Surf Camp

There was a request to blog about surf camp, so here goes.

The Monday after Christmas I woke up at 5am and headed down to the Central Station to the rallying point for a Surf Camp. We were supposed to be met by buses which would drive us the 3 hours south to 7 mile beach at Gerroa. But because it was Boxing Day and some other lame excuses, they put us on the train, so I had a nice 3.5 hour train trip south along the Australian coast and through the hills. The website talks about beautiful huts on the beach. The reality was that the surf camp was based in a holiday park (like a trailer park but rented out for vacations) and it was a fair 10 minute walk to the beach along a gravelly road barefoot carrying heavy 9ft foam surfboards. But, it was still awesome. The camp owns several huts in the holiday park which surround a big open shelter with picnic tables under it which is the congregation point for all times not surfing. The beach is just what you would expect a place called 7 Mile beach to be. It is long, broad, fine sand, and gorgeous.

The basic daily schedule was, get up early, eat breakfast, surf for 2 hours, eat lunch, relax for an hour, surf for 2 hours, eat dinner, relax for a few hours, maybe head up to the pub for a bit, an then crash. It was exhausting! Definitely a type of exercise my body was not used to. My muscles were SO sore! The first two days the weather was a bit dark, windy, and even raining at times which roughed up the surf making it harder to paddle out past the break, but the second two days were gorgeous and great for learning. In theory, surfing is not that hard. Lie on the board, paddle hard for the wave, push up and stand. In reality, you are doing so many things so quickly and your balance has to be spot on that you spend a lot of time under the waves. which is awesome. At some point it just clicks, and you can hesitantly stand and you feel like the king of the world. Of course, at that point you realize you're standing on a 9 foot 3 inch thick foam board that a cow could probably surf on, as opposed to the 5 footers that you see in the movies....but small victories. Right!?
It was great. On my way home, I stopped by the weekend place of a colleague, did a bit more surfing, and had a BBQ which was great. She lives with a friend who has 2 HUGE birds, lots of rabbits, and several dogs next door, so dinner was a bit of a cacophony, but delightful as well.

And that was my first surfing experience. First of many hopefully. I'll be happy to teach you when you get down here(-: