Harro and Aloha!

Okay, I should get an award for worst blogger ever...
I can't even come up with a valid excuse for why I never update this thing. haha.

I'm in Hawaii right now, and it's beeeautiful! I'm here for the next month, so hopefully I'll find time in the next few days to update this poor little blog and throw on some photos of the last month in California :) 

x

copaaa copaaa cabanaaaa

Rio, I LOVE YOU. You are amazing!

I've only been here for 2 days, but i'm in love with this place. I wish I was a gazillionaire so I could come here on holiday every 2 months. Everything is so colourful, and there's so many people - not in a overly crowded way, but more of a festive way with so much movement everywhere. This place is beeeautiful.
Here's just a few photo's from day 1. Rug and I just cruised around for most of the day, and had a little surf too. Ohh my word and I witnessed the most amazing sunset I've ever ever seen! Okkk no more typing, you can just see photos :)

 Contest site.

 cruising around.

 ha, this was so fun to watch.

 There are so many of these little beach bars - they're everywhere!

 Favela's just up the road.

 Pina colada's at copacobanaaaa!

 Sugarloaf mountain in the background - I want to go there sometime this week :) I got told that I can't leave without going up there.

 walking back to our hotel.

 The start of a beautiful sunset.

 Rudy's holding a drawing that some random guy did of us while we were at the beach bar. His drawings are so good, and he does them in like 5 minutes.

 My favourite!

 I fell in love.

 Our hotel room.

 The best police station ever. ha

 I can't get over the pavements/floors in this place. Pretty much every road in Rio is made up of these mosaics. It must've taken forrreeevverrr!

My first time having Acai :)

oooh and here's a pretty video too:

Ok so that was day 1 and 2, I'll try update this blog everyday, but I'm a little bit backwards. My photo's usually go on facebook before my blog, because its waay easier. I think I need to switch those around though.. oooh and here's a pretty video too

Yeowww, ok more photo's soon!

x

Cape Town - Vic Bay

CAPE TOWN:

I went to Cape Town in August to surf the Western Province Open. I was kind of excited to surf a contest - it had been a while, and I'd been trying to train for it. ha. I stayed in Table View with Heather, Nikita and Tash for the first few days, just to be close to the contest. 

Day 1, Friday : I arrived at Cape Town International airport at 8am. I thought that everyone else was arriving at that time too. It turned out that they were only coming at 8pm. haaa. Anyway... I got a shuttle to the accommodation with the most talkative driver in the world. It was right on the beach but it was freezing and the waves were terrible, so I spent the day reading, watching TV, and lurking next to a heater. After such a stressful day, I managed to find the energy to go on a food hunt. The mall was quite a distance away so I tried the restaurant at the accommodation, called the Blowfish. It just wasn't doing it for my high standards. I looked at a menu and realised that i could probably walk to the mall in the time I would need to answer the waiter's 1000 questions : What meat do you want? Which cut would you prefer? How many grams would you like? How would you like it done? blaah blaah and all of that rubbish. He kindly sent me away when I asked for a toasted sandwich...

 View from my room

Day 2, First day of the contest: The contest was held at Table View and the waves weren't looking too bad. I made it through my heats! :) Yay. Spent the day with Tarryn, Sarah, Faye, Chantelle and Tanika, most of the time just eating at Primi. haha. Ty came to visit :)

Day 3, Last Day of the contest: Rain, wind and hideous weather. We woke up early and had to drive through to melkbos because some rather large swell decided to come hang out. It was the most messy and hideous conditions I'd ever seen. Siesa... I was first heat of the day and I got knocked out. I only caught a proper wave with 2 minutes left in the heat. It didn't end well, but I think I learnt from it. I hope. ha.

Melkbos

Day 4, SSA girls training camp: Surfing South Africa organised a womens training camp for 16 of us at Sports Science. I was having a heart attack because I'd never been to Sports Science before, and everyone telling me how hard it was didnt help at all... It didnt turn out too bad, even though we got there at 8am and left at 6pm. I'd like to go again one day and hopefully do better though. 

When we finally got back, Tarryn and I tried to convince everyone to come out with us. They were being lame. haha. David took Tarryn and I out to The Shack and Mercury for Jono's birthday. It was fun :)

WOODSTOCK, GORDON'S BAY, MUIZENBERG:

I spent a few days with Ty while I was in Cape Town. Ty, Jay, Simon, and Jayson were all moving into a new house in Muizenberg so I just helped them move a few things around. ha. This meant carting stuff from Simons woodstock house to Gordon's bay to store it for a few days, and then back to Muizenberg to finally move in. Missssions, but it was still cool :) They've now moved into their Muizenberg house and its amaaazing!

Driving to Gordon's Bay

Little Rex

Gordon's Bay

Gordon's Bay

Gordon's Bay

View of Muizenberg

VIC BAY:

I'd been stressing for a few days about how on earth I was going to get to Vic Bay from Cape Town for the Billabong Junior Contest. I finally made a plan, and roadtripped with Chantelle and QJ to Vic Bay. We hadn't seen eachother for a while and spoke for 4 hours straight. haha :)

The Vic Bay contest has always been one of my favourites. Its always so much fun and even though it's the smallest place in the world, you'll always find a way to keep entertained. I stayed in the Vic Bay Surf Backpackers again this year, I like staying there because it's right on the promenade and close to everyone else. I saw Morag for the first time in ages and I thought I was going to cry when I saw her I was so happy! :) 

For the contest there was some of the biggest swell I'd ever seen before. It was maaasssiiivveee. I heard a group of guys say the one wave was over 12ft. yaaay. So of course there had to be a few lay days, but luckily the swell calmed down (not really at all) on the last day so they could finish the contest. I made the final and came 3rd. I would've liked a better result, but heeey. It was still a good event...

At night, just to keep up with Vic Bay tradition, everyone got together for a few drinks and to chill. Billabong organised a little braai in the caravan park one night which was amazing - They got Jeremy Loops to come play (too good!) for an hour or two, and afterwards a group of us ended up going to Carouse. Sis. 

Ok I'm sick of rambling now. I'm sure you get by now that it was a good trip.

Roadtripping

Vic bay still on a small day

Muizenberg at night

FUNSUNZI - stupid word.

I'm dedicating this post to the wonderful spandex humans. You people really outdid yourselves with the suits! Like really outdid yourselves - seriously, good luck trying to top that. Its not going to happen.ha. Hiiiigh five!

This is not my photo. Don't sue me. Please.

My happy place.

Oh.
My.
Dog.

I want to turn 18 again next year! I've had the most amazing couple of days!
After splashy I had a nice little chilled braai at my house with my friendies. Thanks people! I like you guys a lot! :)

I'm going to be "that person" now and talk about Splashy probably until next year. It changed my life once again.How can anyone not like that place? It's got grass, and a river, and music, and friends and tents and stuff! Its wonderful! LOVE IT. Met some new people, saw some ridiculous things...I wish I took more photos ; I wasn't brave enough to take my camera out of the campsite, so it just lived in the car the whole time.

So things were all going well and I was such a happy kid until I realised that I have to pitch my tent at some stage.
Biggest.Hack.Ever...
Next year I'm going to take one of those convenient pop up tents which aren't so convenient when you have to fold it back up.

Very early drive!

Nearly there!

I cant really sit here for 4 years and type out everything that happened; there was too much going on, but everyday pretty much looked like this:

Wake up at a ridiculous hour in the cold. Chill in the campsite and get smoked out by our fire till the sun comes to play. Make our way to the river with our inflatables. Try not to fall down the hill. Try not to fall in the river. Laugh at people falling in the river. Fall in the river and freeze. Sit there for hours and get festive. Make our way up the verrrry long hill. Go watch some good bands. Get smoked out by the fire in our campsite again. Put on 6 layers of clothing. Go watch more good bands. Play in the beer tent. Observe the silliness. Get involved in it. Sleep. Start again.

Step 1.

step 11.

I watched a man stab himself in the shoulder with a broken bottle.
He was in our campsite for some reason, and started joking with his friend about wanting to fight people or something so then he just broke a bottle and asked his friend to stab him. His friend kindly declined the offer, so he stabbed himself.

This is Mark.
He slept like this for 36 hours.
He ended up in our campsite for 5 hours playing his very out of tune guitar and licking his harmonica.
I don't know how he even survived the weekend - we convinced him it was Tuesday and that Splashy was over, and he just kept saying how good his weekend must have been. haha. But he was entertaining and I'm quite sure he needs new organs now.

Tam and I

 Mark's Gweetar.

Mmmmmmkay. So it was good. That's all.

Thanks for reading my ramblings.
X