Day 11: Margaret River Again

Day 11 was a bloody cold one! For some weird reason the temperature dropped by 15 or so degrees, down to a nearly freezing 21°C! And on top of that there was a strong onshore wind blowing which didn't make it any warmer. Particularly for me this was bad news as I had lost my last hoody (after I lost my 2nd cam and a real nice t-shirt and before I lost my rented rashy) about 3 weeks ago. Since then I had only been wearing t-shirts which wasn't a problem at all -- until Day 11!

As we had to get up very early again in order to avoid the rangers we were spending the first coupla hours in our Bart-van in front of a grocery store. Fun times! Poor Bastian, all spoiled from the warm temps up north on the east coast in Queensland, was freezing his ar...errr...bum off!

We kind of killed time until noon, then went to Redgate Beach once again to check on the waves. The ocean seemed still pretty choppy and the waves came in fairly irregularly. I still wanted to give it a go, so while Bastian took care of our Bart-o-mobile I took my board (called "the whale") and went down to the beach. And the conditions sucked! The current was very strong, the wind would have been fantastic for windsurfers but it was very bad for me, and the waves were almost impossible to ride.

After 45 minutes I gave up and just went for a swim instead. That was actually nice. The air temperature was well below 20°C with the wind chill but the water was nice and warm (23°C to be exact)! I actually had to stay in the water so I didn't freeze. Quite lovely!

But the evening wasn't fun at all. Both of us spent most of the time in the van trying hard not to freeze. Maybe we should have swapped our flip-flops and shorts for jeans and proper shoes but that wasn't an option. It's supposed to be summer after all!

The outlook for tomorrow isn't much better. According to the forecast it'll be even colder than today (about 18°C) and the wind is supposed to blow just as strong. I guess we'll just have to endure one more day with arctic temps and wait for Saturday when it's said to get better...

PS: As I'm finishing this entry off another freaking ranger showed up giving me shit about using the toilet's sockets....what a pain in the a.. they are :-)