Woolgoolga (Spot X) - Days 95-96

After a minor adjustment in our bus time table, we left Sydney at
10.30pm to travel north on the east coast. The bus wasn't that great
for, Peter got a good couple of hours under his belt, I only managed
about 2 hours of the 7 hour overnight journey.

We arrived in Woolgoolga at 6.40 am and were met at the bus stop by
one of the Mojo crew. Mojo is the company that will be teaching us to
surf.

We arrived in surf camp, shown straight to our dorm room and given a
very quick breakfast. Our surf lesson started a 7am.

Darren, our blond hair blue eyed Aussie surf teacher ran through the
basics with us. We were first given a few rules that we had to abide
by, EG: no speedo's allowed, no peeing in wetsuits etc. We were all
(14 of us) given a wetsuit and a board and headed to the beach which
was about a 2 min walk.

Once on the beach, Darren showed us which direction the current was
going, this was an important piece of information, if we weren't told
or didn't know, we could easily ended up 2km further down! Darren
showed us how to stand up on the board in 4 easy steps. After a few
practice runs on the beach, it was time to head out into the surf and
give it a go.

Peter and I being the co-ordinated, highly trained athletes that we
are got up first time! Much to our excitement. Granted that the waves
we were learning in were tiny! Darren stayed in the water with us to
give us all a hand and more instruction.

We absolutely loved it! After about 2 hours in the sea we headed back
to surf camp to warm up and have some lunch.

Bus loads of tour groups come into Spot X, some just for a morning
lesson and then hitting the road that argue, we opted for 2 days 2
nights.

There were only 5 of us staying over the first night which was pretty
relaxed, we had dinner, a couple of beers around the camp fire and
watched a DVD in the comms room with the staff.

Day 2 of surf camp didn't materialize for Peter, he somehow picked up
a 24 hour bug, we won't bore you with those details! I left Peter in
bed and went off to the second days lesson. We had such a blast, there
were only 2 other girls, Rachel and Courtney (both Yanks) and me with
Darren in the water. The objective of the day was to progress from
standing up in 4 steps to one movement. After a few practice runs in
the baby waves, Darren decided that we could handle some serious
waves. Getting out to these big ass waves takes a lot of work, I even
managed to smash by board into my nose after the mother of all waves
broke right on top of me. Lesson learnt! With Darren behind us
shouting that we need to paddle hard we realised that we either had to
have sore arms from paddling, or be slammed by the in commng set!

That's when the real fun began, with Darren choosing our monster waves
again shouting at us to paddle hard and then to stand up, we were up
and away. What a feeling! After a few successes and many wipe outs I am
most certainly hooked on surfing, more do than skiing. This is
something I definitely going to continue doing.

After an exhilarating morning, it was time for a shower and and some
much needed lunch. While we were out in the surf, 90 people
materialized in the camp. Travelers from all over the world. Made for
an interesting night. I was introduced to Goon (cheap wine) which is
just what we call papsak. After drinking the night away, we were
woken up at 5.30am to go to the bus stop to catch our bus to Byron
Bay. A mild hang-over meant that I slept most of the 3h30 journey.
Again lesson learnt, in order to sleep on the bus, drink the night
before!!!