Home Roads
There’s something about the feeling of driving away from a place of safety and comfort, in the direction of unknown lands and previously unexplored territories. With a small tent, a couple of surfboards and enough dog food to last until the end of the summer, Nica and I set off on yet another adventure into the unknown.
Life in a little red car on the west coast of Europe in April can be bleak. France was a total washout; rain, howling winds and sleeping in the boot with my wet dog, surfboards strung above me. The mornings came and I boiled coffee on a tiny camping stove on the front seat and tried to kindle within me the spark of freedom and adventure whilst walking along the long, misty beaches of Aquitaine. The days involved searching (unsuccessfully) for sheltered spots and struggling with the language. Instead of feeling alive and excited by the prospect of solo travel, I just felt damp, deflated and a little lonely.
The beautiful Basque Country seemed to feel my desperation and the wind relented, if only for an evening. I arrived in a tiny town, tucked into a dramatic peninsula, after reading about it in a battered Stormrider Guide (which was destined to be forgotten only a few days later in the apartment of a friend of a friend, never to guide me again). Parking up, I ran towards the beach with Nica, flask of tea in hand, where the swell was erupting on the shoreline. The evening had brought with it a moment of stillness, the onshore wind that had chased me from Cornwall, onto the ferry and down the entirety of the French coast, had seemingly tired of howling at my heels. Dark, chunky wedges peaked up along the bay, the fading light leaving the other surfers as only shadows against the shifting sea.
The light was dying fast as I sprinted back to my car. Frantically snapping fins into place and pulling on my wetsuit, I decided against boots in a desperate attempt to conserve the sunset. Back on the beach, Nica took up her sentry position on the sand, faithfully awaiting my return, and I plunged into the foreign waters. As I paddled out, I didn’t feel the harsh localism described by the guys I knew back home who had made the same trip. Maybe the boys in the water were surprised to see a boot-less girl paddle out alone and join them in the line-up in this back-end town in early April, but whatever the reason, I slotted seamlessly into the small crowd and felt no aggression. The waves broke in beautiful, heavy barrels, silhouetted against the dark sky, setting the bar for the many breaks I was so excited to discover on my trip. Big rollers built silently before steaming across the bay, and I felt a confidence and freedom build within me too. I left Cornwall because I was craving foreign voices and strange faces and new waves - and here I had found all three.
Before the Basque Country I had never paddled out alone at a new break, and I had never walked into a bar by myself. The next morning I awoke in the boot of my car with salty hair, a damp wetsuit steaming in the footwell and a horrible hangover.
Prior to my road trip, I was scared. I was nervous as a girl travelling alone, worried I wouldn’t meet anyone and that I’d spend the entire drive talking to no one but my dog. I doubted my own ability in the water, even though I’d grown up by the ocean. In the end, I needn’t have been so anxious - I made it to Portugal, where the sun finally came out, the surf pumped and I could pitch my tent on the clifftops, overlooking the rolling Atlantic. I camped in the forests in the Algarve, I drank on the rooftops of Lisbon, overlooking the sparkling city, I was washed up on the cliffs, I spent a stint in hospital recovering from a savage surfing injury and I repaired my boards more times than I can remember. I had my heart broken, I made friends for life and I found myself in sunset surfs with incredible people who brought out the best in me. I fell in love with life on the road and all the waves and faces and mishaps that come with the ride.
After five months I ran out of money and decided to head home. The previous year I’d met a girl whilst hitch-hiking in Nicaragua, who happened to be in Lisbon at same time as me. Together - Nica, my Basque sister Amaia, and I - began the long journey home; stealing oranges from overgrown gardens and living off Pastel de Nata’s. After a little incident where we crashed my car reasonably badly on a dusty track at sundown in the north of Portugal, we decided to make the sprint back to Cornwall as fast as possible, but not before stopping in a tiny Basque town, tucked away in the folds of a craggy peninsula. Arriving in the Basque Country, it seemed as if I had returned to the beginning. The descent down into the town felt like following home roads. We walked at dusk, arm in arm, teas in hand, Nica at our heels, through the winding streets where it all began and I contemplated that the simplest of events can kickstart something inside you; a good surf and a beer with a stranger was all I needed to push me out of my comfort zone and into a trip that would define me.
