Surfing at the Gold Coast

We decided to head down to the Gold Coast one day, only about an hour's drive south of Brisbane. It's one of the fastest growing areas in Australia and is a beach resorty type place with lots of surfing and shops and a casino.

Despite the rain and windy weather, we tried our hand at surfing, but the currents were pretty strong and it took so much energy to get out to the waves that it almost wasn't worth the fun ride in!!




After surfing we watched the surf lifesaving national competition. You can check out more about it here if you don't know what it is, but basically it's a pretty full on competition with large row boats in the ocean and paddle boards and other interesting competitions, as we found out!


We watched an age grade "flags" competition where kids lay on their stomachs facing away from the "flags" 20 meters away. When the whistle blows, you jump up and race to get a flag. The catch - there are less flags than there are people racing!! So every heat eliminates competitors. Apparently it's quite dangerous and people hurt their arms and shoulders when diving for flags. Pretty exciting!!