Days 436-442! Alright! Alfred is gone, the roads are fully back to normal… so that means it’s time to get back to a week of work! It also means the beaches are clearing up and the water is clean enough to get back to surfing too! Unfortunately, I did bang myself up again… but no broken bones this time! I think… I hope you enjoy reading about this week of my adventures!

After finally getting back to work the previous day, Thursday, March 13th came and it was time for another day of work!

With the season getting closer to winter time, the sun is rising later and later. Which is making getting up in the morning that much harder. BUT, I was excited to get back into the groove of working and having something to do with my day besides being stuck at home!

It was a bright and sunny morning, full of the job we’ve titled “Screwing and Pruning.” The trees need a bit of support post the cyclone, so we’re going around the entire farm, removing the cheap tree ties (that were holding it up originally), and adding a screw to the tree. The screw goes through a cut up piece of plastic pipe to attach it to the metal support wire.

This should hopefully help support the tree better than its predecessor. Also, Glen (one of the farm owners) likes to have fun names for everything. So we’ve called this piece of pipe a “Screw U.”

Glen also told me a pretty hilarious story about how he forged some mushrooms that were growing on the farm, made a mushroom gravy out of it for a family, and accidentally gave himself and his mother in law quite the trip, if you catch my drift. Luckily no one else in the family liked mushrooms, so the kids were spared the trip to the hospital because they had no idea what was going on.

Glen and Aly had some kid stuff to attend to in the afternoon, so I was off working by myself. I continued on with the screw and prune until it was time for me to head home. I worked an extra half an hour as well to help catch up from my 5 hour work shift the previous day (and I’d be working an extra half hour the following 3 days as well).

Because of the water quality from the previous days surf, I decided to take the afternoon off from surfing. So I relaxed, played some guitar watched some TV, and went to bed early.

Friday, March 14th started off with a phone call to my Bubbie (my grandmother)! It was the 13th back home which meant it was her birthday! And not just any birthday, her 91ST birthday! She was getting flooded with calls and I, in fact, accidentally kicked my cousin Ben off of his call with her. But I was glad I was able to squeeze in and wish her a happy birthday!

The call gave me the boost I needed to start my morning and it was time for another day on the farm.

Today’s job was all prunin’, no screwin’. And I literally spent the entire day pruning tree after tree. Thankfully, Glen was around to chat with for most of the day as he went along staking trees that needed even more help than the screw.

As I drove home from work, I made a little lap of the beaches to check the water quality and waves. Turners and Main Beach were both still a solid brown and yellow color… but Pippi’s looked quite clean and the waves looked alright too!

So I threw on my board shorts, grabbed my surfboard, and biked to Pippi’s!

The surf was a ton of fun! There were a fair amount of other surfers out too, enjoying the smaller sized waves. The size of the waves was great for me because it made it much easier to get out to the lineup.

I ended up catching 2 solid waves and a couple other waves that closed out immediately, but I stood up for a second before getting wiped out. One of the wipeouts led me to my board flipping and me falling onto my fin and it dragging across my thigh (thankfully no broken bones this time, but bruise pictures to come)!

You can imagine how big of a smile was on my face after having an hour of fun in the ocean… oh wait! Here’s a picture.

I spent the rest of the night relaxing. I was beat! Working and surfing again is tiring stuff, but I’m so happy to have both back.

Saturday, March 15th morning was upon us and it was time for more work! But first… time to check the bruise.

Saturday morning was spent doing more screwing and pruning. But this wasn’t just a solo affair today, it was a family affair! Today was the first day the whole family was out on the farm while I’ve been working there. It was very cute as some of the kids were excited, some weren’t a fan of the bugs or heat, and one was just excited to make $5 per hour.

They also were all very excited and eager to hear the song I have recorded. So I let them have a listen to the demo and they were all fans of it! So far, I’ve gotten a lot of “is that you singing??” Which is definitely a compliment!

The afternoon was spent pruning by myself. I found a cool spider that had set itself in the middle of an intricate web design. I tried taking a good picture of it, but this was the best I could manage.

When I got home, I checked on the bruise again…

A really sad thing happened today as well. My cherished Tevas, the sandals that have been traveling with me since for 439 days, had broken.

I’m not really sure how they even broke here as that strap is supposed to connect through the sandal to the other side… but oh well! Unfortunately the closest cobbler is a few hours away, so I guess it’s time to find a new pair!

I stopped by Coles on my way home for some groceries. The grocery store is finally stocked up again! Hopefully there’ll be no more hoarding of food while I’m here.

I went for a surf after work as well. It was a lot choppier today but a similar size to yesterday’s waves. For the first 30 minutes I was having no luck. But the waves crashing down on me wasn’t going to stop me from trying. And finally, after lots of paddling, getting smoked by waves, and missing waves, I was able to catch one wave! It was a really nice one too and was worth the wait. The joy from catching a wave is such a fun feeling! Enough to keep me going out every day to try and get more.

I was exhausted when I got home and had no desire to cook for myself. So I made my way to the Wobbly Chook, a brewery just down the road from me. I’ve been meaning to eat here for months now, but almost every time I went, I had just missed their lunch or dinner hours somehow. But not today! I sat by myself, enjoyed a wheat beer (my favorite), a chicken schnitzel sandwich, and people watched!

I may have been by myself, but it was nice to just sit and have people’s conversations going on around me! I feel like there’s a stigma against going out to eat by yourself, like the sad “table for 1.” But, I’m not opposed to it!

Sunday, March 16th was here and usually Sundays would be my day off. But since I just had a week off, I was going to keep working.

Today was spent doing more of the same as the last few days. It’s really important for the farm to be able to withstand a storm like Alfred. Some of the farm had already been screwed to the support wire or propped up by some of Glen’s other support systems. So it made it clear to him which ones the trees needed and showed that it could prevent future storms from affecting the trees.

And funnily enough, it was a super windy day, so it was a perfect chance to see how the new trees held up.

After work Glen and I had a beer and played two matches of ping pong. My lucky streak from the last time we played had worn off and he destroyed me! I could tell he was a bit disappointed because he thought I might’ve gave him more of a challenge since I schooled him the other day. But unfortunately for him, ping pong isn’t my game! Pool however, I’d take him down if we had the chance to play.

I went back to Pippi’s after work to a similar wave situation as the previous days… but today there was a huge current! So I spent a lot of the time paddling around trying to find the critical parts of the waves. There were two other surfers out with me today and one was a nice guy who I chatted with for a little bit.

But there were also two kite surfers out on the windy day… one of which was not so nice! At one point, I was paddling back out after wiping out and he was standing back up after a fall too. Out of nowhere, he zips by super close infront of me and just douses me with water… pretty rude. But IMMEDIATELY, he falls again. I chuckled and then he looked at me and I said “that’s karma.”

Maybe I should’ve kept my mouth shut, but I was confused and annoyed he sprayed lots of water into my face for no reason. And he started going off on me saying “you shouldn’t have paddled infront of me, “get off of my beach,” etc… first off, he’s the mobile one and I’m the one paddling around a log and second off… it’s your beach? I’ve never seen you at it before in my whole time in Yamba!

Anyways, I laughed it off and was shocked that a man, a good 10-20 years older than me was acting like a child throwing a tantrum over something so silly. If I had kept my mouth shut, would I have avoided this confrontation? I’m not actually sure. He seemed pretty agitated already, and my guess would be he wasn’t happy with how much he was falling today. Oh well!

I eventually made my way over to where the other two surfers were and immediately caught my first wave of the day! It ended up being the only wave I caught, but again… the joy from that one wave was SO worth it! And I wasn’t going to let that confrontation from earlier ruin my afternoon of surfing.

I sat on the beach for a while, enjoying the cool breeze, before heading home and making dinner.

Work on Monday, March 17th started out with me cutting a bunch of plastic pipe pieces. Glen was busy with some electricians, so it gave me a chance to help us stock up on the bits we needed. It was a tedious process but was something new to do, which was nice.

Then, when Glen and I were heading out, I got a FaceTime from my mother with my pseudo-niece, which was VERY cute. We couldn’t chat long, but Glen got to say hello to my parents which was nice for them to “meet!”

The rest of the day was spent with more screwing and pruning.

Unfortunately it was even windier than the day before and the beaches were in no shape for surfing, so I took a much needed afternoon off.

Oh… and maybe I should check on that bruise…

I spent the afternoon updating the website! I added a few new countries (that I had been putting off). And updated the home screen. I guess I somehow deleted the original “about me” picture, but I got a new one added back. I also added some fun, new pictures to the slideshow further down the home page. Let me know what you think!

On my way to work on Tuesday, March 18th, I tried calling my parents again, but only was able to chat with my mom! Which of course was nice. But I’d love to talk to both of my parents for our weekly catch up! So I’ll try again tomorrow.

It was a very cloudy day and a bit chilly in the morning too! The winter season is sneaking up on us… but it’s nothing like winter back home, more like early fall.

It was a bit drizzly in the morning too… and in the cold, was a bit unpleasant. But once I was moving and working it was alright in the end. The entire day was spent screwing in the support system to the trees. Aly, Glen, and I worked in tandem all across the farm, which was nice! Tomorrow, Glen heads back to his other job, so I’ll be back to my more solo work.

It’s been very enjoyable having Glen around to banter with and work along with these past two weeks!

The sun tried to peak out later in the day, but wasn’t successful. I didn’t have to wear my sunglasses once today.

After work, I went to check out the beaches… Pippi’s was still the only contender, but no one… and I mean, literally no one was out surfing today. It was chillier, cloudy, and very choppy, but I still saw some surfable waves! So I hemmed and hawed, and ultimately I decided to go anyways!

I ended up having a blast in some smaller waves near the north side of the beach. I caught around 5 waves that were fun rides. One of them was a closeout wave that I didn’t wipe out on! I was able to balance myself on the back of my board well enough to ride the crash.

I was super happy I decided to go out still even though no one else was out. I’m here to work and surf, and I’m going to surf as much as I freaking can before I leave the country!

Bruise update!

First the foot updates… now the semi almost butt bruise updates. What is surfing doing to me?!

I spent the rest of the day relaxing, playing guitar, and getting plenty of rest before my next day of work.

Today’s Wednesday, March 19th, which marks another week crossed off in Yamba! After work today, I’ll have 34 more days of farm work left! Just about halfway there.

(Yes I know 34 isn’t half of 88, but as long as I work 35 hours over 5 days, I get 7 days counted. So as long as I do that every week, I only have to work 64 days!)

I started my morning of work off doing more screwing and pruning. But I also was accompanied by a FaceTime with my parents!

It made the start of the morning fly by as I chatted with them while I worked. It was fun being able to show them the farm and what I’ve been up to while at work as well!

Today was a pretty solo day on the farm. Aly was around for most of the day, but we were both doing our own thing. I finished off the day doing more of the same and was on my own when she left to pick up her kids from school.

It was a pretty good day of work, mostly cloudy, with a bit of a wind, beautiful day! Butttt, there were SO many mosquitos out today (or as the Aussies say “mozzies”). I kept thinking about putting on bug spray, but then they’d calm down for a bit and then ramp back up… I probably killed a good 30-40 of them!

That annoyance aside, I stopped by Coles on my way home for some groceries I ran out of. I then threw on my swimsuit when I got home, waxed my longboard, and biked to Pippi Beach for another afternoon of surfing.

I ended up surfing for a bit over an hour. Throughout the entire session, more and more surfers started to show up as they got off of work. The waves were good today and I caught a handful of waves too! It was probably one of my best surf sessions so far, especially post cyclone.

I did also get bashed around by the waves a fair amount too, but I still had a blast!

When I got done, I noticed a guy chilling by himself on the beach with a volleyball. So I decided to ask if he wanted to pepper the ball for a little bit (hit it back and forth).

He said yes! Turned out his name was Sammy and he’s from Lyon, France. His friend that he’s traveling with was out surfing so he was excited to have someone to hit around with. I was also pumped to hit a volleyball around, it’s been far too long.

I almost didn’t bother him, but I’m glad I did. It was really fun chatting with him and meeting a fellow traveler! I may not be in SE Asia or hostels anymore, but that shouldn’t stop me from saying hello to new people and making new friends.

Sammy and his friend were going to be in town another day, so we exchanged numbers to potentially meet up at the beach the following day! We’ll see if it ends up happening.

My afternoon of hanging with friends wasn’t over. I went home, showered, and then my friend Max picked me up and we made our way to BRGR Spot. Max and I have been trying to eat at this restaurant for months now, but somehow we always end up there when it’s closed. BUT TODAY, it was open!!

It was worth the wait, I got a double stacked spicy chicken burger that was the best I’ve had in a while. Max and I have a couple friends that work there too (they come to the pub a fair amount), so it was fun to show up to their establishment for once.

After dinner, we headed across the street to the pub to say hello to our coworkers, have a couple cheap beers, and play some pool.

It was a really solid afternoon, and I hope to have many more of them before my time is up in Yamba! I wish it could happen more, but since all my friends work in hospitality, they’re all working when I’m done with work and vise versa! Oh well!

I’d say this was a good week! I’m so happy to be back surfing and work has been alright too! I’m definitely welcoming the cooler starts to the day, it makes work much more bearable. I’m looking forward to another week of surfing and hopefully getting back to making some music! Nathan unfortunately has been sick, so no music production this week.

We’ll see what next week has to offer soon!

See you then!

– Elie