Okay, now let's talk about the big day itself, Tuesday February 19 -- the day I turned 30 years old!
I started the day by listening to some of my favourite tunes on my iPod while sitting in a hammock at the hostel. I love listening to good music, and it was a really good activity to start the day with. I spent some time sitting by the pool (yes, my hostel had a pretty sweet pool) chatting with some of the people I had rounded up to go out to party that night. I had to make sure they knew what they were celebrating ;)
Soon, it was time to try the thing I was really excited for: SURFING! I had booked myself in for three surf lessons. The cost was AU$115 for the three lessons. There would be one lesson per day. The first lesson was on the big day! It made the day that much better. I had been excited about trying surfing for a long time.
Surfing, it turns out, is actually very hard! I guess the hardest thing for beginners to master is just standing up on the board to ride the wave. You have to start laying down on your front, then:
1. Raise yourself up on your hands.
2. Jump up on your knees (with your hands still down on the board).
3. Bring your leading foot up and around between your hands (which are still down). The foot needs to land on the centreline of the board and be facing perpendicular to the rails of the board. I had a lot of trouble doing this. By itself, it's an awkward position to be in. Doing it in a sequence with other positions is even trickier!
4. Bring your trailing foot up and also put it on the centreline of the board and perpendicular to the rails. Getting both feet in position was really tricky.
5. Push up with your hands into the surfer stance -- knees and waist bent with arms not too high up. I had trouble with this, too. It's so unnatural to push up with my hands instead of using my legs to push myself up. However, using the legs is bad because you can make you lose your balance.
You don't have a lot of time to stand up, so you have to do all the movements quickly and smoothly.
As a result, on the first day, of the maybe fifteen times I tried to ride a wave, I managed to successfully get up only three times. Even those times, though, I only managed to stay standing for like three seconds at a time before losing my balance. Bummer.
I was surfing with five other students (Paul and Pip from Melbourne, and Rob, Tibo, and Sarah from Germany) and one instructor, Jock, that day. Jock was super cool. He'd been surfing professionally for like twelve years. He was SO GOOD. Seeing him on the waves just put me in awe, especially after the hard time I was having. At the end of the lesson, though, he reassured us that we all (including me) made really good progress that day and were now really surfers! We had accomplished something! Yay!
Sadly, near the end of the lesson I got a cramp in my right calf and was dead in the water. Jock had to tow me to shore so I could recover. I sat on the shore for about twenty minutes before I paddled back out to try catching some more waves. There was only time for one more try though. I was disappointed, but decided I would not give up. I still had two more lessons and knew that I would do better next time.
Back at the hostel, I got ready quickly before heading out to dinner with my posse. I first went to dinner at the Railway Hotel with Shawn and Katie from England. We drank there for a while and watched a live one-man band perform on stage. This guy, Nathan Kay, was really impressive. He played guitar and didgeridoo (though not at the same time). He also played the Technotronic song Push It beat-box style with just a drum machine to back him. Sweet. After a couple drinks there, Laura and Kayleigh (from the night before) met up with us for some more beers there.
Soon it was time to go dancing. We went to Cocomanga's first to claim our free drinks (given to everyone staying at Cape Byron YHA). We each got one drink with Malibu rum, pineapple juice and grenadine in a jam jar. Tasty stuff. At Cocomanga's my posse of English girls treated me well. They plied me with drinks and kept me dancing until we got bored with the music -- too repetitive. We knew where to go next: Cheeky Monkey's (the same place we went the night before).
At Cheekies we met up with Penny, Carla (both from England), and Emma (Swedish girl from the night before) from the hostel and danced until 3 in the morning (when it closed). The music was the same cheesy Top 40 mix from the night before. I decided that being the DJ at Cheeky Monkey's must be a really boring job since you basically play the same music every night. Boring!
On Wednesday morning, surprisingly, I was not hung over. I guess when I start to dance I forget to keep drinking and don't end up getting overly shmammered.
I took myself on a walk to the cape to see the easternmost point in Australia and the lighthouse. The lighthouse was set up high on a hill, and I made a brisk walk of it. The views from up there were stunning. On the way, I scrambled over a lot of rocks on the beach to get to Cape Cook Lookout. I had to choose between wading through the knee-deep water on the beach or scrambling and hopping over the rocks with water rushing between them to get to the Lookout. I had taken my shoes with me and didn't feel like taking them off and them putting them back on with wet sandy feet. Instead, I scrambled over the rocks. It took a while to find the right rocks to jump between and I sometimes had to time my jumps to avoid the splashing water. In the end, I didn't even get wet one bit!
When I got back to the hostel, I said goodbye to Laura and Kayleigh. We had really fun times together and I would really miss them. They were traveling north to Surfer's Paradise (just like 90% of the people I talked to in Byron), so I don't know if I'll be able to see them. I seemed to be in the minority: I was traveling south and most people were traveling north. So, I probably wouldn't be able to see most of the people I meet ever again. It's things like this that really make the backpacker experience very bittersweet. You can make friends really easily, but you often have to give them up after a few days. I had Kayleigh's phone number though and would try and stay in touch.
My second surfing lesson went much better than the first. It was with the same people as my lesson the day before. I tried another method that Jock showed me, but it wasn't working out for me. Then I tried switching to leading with my other foot and going with the original stance. With this arrangement, things started to click for me. I was able to ride a few waves for a really long distance before jumping off the board. I was doing it! I was surfing! I was even holding my own by paddling into the waves by myself (before, Jock was pushing me to get started at the right time). Close to the end of the lesson, though, BOTH of my calves cramped up really painfully and I had no choice but to hobble to the beach. It was raining lightly at the time and the sky was filled with a rainbow.
After the lesson, I found a few people from the hostel, Shawn and Emma (both from the night before) and Pete (from Scotland) and went out to the sushi restaurant, O-Sushi, in Byron. I was lusting after sushi for the past few days. Rumour has it that O-Sushi was the "good" sushi joint in Byron, so we had to check it out. Surprisingly enough, they had a sushi train there, including a locomotive with a little driver dude inside. The sushi there was, in fact, really good.
After drinking four nights in a row, I decided to spend the night "in" at the hostel. I hung around on the patio and played card games with some people and had a couple beers before turning in.
On Thursday, I found out that my surfing lesson for the day was cancelled. I was disappointed, but inwardly, a little thankful. My calves still felt tender from cramping up the day before and I didn't know how long I'd be able to surf before suffering the same fate as before.
The weather that day was absolutely gorgeous -- for the first time in Byron Bay. The weather on all the other days was generally overcast with brief bouts of rain. I hadn't visited the main beach yet and went down to check it out. The waves were crashing into shore pretty violently. They were curling over in the classic style and were easily over my head in height. I decided to try and go in the water to play in the waves. They crashed into me and tossed me around. It was really fun.
I took the rest of the afternoon pretty easy and spent most of it sitting around the pool. I self-catered my meal that night -- pita bread, hommous and a banana. Simple, but healthy stuff. I had to say goodbye to Emma that afternoon. I was going to miss her, too!
I played more card games on the patio with a whole bunch of people. After a while, we had an eight person game of Spoons set up. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go out drinking that night, but they dragged me out to Cheekies anyways. Yes, I went there three of my six nights in Byron. This night was my last in Byron, so I might as well celebrate. I went out with three very hot girls from Scotland: Moira, Julie, and Gemma; two guys from Norway: Ziggy and Lars; a girl from Germany who's name I can't remember; and Carla from the night before. I didn't end up dancing until 3 AM this time, but decided to take off at like 1:30 AM. The hot Scottish girls had left a while before, and it wasn't as fun without them there. Oh well.
On Friday morning, my time in Byron Bay was over. I caught a Greyhound bus at 11:05 AM on my way to my next destination, Coffs Harbour.
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