Since surfing is one of the highlights of Australia's east coast, we wanted to give it a try while we're here. Neither of us had ever tried it before, though Ken has done lots of snowboarding and windsurfing - me, not so much... so we signed up with a local surf school and met down at the beach near our campground first thing this morning. I was admittedly nervous, with the big waves reminding me of some nasty spills as a kid in Hawaii and a subconscious fear of landing on what used to be an easily injured shoulder. It was time to suck it up and just DO IT! It was just us and two teenaged sisters in the class, taught by a young guy who once coached the Aussie national surfing team (who knew they had one?!). We put on wetsuits and hauled boards down to the beach (light, soft foam learners' boards) and then got straight into the lesson. We were told about currents, safety stuff, anatomy of the board, and then the simple steps in catching a wave. With that, he sent us out into the water to give it a try, hopping up onto the board on your stomach just before the wave reaches you, then paddling until it picks yo up and speeds you effortlessly right to the beach. It was so easy and extremely fun - we could understand why there were so many kids out there on body boards doing just that all day long. But we wanted to surf, so that requires learning to stand up. On the sand, it all seemed so easy - but we soon found out how hard it is in the water! Catching a wave is easy, but then it takes a second to find your balance, get your hands in the right spot so you don't push the nose down, get your toes planted to push up, then heave up with your arms and feet all at once to lift your butt in the air and bring your legs up underneath you all in one smooth motion (yeah, right!), all the while staying straight and not letting the wave pass you. All of that on a floating chunk of styrofoam flying across the ocean with water spraying all over the place makes for quite the ordeal! But somehow I managed to get up (kind of) on my second try, albeit only for a second or two, before crashing. Ken had a bit more trouble. Ok, he had a lot more trouble. For being such a great snowboarder, he was surprisingly clumsy! He did get up a few times for a few seconds each, so that counts as success I think! We had almost two hours to practice, and I was able to get the hang of it well enough to ride the waves all the way to the beach until the board was flat on the sand. There might have been a happy dance or two! In between the successes, there were many, many failures - losing your balance and flying off the board backwards, overshooting the initial hop onto the board and sliding off the other side, colliding with other surfers, getting ploughed over by giant waves that pummel you into the sand, slamming knees and elbows into the bottom in deceptively shallow water, and even getting your ankles so tangled in the cord (that attaches one foot to the board) that it trips you and you fall flat on your face. You get the idea! There were definitely times when I would look over and see Ken completely underwater with an upside down board, and I had a couple spills that I really hoped nobody saw. We were exhausted by the time it was over, as walking back out after each attempt against powerful waves and a strong undertow is a lot of work! No wonder all these surfer guys are in such good shape! We had an incoming tide and an incoming storm to make things tricky, which meant that waves started coming from two directions at once and a strong longshore drift carried us along the beach without us noticing. We all had sand burns on our shins and bruises on our knees and elbows, plus a couple cuts and scrapes as a souvenir. It really was a lot of fun, and we agreed to consider renting boards at a beginner-friendly beach down the road to practice some more one day. The rain was pounding down as we walked back to the campground, where we warmed up and relaxed for a while and did our best to celebrate Easter with hot crossed buns and a mini Easter egg hunt around the camp site.
Just down the street is a koala rehabilitation centre, where we had heard that tours are run each afternoon. We braved the rain, which came down harder and harder, to see what the facility is all about. Basically, it's a hospital where sick, injured, and orphaned koalas are nursed back to health before being released back into the wild. The grounds are covered with a variety of big trees that the koalas love to climb and feed from, many of which have been planted to increase their habitat. Inside, the center has an intensive care unit and an operating room where procedures are performed to treat things like broken bones, dog attack wounds, tick infestation, and eye surgeries. Outside are a bunch of fenced habitats where animals on the mend can be 'dehumanized' with trees to climb, leaves to eat, and minimal human contact. The center currently has only eight patients (the fewer the better, really!), but they typically get 200 to 300 admissions each year. It was interesting to walk around with a staff member and learn the history of each bear, their current stage of treatment, and release plans. Some of them are in the final stages of pre-release, while others are old in age or battling terminal diseases (like Chlamydia) that forces them to be cared for permanently at the center (or the Port MacQuarie Hilton, as they call it!). It was feeding time when we were there, so we got to watch these adorable little guys come out of their nearly eternal sleep to receive special formulas fed by eye droppers. It was touching to watch them and hear their stories, like the older female that was admitted first for tick infestation, then a year later for severe dog attack wounds, and again just a few months ago for debilitating arthritis. She's well past the average life expectancy now, and they don't expect her to survive much longer. It's sad to hear the stories, yet good to see how much the hospital has done to help these little guys. And considering that the place is run almost entirely on volunteer help and with donated money and supplies, I think they have done an incredible job and will hopefully help to keep koala bears off the endangered species list.
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