Surf's Up!

This past weekend I spent a few days in Crescent Head, one of the premier surfing spots on the Central Coast. The area is about a 5 hour drive north of Sydney, between here and Byron Bay (another well known surfing town).

Back in July on our orientation program, we all signed up to go surfing with a group called "MojoSurf" - one of our orientation leaders works for the company and we got first dibs on the spaces for the weekend. We were so excited to sign up for our end of the semester reunion.. when it hit us that it's now the end of the semester, it was a little scary.



Crescent Head is a small town, and our accommodation wasn't in town - we were in the country at a bungalow owned by MojoSurf. There were dozens of bunk beds, a kitchen area, surf hut and place where the instructors slept, a party hut and lots of trees. It was about a 5 minute walk to the beach and from there all you can see is white sand. The way the waves were coming in, we walked along the entire beach for about 20 minutes to get to the best learning spot. All along the way, there wasn't another soul. The beach was perfect, barely touched, and simply beautiful.

Crescent Head was on of Australia's most popular surf spots in the 1960s and now is just a quiet country town with a few dedicated surfers on miles and miles of clean beaches. We invaded the empty beach with our huge foam surfboards (for learners... they hurt less), and wetsuits. We laid down on our board on the beach and the instructors taught us how to "have fun and look cool" and paddle out properly and pop onto our feet and balance on the waves. They're good teachers, I'm just not a fast learner.

The hardest part of surfing is just getting yourself and your 8 foot board past the breaking waves without drowning. Then the hardest part is picking a wave that's actually going to work for you. Then the hardest part is standing up. Then the hardest part is staying on your feet. After about an hour, we were exhausted.

We surfed all morning, went back for lunch and a siesta, surfed and sunned in the afternoon, had dinner, had a little party, slept, woke up, ate breakfast, surfed more, had lunch and then went back to Sydney. With all that practice, even I was able to catch a few waves!!! I may not be going pro, and I don't really have the desire to continue surfing at all (too much waiting and tough work to get out there to enjoy the few seconds you get trying not to fall off the wave...), I can finally say I've surfed Australia.

:) Rach