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Published: November 5th 2012
Breakfast
Breakfast on the balcony!In the morning (10/20/12) we made breakfast and ate it on the balcony overlooking the city! Then we headed off to Byron Bay in NSW, which is about an hour south of Surfer’s. Forrest and Henry rented a car for their semester here and it was sooo nice to get a break from public transportation!!
When we got there they let us drive on some side roads to try it out Aussie-style!!! It was really weird to be on the left side of the road and I had no idea how close I was to the sidewalks and people. I just made sure that I was hugging the yellow line to my right and knew that the other side of the car would be fine. Everything was backward too, which made it really confusing. The stick was awkward to control with my left hand and Alexa turned on the windshield wipers when she was trying to put on her blinker.
The weather overcast and windy that day so we didn’t spend too much time on the beach. We checked into our hostel and met the other people staying in our room. There were 6 girls from Germany and Sweden
Aussie driving
Shifting into reverse with my left hand?? It felt so wrong that were so fun!! They were a couple years younger than us but partied twice as hard!!
We went with the girls to this club called the Cheeky Monkey. It was the craziest club ever!!! There were tables all over the place packed with people dancing and singing. We stayed out really late and all crashed by the time we made it back to the room. In the morning, we exchanged Facebook pages with the girls to keep in touch and then checked out of the hostel.
Alexa and I were determined to learn how to surf before leaving Australia and this trip was the perfect opportunity. Forrest is a surf instructor at home in Maui, Hawaii and Henry grew up surfing in Connecticut. We rented long boards and wet suits for the morning and headed out to the beach!
The waves were so HUGE that I have no idea what we would’ve done without our personal surf instructors. I could barely get myself out to the deeper water so there was no chance that I’d be able to drag my board out there too. Once I got far enough out I’d roll myself up onto the
board while Forrest stabilized it and held me back from any bad waves. When a good wave came he’d push me forward with it because I wasn’t strong enough to paddle up to speed. I’d effortlessly go soaring to the shore on my board, which was so much easier and faster than I expected!
The hard part was trying to stand. It was easy to get on my knees but I usually toppled over sideways while trying to stand up. I did stand a few times and managed to stand on my second try! Surfing was one of the coolest things I’ve ever tried and I was so lucky to have these boys as personal instructors!
Alexa and I said our goodbyes and thanked Forrest and Henry a million times as we left. We had to leave early in the afternoon to finish homework before our trip to Carnarvon Gorge the next day. Ironically, I had to spend the next 5 hours writing a paper about…wait for it… forests in Australia. We took twice as long to finish because we couldn’t stop talking about how much fun this weekend was!!!
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