Surfing is a lot harder than it looks, really. You think the surfboard keeps you afloat, but only if you centre of gravity is on it at exactly the right place, otherwise you fall off. You have to coordinate so many things at once. So you're lying on your surfboard facing away from the waves and then the wave comes. But it has to be the right type of wave, and you have to "catch" it at the right time, otherwise it might go under you. I didn't realise how weather-dependent surfing is! So the wave is about to hit you, you start paddling, then you have to try and stand up, which is really hard, but it's good fun anyway. So far all I've managed is to stand on the surfboard for about 2 seconds, before falling back into the water. I've been thrown about by the waves more than I've been on the surfboard!
We first tried surfing on a trip to the beautiful Yorke Peninsula, about a 4 hour drive from Adelaide, 29th-31st August. Achim set up the trip, with a company called surfcultureaustralia.com. We stayed in a fantastic beach house down at Marion Bay, near the Innes National Park, which was great in itself, especially seeing wild kangaroos and emus! The Yorke Peninsula was the first taste of the Outback, just two hours out of Adelaide and there's nothing but rolling green hills. Mark was a great teacher and an all round nice guy. On the first full day we surfed for the first time, but on the second day the weather wasn't good enough, so we went around the peninsula instead. A good weekend had by all!
Since then we've been surfing at Mark's school down at Noarlunga, south of Glenelg. It's beautiful down there. If I wanted to live in South Australia, I'd live down that way!
Anders and I down at Noarlunga.
No comments:
Post a Comment