Africa……by Jaap Wildeboer
When living in Africa, you don’t always appreciate the wildlife. Good friend Jaap Wildeboer decided to combine his “aimlessly driving around” and “South African Nature Reserves visit” hobbies into animal photography – check out this small selection of his amazing photos.
Freemantle, Perth for a day
The waves were terrible and we had a late night flight so we decided to check out Freemantle, Perth with Damien Fahrenfort. Good times!!
rookie school……QS101
Lesson 1. When at roving venue………you have to get them “wheels” – check out Davey Weare’s Blog.
Lesson 2. Get the fricken contract roaming cellphone……..even if you use it for emergencies only……things DO go wrong…..you need a phone !!!!(eg. this year already I’ve missed a flight to Hawaii because of a delayed connection flight, I’ve been chased up a hill to sit out a Tsunami and got stuck in Scotland because of some restless volcano in Iceland).
Lesson 3. For most of the contests, we travel to the arse-end of the world…….there is NO surf shop to buy the super cold-water wax or the big-wave leach……take it with you, and some spares as well…..Davey had a lot of bargaining power with his cold-water wax.
London……
Everyone chose a different path home. Some drove to Europe, some hung in Scotland, some didn’t know what to do, some caught trains, some went to airports, some spent all day at the pub waiting and some, like me, drove to London. It was my first time in London and luckily I met up with one of my good friends, Brendon, who also did the drive to London. He knows the joint really well and took us to see all the tourist stuff and we went to some sick shops too. Airspace has opened and almost all the boys have got flights home. I’m on the airport at the moment and really relieved to be leaving only a day and a half later than originally scheduled. I must say if it wasn’t for my mom’s orginization, I would still be stuck somewhere in Thurso. The first picture is of a few of us hanging at the hotel, still stranded, mainly watching the news and having a beer, the second one is on the morning the airspace opened – I’m checking out a plane about to land, a rare sight over the last week….
Port arthur, tasmania
Important Note
No reference of any “Joubert’s” could be found in the prison records (as expected)…..but a huge surprise awaited the Staples family……Robert Staples – repeat offender….that is also the name of Dale’s grandfather…….say no more !!!!!
Australia’s largest penal station
Port Arthur was named after Van Diemen’s Land lieutenant governor George Arthur.
From 1833, until the 1877, it was the destination for the hardest of convicted British and Irish criminals, those who were secondary offenders having re-offended after their arrival in Australia. Rebellious personalities from other convict stations were also sent here, a quite undesirable punishment.
…here prisoners were hooded and made to stay silent, this was supposed to allow time for the prisoner to reflect upon the actions which had brought him there. In many ways Port Arthur was the pin-up for many of the penal reform movement, despite shipping, housing and slave-labour use of convicts being as harsh, or worse, than others stations around the nation. Some critics might even suggest that its use of psychological punishment, compounded with no hope of escape, made it one of the worst. Some tales suggest that prisoners committed murder (an offence punishable by death) just to escape the desolation of life at the camp.
…..Port Arthur was also the destination for juvenile convicts, receiving many boys, some as young as nine arrested for stealing toys. The boys were separated from the main convict population and kept on Point Puer, the British Empire’s first boys’ prison. Like the adults, the boys were used in hard labour such as stone cutting and construction.
Tasmania… in the sticks!
We are in Tasmania for the Cold Water Classic…
On the road…
Contest site – Lighthouse beach, Tasmania
Jordy= 09 champ John John+airtime=perfect 10
tourisimo……..
On the road…..not much swell today…..so Darryl took us touring west aus…
Lake Cave….
Voyager Wine Estate for some wine tasting…….hehe…….we have no idea what we are doing…….this is definitely for the larneys only !!
Down-town Perth
Hawaii…..
My first two days in Hawaii have been pretty fun. Surfed some left rip bowls and messy Waimea and Off The Wall this afternoon when it started to clean up. The weather has been pretty damn fine as you can see and that line-up shot of Pipe and Backdoor is going to be pretty flawless tomorrow. Too bad there’s a bodyboarding comp. I guess Off The Wall will be pretty crowded. Still looking forward to it.
Frankie Oberholzer
Frankie Oberholzer, stylemaster from Warner Beach…….one of the original “Searchers”………..an ecclectic band of “Search Boys” was assembled: Tom Curren, Damien Hardman, Gary Green, Chris Davidson, and Frankie Oberholzer …………and by pulling away from contest surfing and shameful quick-cut, rock and slop images…… the waves they chose to ride were sometimes dangerous and sometimes cold, but always visually stunning…..
Surfing Magazine, December 2008
….some of the best days of my life were back when I was traveling with Tom Curren on those Rip Curl Search trips……now, I’m just freesurfing a bunch, fishing and I’ve been really getting into my shaping.. …
ASL magazine, July 2009
…….delivered rifling barrels for hundreds of metres……a surreal kind of nirvana for any surf fan – with Curren and his old Search travel mate Frankie Oberholzer ruling……
Africa… Africa… Africa…
We have been plagued by a lot of frustation over the last few days. Mostly poor desicions by our guides not willing to take us to certain waves, but rather stuffing around at bad waves.
Everyone is pretty angry, because we missed the swell of the winter at one of Morocco’s best right points.
The guys also experienced the real Africa when they were almost mugged (see more at www.theafricaprojectfilm.blogspot.com).
We still saw some beatiful scenery and did some airs at a fun beachy.
We are now on our way to Marakesh to check out the mountains and markets and then head home.
Cheers………
Morocco… chilling… touring…
Today was a little bit slower than the last few days. We went way up north to go check some other spots, because there wasn’t much swell around.
We even saw a heard of camels on the side of the road, which was an unreal experience!
We eventually got to the spot after some crazy 4×4 driving, to find that it was pretty average, so ended up hanging out in the desert a bit.
The forecast looks good for tomorrow. Fingers crossed…..
Getting there…..
Here is the crew, on our way to Morocco, at Starbucks in Madrid Airport on an 8 hour layover. The crew is myself, Rudy Palmboom, Frankie Oberholzer, Greg Ewing (photographer), Jason Hearn (videographer and creator of the Africa Project) and Craig Ritchie (writer) still to join us. Stay posted for some epic photo’s.
