As if the surf and the place weren’t bad enough themselves, you might even get told to “Fuck off back to England” by a angry bald Scouser on a SUP. Good times.
Cornwall
A barren expanse of windswept granite, interspersed with patchwork traffic jam, Cornwall has somehow convinced holidaymakers, weekend surfers and the Daily Mail alike that it isn’t one of the worst places in the world. There’s one road and one out – one too many you might say. The waves are literally pathetic; watching what was once a legit North Atlantic swell die an excruciatingly slow, painful death on a flat Cornish beach can actually make you both bored and angry at the same time. The towns? Either full of waddling chavs or perhaps worse, twee pretend-it’s-1952 faux fishing villages full of stockbrokers’ second homes. The tides are a joke, the wind is fingered 99.9% of the time. “It might swing SSSE’ly for 10 mins!” urges your deluded host. But what’s even worse? Worse than the surf, the people, the scenery, the roads? This: Those precious few summer days when England is actually blessed with high pressure, when the South has pollen warnings and 26 lovely degrees; Cornwall is fucking 18, partly cloudy and windy as assholes. Fact: no one has ever been able to read a broadsheet newspaper outside in Cornwall without either folding it to the size of a pamphlet, or maintaining a vice-like grip and swearing when it goes inside out every ten seconds.
“A barren expanse of windswept granite, interspersed with patchwork traffic jam, Cornwall has somehow convinced holidaymakers, weekend surfers and the Daily Mail alike that it isn’t one of the worst places in the world.”
Australia
Australia is a decent place to go for breakfast. If you want strong vegetarian options that include fluffy free range scrambled eggs and home-made baked beans on sourdough toast. The coffee? Fantastic. The surf? Fucked.
Like the Germans in France, Australians used to know their place in the world. They’d be crammed into a backpackers in Earl’s Court, agonising over the price of a pint of room temperature beer “That’s three hundred Aussie!” they’d (take too long to) say, before remarking, without irony, that Poms whinge. Now though, the script has been flipped. We can’t afford their shit. And if the ubiquitous 2ft onshore beachbreaks or risk of bankruptcy don’t get ya, the unpleasant wildlife will. While the terrestrial threat of creepy crawlies has been lessened by them completely raping their natural environment in the quest for the precious natural resources that’ll allow them to pay for the aforementioned brekkie, and the ‘King Hit’ laws somewhat reduced your chance of having your ears boxed, the sharks are completely out of hand. Paddle out near Byron Bay and you’re not just likely to see shark, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get chomped. Australia – to borrow from their own unique parlance – cunt of a joint.
