Surfin’ UK

Porthmeor, St Ives’ surprisingly fun back beach

St Ives, UK – Even though the weather didn’t fully cooperate for the week I was in Cornwall, it was good enough to get some waves at a couple of different beaches.

I had the most fun surfing at Porthmeor, the main town beach in St Ives. Parking was a real bugger due to the town being so busy during summer holidays, but once that was sorted it was actually a really nice atmosphere.

On the beach families staked their turf with wind breaks and trenches. Bat and ball sets came out. Seagulls dive bombed children.

Out in the line up I traded small, junky waves with the handful of local surfers. As the winds were onshore for the whole time I was there I didn’t get to surf much more than messy windswell, but it was better than a poke in the eye.

Gwenver line up

The following day we did a circuit down around Land’s End and then over to Penzance. We checked Sennen and Gwenver, which is about as far south west as you can go in Britain, and the latter had a few waves. But the strong wind and cold weather (maybe 17C?) made me think the better of it.

Porthtowan on an overcast Sunday

Right at the end of the trip I got the biggest waves at a little town called Porthtowan, about 30 minutes north of St Ives. Like many beaches around the area, it had a big, broad expanse of beach that seemed to be subject to large tides. The bottom contour seemed quite flat too, so the waves never seemed to have much power behind them.

Then again, it was summer so I was just happy to get any sort of swell at all.

By the seaside

St Ives harbour

St Ives, UK – Whenever English colleagues found out I was a surfer in my former life, their next question was usually to ask if I’d been to Cornwall to surf.

Until recently my answer was no. Instead I’ve surfed Moroc, Portugal and Spain. It hasn’t done much for my carbon footprint, but its certainly helped my wave count.

But with the Great British Staycation all the rage in these recessionary times, I took a week off and shot down the A30 leaving London – and a possible bout of swine flu – behind me.

The destination was St Ives in Cornwall, almost as far south-west as you can get. Surprisingly for a small island nation, it really is a long way from the big smoke. It took us five or so hours driving in torrential rain to get there, but thankfully once we pitched up at our hillside campsite the rain disappeared and the sun came out.

A little about the area. It’s beautiful, in that quaint English seaside way. Neat and tidy houses with low roofs and cheery flower gardens line the narrow roads. Seagulls caw in the breeze (more about them later). Even the fishing boats are quaint, bobbing about in the picturesque stone harbour.

There was only two things marring this idyllic scene (okay three, but rain in summer is just a given):  those aggressive seagulls, and northerners.

The seagulls were hated for obvious reasons. They’re big birds, much bigger than your standard Australian gull. And they’re very bloody good at what they do, which is swoop out of the sky and snatch whatever food is not carefully guarded.

At Porthmeor Beach they would hover above the crowd and then swoop down when a stray sandwich came into view, much like a cormorant dive bombing into the ocean to grab a fish. My friend lost half a croissant as she was lifting it to her mouth. Others on the beach lost ice creams, bags of crisps and whole sandwiches.

And its not like they were sitting out in the open, this stuff was snatched from hands. People were lucky not to lose a finger. When we left the beach, one chubby man who had lost a sandwich was looking at the sky and holding a cricket bat, waiting to get his revenge.

Northern invasion
The other scourge was a little more subtle. To my Australian eyes and ears I could barely pick them up, But my friend assured me they were in town. Northerners were making their presence felt  apparently, what with their strange accent, football t-shirt and beer belly (I was oblivious, that description sounded like most English people to me).

We couldn’t talk about it openly though. It had to be through raised eyebrows or words said under our breaths. And no one could tell me exactly why we didn’t like them. It seemed to be a vague sense that they were a bit uncouth, a little too loud.

Late on Saturday night in town, while we were piling into the bus to take us back to the campsite, a group of people outside the vehicle struck up a conversation with the driver. It turned out he wasn’t driving where they wanted to go. They called the driver a bastard, jokingly at first, and then a little more drunkenly aggressive.

My friend elbowed me in the ribs. “Northerner,” she murmured.

Then one dropped the C word, directed at the driver but in earshot of a whole bus full of families. There were gasps of shock.  The driver slammed the bus doors in their faces and drove off.

The lady in front of us tut tutted, turned to her husband and said “see? Northerners”.

New Year, new adventures

London, UK – Happy 2009 everyone.  I thought I’d write a quick update to let you know that this blog is still going strong and outline what I’m up to the for the first part of the year.

After spending all of the last two northern hemisphere winters in London, this year I was determined to get away from the UK and into the sun for a little while.

Africa-bound
In a couple of days I’m going to wrap up my Government media job, dust off my backpack and jet off to Africa. I’m planning to spend most of February surfing, getting interested in photography again and spending a some time reading and thinking.

I’m really looking forward to spending  time in the one place. My favourite travelling experience is still Vietnam, where I spent two months in late 2006. Three weeks away is the next longest trip I will have done in a while and it will be good to get into the daily rhythm of whatever town I stay in.

It should also be long enough to get a couple of Atlantic swells. I just hope its not too big – my biggest surfboard is only a 6′2″ (six foot two inches, for small to medium waves). My beloved 6′7″ is still in a garage back in Queensland.

New toys
While I’m away I’m going to try and post regular updates to my Twitter account, which you can also follow on the sidebar of this blog.

I think the 140 character micro-blog posts will be a useful way of communicating while on the road. It means I don’t necessarily have to set aside the time to write a proper blog post – I can just update via a mobile phone.

I won’t have a laptop with me so updates to this blog will be whenever I can find an internet cafe. Photos are likely to be uploaded afterwards as I’ll be shooting in RAW mode and there doesn’t seem to be an easy solution to converting them for the web while travelling.

Up north

Terrace houses in a Liverpool back street

Liverpool, UK – Work took me to Liverpool last weekend. Given most Londoners’ opinions of anywhere north of Camden, I didn’t expect too much from it.

But it was a really cool place. As a city it was small enough to walk around in an afternoon. But it was also deathly quiet.

Rounding one corner I was suddenly confronted by an enormous crowd. What was going on? I looked in the direction everyone else was staring and pointing. Halfway up a building an enormous mechanical spider, 50 or 60 metres in diameter, hung from the exterior.

It turned out La Machine was in town. Later that night I would see it ‘walk’ down the main street, simultaneously scaring and enchanting the thousands of people who had gathered to watch it. And then in a hail of water cannnons, explosions and fireworks it disappeared down the Mersey Tunnel.

La Machine

Party town
I tried to keep up as everyone dispersed, the old going home and the young hitting Liverpool’s awesome bars and clubs. Here’s how I described it to my friend in an email afterwards:

“Just got back from three days up north in Liverpool for work. Now there’s a party town. Everyone’s friendly, the girls get unbelievably done up to go out (think skirts or dresses, hardly any jeans) and its cheaper than London. Only thing is I couldn’t understand a word they were saying.

“An example On the train up, about half an hour our of Liverpool, two blokes got on. Trackies, shaved heads, cans of Stella. From the strange way they were talking I honestly thought they were Polish. Until one of them caught my eye and said “Ow you going lad? Alrigh?” I nodded politely but barely caught the rest of what he said. Such a thick accent! Mind you, no one up there understood me either. Ordering lunch one day was a serious exercise in miscommunication between Scouser and Aussie. Hilarious.”

Six months

London, United Kindom – What a difference six months makes. Today marks half a year since Jacq and I lobbed into London in late January looking every bit like the backpackers we had become.

We were wearing a uniform of nylon, goretex and cotton, hefting backpacks and toting plastic water bottles.

We jostled with the white faced, red-nosed commuters on the Piccadilly line tube into central London and somehow barged our way out of Fulham Broadway station with our packs back and front providing padding against the crush of people.

For the first few days our only response to the fierce January cold was to wear every item of clothing we owned, including socks on our hands as a substitute for gloves.

Looking back its amazing how we seemed to survive in such a big, busy city. I secretly feared I’d be eaten alive. 8 million people! I thought Brisbane was daunting at peak hour with 2 million. But I suppose after the chaos of Bangkok or Saigon London looks positively civilised.

My favourite experiences of the past six months have been the sense of achievment I feel whenever I see a major landmark. Walking past Tower Bridge on my lunchbreak. Passing St Paul’s on my way to an interview. Popping into the National Gallery at Trafalgar after work. Just when I get lost in the grind of the working week I pass Big Ben or similar and realise, “hey, I’m in London”.

The not so favourite parts seem to be becoming more numerous. A lot of friends talk of enjoying London once you break the painful three month mark, but I dunno. The crap weather, the constant slog on public transport and the total absence of surfing are issues that, rather than diminishing over time, seem to be on my mind more and more.

Still, I may only get one bite of this London cherry so I feel I should experience, photograph and try to enjoy as much as I can while I’m here. In the scheme of things, another six months is not such a long time. It’s only 240 individual train trips to work. Or 168 litres of after work beers. Or, at my current rate, another 5760 minutes of touch football.

Conference madness

Royal Baths, Harogate

Harrogate, United Kingdom – Harrogate is an old spa town, a bit like Bath, and in attracting wealthy English types in the nineteenth and twentieth century it became characterised by some pretty impressive architecture.

Actually, if pressed, I would say Harrogate is even nicer than Bath. It has a Stepford Wives feel in that the town seems too nice. Manicured gardens, light traffic, pleasant people and beautiful homes.

It doesn’t appear to attract as many tourists as Bath and so somehow feels a little more real.

What is does attract, however, is suits. When the spas lost their pulling power after World War Two Harrogates leaders decided to aim for the then bourgening conference industry.

I was in town for a big conference and sometimes it seemed Harrogate was populated only by people in business attire with delegate badges hanging from lanyards around their necks.

After the conference ended each day the quaint, historic hotels around the site would be chock a block with suits networking at cocktail parties.

The streets would be briefly quiet while this was happening and then around 7pm the suits would flood back outside again and migrate to the next event, generally some sort of business dinner.

Again the streets would be safe. But only until ten pm when the restaurants closed and the diners, flush with all expenses paid booze and food, would stagger over to the Majestic Hotel, famed for its late opening hours and turning the other cheek at suits wearing ties around their heads and dancing badly.

In between work duties I managed to walk around with my camera and snap a few photos, stroll through the enchanting Stray gardens in the middle the town and pick up a tin of darjeeling tea for the girlriend at the famous Bettys tearooms.

Up north

Brewery Wharf, Leeds

Leeds, United Kingdom – This week I was lucky enough to spend a couple days in the north of England around Leeds and the small town of Harrogate for work.

It’s always nice to get out of London. After living in the big smoke most other places seem a little calmer, friendly and less expensive.

It was hard to form a strong impression of Leeds though as I was only using it as a base while working up the road at Harrogate. Nevertheless, it seemed to have a pleasant yet slightly edgy vibe you sometimes get in university towns.

One evening I trekked through the city looking for somewhere to eat dinner. After trawling the pedestrian malls and finding nothing but Subways, MacDonalds and Greggs bakeries chain stores, I stumbled on the regenerated Brewery Wharf area.

It was almost as though it was a secret. I had to walk out of the city centre, behind the markets and take a right through a slightly dodgy lane way past a homeless guy.

Here I found a decent bar and tucked into a plate of lamb chops washed down with a pint of Carlsberg while I eavesdropped on the table of uni students behind me, gabbing away in that fantastically amusing accent they have in the north.

Canal cruising

Town Bridge over the River Avon

Bradford-on-Avon, United Kingdom – If I wasn’t so rigidly adhering to the role of the tough Aussie male used to blazing hot summer temperatures, then today I would have had a good old fashioned whinge about the heat.

Backpack Storybook was on another Backabush hiking day trip. Leaving from Hammersmith tube station mid morning, we ventured west to Bath to start a 10 mile hike along the Kennet & Avon canal.

The first part of the walk was in the midday sun and I soon found myself working up a sweat. I was a bit embarrassed, considering the temperature had yet to top 24C, and so every chance I got I exclaimed to anyone that would listen that it was “nuthin like an Aussie summa, mate”.

By mile number two most in our 50 strong group were ready for a pit stop, including me, and the cool, low-ceilinged pub on the canal seemed just the ticket.

An hour or so later we emerged back into the sunlight and, fuelled by wonderful English pub food, strode briskly down the tow path that followed the canal from Bath to Bradford-on-Avon.

It was easy to get caught up in the romance of the narrowboats moored along the canal at regular intervals. The idea of living simply and self-contained on a boat in the quiet countryside appealed to most of us who were on a 12 hour escape from greater London.

For many of the narrow boaters, it was a way of life. Whole vegetable patches were grown on rooftop potted gardens. Logs were stacked beside them for heat. The lack of a sizeable outdoor deck area meant many families simply relocated to a shady spot on the canal bank for the afternoon, cooking and strumming and chatting the afternoon away.

The architecture behind the canal system was also a sight to behold. Locks, swivel bridges and u-turn areas dotted the canal at regular intervals. And, quite weirdly, we even found ourselves walking alongside a canal over a bridge that spanned a river below. Quite a sight to see a boat chugging past with the valley 30 metres below.

Five hours later our destination of Bradford-on-Avon offerd a choice of pubs by the river. Unfortunately, we chose the one with the warm beer and I suffered through a whole pint of warm Fosters. But it was almost worth it to be able to sit there, relax and watch the boats float past, patiently queuing up to use the lock.

Critical Mass

Andy, Trafalgar Square

London, United Kingdom – This evening I had planned to catch up with my mate Andy for a beer somewhere in London. Last night he emailed me to ask if I was up for something a bit different. I said I was. And that’s how I came to be riding past Buckingham Palace on a purple ladies bicycle with a couple of thousand other cyclists.

Critical Mass operates in cities all over the world. As you might know, the basic idea is that a bunch of cyclists get together (usually the last Friday of the month) and ride through the city. It’s been described as an ‘organised coincidence’, a protest ride or just a good bit of fun.

It’s also controversial as the procession of bikes often holds up traffic in the city in the middle of peak hour. But as the London Critical Mass group says, “we aren’t blocking traffic, we are the traffic”.

This Friday’s ride was a big one as earlier in the week the police had a win in the courts, overturning an early ruling that said the ride was legal. The new ruling found that under the Public Order Act of 1986, organisers of any procession must inform the police six days in advance of the date, route and name of the organiser of the event. If they didn’t they’d face prosecution.

The only problem is the ride doesn’t have an organiser.

We set off from London Waterloo around 7pm and followed a meandering path over the Thames into the city, past Trafalgar Square and on to Buckingham Palace. The route is decided by whoever happens to be at the front at the time. Hence the lack of an organiser.

I spent most of the ride in open mouthed amazement. For the first time in four months of living in London I was able to properly take in the sights, the buildings, the streets, all without being stuffed inside a red bus or dodging pedestrians on the footpaths.

The pace of the ride was leisurely enough that there was plenty of time to stop and take in the atmosphere. I took photos from the hip. Tourists and students on the footpath took photos of us.

At the palace we rode around the giant roundabout for a bit and then continued down to Westminster where we stopped outside Parliament, completely overtaking the normally busy traffic square with cyclists. There was much bell ringing, hooting and hoisting of bikes in the air. This seemed to be the most provocative, protest-orientated part of the ride.

I couldn’t be sure, but it also sounded like a car was trapped in the sea of cyclists somewhere down the front. There was a horn sounding and then the revving of the engine, rising to a fever pitch. More cyclists crowded over to the scene, meaning what little chance the motorist had of escaping in his car was now gone.

The interactions with motorists was perhaps the most entertaining part of the evening. At the first roundabout a cyclist rode provocatively in front of a black cab and stopped him from going further, allowing us to ride past in one long group.

This scene was repeated continuously throughout the ride. Police or a cyclist would stop in front a line of cars and hold them. Often you’d hear the cyclist calmly saying “just wait five minutes and we’ll be out of your way”. Typically the taxi driver or motorist would be half out of his window, face beetroot red, screaming something in return.

But without driving over the cyclist there wasn’t much they could actually do about it. As Andy said to me, “cars are pretty useless in situations like this”.

As if to prove his point, we soon rode past a jet black Lamborghini Gallardo stopped in its tracks. A £100,000 car capable of 0-100kph in four seconds that wasn’t going anywhere. Cyclists had crowded around it take photos and jeer at the driver.

After the second lap of Trafalgar Square it was definitely time for beer and Andy and I peeled off towards Old Street on the east side of the city. We passed a long line of traffic that was being held up by a group of cyclists dressed in traditional cricket creams bowling a few overs in the middle of the street. As we passed the batsman hit a ball way up in the air and it was caught by a passing pedestrian.

We rode on with the sound of an enormous roar from the crowd at our backs, propelling us into the night.

Return to Brick Lane

Drumming and tap act, Brick Lane

London, United Kingdom – I think the fact that I voluntarily spent almost a whole day at the markets today says something about me being at loose ends on the weekend now that my two favourite past times of surfing and watching rugby league are temporarily unavailable here in London.

Nevertheless, it was another great day over on the east side (see last fortnight’s entry on Brick Lane here). After a week of coldish, overcast days the sun shone and and the sky was mostly blue.

I chaperoned Jacq and my newly arrived sister through Spitalfield markets and then we continued on to Brick Lane to have lunch at some of the fantastic food stalls in the undercover market area.

Later we bought large cans of Red Stripe beer from the off license and stood on the street and watched a band and then drumming-tap crew perform.

More photos can be viewed at my Flickr page.