Northern NSW Surf Trip 2009: Geotagging edition
Had a great time on the surf trip with the lads over the weekend, it was a right laugh. It was a great opportunity to go and surf some of the beaches in Northern NSW, which are renown for having excellent waves and low crowds.
The plan was basic. We were all going to meet on Thursday night at Sawtell, Coffs Harbour, NSW. Ryan has a mate down there with plenty of room for a bunch of wayward travellers to crash for a few nights. From Sawtell we planned on following the swell back up the coast, heading back home on Monday. Check out the travel map on the right for the general travel flow.
Tom and I (the two token mal-riders) left the Gold Coast on Thursday afternoon to meet up with the lads Thursday night. We first stopped at Hastings Point to check the surf, but it was a little too wind-affected for a decent surf. We high-tailed it to Sawtell.
We spent the Friday and Saturday morning in Sawtell. We saw a drastic increase in swell over these two days. Friday morning had clean, 2′-3′ waves. The ride was decently long, giving us plenty of time to muck about on the mals. Saturday morning was another story. The waves were easily 5′-6′. They were quick, straight and pitchy – arguably not the best waves to be out in on a mal.
For Saturday afternoon, we headed down to Valla Beach and Scotts Head to check the surf down there and to say hello to Father John. Unfortunately neither spot was picking up the swell effectively – it was small ‘n’ bumpy and fat ‘n’ slow respectively.
We decided that we should camp out at Iluka, just north of Yamba so we hightailed it up to there (after checking out The Big Banana – as an aside, I’m terribly allergic to bananas so this maybe wasn’t the best idea 
). We also checked out Woolgoolwa just north of Coffs Harbour, which is an awesome little spot. In Iluka, the surf check the next morning was Sawtell all over again, but on steroids! The surf was absolutely enormous! 6′-7′ barrels that were pitching like Tiger Woods and heavier then sin.
After watching the massive surf in Yamba and Iluka for a few days, we headed up the coast to Byron Bay so that we could find up catchable waves on the way home. Tom was jealous of my run in with the oversized fiberglass banana, so we got him a nice and friendly shot with The Big Prawn in Ballina on the way (to which he has an allergy – we mightn’t have thought this through).
Byron had tiny surf but after a couple of days of too many drinks and not enough surfing, we decided to jump in anyway. It was okay on the mals, but only just!
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Chris is a shining example of how, in a world where abortion is not as easily obtained as a leg of fried chicken, an ounce of prevention can be worth more than its weight in gold. He is currently completing a PhD in Bioinformatics which he hopes may one day help him get out of a speeding ticket.