Since Australia day Carolyn, Will and I have been living in Baden St. Coogee Beach, Sydney. We found a great parking spot which overlooks Coogee beach – surprisingly we’ve stayed there a good few nights without being moved on, a great free camping spot for Vanos! Will and I have been catching up with work (free internet in Coogee Beach Palace Hotel) whilst Carolyn has been looking for work. When not working Will and I have been surfing the beaches in the area; Bronte (where a great white was pulled out of the beach nets at xmas), Bondi and Maroubra.
In Bali back in 2008, Will and I watched a surf documentry called Bra Boys. An interesting doc about a violent Sydney surf gang (The Bra Boys) which we thought was pretty cool. We never imagined a year later we would visit Maroubra, the hometown of the Bra Boys.
The Bra Boys trailor;
On the drive to Maroubra we were both pretty anxious after hearing some of the horror stories. On arrival the place looked like a sh*t hole, like parts of Hull, England. But we weren’t there to look around the town, we were there for one reason, the surf!
Maroubra (Aboriginal for ‘Place of Thunder’) is well know for it’s big surf. It lived up to the reputation, the surf was huge. It was a rough day so tricky for novice surfers like Will and myself but we had no hesitation. After no more than 5 minutes of trying to paddle out and getting pounded by waves we heard a stern announcement on the tannoy from the lifeguards. ”Can the two guys next to the swim area please come back to shore immediately.” Defeated and embarrassed we paddled back to shore to be greeted by a nice female lifeguard. She told us the surf was really rough and that we should head to the South end where it would be easier for us – nice lady! We saw some suspected Bra Boys surfing near us ripping it up – we tried to keep our distance and Will avoided cutting anyone up, which is very unlike him.
We didn’t stay long, the swell proved too difficult that day and we didn’t want any run-ins with the Bra Boys.
A running theme in Australia has been Will and I doing some stupid sh*t. It’s important to be stupid sometimes and take risks, otherwise life would be just boring. Recently a friend sent me this video, no idea why.
