Every surfer must make the choice at some point. That decision between comfortable middle-class responsibility or the razor’s edge path of a life dedicated to surfing. And, yeah, you kinda do have to choose, because there are few who possess the surfing talent and luck and business acumen to wrangle them both.

Let’s be honest. You ain’t no Nate Florence or Tai Graham.

Neither am I.

And ever since I landed back in Oz off the back of this six-month surfing odyssey across Indonesia, I’ve felt the pull of both pathways.

On one hand: a beautiful girlfriend, a neat-little one-bedroom apartment on the fringes of a waveless town, nights out and dinners at nice restaurants, and the imperative to spend the majority of my time earning enough coin to pay for it all.

On the other: living off the seat of a motorbike, out the back of a car, in a state of constant filth and scrounging enough money to get to the beach. All for the chance to get absolutely coned out of your mind when the waves are on.

I’ve tried moving forward with a foot in each camp, but now there is a clear fork in the road. My Italian girlfriend has had her visa cancelled and been kicked out of the country. She’s landed in Indonesia, a kind of halfway point between Australia and her home in Europe, but beyond the next few weeks neither of us know what will happen.

It presents two options for me.

Can I adopt the money-oriented mindset and corporate lifestyle necessary to maintain a good life in Europe?

Or do I keep bumming around, hunting the best, most uncrowded waves I can find?

If any answer is unclear there is no better place to seek clarity than WA’s northwest desert. ...