11-27-05

Jefferey's bay is a great place to be. The wave is amazing and pretty consistent.

We stayed for 17 days and surfed most of them. We got one huge swell which

The Surfer's Path claimed was the biggest in 30 years. Well I heard a lot of claims

during this trip and this was second only to the dolphins in the tube claim by a

certain property owner in Tahiti. It was big though and the consensus was that it

was the biggest of the winter to which I would probably agree. The small black

and white photo is from the magazine. We stayed in a place called Cristal Cove

and they treated us like family and we stayed in an apartment for about 10 or 15$

a night a block from the waves. For the first week or so we had a view out the back

of JBay at the beach break which made for a decent check spot for the swell and wind.

We partied a few nights at the Triton and other local bars. One night we even played at

the open mic night. Stir it up was the biggest hit while we played. The pictures of the

elephants are from the Addo Elephant park nearby JBay and the lions are from

another nearby park. Seeing the animals in Africa is pretty cool and it's crazy to think

that people have lived with them for hundreds of thousands of years. Overall JBay is a

pretty laid back place to be with nice goodies like Kudu and Ostrich meat at the store

for a quick brai (BBQ). Kudu are antelope with curved horns and their meat is a little

gamey so it needs lots of BBQ sauce. The locals aren't too bad but I did get told to go

in to the "visitor's peak" and then the guy missed the set of the day which came

straight to me. The people who ran Cristal Cove were great Gary aka Gweardo was

the funniest with his "Yuu Muuuussssstttt go to (Addo, Transkei, etc.)!!!"  being his best

line. He described seeing a guy getting hit by a shark, shooting at animals in  

Namibia while in the army and the best tourist attractions in London.

11-3-05

Editor's note - Maxine and I spent a couple weeks with Niall in England, and I have a

bunch of pictures, but have not scanned them in. I still prefer my film camera, but that

makes it hard to get them onto the website.

Danny Dufau was in South Africa with Niall and Reed, and has put some of his

pictures up on some webpages of his own. The picture of Niall surfing links to Danny's

pages.

Be sure to check out Danny's movies - see the link on the movie link page.

9-16-05

I'm flying into London on the 29th of this month so that me and reed have a few days

to hang in  London before you get there and meet up with my friends.

This last week we've been roadtripping through south africa and are having a blast.

The highlight was taking a flyfishing class. We all learned how to cast and got

straight into it. We all caught fish and nobody lost an eye (but at one point the line

whipped me in the face but I didn't feel the wrath of the hook).

I'll send some pictures once I find a better computer. We've seen all sorts of animals

including elephants 5 feet from the car, baboons, and holding lion cubs. We went

inland to the Lesotho border and it felt a little like the Sierras but with monkeys and

not many trees. We hiked a lot and found a cool waterfall to swim in. I heard that a

bear attacked two hikers in Yosemite, crazy huh?

See ya soon, Niall

8-20-05

Well its about that time for another update for the masses. After surviving the

bars in Oz, sharp reef in Indo, we have succesfully conquered the philippines! Many

hours of travel brought us from Manilla down to the southwest of this long string of

islands. We flew 2hrs to Cebu, haggled with taxis down to the docks and took a 12 hr

overnight ferry to Surigao city. For this epic mission, and to help us sleep through

the blaring Karaoke that seems to pervade the entire nation, we bought a bottle of

Tanduay ( the local rum)...total cost of the bottle and a big coke was $1.25!

Needless to say our ride was turning out to be ok, then we were lucky to

meet a few cool Pinoy's (Philippinos) from Las Vegas who were back for a family

reunion. Next thing you know they are buying us round after round of beers and

Niall started belting out a few songs to the cheesy keyboard beats while I was

involved in an interesting Judo lesson from a guy no taller than Yoda. My lesson was

basically how many ways you can get "judo chopped" in the throat without learning

anything! Apparently after a few too many, Yoda thought Niall gave him a bad look

and his brothers had to come over and settle him down, another round of beers and

everything was cool.

Another 4 hour fery and we were to our final destination of Siargao island,

home of Cloud 9, a world class right. Well we surfed once in three weeks, about

waist high and crowded with a bunch of local groms going on every wave so it lived

up to the nickname surfers have dubbed this place...the fickleppines. Besides the

lack of surf, the place was really beautiful, palms and white sand beaches. The place

we stayed had kayaks and all sorts of gear to use, and to fill our days we took

several 1-2 hr boat rides in the small skiffs to neighboring islands. A few of these

islands are like the postcards, just a bit of sand with about 10 palms and noone

around...really relaxing. A must to anyone who comes here to visit is a trip to the

Sohoton lagoon. This place was incredible, you enter at low tide on a small boat

through a cave-tunnel and come out into a huge network of lagoons that are broken

up by huge vertical peaks that rise straight out of the depths. One of the few places

left for many species such as tarsiers, flying fox, and many types of plants (some

carnivorous!). It is also a breeding ground for a harmless type of brown jellyfish and

during the right time of year you can swim in the midst of thousands of them (we

just saw a hundred or so juvenilles but it was still cool). We had to swim under and

up into a few caves, one which had only the ambient light from the

entrance illuminating huge stalagtites, and another which was straight out of the

goonies that had candles lit up through winding tunnels that led out the side of a

cliff. Once there you could climb down to a 15 ft jump back into the water, or option

B, climb up an swaying ironwood tree to a 60ft jump that had my heart pumping

(see pic of Niall)! as we were leaving we were amazed by a group of about 30 or

so flying fox circling overhead. These bad boys are giant fruit bats witha wingspan of

up to 7 ft...thats right 7ft! They seriously look like furry teradactyls and watching

them fly up to a branch flip upside down and slowly curl in their wings was

incredible.

Besides spelunking, Nialls and I invented a sport called aggressive kayaking

which consists of pounding a few brews and pulling the most ridiculous manuevers

you can think of on a kayak in 2 ft wind slop. The best session included Niall bending

his paddle almost 90 degrees on his first wave, a most non-triumphant backwards

drop-in. A few waves later I was standing up in my kayak (like a surfboard) and

thought I could pull a floater, only to get pitched onto one of the few bits of coral out

amidst the sand and surf grass. Took my biggest reef cuts on the smallest waves of

the whole trip...my luck, go figure! We were also sure to partake in the wed, fri, and

sat night jungle disco's that the staff of our "resort" was so excited about. It literally

is an open air, dirt floor dance party right across the street from the jungle. The

whole village comes out to get down and 12 year old boys try to hang with their

friends 30 yr old Mom. It was about as much excitement as there was to be had at

night, and who could complain about hearing Buffalo soldier 4 or 5 times a

night...actually there were many four-peats but if you drink enough you kind of don't

notice...ok it got annoying.

It is an interesting scene, sort of a mix of ancient and modern day lifestyles

going on right next to one another or all wrapped up into one. Many people still living

as hunter-gatherers from the jungle and sea. Most homes are a few flat boards up

on stilts with thatched palms rooves. With such small villages and a strong catholic

influence things happen pretty slow here...besides making babies because every

family has at least 10 kids I kid you not! Everyone was really friendly though. One

day we rented motorcycles and toured the island and almost every kid (and

there's heaps of em) would smile and wave yelling hi or "hey joe". We took those

bad boys down a couple of rocky paths throughthe jungle that in no way could be

called a road...felt like some sort of tropical easy rider's the way evryone would stop

and stare. After so long without surf we were ready to leave but were sad to part

with many new friends.

So included are a few pics from Bali, mostly scar reef and desert point with a few

from G-land as well. Hope you enjoy and for any of you that I haven't mentioned this

to before you can check out more on Niall's website www.barneymc.com/niall. Well

we are off to South Africa and and the famous Jeffery's Bay! Hope you are all doing

well and we love hearing from you's...Reed and Niall     

The temple pictures are from Uluwatu temple. The surf pictures are from the boat trip,

the land pictures are from Siargao island in the Philippines. The rest are described in the

text.

8-2-05

Right now I'm sitting in a mall waiting for the ferry.  We flew into Manila and spent a wonderful

night there before flying to Cebu, and now we have an overnight ferry ride to Surigao before

another ferry to Siargao which has the waves hopefully...

We heard a rumor that there was a bar called the Hobbit House which has live folk music but

more importantly is owned and staffed by "lilliputians" or midgets if you will. We looked it up

online and gave it a try. The atmosphere was great and the little staff were friendly and there

was even a mural on the wall of lord of the rings with Gandalf and everything. The band was a

little too loud but still sounded good. The place is apparently over 100 years old, has some

decent Mexican food and beers called Red Horse extra strong which taste a little like apple

juice and say stallion on the neck of the bottle, pretty solid to say the least.

As for the surf update, we scored Desert Point, I got super cut up at Scar reef in Sumbawa,

and got some fun ones at GLand. The worst injury of the trip so far happened at the Bounty.

I did a breakdance spin and got a rug burn on my foot which later got infected and swelled

up nicely.

Included are some shots, the perfect looking barrel is desert's, the foot is right after the trip

to the doctor, and the cuts have chinese all over them which stung like a beeattchhh!

Peace out and thumbs up from Tommy Bahama.

6-25-05

Last week I got back from Tahiti. What an amazing place, you can see from the pictures that

it is just beautiful but thats only the beginning of the story. The people there all (mostly

except the French) say hi to you and wave whenever they see you. It doesn't seem like that

big of a deal until you get there and feel so welcomed and at home. There are a lot of

snooty french and honeymooners, with less travellers than I thought would be there.

We did alot of stuff while we were there from hiking to waterfalls and viewpoints to kayaking

and swimming with sharks and stingrays. We camped, stayed with a family and got a nice

bungalow a couple nights. We partied in Papeete the first 2 nights we were there and learned

how to do the local dance. One twooooo one is what they tell you to try and teach you. We also

saw some classic karaoke with the french song about Mexico...

Mexiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiicccooooooooooooo!! being the best song by far.

We also scored some good waves as you can see from the photos, the right is on Moorea and is

called Teme'a. It got very big which doesn't happen often and a bunch of the locals got reef

cuts. They thought we were professionals because we didn't get cut. They all were undergunned

and me and Harnz got some of the best set waves. Chopes on the otherhand had a foul wind on it

for pretty much the whole month. Gregg charged it on his last day and pulled into some serious

closeouts before the wind picked up too much. I was still sleeping off the flu, three weeks

later and I still have a bit of a cough.

The family we stayed with were awesome, we never ate enough for them. It was hard to

communicate but a few hand gestures went a long way. They are catholic and have taken a few

kids in who were getting into trouble. One of the kids was named Felix and they said he used

to be like Tyson. He was really strong and could open bottles with his teeth instead of a

bottle opener. There were some pretty classic card games to be had, and one of the kids

earned the name Vegas Dealer becase the dad caught him cheating.

On Moorea (another island from Tahiti) we mostly camped at Mark's Place Paradise. The owner

was a pretty classic guy who was an expert cabinet maker. He was working on the bungalows

which were very nicely put together. He made a lot of funny claims like "Ya there are

supposed to be a group of girls coming later so I'll just put them in your bungalow guys!"

"Yesterday there were perfect waves with dolphins in the tube!". He was a really good guy who

looked after us and had a bunch of activities to do. There were some Hawaiian rasta guys

camping next to us who were pretty classic too. Skillet was the master chef who said it was

a whole new experience hiking a trail without shoes. I tried to do the hike in sandals but it

got slippery once it started pouring down rain and I went barefoot. The picture of Harnz with

no shorts on was at the top of the mountain.

6-23-05

this email is good i promise, but you have to read it all before you look at the pics

ryan harnsberger

hello to all. i'm currently back in australia for the next two weeks trying to sell the

van me and nile purchased back in febuary. so down to business, let me tell all of you

that tahitti is a special place. i was there for almost a month and enjoyed every minute.

i could write a really long email explaining the whole month and all the families we

stayed with, but i wouldn't bore you to that extent. instead i'll tell you about one day

in particular that stood out.

 we were camping on the island of moorea at a place called mark's place paradise. i had

found marks place at random and it ended up serving us very well. if the surf's flat you

can go swimming with the moorean rays, or swim with the sharks, and most of it's free,

because he gives you the know how you need to avoid the tourist traps. and by the way, we

did swim with the sharks and rays earlier in the trip, and i sacrificed my lunch so we

could witness a feeding frenzy. swimming with sharks was not very high up on my to do

list, i had it ranked right above riding my bicycle around and preaching the gospel of

mormonism. but i figure as long as it ranks above that, it's doable.

 back to marks place, we decided to do one of the hikes on this "one day." it's about a

10 mile round trip, and by the time we had ourselves ready to go, it starts raining. so

we post up on the front porch of one of the vacant bungalows and start killing time with

a couple books. an hour goes by, we eat lunch, rain stops, we're off. i'm carrying a

backpack with my video camera in it's water proof case, and waters. nile is freeloading

in a pair of sandals. keep in mind mark told us specifically sandals were all you needed,

it's an easy trail... i wore shoes.

 half of the hike is walking up a dirt road. at the top of the road we ran into what was

my first encounter with the guardian goose. the thing was massive and started hissing at

us. luckily it was behind the gate or it may have attacked us...and we were unarmed.  as

we start the trail up the mountain, i soon learn it is not suitable for sandals,

especially after a rain. and to top it off, half the trail is ducking under shrubs and

trees that have fallen over the trail...which doesn't suit us tall folk with backpacks.

when we reach the top, i find it was well worth the hike. we stood on top of the

mountain, and from that point you could see both sides of the island. it was

breathtaking. if it hadn't been slightly overcast covering the tops of some of the

mountains.....more...breathtaking? at the top there's a little flat spot you can hang

out, and there was like a marking pole of sorts. for some reaon at that moment i wished i

had an american flag to proclaim my victory at the top with a big shout of "we landed on

the moon." but as you would suspect, i didn't have a flag. but it just so happens i was

wearing red white and blue trunks, so i took em off, and hung em pround at the top for

what i would call i nice little pose...i hope my mom thinks so.(photo)

 as soon as we were done shooting photos, i shoved my camera back into it's case, and it

started to rain. actually for the record it was dumping. about five minutes into hiking

down, nile realizes he might slip and die if he keeps his sandals on, so he ends up just

doing a slow barefooted trail walk all the way down. hiking barefoot is not ideal if you

ask me. when we emerged from the trail, and started our way down the road, we were

confronted by not one, but a dozen wild geese. it was a pack/gang/gaggle whatever you

call it, and they weren't behind a fence, they were standing in the middle of the road.

as me and nile appraoch they clear a small spot for us to walk by, but as soon as we get

through the pack, i look back just to get another glimpse of what seemed very weird to

me. as we turn around the geese start walking towards us honking their horns and hissing

at us. the gaggle of wild geese was ready to attack and "wild goose" us if we took

another couple steps towards them. i sudenly became very tempted to push my barefooted

friend into the pack for a good game of "duck duck goose."  but the payback i would

receive wouldn't be worth it unless i had it on film....and yes it was still raining.

keep in mind these were not like little ducks, there were at least a half dozen 75

pounders, big friggin geese.

  luckily as we got back to the main road, we hitched back to the campground where i

grabbed a bike to get down to the store for some well deserved beers. over dinner we

chatted with these two hippies from waikiki that were classic, skillet and cameron are

thier names. they had found a cat and adopted it for the campsite. they were pretty funny

dudes. they ended up naming the cat mary jane, and nile named two of the dumbest dogs ive

ever scene clooney and keanu for their certain facial characteristics.(photo)

  we told the hawaiians about nile's barefoot adventure, but they were not impressed.

"skillet" then remarks with an all time quote "oh yeah man, hiking a trail barefoot is a

whole new experience!" thank you skillet i did not know this. these guys were great. i

soon  started asking them about the drug problems in hawaii, because if you don't know

already, they have a huge problem with methamphedamines, especially in waikiki. cameron

then explains to us that aside form making skate videos, they also sell reefer in mass

amounts. and his quote that i loved the most came right after i asked him, "how bad is

the problem?" he says, "i don't know man, we're just trying to get everyone stoned,

that's our solution."  in all honesty i liked the guys a lot. but quotes like that i love

to not ignore.

it was a good day. if you ever wanted to find the super honeymoon spot, tahiti is it.

p.s.     i have one more story from tahitti. where we were camping, they had kayaks that

you could take out to the surf break in front of mark's place paradise. they were a

pretty good set-up with an anchor and wheels to take em down to the water. we would

paddle out in the kayaks to the break which was a pretty solid left hander. somewhat like

indicator left but longer, hollow and...yeah, the place pumps. according to mark you can

get a "double over tubes with dolphins in the tube then you get spit out." i saw

dolphins, sharks, and fish in the waves, and yes we had a few tubes, but all three at the

same time?

anyways, one day i paddled out on a kayak by myself to check the place out....it's a mile

out. it was small and windy, but i caught a wave on the kayak for good fun....and it was.

realizing it was shallow, reef....and i was in a Kayak of all things, i rigged up the

anchor so if i fell, i wouldn't loose the paddle and the anchor would drop and stop the

kayak. last thing i wanted was to be stranded in sharky water bleeding a mile out to sea

with no one to help.

  the next day the surf was pumping. we surfed for about 4 hours with the two hippies,

when one of them took a nasty spill and received a little rasberry from the reef. i felt

bad for him bleeding all the way of a mile in, and he didn't have a kayak...that's a

bummer man. so we decide to go in along side the hipsters. BUT, before we did, i was

going to prove to everyone that i could catch a large wave on a kayak. i paddle out and

make my way into larger one, but it was mushy and nile, my travel buddy, who doubted me

more than anyone, was not satisfied. i paddle back out and stroke into one that is about

a foot over head. i could have waited for a bigger one, but it was big enough and i

dropped in on a guy who had burned nille earlier. as i try to aim to the left, the surfer

is right next to me telling me to look out, and i'm thinking he's the one who better look

out..i'm in a 10 foot kayak. then i realize there is a kid on a boogieboard, (it's the

weekend and families boat out there) paddling for the wave with his back turned to me.

i'm screaming at the kid look out, i'm surounded by white wash going way too fast for a

kayak, and i can't frickin turn the thing. i end up missing the kid by less than a

foot....woops. turned out the hipsters and nile all approved of that one so we went in.

just for the record, bodyboarding is cool, so is surfing, but kayaking on waves is like

rollerblading....only to be done for a good laugh?

   the right is called timae on the island of moorea. we got it more than double overhead

which supposedly doesn't happen very often?

talk to me

5-16-05

Editor's note - These pictures came in a file called Redsands.zip. They appear to be the

first pictures of Niall actually surfing. There are also several other guys in this set, maybe

Niall can send us some notes on these great shots.

5-12-05

After 6 weeks on the gold coast Harnz went to West Australia with Jason and I drove the van

down the coast. I hung out with Browny and Fez mostly but also Heff and Simo. These were

all people I met during my year abroad. I got my eyebrow shaved off by a rugby guy, played

two-up, and had a great time. The waves were pretty bad until the end once Harnz got back

but it was very relaxing mostly. Two-up is a game that they play on Anzac day. An Anzac is a

war veteran. They get people from the crowd (our crowd had around 200 people it seemed like!)

and flip 3 coins. People in the crowd bet each other over the result and there is alot of

banter to say the least. The biggest bet of the day was 400$ with Harnz and Kingy  each going

200$ and winning against some poor chap. The guy going for heads holds the money while the

tails person hopes for the best. Nobody rips each other off and everybody is having fun

(except probably the big losers).

The drive was from Sydney down the Bega (and Tathra). There are pictures of Fez's family and

home, the university of Wollongong (where I went to school here) and everywhere in between.

My friends were good hosts and showed me a good time and the van was rockin!

Soon to come are water shots from Redsands, and then Tahiti.

4-21-05

The waves have been pumping for 2 weeks straight! I didn't know it got good for this long

over here. I am leaving tomorrow morning to drive down the coast. Harnz and Jason are

going to the west coast so I'll just be rolling in the van. I've lost weight, have a tan and am

lovin it right now. I have a big bruise on my butt from breaking out the fin of my board. I broke

another fin out this morning on my shin which is currently bleeding a little bit. Other than that

no real board or personal injuries to speak of. Yesterday was the best day yet, and I've

figured out the wave better so I get more waves. I got as long a barrel as I can ever remember

getting on a 2 or 3 foot little wave on the sandbar.

3-29-05

Last weekend we went to the Blues and Roots festival in Byron Bay and had a great time.

We saw a guy named Eddie Bibb, George Thorogood, and Jack Johnson. Eddie Bibb was my

favorite even though we were trying to see John Lee Hooker Jr. We did some partying as you

can see by the beers and wine in the back of the van. The girls in the pictures are

staying at the hostel, they are English. The big boy was out of control pounding many

beers and even wine out of his water bottle.

PS - The beer in the car is on the passenger side in a cozy that hooks onto the window. It's legal

for the passenger to drink, and I was having a cold one on the way to Byron Bay.

3-22-05

Today was a hectic day, got up at the crack of dawn to go for a surf and had to do a paddle

across shark infested waters in a little harbor to get to the spot. Halfway across I see a splash,

a tail fin, and the body of a 4 or 5 foot shark. Already committed to the paddle, me and my

buddy kept on going and didn't lose and fingers or toes.

3-21-05

I've been in Australia on the Gold Coast in a little town called Coolangatta staying

at the youth hostel for about a week now. The flight over was a bit of a nightmare,

with a total travel time of 30+ hours including a 6 hour layover in Canada... Thats

right I started by going North.

The waves have been fun and I'm getting pretty sunburned so far. My board got a big

pressure ding on the rail, but it doesn't leak. Snapper is an amazing wave. It starts

with a big backwashy takeoff going into a perfectly peeling bay with about a million

guys in the way. I caught one set on the outside and got pretty deep and made the barrel

by just squatting there.

The hostel is cool everybody is nice, there are no weird smells. Me and Harnz just moved

into our own room which is cramped but a little less sketchy in the getting stuff stolen

department. I met a South African guy named Chris who surfs good and promises to tell me

the secret spots.

The pictures of the waves are in Coolangatta at Snapper. The only exception are the

pictures I took from Kirra Hill. The guy with the dirty undies is Alex, we found them in

a parking lot, gross! The nature shots are in the Byron Bay area, we went down there to

surf but ended up just going to the bar for a few beers since the waves were mediocre.

We were driving from the surf spot back into town and ran out of LPG (liquid propane gas)

and tried to switch to regular gas but it was a no-go. I walked outside to take a piss

and then looked across the road and there was a rigormortis stricken cow looking hideous!

We were cracking up for awhile. Alex came to tow us to the gas station and thought we

wanted him to push us. The first ram into the trailer hitch only snapped a piece of

plastic and barely moved the van since the parking brake was still on, the second snapped

the fiberglass and made the license plate fall off. An epic little tow came after and we

got up to about 60K/HR on a 6 foot rope!

3-14-05

First leg of the trip started at San Francisco airport - 6:30 AM on Monday, March 14.

The Air Canada check-in counter was deserted.