Surf’s up
October 7th, 2009 | Published in Travel
I’ve always wanted to go surfing, so when I was in Australia I was determined to give it a shot and have a lesson. So I scooted across to Manly Surf School, for a two hour beginners lesson. Jill decided she didn’t want to participate, and no-one else turned up to begin with so I managed to get a private lesson.
The instructor warned me that because there’s usually about 10 people in a two hour lesson, and I was on my own, I would probably only last about just over an hour as I’d be more tired.
First off, the weather was the worst we’d had so far in Australia – cold and wet, but once I got in the wetsuit, to be honest I couldn’t feel it. The water didn’t even seem that cold. If you’ve been snowboarding, you know the hardest thing is constantly having to get up when you’ve fallen over. Well with surfing, I found the hardest thing to be constantly having to push up off the board. It was absolutely exhausting.
To cut a long story short, I did manage to stand up a couple of times, and lasted about an hour and fifty minutes before making it all the way in to the sand standing up, and deciding I’d go out on a relatively successful go.
I wasn’t prepared for the aching limbs I had for the next week, but I really enjoyed it, am glad I did it, and may look to do it again, as Northern Ireland has some great surf up on the north coast.
