Another winter, following summer

It’s January, and after a groovy holiday season spent back home in Wisconsin, I escaped the cold, heading southwest with short visits to Steamboat and Encinitas. Now, I have found myself in Noosa Heads, Australia.

Coming to Australia was somewhat of an “on a whim” decision finalized only a month or so ago. I have my travel/work visa and intend on working and living here until the summer guiding season rolls around in the northern hemisphere. 

Noosa Heads is a small town of about 6,000 that brings in lots of visitors. People come from all over Australia and the world for surfing, fishing, hiking, beautiful weather, and that sweet sweet beach bumming. For those unfamiliar with Australia, Noosa Heads (I had never heard of it before arriving) is a surfer's paradise on the eastern coast (Sunshine Coast) just north of Brisbane. With four point breaks on the west/north side of what’s called “the head”,  backed up by a national park and endless beach breaks down the east coast. There’s more surf here than one would know what to do with. Typically, with great surf comes heaps of surfers, and there is certainly no shortage of us in Noosa. Walking to the beach today, on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, there must have been at least 300 surfers in the water. Beginners and experts alike, together, floating like a sea of buoys waiting passionately for that beautiful break, their break. 

While here in Australia I intend to likely work in a bar, restaurant, or possibly on a fishing charter boat. What I want to do most while I’m here though is to find some consistency in my day-to-day life. 

Looking at the life I’ve lived from the outside in, it seems like nothing but excitement, thrilling experiences, wonderful people; an stress-free style of living. I know how lucky I am to live the life I have to this point and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. However, I often find myself longing for stability and routine. To give you an idea, over the past 2 years; it’s been since April of 2022 that I had a place I called my own. There was a year and a half stretch of time where I hadn’t slept in the same bed more than 4 nights in a row. My life has been on the go for most of the last 8 years; and so I very much look forward to this slower lifestyle whenever it comes around. 

I’d reckon that just as much as humans need and yearn for adventure we too crave a schedule and some reliability with what each day might hand us. We want to travel the world but look forward to coming home to our own bed after the long journey. We chase that feeling we get at the top of the peak, or the delicious new and foreign meal placed in front of us as we look up at the Pantheon. But just as much as we crave adventure, I’ve come to find that we need our sense of home and a place to come back to.

People look at my life and view the grass as a perfect shade of green, but don’t forget, I too see green on the other side. I’ve romanticized a coffee shop where they know my name and order. A yoga studio I go to a few times a week with my favorite instructor. A basketball league that plays weekly at the local park and grabs beers at the pub afterward. A book club that gets together on Wednesday nights over decaf coffee. A pottery studio where I have time to actually accumulate work. All of these things that to most must seem so mundane and ~normal~ have become my fantasy. 

So, while here in Australia I plan to do just that. The mundane. The routine. The normal. Maybe I’ll find it exhausting and boring, but I’m quite looking forward to it for now.