IT'S SO HOT!

Perth in the summer is a lot hotter than I remember. And it hasn't even hit the forties yet! It's my first time home in a few years. I've gone from a small tropical island to a really, really big flat island. It tripped me out on the flight from Sydney to Perth just how big and flat Australia is. The view from the plane window was just flat and as far as the eye could see. I tried to take a picture but it doesn't quite capture it.

Being home again is good/weird/fun/hot! The best thing has been unpacking my clothes, to actually have everything hanging in a closet is SO exciting! The only sad thing is my dog. I have waited years to see her and a few days before my return her health took a bad turn. She is still with us but is sick, she falls over all the time and seems to tilt her head to the side. She is almost deaf and blind and seems to be losing the motor skills on one half of her body. I call her lopsided dog. Here is a photo of her. Tomorrow I am heading down to Margaret River for my first surf in weeks so hopefully I will have some good waves to report about :) I'm very excited, after all my travels I still feel like South Western Australia is one of the most beautiful surf kissed places in the world. Below are some pictures from my friends Russian Christmas I attended in Wollongong on Friday. Great food, lots of vodka and drunk cheerful Russians, it doesn't get any better than that!

Meat pies and plane flights

Dear 2010. I lost you. I lost you somewhere crossing the date line between Hawaii and Australia. We didn't even get to say goodbye. No send off with a big kiss and a glass of bubbly, just an airplane full of people. I am leaving behind in Kauai family, friend, friends who became family, and a little piece of my heart in the warm island waters.

I departed in my usual fashion which means a whirlwind of stress and disorganization. I still haven't sold my truck, nor shut down my P.O. Box. Hey, if anyone wants to buy an island truck mine has a small forest growing out of the rust. Check out the picture! Once again I somehow fit all my worldly possessions into a backpack, board bag and guitar case. I am fearful that my board bag is bursting at the seams. It looks like it's pregnant. Four surfboards got left behind, casualties of baggage charges. Picking two out of six was like choosing which children to keep.

I have been in Sydney for a few days now staying with some family friends. They are giving me Aussie lingo lessons as I seem to have forgotten my native vocabulary. Thongs are flip flops, a rubbish bin is the trash can, a sweater is a jumper and for goodness sake it's a petrol station not a gas station! Then there is the whole being on left side of the road. My dad tells me to be very careful crossing the road as I will look the wrong way and get run over. Just wait until I start driving again..... haha. I'm going to stick a post-it note on my steering wheel saying "stay on the left"! A few days ago I ate my first meat pie in two and a half year. It was great. The highlight of staying at my friends house though is the wildlife. Every morning I feed the native birds and every night a really cute possum visits and we feed it fruit cake. Yesterday I went to see the Sydney Opera House, the bridge and an amazing interactive sculpture set up just next to the Opera House.

On Friday I get the pleasure of attending my first Russian Christmas here too which I imagine involves good food and lots of vodka! The only thing I'm missing is waves. It has been weeks and weeks since I've surfed and I'm starting to feel it. But that is nothing a trip down to Margaret River can't fix when I return home to Western Australia in a few days. Aloha Australia... It's good to be back!

Happy New Years everyone xox

The Circus moves on...

I think the North shore winter is a bit like a circus. Or maybe a zoo. It's a flurry of contests, pro surfers, photographers, parties and waves. Then just as quickly as it started it's done. The final of the Pipe Masters ran yesterday in clean average size waves. Frenchman Jeremy Flores won, then the crowd dispersed and the contest structures were dismantled. I'm on a flight back to Kauai tonight and I'm really looking forward to doing some laundry, sleeping for a long time and surfing some uncrowded waves. Thank you Oahu once again for blessing me with great opportunities and a really awesome time! Aloha XoXoXo

p.s. How many people can you fit in a hot tub?

A hard day at the office...

Some pictures from the first day of the pipe contest. Hard work.... :)

Surf waves, not peoples faces!

I'll start this post with a nice and easy picture to look at. Try and make up for whats coming next! I'm going to share a story about what happened to me almost 5 weeks ago. I was in San Diego hanging around my old stomping grounds visiting some friends. I went to surf around Encinitas at a break I have been at many times. It was crowded and maybe a bit over head. I waited half an hour for my first wave. I took off, so did the guy next to me but I was deeper. He saw me and went to kick out. But instead he busted a fat top turn, lost his board and the last thing I saw was it flying towards me. I felt a thunk and when I surfaced there was a giant lump protruding from my face. My inner angry Australian was unleashed and I started yelling at the guy. He paddled off without ever seeing if I needed help. Unfortunately this happened JUST after halloween. I have a pretty epic shiner and it still looks like someone punched me in the face. It was hurting and after the swelling went down there was a lump and an indented line left. I finally went to the doctor a few days ago and it turns out I broke my zygomatic arch. I know it can be a circus out there and we all want out waves but lets all try and be considerate of each others safety. If someone looks like they might need it, paddle over and offer them some help :)

Work and Play

Another year has passed since my last winter visit to the North Shore of Oahu. Every time I drive along the bend looking over Waimea Bay I get a little knot in my stomach. I can't help but feel I have finally arrived at the holy grail of surfing, the home of the big waves and professional surfing world. As always I am unprepared with only a mere 5'10 epoxy board as my quiver and nowhere to stay.

But the travel gods are smiling. I have been here a bit over a week now and things are going well. I am sleeping on the floor in the house of some very lovely Norwegian friends. My photographer/friend Dave has been keeping me busy with lots of work and I have landed my first real journalism job with Womens Surf Style Magazine. I'm surviving (barely) on the 5'10 board too, paddling like a crazy lady against the wind into some decent sized waves. Here are some pics from my past week...

TRAINS AND CHERRY BLOSSOMS; PART 1

I am a chronic procrastinator. Everyday for the past 6 months I've intended to update my blog and yet I never seem to get around to it. There has definitely been ample experiences to write about. There was my trip to Oahu and Japan for all of April, a new job on Kauai and my first magazine article being published. But I guess compared to my usual jet setting, surfing, border hopping ways my past year has been pretty tame. Still, I'm going to start dusting out the cobwebs in my head and write a bit about Japan, one of the most quirky cultures I've ever experienced.

It had been a few years since I had seen my sister and my mum. I was living on the remote North shore of Kauai in Hawaii for a while without a car and was feeling pretty frustrated, so when the opportunity came to visit Japan with them I was stoked. My sister lives in a rural village and teaches English to all the neighboring schools. Mum was flying from West Oz to Japan as a birthday present to herself. I left Kauai and stopped through Oahu for a little bit to catch up with my photographer Dave Gregerson, which is always lots of fun, but bad weather and crappy surf meant no chance to get some more surf shots. So after that it was on to Tokyo.

I remember my mum and sister telling

me to pack my thermals because it was snowing.

I had a good laugh and reminded them I live on a tropical island! The flight was around 8 hours and I had a small Japanese kid throwing up on the floor in front of me. It was a long flight. As soon as I arrived we went straight to the cherry blossom park in the heart of Tokyo. The trees were in full bloom, a big mass of pink canopy. Thousands of people strolled, sat, drank and socialized beneath the trees. I hadn't been in crowds or cold in a year, I was freezing and grabbing onto my sister in the crowd of people like my life depended on it. As we walked in blur of people, darkness, glowing lights, scents and pinkness a huge gust of wind began blowing. It started RAINING cherry blossoms, like a blanket of delicate pink snow. I felt like I had stepped into another universe.

There is so much I could write about Japan. The food is awesome. My chopstick skills not so much, I was constant comical entertainment for the locals. Japan is the most polite, organised country I have ever been to. It's kinda a little scary. You almost feel like yelling out on the trains or dancing in the streets just to shake up the perfectly robotic machine of society. In downtown Tokyo there is even a method to walking and if you step out of line the w

hole balance is thrown. The people are incredibly polite and etiquette is very important. As a tourist it's important to learn the little things like no eating or blowing your nose in public. Teaching at school with my sister was great. I had celebrity status. I was mobbed in the hallways by masses of tiny Japanese kids. Everywhere I went I felt like a big, strange blonde giant! Even the hand rails were too small for me.

I have a lot more to tell about Japan, including solo snowboarding missions, bullet train navigations and weird toilets but it's time for a surf break. Trains and Cherry Blossoms Part 2 is coming soon!