Australia

Australia has got to be one of the most popular holiday destinations in the world. Thousands of British travellers visit and work there each year. It has a wealth of culture, arts and music, event-filled tourist routes, and of course the Great Barrier Reef. Did I see any of this – the plain answer is 'no'. I did meet up with a friend, Ged, who showed me the magnificent Sydney Opera House as well as the lively night-life the city has to offer. But the truth was I was completely touristed-out.

I only had 7 days in Australia and had no desire to be speeding about trying to tick off as many must-sees as possible. Instead I made a conscious decision not to see anything at all, but instead spend the whole week doing what you can't do back home. I went to surf camp!

Every few days we moved up the east coast, eventually ending in Byron Bay. My first stop was an exclusive beach location owned by the Mojo Surf company next to a tiny little village named Woolgoolga. Every morning started at 8 when we woke up to freshly baked bread and cereal. We then carried our boards down to the beach where we spent the first half hour practicing leaping from our bellies onto our feet by effectively doing “The Worm”. A very difficult manoeuvre, but essential if you wanted to stand a chance of reacting fast enough to catch the big waves.

We then hit the water. Surfing has got to be one of the most exhilarating sports I have ever tried, and I understood instantly how people could spend their whole life doing it. It is also absolutely exhausting. Especially in the learning stage when you spend 8 hours a day paddling as hard as you can to catch a wave, then leap onto your board, hold your balance for up to 20 seconds, before falling hard like a rock into the rushing water again. By the time you've finally regained your composure you've been dragged all the way back into the beach again. So you gracefully pick up your board again and sprint frantically back out to sea. This process repeats itself again and again until you ache all over and can no longer lift your own arms to paddle. And then it's time for lunch.

Lunch and dinner was great. The guys at Mojo Surf knew exactly what you needed: mountains of high-carb foods. We lived mainly off pasta, risotto and BBQ's, but nothing was more ideal after a whole morning and afternoon of frantic surfing attempts.

Then came the evenings. With several Mojo buses running surfers up and down the east coast of Australia there would always be at least one or two bus loads of people arriving into the camp every evening. These people came expecting a party, and that's exactly what they got. Just as dinner was finished and the newcomers arrived, case loads of beers would be brought out and the drinking games would begin. Then at 21:30 when the party is well under way it officially becomes “quiet time” in the camping site so the whole party moves down to the beach. Here a bonfire, the warm sea and a wheelbarrow-carried stereo system provide the atmosphere for the rest of the night. Before you know it everybody's dancing, half the people have stripped down and are swimming in the sea, and “Chef” is running around “tea-bagging” unexpecting strangers. Then before you realise it another dawn begins and it all starts all over again.

It all went great up until the last two days in Byron Bay when exhaustion, sleep deprivation and drinking finally caught up with me. The final strike was meeting Alex, the Credit Suisse prop. Trader. He was on a two-week break and had money to burn. By 10-o-clock he'd already bought us our third bottle of champagne, so I bought him a hot dog as a thank you. Had I known at that time the pain my head would feel the following morning, a thank you would have been the last thing on my mind.

That morning, had I listened to my body, I might have had a completely different story to tell, but I'd already paid for my surf lessons for that day, so I dragged my sorry backside out of bed and onto the Mojo bus. By the time I got back to the hostel my hangover had been replaced by heatstroke and nausea and I spent the next 24 hours with my head over a bucket. Nothing but good memories.