Australia's East Coast

The east coast of Australia is among my magic places. Everyone, I hope, knows a place like this, a place where for them everything feels perfect, where the wind and the plants and the sky feel right, where beauty envelops and the mind turns to the expectation of joy and relaxation. For me Australia is a nearly perfect blend of cultures and landscapes. If you take the California coast, mix in a bit of English culture, toss in an odd variety of tropical birds and hopping mammals, stir in some juicy Hawaiian reef breaks, add a dash of South Carolina's numerous harbors and bays, throw in a valley resplendant with wineries, and then at last remove about half of the people, you'd get something close to Australia's east coast.

During the Southern Hemisphere winter, the place is a surfer's dream come true. Winds predominate from the west, keeping the t, sansurf cleanly groomed for most of each day. Numerous headlands jut out into the coastline, creating peeling point breaks, each lined with soft beaches ranging in color from nearly white to sandstone beige. There are rocky reefs at each headland and some areas of cliff too so there are powerful reef breaks added to the mix. The water is often quite clear and tends towards the blues that I've seen more often in the Caribbean or Pacific Islands. Water temperatures in the winter average around 65-70 degrees Farenheit, positively steamy by California standards. The weather is pleasantly cool, without being cold, and winter storms push through bring surf and rain every few weeks.

Shane and I flew direct from LAX to Sydney on the new Virgin Australia service. I have only good things to say about Virgin. New planes, great service, lots of entertainment options, and, best of all, no excess baggage fees for surfboards. In the U.S. and Europe surfers are increasingly treated like second class citizens by the airlines. Fees to carry boards on flights have increased from an average of $50-100 round-trip in the 1990s to an as much as $300 on American Airlines today. Moreover, since the fees are per leg of the flight if you fly open jaw to three cities you'll pay $450. These fees are absurd given that the average cost of a new surfboard is about $450 and that the boards weigh less than 10 pounds. But what really irks me more than anything else is that golf bags, which also require "special handling" and weigh many times more, are not charged these fees. British Airways has gone so far as to refuse surfboards completely. Meanwhile, Virgin Australia cheerfully counts the surfboard as a piece of checked luggage. Partly this must be because Australians understand surfing better. It's a mainstream sport over there. Regardless of the reasoning, they'll be getting my business in the future, despite their new sexist ad campaign.

The flight is 14 hours but leaves at 11:3o in the evening so we were able to sleep for much of the flight.

Over the course of just under two weeks we managed to explore Sydney, numerous coastal towns, the Hunter Valley and its wineries, the college town of Newcastle, Barrington Tops National Park, many coastal parks, and Brisbane.