Surfing in 'Paradise'

Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » Byron Bay
May 15th 2008

Published: June 13th 2008

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Liam Ben and Chris

Surf Lesson

Our group after 'catching some waves'

Although many of the towns up the East coast seem very similar in style and attitude, Byron Bay seems like arguably the most genuine little 'surf' town we have come across so far. It is a tiny place, with one main street which is home to one bottle shop, two bars, a couple of backpacker hostels and, strangely, two subways.

We stayed at Main Beach Backpackers which was the nearest hostel to the beach - only about 50m across the road. The hostel was one of the best we found in Australia, with BBQ's every night and either a poker comp or drinking games or something else equally fun going on. As we sat around chatting to other travellers and slowly (ok, actually quite quickly) getting drunk on 'goon' (the backpacker favourite - $10 for a box of 4 litres of pretty horrible wine!), me and Chris blew our $10 buy in for the poker comp, whilst Liam had lady luck shining on him and ended up sharing the pot with an Irish lad called Dave, and each walked away with $60! There was also a free drinks vioucher thrown in and after we had gotten through the goon and

Surf Lesson

Chris shows how it's done

the winnings there were few memories of the night but 3 very heavy heads the next day!

We still dragged ourselves out of bed though (tough when it's another bright 24 degree Australian Day outside) and had a go at boogie-boarding. The waves were rolling in and, with no standing up involved, we rid ourselves of our hangovers by repeatedly letting ourselves wash onto the beach with the breaking surf.

It was just a taster of the fun to be had with saltwater and polystyrene, as we booked ourselves onto a 2hour surf lesson at our next stop, the more touristy, garish town of Surfer's Paradise. Sadly in my view, "Surfer's" does not live up the image you create in your mind when you hear about a town named after 'Paradise'. Instead it was a typical Beach resort town, much like you would find on the Costa del Sol or any of the Greek Islands. The surf was really good still, and we were really looking forward to our surf experience. The claim made by the instructors was that no-one has ever not stood up on their boards, so we obviously felt no pressure whatsoever as we were

Surf Lesson

Ben follows suit....

led our to tackle the waves. In order, Liam, Ben and Chris, we all managed to stand up first time and cruise a small but steady wave from the break towards the shore. We were all pretty relieved to have managed it, although the next few waves might suggest it was aa case of beginners luck as it took us another 10 minutes to repeat the feat.

Once we had 'perfected' it with our instructor's help, we were left to catch the surf on our own and the two hours flew by. We went again the next day and were taught the more difficult, but cooler 2-step technique. I, Ben, sadly attempted a wave that was far beyond my extensive 2-and-a-half hours of surfing experience, and planted the nose of the board into the sea bed! Once I had re-surfaced from the underwater turbulence, I grabbed my board ready for the next wave only to find it snapped right across the middle and now more resembling a giant foam banana than a sleek surfboard. The surf guy swapped it for a new one but, i think, was secretly slightly miffed that I had probably just cost him that night's