Surfing Safari

One of the things that Zack's been most excited about with moving to Australia is the surfing.  So on Tuesday we rented a car and drove down to Torquay Beach (1 1/2 hours away) for some surfing lessons.  St. Kilda is on the bay, so to get to the actual ocean with decent waves, you have to drive a bit.  The water isn't super warm, so you do have to wear a wetsuit in this part of the country.

Our instructor looked like Sean Penn, and we pretty much had the whole beach to ourselves.  Unlike when we took a lesson in San Juan and the girl held our board and pretty much did everything for us besides stand up and ride the waves, this guy taught us all the steps so we can now go out and practice ourselves on the weekend.  All of the paddling and getting pounded by the waves was quite exhausting (we're pretty sore), but we had fun and are anxious to try it again this coming weekend.

After our two hour lesson, we continued our drive down the famous Great Ocean Road.  We didn't go super far (we wanted to save some for another day), but it was unbelievably gorgeous.  There were cliffs and rocks and sandy beaches and a lighthouse and amazing views up and down the shore.  We stopped at various points to get out and take pictures.  One place was Bells Beach, which is famous for international surfing competitions.  It was pretty fun to drive fast on the windy road along the ocean in our speedy rental car.  I even dared to drive for a little while-it's SO strange to be on the left side of the road.  The Great Ocean Road is one place we'll take visitors for sure!