Random as Brandon

After 3 flights and over two days of travel I’ve finally made it to the infamous town of Coolangata located on a section of the west coast of Australia, two hours south of Brisbane, formerly known at the Goldcoast.

My trip started 12pm on Wednesday May 24th in Naples Florida, where I drove 2hrs to Fort Lauderdale to wait another 2 hours to board the plane which was delayed an hour and half before boarding. Once on board, a series of thunderstorms passed through delaying 20 planes on the runway ahead of us, resulting in us sitting on the runway for nearly 3 hours before departure.

The original itinerary planned to get us to Houston at 8:30 and flying and overnight flight to Auckland, NZ at 10:20. We landed at 11:30 so it was safe to say I wasn’t making my flight. Once we got everything sorted I arrived at the hotel at 1:30 AM to fly out of Houston on the same flight just 24 hours later.

All this free time in the hotel left me with the perfect opportunity to work on some graphic design.

Here is some I did to show NP.

All was well and I made both of my flights to New Zealand/Au’s but when I arrived I noticed my kite sticking out of my bag, this wasn’t good. I guess it got snagged on something because there was a tear on the top and the stitching was wide open like a flower blooming on a spring morning. It’s as if the airlines have a vendetta against surf bags. No damage was done to my kites or boards so really it could have been way worse. I  finally got to my hostel, The Sands hotel, in the Goldcoast at 11:30am   on Friday morning on May 26th.

If you’ve ever watched any of the world surf league tour events then you’ve seen the beach break known as Snapper Rock, which is famous for its fast, shapely, usually hollow, long, consistent wave break which is located directly in Coolangata along side a few equally word class waves.

The swell was dying so we were able to sneak a couple of morning sessions before the wind switch on. I didn’t catch much waves and the crowds were thick so catching a good one was tricky.

However the water so clear here it made it all but with it. I knew it was blue water but the viability surpasses the Caribbean. Watching the sands churn under neither my feet was all the entertainment I needed. I wish I had brought my gopro on the first session but I didn’t knew what it was going to be like and I didn’t want to  be that guy with the bright orange camera in his mouth just asking to be punch. Its all good though!

The hostel was better then I expected. The price was fair and the location you couldn’t beat being right on the main strip, walking distance to all the beach breaks. Everyone was really cool and I even made some friends I’ll keep in contact in the near and distant future. The upstairs wrap around balcony was unexpected and made for the perfect spot to do some sunrise breathing exercises and stretching. I knew my sleep schedule was going to be off so I took full advantage of easily waking up at 5am, which is a never for me at home.

This whole area is such a surf vibe that all the food shops were small, friendly, and full of creative health and not so healthy meals to fill you up after a long day on the water.

There are also tons of people up bright and early doing their morning runs before the work day. Perhaps that’s why all the cars stop almost to a fault when your trying to cross the street, even if your no where close to the corner.

After a couple of days filling my belly and getting adjusted to the 14 hour time difference it was time to head up the Gladstone to get aboard the Cabrinha Quest.

It was an all day bus leaving the Goldcoast at 8:30am landing me at the boat at midnight that night, so it was about 14 hours on a bus with basically no internet or power plugs to charge my computer. Yaaay! :/ …. Again, all is well.

It’s my first day on the boat and I’m settled in. The crew is really cool and I’m looking forward to setting sail Friday June 2nd. Internet is hard to come by so ill be going dark these up coming days

Stay tuned and I’ll keep you posted.

Cheers!

Morocco is over and we totally killed it. I don’t want to get into too much detail because the story will be out very soon along with the next Issue of #TravelWithBrandon series but I can say is that we scored 6 out of 6 days of wind all on my 9m- some days better the others- but still more wind then Florida haha!

After Dakhla I blindly traveled into Paris with the plans of taking the rail to Turin and totally skipping the city all together. Well it turns out you can’t buy your Eurorail ticket at the airport, just in a Paris station. It also turns out that you can’t buy that pass 9 oclock at night either so with no information on Paris, not even a map, nor any phone service, I travel into the heart of the city never actually using a train system prior, with my drunk incoherent partner (my 32 kilo board bag) and a slight nervous feeling for the first time in my travel. Normally I’m very comfortable in random places but with a reputation of locals not being super friendly and definitely not fond of Americans, along with no clue on how this city works and its no no places to stay away from I really felt in over my head.

By the luck of the drawn I boarded the train with fellow kiteboarders who just came back from the Caribbean who ride Carbinha no less, Ahh!! Friends! Luckily for me, my new friend and his girlfriend are from Paris and have working telecommunication devices so they started to search for some hostels. After a few google searches his lady friend found me a hostel right out side of a station but stating that they were unsure of the quality of stay. At this point I could care less because I had the mentality of opening my board bag and getting cosy at a train station so a this was sounding like music to my ears.

As soon as I stepped outside of the station I knew I was in the right spot, with numerous well lit bars and restaurants gleaming from the streets of Paris into the night, landing me straight into the area known as Gare De Nord. After a a quick beer I was pointed into the right direction feeling better and better. Especially after walking 500 yards without anyone trying to sell me something or trying to punch me in the face. The spot wasn’t easy to find because the base of it is a bar with reception on the side.

I eventually decided to stay another night because this random chain of events was too good to just pass up and I would have stayed a third night but the place was booked up (having roughly 200 rooms and god knows how many beds.) you know its good. The stay was full of buy one get one Heinekens, Australians, Jager Bombs, blondes, brunettes, a redhead or two there, was even some fellow crackers like my self-  Go Florida!. We ate, we drank, we laughed, there was even a Swedish fling for a little, it was good times and it was the perfect way to ease me into my euro journey . After two days I was reluctant to leave 1 euro shots and new friends but I had to get to Torino to meet the bride and groom and eventually making my way down into wine country.

The wedding I attended was to be set in Barolo and I’m sure if your into your wine you have heard of Barolo wine. The town was amazing, very small consisting of about 500 people. Its a very rich area in more ways then others but literally everywhere is lush fields of grapes all to be made into wine, I mean even the roundabouts had grapes growing.

 Lots of the family of the bride are from the town and surrounding areas so we got the first class treatment, which is a bit of an understatement, it was more like family. Instead of trying a glass of this or that it was bottles of top of bottles. I wish I had more knowledge or appreciation for this because I know we were slamming some classy stuff. We had a few bottles of the wine of the year no less! And it couldn’t be fresher (not to be Ironic) but we could literally see which hills the grapes were grown on, and who picked them, and who did all the other steps in-between. Some of these “cheaper” bottles will sell in the states for hundreds of dollars, never will I ever get the chance like this again, so I took advantage of it, regardless of how sore my throat was or stuffy my nose (I was sick since I arrived)

The wedding was lovely, nice ceremony, quick and easy. The food was amazing, every meal was at least, I mean at least 3 courses plus desert. The family and friends did some really interesting shows, some dancing in a group, others did humorous songs on the guitar (which I understood none because it was in Italian) but people were laughing. After dancing we had a firework show from basically the center of town. It was a great way to end the night.

Now I’ve made my way to Spain to see a good friend from my Travels in Jordan and to enjoy the Mediterranean life style. Stay tuned, I’m going to do an entire post only about this wonderful country!

I know I’m a little belated with this post but I figured its better late then never plus it lets the dust settle after my trip out west and the launch of my Crowd funding campaign https://www.darkhorsepros.com/campaigns/132

This will be fourth time back in the Gorge and what a trip it was. If you don’t know where Hood River is its a small action sports filled town 45 minutes east of Portland along the Colombia Gorge River which marks the boarder of Oregon and its neighbor to the north Washington.

All your adrenaline, coffee, and wine fix will be met here along side their vast variety of landscapes. Snowboarding in the morning, Mountain biking mid day, stop for a quick dark roast, and finish the day off with a 9m session and brew all with a back drop that will make your mother go, “Wow… Look at that backdrop."

I embarked on this adventure to meet up with a close friend Mr. Zach Wilson and the opportunity to take advantage of his insane camera skills to once again get on screen with Two Brothers films and their Epic RED camera.

The First few days I wasn’t able to score much because of lost luggage resulting in lack of neoprene and my harness. Once my luggage arrived Zach and I were able to score a small evening session, even though I wasn’t riding my best, with the scenic background and HD slowmo our shots looked like money and it was one session for the books.

The Original plan was to shoot the whole week in the evenings and slowly chip away at this video. A forecast quickly turned for the worse and before I know it I was pack up in a RV heading to the coast for the first time in my life with an old friend from Naples who I haven't had the pleasure of seeing in over 6 years. Fritz basically watch me from the start and was always one of the most supportive kiter buddies around. I was even on a small apparel company he started years back.

This turn for the worse eventually became the best part of my whole trip. After all day of packing, driving, pit-stopping, and driving some more we finally managed make it to Newport beach for a dreamy orange sunset session. The water was cold, the wind was strong, and I didn’t go past the break without the image of Mick Fanning on my frontal lobe.

Being that Hood River was 103 degrees and windless for the next 3 days it seemed like the whole coast was filled to the brim with Campers leaving us with very little options to sleep. We ended up stumbling along this random rest stop 10 miles down the road right along the beach which we had the pleasure of calling ours. We were never bother once not even when we had a roaring fire along the beach. It was epic, it was the beach, we called it ours, and it was the best parking lot I ever slept in.

Unfortunately Zach wasn’t able to come, but I still managed to shoot some video with my gopro and Fritz took the honor of shooting from shore to cover the gaps. This left me one day to make up lost ground and finish the video up with Zach before I left.

The wind was gusty but made it happen with some flat water passes, nose presses and a toeside backside 5 for good measures. It may not have been my best riding but with Zach’s killer skills the video is going to turn out probably better then I would image. (he’s good like that)

So now its time, 3 a.m. wake up to be in Portland by 4-4:30. I was passed like a baton from one friend to the next finally rallying to my departure gate to only then fall asleep at my gate, past boarding call at 5:30 a.m. which left me stranded in Portland's very tiny airport for the next 18 hours until the next flight to Houston which was the Redeye at 12 midnight…. Super.

Either way it was well worth the mayhem and to which I can honestly say I can’t wait to be back there again even if it involved lost baggage/ 24hr layover.

Thank you to everyone who was a part of this trip, without everyone none of this would have happened :)