'if you're out surfing serious waves and you wipe out, you don't land on soft snow. It's usually either very sharp coral, or you get raked across the beach gravel and sand while you're tumbling underwater."- Frederick Lenz

This past weekend was absolutely fantastic! I went to Arrawarra Beach in New South Wales to learn how to surf. I packed up by backpack and headed to catch a bus in the center of Brisbane at 7pm on Friday night. I was happy and ready for the trip to begin. All these weeks I thought the ride down was a 2 ½ hour journey…well whopps, 6 hours later, I arrive at Mojo X Surf School. The beach was absolutely beautiful and very quiet. It was like a little hidden beach since no tourists are here and the only locals are the surfers. Once I arrived it was about 2am, an hour ahead of Brisbane.

The living arrangements were simple, the host said “okay, 10 of you in this room now, go!” and go forth!  There was a total of 32 people on my trip and it was awesome to be able to talk to people from around the world. I roomed with Canadian, some Dutch girls and a few Norwegian men. We all went straight to bed for our first morning of surfing at 9am the next morning.

Daylight came very soon on Saturday! One of our Surf instructors woke us up by coming in and banging on the walls of the cabins. What a scary start to the morning! We had a delicious breakfast and had to be ready by 9am to be at the water. Before we headed out , we learned about the tides and how not to get caught in the rips, which was useful since a Cyclone was right around the corner and the waves were HUGE. Each of us grabbed a wettie ( wetsuit) and the instructors gave us surfboards depending on our height.  Once we heading to the beach, we learned the steps to get on the board, what to do if you fall, and all of the rules of the ocean when surfing.  And then finally, it was time to ATTEMPT to surf.

You’d figure since I love every other water sport and adventure sport I’d like surfing…well, this is the one exception.  I was so completely terrible. I mean I wasn’t the worst person out there but I think I had more of a fear of the water then anything. I learned growing up that when waves like this arise, you don’t choose to go in them! Surfing is all about getting into those terrible waves that most people stay away from! Don’t get me wrong! When I got up on the board, I felt like I was the coolest person ever! But then when I fell and a wave got me..that’s a different story!

On that Saturday we had 2 lessons. One in the morning and one in the evening. My entire group was exhausted by the time we were done with our second lesson that a lot of us were in bed by 9pm. My favorite part of the day?  The was an area that I would like to call paradise in the Surf School. There was sand and three hammocks, looking up at palm trees and blue skies, and the beach was around the corner. I’m 100% sure I have not been that relaxed in years.

The next day? I was up at 6am, before the sun. We had our final surf lesson at 7am so we were privileged enough to eat breakfast outside as the sun was rising. That was absolutely beautiful! The beauty soon went away when I could barely move from the amount of pain I was in! I guess after all those falls, my body wasn’t too happy with me! I also discovered that my knees, and all of my fingers were cut up from the surf board! No worries mate, my surf instructor just duct taped my hands up!  It was an overall successful morning but I was happy to be done! Everyone in my group was in pain! It was only a 2 day trip and some people do 5-10 day trips! Yikes!

Overall, I would recommend Mojo X Surf School to anyone! It was totally worth the money, and I was able to try something new! It was a great weekend away ( beside the whole bus ride part!)




*Reminder, if you click on the photos, they will enlarge! :-)