THE ENDLESS SUMMER....

D: On Tuesday we signed on for surfboarding lessons run by the Hans Hedemann Surf School at Turtle Bay. Hans Hedemann was a Hawaiian surfing legend in the 70s and 80s who started one of the first Surf Schools.

The claim of the surf school is that they’ll have you riding waves in just two hours… So we put their claim to the test!

D. There was a pretty big swell at Turtle Bay on Tuesday, so we hoped in the Van with Kay-Lei-Kay (our surf instructor) and Katie (our photographer) and drove out to a nearby beach.

Kay-Lei-Kay was a cool guy and told us lots of stories… Apparently he knows the Bra Boys (but we were sceptical). But he did claim to have surfed near Kempsey which was a bit random (most Aussies rarely even go to Kempsey, let alone Hawaiians).

E: When our instructor first told us his name, I couldn’t help but think of the scene in ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’ when Peter (the main character) goes for a surf lesson and the surfing instructor tells him his Hawaiian name is Koonu, and then names Peter, Peepyopee. I was a little disappointed to not get given a Hawaiian name.

D. During our two hour lesson we each caught a few waves and were standing up which was cool.


D. The other guy in our surf class wiped out on a big wave and cut his head… He had to go to the hospital and leave the class early. We felt really sorry for him, because he’d been surfing really well and had caught some great waves. I guess that’s just the nature of surfing though.

D. While we were floating around waiting for waves, Lizzi looked down and saw a massive sea turtle swimming beneath her. It was probably (in my opinion) one of the coolest parts of the day. 

E: The turtle was just like one from ‘Finding Nemo’, just cruising through the water, kind of slowly. I got a little freaked out at first, cause I wondered if turtles bite (turns out these ones don’t) and so then appreciated how amazing it was to see a massive turtle in the ocean, just chilling.