Noosa Festival of Surfing Australia 2018 Body Bash Recap With Daniel Carr

This year Lauren and I traveled up with some friends (Mel and Michael) for a kid free weekend. We packed and shipped off the kids on Thursday night and headed off around 3.30am for a 6am flight into Brisbane on Friday morning.

Brisbane is a 1hr flight north from Newcastle airport, which is about 1hr drive from my house. From Brisbane we drove up to Noosa, approximately a 1hr 40min Drive north of Brisbane. We’d booked a nice 2 bed apartment and 5minute walk from Noosa main beach, so it was easy enough to get around. Friday night was a good time to catch up with everyone down at the main beach and bar on the sand. 

Unfortunately, I would say conditions were comparable with 2017. The waves were small and lacking power, varying in the 1ft range. There was plenty of dry humping butterfly kicking going on to stay with the wave. 

There were a lot of familiar faces from last year, difference for me was that I didn't have the luxury of a second round start, so I kicked off in the second heat of round 1 early on Saturday morning. This was good to blowout some cobwebs, I was lucky enough to make it through to round 2. This was a weird one, as I’m really not down with the whole scoring aspects, but top 3 progress through.  Round 2 later that day was more of the same conditions.

From round 1, I picked up on the importance of a long ride, so the priority was to milk the wave as much as I could, with the small size it made any rolls a challenge as you’d loose speed on the roll and then will be chasing to stay on the wave. 

Again it was enough to get me through to the semis, so stoked to progress further than last year. Saturday done, and fell asleep on the lounge mid conversation with Michael.  Sunday semi final later in the morning, if anything the swell had dropped again :(

1. Great to catch up when th fellow Slyder Keali’i and the entire Dafin crew, which this year included partners. Keali’i is a nice and humble young guy and I look forward to one day being able to share some waves in Hawaii with him. 

2. Other than the lack of waves, the whole Noosa Festival of Surfing is a great gathering and opportunity to bring together bodysurfers from all parts of Oz and the globe, but great to see a separate women’s event in the bodysurfing this year. David Archer from Garage Handplanes has done a great job in ensuring bodysurfing is part of the event so well done to him and also Thomas Alexander for the event and coordination from the festival side.

Mmmm strolling the Main Street of Noosa, sitting on the beach watching the other events, or cooling ourselves down at the bar and catching up we fellow competitors and their partners for dinner. 

Was great to meet him, as I said earlier he’s a really nice guy as I generally find that with most Hawaiians I’ve meet. Was great to celebrate his 23rd birthday with the Dafin Ohana, share a beer and watch him try some kangaroo for his first international trip. We shared some laughs.

Not much in the competition front planned, next gathering is the annual Whomp Camp trip from 22-24 June up at Camp Treachery, so looking forward to that. 

Catch Daniel Carr in Action HERE