Sails and Surf

Boxing Day is the start of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race and so I headed to a place called Watson's Bay with Uli, Sabrina, Martin, Martina and Alex who I'd spent christmas with and Steph and Gemma from my dorm to go watch the start. Loads of people head there to watch as you can see the start and then you can run round the corner to watch the boats sail out to sea a bit. it's funny because the number of racing yachts is dwarved by the number of boats that flock to the harbour to see them off. There were a few near collisions even before the start, but it's pretty impressive when they all go past, particularly the maxi boats which are pretty huge yachts. it all starts at about 1pm and you get about 20mins of action then can just chill out looking over the harbour until all the crowds have gone. Later that evening was when we had a BBQ on Coogee Beach and a few more beers!

Today I headed down to Bondi again to take a break from the pounding that England were getting in the test and was supposed to have another surf lesson. It all started off well, there were about 15 of us and 3 instructors and so we did some stretches and headed down to the beach. We did start to head out into the surf, but I got totalled twice by big waves just paddling out and tried to catch one wave but just got wiped out. So much water went up my nose that everytime I put my head down for the next couple of hours water would drip out of my nose which was a bit grim! Our instructor soon

realised that the lesson was pointless as we'd never get up, so she said we could have another lesson for free if we could rebook. It was a bit disappointing, but on the way back to the surf shop we suddenly saw a crowd of photographers heading towards us. Had they heard about the pounding we'd taken? Were we going to be on the evening news? No. It was in fact Paris Hilton who has come to Sydney for New Year and so had come to Bondi to be seen. One of the photos is the scrum that surrounded her when she went into the water - still wearing the trademark sunglasses of course. The dodgy looking kangaroos were also bouncing around the beach but didn't seem to have as much of a crowd...