Return to Brussels, again

Rhys for EC president

Brussels, Belgium – For a city Idon’t have much time for, I seem to be here an awful lot.

This time it was against my own free will, sort of. I took the Eurostar over on Friday for work and decided to stay for the weekend with a friend who lives here.

Sightseeing was no longer needed. Instead it was bottles of Vedette beer in blonde wood-lined bars, cheering on he Wallabies in an Irish bar in Antwerp and strolling through St Gerie in search of a good coffee.

And a visit to the European Council for internet access and a quick photoshoot, as featured above.

That was France

Surf patrol, Capbreton

London, UK – I’m back home in London now. The memory of a fortnight spent surfing in boardshorts, the cheap but excellent red wine and and the slower pace of life is already starting to fade.

In the end the surf didn’t turn on as much as I was expecting. It was fun, sure,  but apart from the one afternoon I never saw the perfect waves the place is famous for.

I was also quite surprised at the large crowds in the surf. The French beachies didn’t stretch for miles into the distance, instead the good waves tended to be concentrated in a handful of areas and that’s where people flocked to.

Mind you, I don’t know where they all went afterwards because the few beachside bars that were open were mostly empty, as were the main streets of Hossegor and Capbreton outside of the weekends.

But what I did dig about France was getting back into the groove of surfing, being outside all day and living in a pair of boardshorts. It was a bit like being back in Australia, but with better food and more fashionably dresssed people.

A daily routine might go something like this:

Morning: Wake up just after dawn, around 8am this time of the year. Break yesterdays promise to have a light breakfast and instead fill up on criossants, yoghurt, toast and espresso coffee.

Load up a baguette, a big bottle of water, surfboard and towel and walk or ride down to the beach to check the surf. Before 9am the surf would be almost empty. An hour later it would be filled with French locals, loud Australians, roving bands of Spaniards and anyone else keen to get some warm water waves before the looming European winter closed in.

Midday: Drop the surfboard in the spare room,  have a shower and tuck into a filled baguette. My favourite was a slightly twisted, rustic loaf that cut my gums to pieces most days with its thick crust but was entirely worth it for the flavour.

Afternoon: Check the swell charts on the internet. Maybe a sleep. Review the morning’s shots on the back of the digital SLR. Whatever, it didn’t matter. The shops were closed and the wind was usually up. Nothing to do until…

Evening: Mosy on down to the beach for an evening surf. Not dark till 8pm and still warm enough to surf in boardshorts. Maybe get out just on sunset and shoot a few frames of the waves and the sky. Repair to the house for a meal of carbs and a decent bottle of red before crashing out.

Line-ups photo album

Hossegor, France – This is for my friend Ben, who expressly asked me for photos of the waves.

He didn’t particularly care about pro surfers with their stickered surfboards, he just wanted images of the line ups, of the French beach breaks in all their different shapes and sizes and flavours. Here you go mate.

Pro land

Ace Buchan

Hossegor, France – There was an all-star cast of Aussie pro surfers out at the local sandbank this afternoon. Despite the frequent rain storms and bad light I went down there with the long lens and tried to capture some of the action.

Taj Burrow

Josh Kerr

Taj again

The cafes may be shut but there’s still crowds in the surf

Little Superbank

French super shorebreak

Seignosse, France – This evening I took a drive north past the beaches of Hossegor into the pine forests and found an almost exact replica of the Superbank.

I stumbled on a weird stretch of beach that had a bend in it, almost like a bay. On the high tide the small swells came in at an angle and broke down the shoreline as perfect little righthanders. The water was so clear and shallow I could see individual pebbles below me as I surfed past.

The wave basically broke along the shore, so there wasn’t much room for error. One wrong move and you’d get washed up on the beach. But get it right, and you could surf for a hundred metres or so, racing a glassy little wall down the bank.

It reminded me a little of the early days of what is now the Superbank in Queensland, but was then I suppose Snapper and Greenmount. Back when you could surf it in small swells with just a handful of people in the water.

Into Spain

Plaza de la Constitución

San Sebastian, Spain – I’ve been here before, for a combined city break/surf trip that became more about the pintxos and drinking after the surf ran dry.

This time around I thought I knew it all and walked into a bar on the main square to ask for the local sangria, a blend of coca cola and red wine served over ice. But I got it wrong and was served two glasses of luke warm white wine.

Determined to get the red as well, I walked out of the bar with three glasses for two people and ended up drinking most of them. The end result was that the afternoon I spent walking through the narrow streets of the Old Town was a fuzzy but very pleasant affair.

Les Bourdaines

High tide bank at Les Bourdaines, just north of Hossegor

Hossegor, France – The move to Hossegor has coincided with a new swell. For the first time this holiday I saw what this area is famous for: perfect beach break tubes.

On the afternoon high tide the swells came in from deep water and pitched and roared over the shallow sandbanks.

I was out there in a flash, surfing just in boardshorts and a wetsuit vest in the warm evening. But it was exhausting stuff. Every take off was a real heart in mouth event, never sure if I would make the drop or get tossed onto the sandbar.

Get it right and you could be inside the tube looking out at surfers paddling up the face and even people on the beach. Get it wrong, as I did a few times, and the wave would take you with it down onto the sand bottom.

The hardest thing to get used to was just how close the waves broke to the shore. There was barely enough time to take off, pull in and maybe jam a turn before the wave ran dry onto the beach.

The French way of dealing with the end of the wave seemed to be simply step off the board at full speed and run up the shore. A bit like stepping out of a moving car and trying to stay on your feet, if you ask me.

New digs

Hossegor, France – Backpack Storybook has moved north to Hossegor for the second week of this French adventure.

We’re staying in a tiny holiday unit at the same beach the Quiksilver Pro surf contest was held at last week. Except now the tour has left for Spain and the few cafes and shops have shut down for the winter (although day time temperatures are a very summer-like 28C).

It’s just us, the regular crew of French surfers and a few bizarre Germans that have been living in a van for too long.

Biarritz photo album

Plage du Port-Vieux

Camera tag

Le Grand Plage

S-turns

Museum of the Sea

Down to Biarritz

Grand Plage

Biarritz, France – In a region of pine forests and sleepy beach villages, Biarritz belongs more to the flashy Mediterranean than the down-to-earth Landes coastline.

Then again, if it keeps the moneyed set in the one place and leaves Capbreton and Hossegor to the surfers and fishermen then that’s okay by me.

We were down in Biarritz for the day to pick up our hire car. A midnight black Renault with a curious keycard entry and electric bloody everything. Unfortunately, no matter how technologically advanced the car is, if the driver forgets to use the clutch when trying to select reverse, or tries to move off in third, then you’re not going anywhere.

But back to Biarritz. Bright and bold like a Euro beach destination should be. The town beach, Grand Plage, framed by the enormous Hotel du Palais (apparently the one time summer residence of Napolean) on one side and a limestone headland with hidden beaches on the other. In the middle a wide promenade stretching the length for people to, well, promenade along.

It’s the sort of town where one grits their teeth and submits to paying an exorbitant amount for lunch, particularly if the cafe has ocean views and the menu is in English. But then we got lost, and lucky, in the back streets and found a chilled bar doing a mean seafood salad for a handful of euros.