Big White and the Big Flight!!

Well this will be the last entry to this blog!! I'm sitting on the couch at my place in Melb and I'm broke, jobless and frickin hot! The Australian summer is a big change from the sub zero temps of Canada this time of year!!

I'll run you through the last week of our trip since my last blog entry..

We got back to Rossland and unfortunately, there was still not much snow on Red Mountain.. We headed out to find some back country boarding with Benny, but conditions were not great. When we asked him what else they do around there when thry're waiting for snow, he told us Frisby Golf! Now I like frisby and I like golf, so it seemed the perfect thing to do on a snowless day in Canada. We grabbed some beers and a heap of frisbies that he had in his shed and headed up to the course. Yep, there's actually a local frisby golf course near his place!

The game goes exactly how it you think it would, teeing off from the tee area with your wood or low iron frisby, and going for the basket using a putter frisby for your short game.

Great times out there on the frisby golf course, with his dog mullet usually running off with someone's frisby every hole, and the rules were you had to play it from where Mullet dropped it :)

So with no snow in Rossland, we said goodbye to the sleepy little town one last time and headed up to Big White, near the town of Kelowna. We got a bus up to Kelowna and then hired another car for the trip to Big White to see Jaye. He had a sweet little pad, right on the mountain, where he was staying for the entire season and working in a restaraunt.

The mountain still wasn't open, but there was still plenty of snow around to do somw back country boarding, which is exactly what we did :) We headed up to a place called Snow Pines, where people had built a heap of jumps and half buried pipes in the ground to do grinds. We got some great airs and grinds going and then trekked up a massive hill and boarded down. Was very icy as it had been -10 deg C overnight and hadn't snowed in a couple of days. It made the landing a bit rough when we stacked, but all the more reason to make sure you made the jump!

The next day we went up to a nearby mountain called Revelstoke. I was about 3 hours away from Big White and was open for business! We caught the lift up, only to find we were 3 of only about 25 people on the entire mountain! It's only the 2nd season this mountan has been open, so it's all pretty new and undiscovered.. We spent the first few hours boarding on black runs that were extremely icy.. Not the best condiditions but still good times. We decided to explore a bit more of the mountain, above where the lifts can take you to. We saw a few guys climbing up to one of the summits, so we decided to follow. After a solid half hour of climbing almost vertical cliffs of snow, we finally made it to the top, only to realise that we might have been getting a little out of our depth! We were on a ridge, with the other side even steeper than the side we climbed up!!! There was only one way down tho, so we strapped in and went for it.. It was so steep, at one stage I stacked, did a full somersault, and kept on boarding! :) We found ourselves boarding down some real serious terrain, through trees and in about 50cm of the best untouched powder we'd ever seen! Was the best run of the day and not one of us even hit a tree :)

Worn out from the climb, we decided to explore some more of the lower runs, and found some great powder down there too. Was a wicked day at Revvy and some of the deepest powder I'll prob ever board. It was -17 deg C up the top of the mountain, so by the time we got to the car at the end of the day, we were ice blocks.. We headed home to defrost and got up early the next day to get our bus from Kelowna back to Vancover, the start of our big journey home...

With a 6 hour bus ride back to Vancouver, we were prettty dead when we got there. Vancouver was supposed to have a great nightlife and live music scene, but it would have to wait til our next trip there. We checked into a hotel and got a great sleep before our marathon plane ride(s) home to OZ. We flew out of Vancouver and after the 3 hour flight to Las Angeles, we had a 6 hour wait until our 15 and a half hour flight to Melbourne! It was a long 24 hours with not much sleep, but as soon as we landed in Melbourne, we pepped up again.

Was great to see my family and Shelly after so long, who were there to meet me at the airport. With no worries anymore about things like Malaria, yellow fever, food poisoning from eating old raw meet, having your bags stolen, losing your passport, living out of a suitcase, waiting at airports, figuring out where we were going to stay that night, traveller's diahreoa from dodgy water or running into trouble with the locals, IT WAS GREAT TO BE HOME!!

Don't get me wrong, the trip was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I enjoyed every minute of it, however after 5 months I was ready to come home..

I'll never forget this trip, or the people we met along the way who shared it with us. I've seen so many of the worlds wonders such as the Eiffel tower, the Vatican city and Sistine chapel, the Collosseum, the greek islands, Christ the Redeemer, the Copocobana, and even active volcanoes. I've surfed some of the worlds best waves and snowboarded some of the best powder on the planet. I found a lot of places I'd love to go back to one day, such as Germany, Switzerland, South and Central America, and of course Canada. There were a lot of places along the way that I was glad to see and experience, and although I had some great times there, I wouldn't necessarily go back, such as Las Vegas, Cancun and a lot of the real touristy places through Europe.

I experienced so many different cultures on my trip as well, especially through South and Central America. Seeing the kind of lifestyles some people lead really opens your eyes to how lucky we are in Australia and how good we really have it here. That's what travelling's all about though I guess. Seeing the world and discovering what you do and don't like and how you want to spend your time on this earth. I learnt a lot about myself and wouldn't change the trip or my life for anything.

So in the last few lines of this blog, I'm signing out from the trip of a lifetime and heading back into the real world, however I'm taking my new perspecting on life with me and I'm going to make sure I make the most of every day and live life to the fullest. Before this blog started, I had a travel diary to write this stuff down in and in the front page was a quote which sort of ended up being the moto of my trip. It was "Make each day your masterpiece" and from now, on I think I will :)

Until my next quarter life crises or crazy surfing trip, its goodbye.. :)

Boarding Fever... Snow, Snow and more Snow!!!

We finally got some snow!!! After a few weeks of on and off snowing in Rossland where we were staying, we decided to head up North to some bigger mountains to hunt for some powder. We jumped in the car and drove 7 hours to a town called Banff, right near a couple of big mountains that were open for business.. We got to Banff and there was snow on the side of the road, which was very promising.. After checking into a hotel, we got up nice and early the next day to make sure we were on the mountain as early as possible.



The first day we went to a mountain called Sunshine Village, where they had about 6 runs open. It was still early in the seaon so some of the black and blue runs were a little patchy, but all up was a great day. After Dazzman giving me a couple of lessons on the first few runs, I was stacking with the best of them! :)
By the end of the day, we were taking black runs and all.. Was greaty to actually get to use all of the new gear we'd s ambishously bought on our first day in Canada! When we got back to the car, it was -12deg C and our power power steering had frozen up! There were so many alarms going off in the car but after we thawed it out (and ourselves) we were on our way back to the hotel.

So a little sore and tired, we headed out into Banff for dinner, and found out it was a wicked little town. It was full of pubs, restaraunts, and Aussies!! We had been recommended a great pub called Tommy's, by our friends Ben and Amy from Rossland, so we checked that place out first. Was a great little place that had great beer and chicken wings, as well as cheap meals. It quickly became our local, having dinner and beers there most nights.
On the second day of boarding, we thought we'd try a different mountain called Lake Louise. Was a little further away from Banff, but was a good excuse to see a bit more of Canada in the car.. We got there to find that only one run was open, but it happened to be about 5kms long! Man were my legs tired.. If I didn't stack at least 4 or 5 times on the way down, I'd have to stop to give the legs a rest! Dazza was almost breaking land speed records down it, while i was almost breaking myself every run! haha.. Was a great day on the mountain, and my boarding was improving out of site. I was linking turns and spraying snow on anyone I could actually pass.. As you can see from the pics here, this mountain was steep and sort of forced you to learn quickly! Great times :)

We retired to Tommy's for the evening, and heard there was an open mic night in another pub called Bruno's a little later that night. So after dinner, we headed there and I played a couple of songs on the old guitar. Was a great setup, with the owner having a wick PA setup and a heap of his own guitars that he'd brought in. He also had a bass guitar and a simple drum kit, in case anyone wanted to jam with whoever was playing. After singing some covers early in the night, I got on the drums for another guy who was playing, and thats pretty much where I stayed for the entire night! The owner of the bar Gary came out on the guitar and was bustin out crazy solos, another guy got up on base and we jammed for ages, with the crowd requesting song after song! Was a wicked night, and we finished up about 3am!

Still, we were up early the next day and headed back to Sunshine Village, where they'd opened a heap more runs. The whole frontside of the mountain was open and a lot of them were Black Diamond runs. As I was a pro now, with a total of 3 days boarding under my belt haha, we headed down a few of the steep runs and was a great day. The steep runs are easily the best, and it wasn't as busy, so some runs had a good 30cm of powder! As it was powder, we started grabbing airs off little kickers, and were even pulling some 180's and board grabs! Was the best day boarding that we've had and it def gave me a thirst for more!!
We headed back into town that night and went to Bruno's for a beer. There was a couple of crew playing a gig there who were doing great harmonies together, so we sat and watched them for a bit. During their break, Gary got up there again and busted out a few tunes, and then invited me up to play again! Was great times, with Gary on the harmonica and the place really started rockin when the other crew got up with us and started doing some harmonies to the songs we were singing.
All up, Banff was a wicked little town, with a great live music scene and even better snow! The powder snow there was amoung the best in the world and it was a shame we couldn't stay longer, but it was time to head back to Rossland to see if Red mountain had got any snow.
We headed back the next day and had to drive home through a blizzard!! The road was so iced up and was snowing like crazy, you couldn't even see the lines on the road! We made it out of the blizzard section and found ourselves in some of the best country we,ve ever seen. All the lakes were frozen over and the massive Rocky mountains in the background made for some great pics..

































We made it back to Rossland and caught up with some of our friends at the local Rock Cut Pub.
After telling them about our thirst for snow, one of the lads Benny offered to take us up Red mountain to board some back country trails, as the main mountain wasn't open yet. It meant hiking up the mountain for 2-3 hours and then boarding down for 2-3 minutes, but easily worth it :)
We're thinking about heading out there this weekend so hopefully we find some snow. Apparently there's a few bears and cougars out there so we're taking Benny's dog just in case! :)
We're back in Rossland until then, and then headed up to Big White mountain to board with Jaye from our Europe contiki tour. He's working up there and said we could crash with him. Big white is scheduled to open this weekend, so hopefully we'll get some great boarding done up there. We plan to stay there for about 5 days, and then it's time to head back to Vancover and fly back to OZ!!

The rest of Mexico, Vegas and Canada!!

Well its been a little while since my last blog and the trip has come along way!! In Canada right now but I'll gert to that soon enough..
After some great times in Playa del Carmen with the shop owners trying everything to get you in the door of their shops (to try and sell you the same thing the guy next to him had, and the guy next to him..) we decided to head south to see the rest of the east coast of Mexico.

First we headed to a place called Xel-Ha, which is a tropical inlet with crystal clear waters that has been taken over and turned into a tourist park. Everything was inncluded there for one entrance price so we spent the whole day snorkelling and eating and dringking and snorkelling and eating and drinking some more! Was a great day where we saw some great fish, although much to Nicko and Daz's disappointment, we had to leave the spear gun at home :)

From there we brought a bus ticket for a place called Chetumal (cos we thought it sounded the best out of all the places on the board.. Man we were winging it, with no idea where in Mexico was good!) It all worked out as we ended up staying in a B&B near Chetumal, right on the water of Azul Laguna (Blue Lagoon). Although the weather had gone a little rainy, it was still a wicked place to chill out with a jetty and the Lagoon right outside our doorstep. There weren't many fish in the Lagoon though, so wedecided to head north a bit to a town called --------- (Can't remember name right now).


This place was a tropical paradise that had been hit 3 years ago by Hurricane Dean, and the town was still rebuilding. It was pretty crazy to see the damage a hurricane can do, with the whole town still in a shambles, 3 years on. Houses were in tatters and trees were everywhere, with bulldozers working all day long to fix the devestation. We stayed aroung there for a few days but after Daz and Nicko found out that the bag of reef fish they speared that morning could land them in jail, we decided to head back to Cancun for the last few days of our stay in Mexico! I hear those Mexican jails aren't really the most friendly places to spend your holiday..














However, trouble with the law didn't stop when we got to Cancun.. After snorkelling along the beach past some of the big resorts, I decided to hop out and chill on one of the resorts beaches for a while. As I was soaking up the sun in the dreams resort, the other boys headed out to a rock Island with their spear gun. The lifeguards came up to me and said they couldn't snorkel there as it was too dangerous. I told him there were experienced swimmers and they would be fine. Anyways, next thing they decide to send a jetski out to the rock to get them but couldn't find them!! Then they started to panic and the entire resort was going crazy cos they thought we were guests and that 2 of them had drowned.. I knew they had a spear gun with them so figured they were hiding out there til the jetski's went so they wouldn't get in trouble but it got out of control pretty quick.. There were paramedics, lifeguards and hotel management all quizzing me on their names and ages and room numbers.. I was thingking to myself that they had swum back in at that point but the jetshis and boats were searching all along the coast for them!! Yikes, I had to negotiate with them to let me go and find them on the beach or at our hotel for 10 minutes before they let me go.. I jogged back along the beach and found them having a beer back at the hotel, looking at the boats and wondering whether they were searching for them or not! They'd swum back to shore and cut through one of the big resorts to get back to our hotel. Was pretty crazy but i had to go back and tell the search party that they were alive and not to worry anymore, the same thing I'd been trying to tell them for the whole time! Definetely got out of control fast but good times :)

Well it was time to leave Cancun so we went to the airport to fly to Las Vegas. We got caught out by the end of daylight savings so we were a little early and had some time to kill. You can buy anything over the counter in Mexico so Nicko and I decided it'd be funny if Dazza bought some Viagra! Haha.. He was in the chemist and the guy (and Nicko) talked him into buying the strongest ones.. I was outside videoing it and was so caught up in the moment laughing at Daz trying to tell the guy why he needed it, that I backed into a shelf of glasses and knocked a heap onto the floor! After the entire airport gave me a round of applause, we retreated to the gate, a little emabarrased but with a pack of Viagra! hahaha.. Good times :)

Man, Vegas was everything that people said it would be.. Over the top, party, party, party, and a lot of cash being thrown around. We stayed at a place called Circus Circus which was the cheapest place on the strip, but was still 1000 times better than most of the places we've stayed in on this trip!!
We met up with Dazza's brother Matty and an old flame of Dazza's from the early days in germany, Crystal.
The 5 of us stayed there for 4 nights and saw a heap of Vegas. There are Casinos there shaped like all the big attractions around the world, most of them where we have been on our trip! The Eiffel tower, The Pyramids, even one called the Venician, with ghondalas and all inside, just like Venice. There was also a Casino called New York, New York which was shaped like the skyline of New York, and another called treasure Island, complete with a Pirates show every night.
Another Casino called the stratosphere had a full theme park up on the roof, about 1000 feet above the ground!
With the hundreds of clubs, roof top bars and casinos, you def need a lot of cash to see most of Vegas, however in the 4 days we were there, we made the most of our time. We played a heap of Roulette, each winning a heap of cash over the first few days.. After our great fortune, Matt, Dazza and I devised a plan to bring our good luck together and play as a team, working a third of the table each. Needless to say the dealers are smarter than us and our plan failed miserably, as the odds still weren't in our favour!Never the less we all came out a little ahead, which I'm sure is rare in Vegas..
After watching a hundred docos on the discovery channel about it, Daz wanted to go see the Hover Dam, the highest Dam in the world, which has a hydro-electricity plant that provides Las Vegas with all it's electricity (Daz told me that). So we hired a car and drove out there (Crystal drove cos they drive on the wrong side of the road and she's from Michigan). Was very cool to see and was pretty crazy to think they built it so many years ago in 1935 (Daz told me that too :)).















Well, from here it was time to say goodbye to our old mate Nicko, who was headed home on girlfriend duty :) Crystal headed back to Michigan, and Dazza, Matty and I headed for the last leg of our trip, Canada.
We fly into Vancover and after hiring a car, headed straight for the Snowboard shops. After spending about 2 and a half hours there and a couple of grand between us, we walked away with some wick new gear, all ready to hit the famous ski slopes of Cananda! We jumped in the car and headed straight for Whistler (I was driving this time which was very interesting on the wrong side of the road!!). We just mad it to whistler and found that our new gear was useless, as there was no snow yet!!! Haha, anyhow, we stayed there for a night and checked the place out. Was a wick
litttle mountain and if the snow was falling, it'd be

a great place to spend some more time.
However, time wasn't a thing we had too much of, as Matty had to get back to Oz in a few weeks to do the silage at his farm, so we jumped in the car and headed for the small town of Rossland, 10 hours east of Whistler. Rossland is at the base of Red Mountain, a great little ski resort that is a lot less touristy than the bigger mountains in Canada but still has some gerat runs. One of Matty's mates has a condo in Rossland and let us stay there. Again, the condo is a welcome change from the backpacker lifestyle we've been living over the last 4 months, and it's good to have a bed, kitchen and loungeroom to chill out in and not have to move around every couple of days..
Again when we got there, there was no snow!! It was still pretty early for the season, with most mountains not opening for another few weeks, however we were hoping for an early season, praying actually :)

We checked out the area and went to the bottom of red mountain. As seen here in the pics tho, it was very bare and snow looked a long way off..





We relaxed for a few days, checked out the local pubs and even joined the gym there (Gotta get rid of our bellies before we get home!). We woke up on the third morning to find the entire town covered in snow!! We were stoked! We looked out our lounge room window and all you could see was white..








There wasn't enough to snowboard yet, but we went for a walk around the place with a fun board and tryed our luck down a few small hills. Not quite enough snow but we were expecting more. Still enough to hammer each other with snowballs though, so thats just what we did :)

Over the next few days, the snow melted, then came again, then melted.. We needed a couple of really cold nights and days in a row so it can freeze and make a good base. Then a bit of fresh powder and we'll be off up the mountain :)
Matty had to head home so we said bye to him and the hire car. We got another one from the closest big town, castlecar. This one had snow tyres, luckily cos it started snowing again the very next day :)
I keeps snowing on and off at the moment and we're waiting for a big dumping, so we can pull out the new boards and tear up the mountain. We're hitting the gym pretty hard in the meantime but we want snow!!!
There's a few other mountains around here that we might visit if they have more snow, and might even take a trip up to Big White in the next few days, as a mate of our from one of the Contiki tours is staying up ther for the season and said we could crash with him for a while. So plenty of options and we just need a bit more snow to get on the board. It's forcast for the next few days so fingers crossed.
Only got 3 and a half more weeks until we'll be back home in Melbourne. Man this trip has gone fast, but it's been the best thing I've ever done. We've seen so much and done so many crazy things, but it'll be great to be back home and see everyone again :)
Bye for now..

Panama and Mexico

We spent a few days in beautiful town of Puerto Viejo on the Carribean side of Costa Rica, but got a little tired of the stoners trying to weed and coke on every corner, and Bob Marley playing on every radio in town 24/7. So we decided to cross the border into Panama, as we´d heard there was some great snorkelling off some islands called Bocas Del Toro.

We crossed the border, jumped in a little boat and headed up the river. We passed heaps of wooden shcks on the river banks where local families lived, they were extremely isolated and was crazy to see. We came out of te river mouth into the ocean, crossed a massive bay that was full of Dolfins and flying Stingrays and realised that we had quite poissibly stumbled onto one of the best places we´ve visited on our trip! Every day we caught boats out to different islands and snorkelled. Nicko brought a new spear gun and got some great fish. We spent every day out in the water for about 6-7 hours and never got cold once, as the water was about 30 degrees!

We were just about to organise another fishing trip and realised that we had been having such a great time there that the days had flown by, and we needed to get back to San Jose in Costa Rica to get our flight to Mexico!!

We just made it back in time for the flight and headed to Cancun, Mexico.

Man, that place was crazy! It wasn´t even peak season and the strip of nigthclubs and bars that were about 100m from our hotel was pumping all night, every night. We stayed there for 2 nights and partied pretty hard, with just about every club having Bikini contests on, every night of the week! This place would go off over spring break time, thats for sure..

So all partied out, we headed down south to a less touristy town called Playa Del Carmen, which is where I am now. This place is very chilled and has heaps of bars and restaurants right on the beach. Tomorrow we are going to check out the local reefs and hopefully spear some dinner, and the day after we are headed to a place called Xel La and Talum, where there are some old Maya ruins and some excellent snorkelling spots. Should be great, I love Mexico :)

More of Costa Rica..

What a place Costa Rica is.. It has everything from the perfect surf in my last post, to great nightlife, tropical rain forests with heaps of wildlife and even active volcanoes.
After the massive surfing session at Ollie's Point and Witches Rock, it was hard to surf the smaller breaks in and around Tamarindo, but we still got some great waves over the next few days. Daz reckons he saw a crocodile near the river mouth one day so we got out quickly, but apart from that, we had some good little sessions. We partied pretty hard as well, with the nightlife in town being pretty crazy. We met a heap of people at our hostel from Israel, Canada, Sweden and the US and they all wanted to party, so every time we went out, we had a massive crew. One of the nights we headed to a bar where they had a band and it turns out it was jam night! Anyone could get up there and take over the band, so we played a few songs.. Was a great night and yet another country we could add to the list of gigs for Afterglo.. Great times :)
One night out on the town that wasn't quite as good as that was our last night in Tamarindo. An argument over a game of pool escalated into a guy smashing a beer bottle on my head from behind and then his mate hit me in the face with a pool que.. Ouch!! Turns out the locals dont muck around when it comes to bar fights and I was lucky to get out of it with only 3 stitches and a black eye! A couple of the other boys copped a few hits as well but only fists, and all in all we were quite lucky.
Anyways, we loved our time in Tamarindo but it was time to see some more of Costa Rica. So a little sore, we sold our surfboards to a local surf shop (I got a sweet $20 for the banged up and well used 'Firestick' and also got $20 more for my fins from one of the yanks) and headed for the active Arenal volcano in the centre of the country.
The town near the Arenal volcano is called La Fortuna and had the best backpackers hostel ever! It was a great place with a pool and you could see the volcano looming over the entire town. We took a trip to the base of the volcano, and on the hike, we saw a heap of wildlife including toucans, spiders, monkeys, wild turkeys and snakes. Our tour guide had been there in 1968 when the volcano first erupted and showed us photos of before and after the eruption. He knew his stuff about the volcano and the wildlife and was a great tour. We

arrived at the base of the volcano just as it was getting dark and could see red hot lava flowing out.. It was a little cloudy but was still great to see. When the cloud cleared, you gould see the orange glow coming from the top of the creater. Was very cool.
After the volcano tour, we headed to the Baldi hot springs for dinner and a swim. These natural springs are heated by the volcano and have been turned into a wicked water park, with wet bars in the middle of the springs and even a water slide! They were about 60 degs and it was a wicked place. Even when it started raining, it was still toasty in the pools.
The next day we headed to a town on the Carribean side of Costa Rica called Puerto Veijo. It is a tiny town near the border of Panama, and is a lot different to the rest of Costa Rica. The people who live here are mainly from Jamaca and Cuba, etc so the town has a real rustifarian feel. There is no surf here as its the wrong time of year but the snorkelling s great, with a couple of coral reefs just off the coast.
Unfortunately, due to the 1 stich in my forehead (courtesy of the pool que) I can't put a snorkel mask on so i haven't seen it yet!! But the other lads are out there checking it out and say its pretty crazy. I should be able to check it out in a few more days when the forehead is healed.
We have about 5 more days until we fly out of Costa Rica to Cancun, Mexico so we plan to travel along the Carribean coast for a bit. There's a lot of cool little towns here and we might even travel into Panama for a night or 2.
Can't upload photos in this internet cafe but will try to add some to this blog in the next town. Got some great pics to add :) Cheers..

Costa Rica

Well we arrived in Costa Rica safe and sound, with the only casualty of the flight being my f#@king surfboard!! Grr, after paying $120US to get it on the plane, I picked it up and the nose had been crushed by something and was just hanging on by the stickers!! That makes a total of about 7 broken boards on this trip so far between 3 of us.. Its def getting a little annoying and expensive!!
Anyways, we took the broken board and headed for our hostel in San Hose. After spending the entire night on planes and the entire night before that on a bus, we were completely sleep deprived and needed some shut eye. We crashed out pretty early and didn´t see a lot of San Hose, and the next morning headed for the town of Tamarindo, up on the south west coast. Tamarindo is a very popular tourist place in the dry season, and is known for its great surf in the wet season. Luckily for us, it is wet season right now so the surf is up! Tamarindo is also extremely close to 2 of Costa Rica´s best surf breaks, Witches Rock and Ollie´s Point. These 2 breaks were featured in the movie Endless Summer II, and were the main reason we came to Costa Rica.
As I said, it was the wet season and when we got to Tamarindo, it was pouring. The entire street flooded and we were paddling down the street on our surfboards!
Although it was pouring, the surf was cranking :) We spent the first 3 days surfing at the main beach of Tamarindo, along with another beach down the coast called Avellanas. Avellanas was about an hour away, and the roads were terrible. With dirt roads the entire way, we were almost washed away a couple of times, coming back in the rain. We got some great waves though, (Including a wicked lefthand barrel!) although both the breaks were on river mouths, where crocodiles are known to frequent! A little scary but we haven´t seen any yet (touch wood)..









There are a lot of nice retaurants and bars in Tamarindo, and although Costa Rica is not as cheap as Peru, prices are still pretty reasonable. So we spent the nights chilling out in the restaurants and bars and the days surfing and watching the surf report, waiting until Witches Rock and Ollie´s Point were going to be cranking.. And yesterday was the day!!
I had been hanging to surf these 2 breaks since seeing Endless Summer II, over 10 years ago, so I was pumped to see that there was 7ft of swell and no wind, meaning the waves would be 2-3ft overhead and clean..
We took a 1 hour ride in a mini van to Playa Hermosa and then jumped on a boat for the 1 hour journey to Witches rock. There were about 10 of us on the boat, but i don´t think anyone was as stoked to be out there as I was! We were up that morning at 4am and after loading up all our gear, we were in the water paddling onto our first waves by about 7am. We jumped off the boat next to the massive Wiches Rock and paddled into the line up from behind. The wind was coming from the wrong direction, however the swell made sure we still got some huge waves.




Some rouge sets were coming in that were double over head, but most of them were a little too fat to paddle onto. We got some great rides on some waves about 2 ft overhead, although, because the wind direction wasn´t the best, they weren´t as clean as I had imagined for all these years. The beach was unbelievable though, as it is all national park around there, with not a house, hotel or person in sight! After about an hour, we paddled back out to sea to the boat, and headed to Ollie´s Point, where the tide and wind direction were just right..


It took about another hour to get to Ollies, and on the way we saw sea turtles, dolfins and heaps of fish. We stopped for a 10 minute session at a crazy reef break called Labrynth, however only 3 of the locals jumped in, as there were exposed rocks everywhere amoungst the heavy, heavy wave, and we spotted a couple of sharks in the line up when we got there!!
The locals still jumped in regardless, but didn´t get many waves, as it was too heavy and the tide was too low. Turns out the sharks were actually some big type of ´shark looking´ fish that they get around here, but we only found that out after everyone was back on the boat when they swam past again!!
We arived at Ollies Point and it was perfect.. Big sets that broke perfectly along the point, creating a huge face to carve up. The waves were about 2-3ft overhead as you can see in the pics here, so we were a little nervous paddling onto them at the start. Then we grew some balls and paddled onto a few, and the ride was amazing. As the wave was so perfect, you could paddle on as late as you wanted and not get eaten. (Well apart from a few of the huge sets, which gobbled me a few times, hard!!).
I got some of the biggest and best waves of my life here and we spent about 5 hours in the water, only paddling back to the boat once for some food and water. Nicko was tearing it up on the perfect right handers, and Daz got the ride of his life, dropping in on a head high lefthander and carving it up.
There was a guy there with a massive telescopic lense who took some professional photos from the beach, and Daz got some great shots from his camera in the water. A guy was videoing from the beach as well so we got some great shots and footage of the day.
Was a wicked day and was easily the best right hand wave I´ve ever surfed.














The surfing part of our trip is almost over now, as we only have 2 more weeks in Costa Rica, and we plan to check out some volcanoes and forests over the next few days. Even thinking about heading up to the country of Nicaragra for a few days tomorrow and checking out some of the wildlife up there. We´ve had some great surf on this trip though, with the best Lefthand break of our lives being a tie between Chicama and Lobitos in Peru, and the best righthand break of our lives been Ollies Point.
Thats all for now folks, will update you all with our next adventure soon. :)