Sept 20 - Errands and Failing at Surfing

Checked out of the mega industrial-sized Base hostel this morning then had things to do! Got a debit Visa card from NAB, tried (unsuccessfully) to get a tax file number (need an address and job first) and got a 6 month hop-on/hop-off Greyhound pass from Sydney to Cairns. Yay, the bus! I haven't had to ride those dreadful things much since University but now I get to cover the whole east coast on one. Nice. After the errands (which took forever because we had to walk everywhere with our wicked heavy backpacks) we took the train to Bondi Junction and walked to the beach. Rented a surfboard and wetsuit from "Let's Go Surfing!" for 2 hours and headed into the ocean. Surfing looks relatively easy on tv and such and I figured since I have done essentially every other board sport that I could pick this up easy enough. Wrong. I had an 8 foot foam board and surf conditions were not ideal. Lots and lots of 6 and 7 foot waves and even more swimming and trudging through the water. It seemed wherever I was, the waves were not. I went out to where the better surfers were and the waves started breaking nicely closer to the beach. So I went in and they started breaking back out further again. Rode a couple waves while lying on the board, but couldn't time them well enough to stand up while there was enough power in the wave to carry me. This was mainly due to being in the wrong place for the majority of the time. Got tossed under by a couple waves, which wasn't fun, but you seem to be able to pop up again within a few seconds. I'll give it another try somewhere else. Perhaps Byron Bay. We're taking the 10 PM til 10:15 AM Greyhound tonight to Byron Bay, so perhaps the waves will look better there.