SURF CAMP

I'm back in Sydney now after what was one of the greatest weeks of my life! 

Monday morning I got a coach down to 7 Mile Beach in Gerroa with the rest of my crowd, and checked in to our bunks in a caravan park. After the initial talk we suited up (though it is sunny, the water is still pretty cold as we are only just in Spring over here), and headed down to the beach.

It's been so long since I surfed, and I never had a proper lesson, so I went completely back to basics and learnt from scratch, getting rid of all of my bad habits. We started off small on white water waves, working on balance and the correct pop-up technique. The Chicken Wing method is so much better than what I was doing; I always used to lose my balance and fall down.

Chicken Wing; push upper body up, back heel to knee with flat foot, straighten arms, step through with back foot into safety position, push off arms and stand.

Up at 7 for breakfast before the morning session, then a bbq lunch, rest and session 2. Then drinks and chilling into the evening. Quiet time starts at 10, so you either go to bed or to the beach, where the stars were incredible. I have never seen them so bright!

Just like everywhere else I have been to, the people at surf camp were great. The guys who ran it were so much fun and really great teachers. I learnt so much from them.

I learnt to turn left and right properly, and ride the wave to the side instead of straight forwards. We progressed onto green unbroken waves pretty early in the week, learning the easiest ways to paddle out back behind the impact zone. At first the guys were pushing us in to the waves, telling me when to paddle, when to get up. But I quickly got my head around it. I watched them judging the swell lines as they came in, saw when they would send someone or hold back. I got familiar with which bumps in the water were going to grow into a good wave, big or small, where they would break and where the best position was to catch them. And then it was game on. I caught green wave after green wave, and headed back for another with the biggest grin. 

There was only 1 afternoon, at low tide, when the waves weren't great. And then we just got silly and had fun. Practicing silly tricks; the coffin (lying on your back, hands crossed), driving the car (bit of mime work to keep it fresh), the golf swing (you get it...), 180s, and my personal favourite, the buddha.

 Two lessons a day, 3 hours each. By Wednesday I was starting to ache. By Thursday the bruises were showing and by Friday the friction spots were all red and bloody. I feel like I have spent a week in a boxing ring - my body looks like it too.

Dream Team

A 21 hour journey on a Greyhound Bus and I arrived in Sydney.

Sydney is a great city. It is very like London with interesting cafes and restaurants lining the streets, beautiful parks, big shopping centres and hip people. It's huge, sprawling over miles of streets and suburbs, and I'm really struggling to orient myself - I spent a couple of hours this morning on the same few streets trying to get back to where I'd come from, walking in circles. I even had a map and couldn't figure it out! (I blame the map!)

I am here with a 1 year work and travel visa, on a 2 week orientation package with AIFS - the American Institute for Foreign Study. There are 6 of us on the programme, all from England! From left to right, Marcus, David, me, Cara, Lauren and Jonno. Everybody is great and we get on really well. We are thinking of getting an apartment in Sydney together and staying here for Christmas and New Years - they are BIG in Sydney!!

Marcus and I have an interesting back story. We met, not in Sydney, but in LA. We were sat together on the flight from Los Angeles to Fiji! And in Fiji we just happened to stay in the same hostel for a few days at the end of my trip. He stayed in Fiji while I was in the Sunshine Coast, flying over a week later, and yet we still somehow managed to walk into our hostel here at the same moment!

Time has flown! So far we've been so busy without actually doing much! We've had a few talks about working here and travelling. We've set up bank accounts and applied for Tax File Numbers. We've done a great walking tour of the city, sat around in the sunshine, and worked on CVs, looking for jobs and apartments.

We've also done lots of socialising!! Lots of places here do free pizza and drinks evenings, before moving on to a bar. Our first night we joined the party in the Greyhound store and made friends with the guys who work there. We got free drinks all night, Lauren won a skydive, and we have been promised an incredible deal travelling up the East Coast. We are going in to see them about it today, so more on that later...

We took a day out from job hunting and headed into the sunshine with a couple of other friends. We got a ferry from Sydney Harbour, sailing past the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, and 30 minutes later arrived in Manly beach, one of the most beautiful beaches in Sydney. White sand beaches, sunshine, waves, the perfect place to chill out. Surprisingly the water was FREEZING! Much colder than the Sunshine Coast, though perhaps not as cold as England.

We've split our 2 weeks in half, and in the middle, we've booked in to another great deal. Tomorrow we are going to SURF CAMP! We travel down to Seven Mile Beach where we will live in cabins on the beach for 5 days. 2 surf lessons a day, with bbqs and camp fires and 100 people. From everything we've heard, it is going to be epic. I am ridiculously excited and acting a little bit like a kid on Christmas Eve.

Sunshine Coast

G'day from the Sunshine Coast of Australia!

After a slightly dubious night at Nadi Airport in Fiji I boarded a time traveling plane and headed to Australia. I gained 2 hours and am now 9 ahead of the UK - that was good because I had chance to sleep - you don't get much on a floor in the corner of a foreign airport...

My wonderful cousin Saffron and second cousin (?) Sofia met me and took me back to their beautiful house in Alexandra where I met the gorgeous Oscar. I have my own room with a proper bed, a power shower and a washing machine - I've never felt so clean!!

It is great to spend time with Saff and Sofia. They moved here from England years ago. And I've seen them maybe twice since. But they are so much fun! I've been shopping with Sofia and latin dancing with Saff and we've climbed mountains together.



It's a 5 minute walk to the beach, less if you take a bike with the clever board racks! The surf here is great, the sun is always shining, I'm in heaven! I've been given free reign to the supplies in the garage and I've been using them well...

I've been to a pottery class, with my aunt Lindi. Saffron took me to the incredible Eumundi Market (I now have to learn to cook Tibetan Momo!). Houses in the trees, cocktails at Noosa, countless beaches, mountains and fish and chips.  Claire, my cousin from my dad's other brother has also just moved to Australia, to the Gold Coast, and she and her boyfriend Matt came up to say hi. 

There's so much to do here. Surfing and spending the day on the beach, reading and topping up the tan. Making sand castles too, though this one wasn't made by me...

The Sunshine Coast is full of birds. Ibis and Egrets roam the beach fronts, and bush turkeys are everywhere! The trees are full of parrots and lorakeets, and huge pelicans sit in the waters waiting for their next catch.

 In short, Sunshine Coast is amazing. And I'd very much like to stay here!