Week 6: 3/9-3/15
School was fun as usual, but nothing especially interesting to report here. I spent most of the week anticipating our weekend surf trip to Crescent Head (a beach about 5 hours North of Sydney) organized by a company called Mojosurf (I mentioned reserving my spot on the bus during the Cairns Introduction in my fourth post). The bus left Friday from a backpackers near UniLodge at 6pm and arrived in Crescent Head on time around 11pm. I met a lot of new people again and made some more new friends. The girl I sat next to (Gabbi from Connecticut) was really nice and made for some good conversation and company during the ride. She goes to the University of Sydney, and as it turned out, so did a majority of the students on the bus. Her good friend, Whitney, was a few seats ahead of us and was also very nice. During the trip, I discovered that she also goes to the University of Minnesota and in fact was nearly best friends with a girl named Emma Thomas, who was a girl I had taken my scuba certification classes with before coming to Australia, and even drove with me to our actual certification dives. It’s corny to say, but it definitely is a small world…she was one of just two acquaintances I had from Minnesota that I knew would be in Australia, and she had actually been in Sydney a few weeks prior, but goes to school at a University in Cairnes. These two girls I met are planning on visiting her in a month or two and I plan on joining them if I can afford it. I met a couple other guys who are also friends of theirs by the names of Jeff (Boston) and Evan (Wisconsin) who I spent most of my time with at camp and found out also lived in UniLodge on the same floor as me. Anyways, during the ride we made two stops – once about two hours in for food at a McDonald’s and again at about four hours in at a tiny pub and bottle shop in a little rural community of about 100 people, where we purchased all of our alcohol for the weekend. It was hilarious, because the town obviously anticipates the arrival of this bus every weekend. When we pulled up, everyone standing outside stood up and cheered. Our Australian driver, Morgan (who was also one of the guys running the camp), warned the girls to stick together when exiting the bus, as “some of these blokes have only seen their sister.” After this, we spent the remainder of the ride partying (safely…Morgan managed to abstain from it himself) and playing drinking games until we arrived at the site, which consisted of a couple lodging cabins, a bathroom facility, and a kitchen canopy where we had our (all-you-can-eat) meals. We spent the first evening either at the beach or around one of the two camp fires. This place is way out in ‘the Bush’ so the ocean view was absolutely beautiful – we could see all the stars and the reflection of the bright moon off the water lit up the shoreline. The beach is huge and there are no major communities anywhere nearby, so even during the day the beach was largely unoccupied. The night ended pretty late for most of us and the morning came exceptionally early, but the excitement of the day got me out of bed without much delay. We all congregated in the canopy for breakfast and a brief introductory lesson covering the basics of surfing, including terminology and information regarding the rules of the camp. We then got in line to get our wetsuits which we would be using for the next two days. Each suit had a nickname written on the chest that the employees of the camp had chosen (mine was ‘Mattress’). It was a short walk to the beach, but a long walk to the “North Side” where we would be surfing (about 20 minutes). We got our boards (some large foam starter boards), split up into groups, and got taught how to lie on our boards, paddle, and stand up. We didn’t waste much time before hopping into the water and catching some waves. It was a very interesting experience – the only two boards sports I have tried are snowboarding and wakeboarding, but it wasn’t very similar to either, because you put a lot more weight on your front foot. I actually stood up on about my third try when the instructor pushed me into the wave (rather than peddling into it, which is what you do when catching your own wave). After that, I slowly got the hang of it and was able to get up on my own about every third or fourth time. We went back and grabbed some lunch before another round at the “South Side” this time that was actually perpendicular to the North Side somehow. The waves were bigger on this side and I had a lot of fun trying my hand at some bigger waves catching a couple. By the time we were done for the day, I was thoroughly exhausted and hungry for dinner. When we got back, we all cleaned our wetsuits again and took ourselves a short shower (the camp was on a water restriction limit, so we had to make them short). While dinner was being prepared, some of us gathered around the fire and played a game taught to us by Christina on the way up called “21”. We would take turns going around our circle, counting to 21, one at a time. Every time we reached 21 we would cheers and whoever said 21 would make a new rule for the counting (e.g. someone might make the rule that instead of saying 5, you must give the person to your right a high-five). Every mistake in counting would result in the punishment of a skull (or drink from your beverage) and starting over. As the game progressed, it would become more and more difficult, but everybody had fun playing until dinner was ready. Our meal consisted of steaks, burgers, sausages, salad, and baked potatoes. The evening was full of more fun around the fires and along the beach.
It was another early morning Sunday with even more sand gracing my sheets than the previous sunup. I was a little more hesitant to get out of bed today and feeling a lot less comfortable and clean. I was eager to get another run of surfing in however, so after packing our bags and another quick breaky, we were instructed to head back to the North Shore at our
own leisure. The bus back home left at 1pm leaving us with only about 3 hours or so to surf. This was more than enough time, as my hip began to feel a bit strained, and my wetsuit was starting to chafe the back of my knees something awful – I saw a slight improvement and am excited to try surfing again at least once more before going home. The bus left right on time and I think most of us were ready to leave and see our showers and beds again. A majority of the ride home was spent sleeping, but I managed to get my weekly reading done for Social Theory as well. We got dropped off back at Wake-Up Backpackers where we were picked up and encouraged to all meet at the adjoining bar (SideBar) to party and celebrate one of the participants 21st birthday, but I was perfectly happy calling in a weekend and catching up on my rest before the start of a new week. All-in-all I would have to say it has been one of my favorite activities and weekends since arriving in Australia.
School was fun as usual, but nothing especially interesting to report here. I spent most of the week anticipating our weekend surf trip to Crescent Head (a beach about 5 hours North of Sydney) organized by a company called Mojosurf (I mentioned reserving my spot on the bus during the Cairns Introduction in my fourth post). The bus left Friday from a backpackers near UniLodge at 6pm and arrived in Crescent Head on time around 11pm. I met a lot of new people again and made some more new friends. The girl I sat next to (Gabbi from Connecticut) was really nice and made for some good conversation and company during the ride. She goes to the University of Sydney, and as it turned out, so did a majority of the students on the bus. Her good friend, Whitney, was a few seats ahead of us and was also very nice. During the trip, I discovered that she also goes to the University of Minnesota and in fact was nearly best friends with a girl named Emma Thomas, who was a girl I had taken my scuba certification classes with before coming to Australia, and even drove with me to our actual certification dives. It’s corny to say, but it definitely is a small world…she was one of just two acquaintances I had from Minnesota that I knew would be in Australia, and she had actually been in Sydney a few weeks prior, but goes to school at a University in Cairnes. These two girls I met are planning on visiting her in a month or two and I plan on joining them if I can afford it. I met a couple other guys who are also friends of theirs by the names of Jeff (Boston) and Evan (Wisconsin) who I spent most of my time with at camp and found out also lived in UniLodge on the same floor as me. Anyways, during the ride we made two stops – once about two hours in for food at a McDonald’s and again at about four hours in at a tiny pub and bottle shop in a little rural community of about 100 people, where we purchased all of our alcohol for the weekend. It was hilarious, because the town obviously anticipates the arrival of this bus every weekend. When we pulled up, everyone standing outside stood up and cheered. Our Australian driver, Morgan (who was also one of the guys running the camp), warned the girls to stick together when exiting the bus, as “some of these blokes have only seen their sister.” After this, we spent the remainder of the ride partying (safely…Morgan managed to abstain from it himself) and playing drinking games until we arrived at the site, which consisted of a couple lodging cabins, a bathroom facility, and a kitchen canopy where we had our (all-you-can-eat) meals. We spent the first evening either at the beach or around one of the two camp fires. This place is way out in ‘the Bush’ so the ocean view was absolutely beautiful – we could see all the stars and the reflection of the bright moon off the water lit up the shoreline. The beach is huge and there are no major communities anywhere nearby, so even during the day the beach was largely unoccupied. The night ended pretty late for most of us and the morning came exceptionally early, but the excitement of the day got me out of bed without much delay. We all congregated in the canopy for breakfast and a brief introductory lesson covering the basics of surfing, including terminology and information regarding the rules of the camp. We then got in line to get our wetsuits which we would be using for the next two days. Each suit had a nickname written on the chest that the employees of the camp had chosen (mine was ‘Mattress’). It was a short walk to the beach, but a long walk to the “North Side” where we would be surfing (about 20 minutes). We got our boards (some large foam starter boards), split up into groups, and got taught how to lie on our boards, paddle, and stand up. We didn’t waste much time before hopping into the water and catching some waves. It was a very interesting experience – the only two boards sports I have tried are snowboarding and wakeboarding, but it wasn’t very similar to either, because you put a lot more weight on your front foot. I actually stood up on about my third try when the instructor pushed me into the wave (rather than peddling into it, which is what you do when catching your own wave). After that, I slowly got the hang of it and was able to get up on my own about every third or fourth time. We went back and grabbed some lunch before another round at the “South Side” this time that was actually perpendicular to the North Side somehow. The waves were bigger on this side and I had a lot of fun trying my hand at some bigger waves catching a couple. By the time we were done for the day, I was thoroughly exhausted and hungry for dinner. When we got back, we all cleaned our wetsuits again and took ourselves a short shower (the camp was on a water restriction limit, so we had to make them short). While dinner was being prepared, some of us gathered around the fire and played a game taught to us by Christina on the way up called “21”. We would take turns going around our circle, counting to 21, one at a time. Every time we reached 21 we would cheers and whoever said 21 would make a new rule for the counting (e.g. someone might make the rule that instead of saying 5, you must give the person to your right a high-five). Every mistake in counting would result in the punishment of a skull (or drink from your beverage) and starting over. As the game progressed, it would become more and more difficult, but everybody had fun playing until dinner was ready. Our meal consisted of steaks, burgers, sausages, salad, and baked potatoes. The evening was full of more fun around the fires and along the beach.
It was another early morning Sunday with even more sand gracing my sheets than the previous sunup. I was a little more hesitant to get out of bed today and feeling a lot less comfortable and clean. I was eager to get another run of surfing in however, so after packing our bags and another quick breaky, we were instructed to head back to the North Shore at our
own leisure. The bus back home left at 1pm leaving us with only about 3 hours or so to surf. This was more than enough time, as my hip began to feel a bit strained, and my wetsuit was starting to chafe the back of my knees something awful – I saw a slight improvement and am excited to try surfing again at least once more before going home. The bus left right on time and I think most of us were ready to leave and see our showers and beds again. A majority of the ride home was spent sleeping, but I managed to get my weekly reading done for Social Theory as well. We got dropped off back at Wake-Up Backpackers where we were picked up and encouraged to all meet at the adjoining bar (SideBar) to party and celebrate one of the participants 21st birthday, but I was perfectly happy calling in a weekend and catching up on my rest before the start of a new week. All-in-all I would have to say it has been one of my favorite activities and weekends since arriving in Australia.
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