fish jumping and swimming, birds swooping down to catch them and a giant fin circling the perimeter...also nearby a couple dolphins were playing. Although our visitor remains unidentified, there is good reason to suspect a shark. Especially after the crazy stories Mick told us over dinner the night before........how he was out in a small tin boat fishing while a giant 12 foot Tiger shark charged the boat like in the movie Jaws....and how he swam 900 metres out to sea with some buddies to spear a 42 Kilo Octopus that ended up attacking him before he could swim all the way back to shore wrapped up in tentacles...Good ole' Mick. And who could forget the story of him and his friends spearfishing under water while a group of deadly great whites began to surround him - one swam right up to him and darted away,
So Crescent Heads was great and despite the lack of swell, we still managed to get a taste of what it was like to surf such a great wave.
We headed south this morning stopping in Port Macquarie and then spending the afternoon at Seal Rocks. And what a place...this Seal Rocks! Beautiful, kind of like Big Sur, with a big headland and a lighthouse and the clearest blue water and we went for a surf...the waves were pretty good and dozens of dolphins swam right up to us and around us playing and riding waves and whales were breaching further out. Some nice waves were caught and some nice views were had.
And here we are now in Newcastle, still on our way to Sydney.
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