21/22 March 2009

This morning we left Byron Bay at 7am for Surf Camp. This is a compulsory stop on Oz Experience as the journey from Byron to Sydney would be too much in one go. We arrived at the camp around lunchtime and were shown to our rooms, very small but ok!. Then it was time for the surf lesson. We had a talk with the intstrutor first where he taught us the basics about catching the waves and rips etc. He was most concerned with flirting with some girls in our group though and trying to look cool. He even said the most important thing about surfing is looking cool when you're holding your board, and said you don't even need to get in the water, just walk up and down on the beach! Me, jess and our friends Dan and Emma weren't that impressed and just wanted to get in the water..

We had to lie down on the boards and practice 'popping up' onto them - basically getting from lying down to standing in one move. This was hard enough to do on the sand let alone in the waves! Then it was time to get in and have a go. We both found it really difficult - to not only stand up on the board but to time it exactly right with when the wave came in. I managed to stand up a couple of times but only because the intructor pushed me into the wave and shouted 'NOW' when I needed to stand! It was really tiring too pushing yourself onto the board and then swimming back out. We ended up doing lots of nose dives and falling into the waves and water. It was really really fun though and we were both glad we tried it. I bought a CD of photos from the photographer afterwards as there were a few funny ones of me attempting to surf.

This evening we had a really nice dinner of beef nachos with sour cream and drank some vino with the people we were sharing our room with. Another early start the next day - 6am for our journey to Sydney...