Surf and a suprise

Well – I’m an excited boy!!!! (photos for you Julie)

This should really be 2 posts but I’m very happy today for a couple of reasons – I went for a surf AND I got a new bike

Bike was Thursday and the surf was yesterday.

It all started 2 weeks ago when I went for a ride on a Sunday morning and I got a puncture – got it repaired and got home no problem. Went to the bike shop that afternoon to get a replacement tube for my cycle kit and started talking to the owner of the shop (who sold me us the original bike-that my wife surprised me with the first time) about carbon wheel sets and he said, “why don’t you look at full carbon?” I said, “too expensive” to which he replied – “have a look at this”


What he had was 4 bikes that were full carbon but last year’s models that he was selling cheap – I was like, “awesome” and thought really hard about it but reality kicked in and I said that I couldn’t afford it and went on my way. When I got back in the car, Sonia asked me what took me so long and I told her about the carbon bike and she must have seen how excited I was. I put it out of my mind after we discussed the pros and cons on this bike and I forgot about it – that was until Thursday when Kevin (bike shop owner) walked into my office with this bike and said to me – “you’ve got an amazing wife there, she’s bought you this bike”. She did the same thing to me just a year ago and I can’t believe that she did it again – she got me good and I am such a lucky man to have someone that treats me like this. I must be doing something right.

Here is a picture of my brand new speed machine – it’s awesome. It’s an Avanti Quantum 1.0, full carbon road bike – NICE!!!!!






Yesterday dawned nice and all the planets aligned to create the perfect conditions (except the tide was a bit high) for a great swell. I headed to the beach at about 7.00am and there was a few guys out so I sat and watched them for a while. There were a couple of peaks working as the tide was a bit full so wanted to see if one was getting more action than the other and sure enough, the left one was working a bit better – still had lefts and rights off it and it had less people as well – crazy huh!!!!


When the tide is too full at the pier, there can be a hell shore-break and sure enough, this was the case this morning so it was a bit of a paddle to get out the back and as I’m still getting over the “man-flu” I was starting to feel quite fatigued by the time I got out the back, I just had to sit and catch my breath.

It was a good solid 4 foot swell, I was on my 9 foot 6 long board and paddling over a couple of waves that were about to break on my head had to measure 10 foot faces as I was almost vertical going over. Nearly got pulled back over the falls a couple of times but talk about exhilarating for the first surf of the season – I WAS PUMPED!!!!

I’m the type of guy who is quite happy just chilling out the back with no stress, what better place to be than sitting in the ocean with the sun on your face so I let a few waves go by so the guys who were sitting inside of me could catch them and then I saw a screamer set wave coming, it had my name written all over it so I spun the board around, paddled towards the peak and dug in five or six strokes, started to free fall down the face as I got to my feet, headed right along the face weaving on some clear face, huge roundhouse cutback and stalled and just about got a coverup. Rode the wave about 30 metres more and kicked out – AWESOME first ride.


I took my time paddling back out to the peak with a grin so big on my face that everyone in the water could see – to say I was peaking right at that moment would be an understatement. I was one with the ocean, I was in my element and I was at home.


I had a big day planned so I stayed out for about an hour and headed in with my fill – thank you mother nature.

I took a few pictures before I went for a surf and a couple after – this was really cool to watch. I love nature and we can learn so much from it. I sat and watched this scene as if it was on a nature doco on TV – here was mother swan taking her kids to the water to teach them about water safety. I probably watched them for 20 minutes, it was fantastic and you had to see it. I managed to get a few pictures so you can imagine how cool this was.

Later that day I went out and had a swim in a fresh water lake at Pegasus Town – this is where a triathlon will be held next month so we’ll get a few training swims there in the next few weeks – pictures of this to come.


Have a great week everyone.