Aug 6 - Wipeout!

My cabin was up at 8:45 and began organizing brekkie. We had toast and cereals and got ready. Our first lesson of the weekend was at 11 so we drove to Cape Conron (10 min away) and found our instructor Mal (Malcolm) waiting for us. We signed the releases and got handed a wetsuit to put on. We looked sexy! (HA) We each grabbed a board and headed to the beach. Unfortunately, I don’t currently have pics of the surfing b/c we were told to not take our cameras and the organizers took photos for us which we will get copies of on Thursday. The beach was beautiful. It was white, clean, soft sand. The waves were perfect.

We did some warm-up exercises and then did the basic lesson on the sand. Once we got the basics down, we walked on into the water. BRRRRRR! We lucked out because it was a sunny day, but the water was still a good 50-55 degrees! My poor feet and hands were icy! I had a couple really good runs on learning the arching of back and riding the waves in. I tried getting up a couple times and nearly made it. I also took on some of the larger waves and had some HUGE wipeouts. My instructor came and checked on me after one and just said – I am so glad you came up smiling. You totally just won the wipeout award! Hehe I pooped out a bit earlier than some of the girls, but I also took a pretty bad bashing after my 3rd or 4th decent wipeout – the kind where you do flips underwater and get carried a couple feet because your board drags on with the wave and it’s attached to your ankle!

When we were done, we all struggled to get out of our wetsuits and ached for warm showers, which we promptly got when we returned to camp. AK and I went into the men’s side for our shower so we wouldn’t have to wait and it was just Jono otherwise with us at the park. That was the nicest shower I’ve had in a while and both AK and I kept remarking that neither of us wanted to get out… we just wanted to stay there with the hot water flowing.

Lunch was also pretty good after we had worked up an appetite. We went into the city nearby called Orbost and found one place open called Wendy’s. I had a lasagna and some garlic bread. I was so hungry, but it filled me fast. After a hot
chocolate, we decided to try to get a little sightseeing in before we lost all the light. So we went in search of some caves, but decided it would be too dark and instead went down to a Cabbage Palm Patch that we got dyslexic and called and Cabbage Patch Palm instead. We parked the cars and walked down a path of ferns and trees along side a stream.


It was a really calming walk until people discovered they had leaches on them! I had one on my jeans and one on my shoe, but fortunately did not have them on me – unlike a couple others! That was a laugh. We all got to the clearing and began checking ourselves.

We made it back to the cars and drove out and started seeing roos left and right because they like to come out at dusk. We had to be on patrol so we wouldn’t hit any and a couple stupid ones DID try to cross in front of us!

By the time we made it back to the cabins, none of us were truly hungry for dinner, so we all crawled on one bed in the girls cabin and got the heat going, watched movies and kept warm… then the drinking games began. So by 9:30 we decided to head to the pub and walked over. We had a couple drinks and I listened to the king of Australian blues (he even sang “Kansas City”!) and then went out watched the girls play pool before snuggling up in a chair by the fire to chat and watch cricket. I was pretty much pooped, but we closed the place down at 1. Then it was off to bed for the next day!