I only took up surfing during Uni, when I moved to a share house with some surfers a few minutes walk from a surf beach. I lived more of a life in one summer at Bondi than 20 years in Sydney's basketball-playing gangster-rap-music western suburbs.
When I later moved back home 30km away I felt so depressed driving an hour each way just to get to the water. I truly hated driving to the beach. I kept doing it but just couldn't feel happy; not like the Bondi days when I'd sometimes go surfing twice a day.
I built up a career, travelled, got older, moved to Adelaide, and now again live an hour's drive (>30km) to the nearest surf beach. I'd love to take surfing up again but just feel so stupid having to drive when I've tried the luxury of walking to the beach. I can't move because my kids are in a good school zone and my wife won't accept it.
How do you handle it? Am I just letting a bad attitude get in the way?
Come on mate don't be that guy sounds to me like you have lost the stoke. I am currently in a place that surf
is 8 hours drive and it's hell. Moving back end of the year cos I can't handle it. It would be a dream to drive 30kms to get in a surf. Some people are a lot further than you away from surf. Get back out there and stop complaining
I'm looking at clocking up a 300km round trip for a morning of waves tomorrow. Get in the car and get wet, no matter what!
I think it would be hard to live that far from the water. Me personally im lucky to be close enough to do a have a coffee every morning at the beach and a surf check after work every night.
I only took up surfing during Uni, when I moved to a share house with some surfers a few minutes walk from a surf beach. I lived more of a life in one summer at Bondi than 20 years in Sydney's basketball-playing gangster-rap-music western suburbs.
When I later moved back home 30km away I felt so depressed driving an hour each way just to get to the water. I truly hated driving to the beach. I kept doing it but just couldn't feel happy; not like the Bondi days when I'd sometimes go surfing twice a day.
I built up a career, travelled, got older, moved to Adelaide, and now again live an hour's drive (>30km) to the nearest surf beach. I'd love to take surfing up again but just feel so stupid having to drive when I've tried the luxury of walking to the beach. I can't move because my kids are in a good school zone and my wife won't accept it.
How do you handle it? Am I just letting a bad attitude get in the way?
What about leaving early ? Driving 30 k's to the beach with no traffic on the road wouldn't be enough for me to finish Shell's takeaway coffee.
Driving from the beach in the traffic is what usually kills the stoke.
An hour. Pfffft.
I revisited my old haunts earlier this year. 3 hours there, plus alpha back.
If nothing else, it makes you keen. You'll gladly surf in slop that you wouldn't usually consider.
Your surfing will improve through this alone. If, like most of us here are a surfer, rather than a surfie, an hour to the surf is bugger all sacrifice.
See you out there.
30km is nothing, I drive that far to get waves when the winds are wrong for my local 5 mins walk away...
In my day we walked 7km to school and 7km home , I was 10
I would ride my bike with a wax rack 15-20km each way to go for a surf about two days a week. I was 12-14
when I got my first car we would drive anywhere we could afford to put fuel in to get too.
when I was about 25 I flew to indo for a couple of months and didn't poo solid for three weeks, I had little to no money and lived on beng bengs, Nasi goreng, and malaria tablets.
A lot of the above experiences were not all fun
You either want to go surfing or you don't. Don't make excuses.
savage but required.
Long drives to different beaches are fun when it's not your main surf spot, but I find if it's every single time it's pretty disheartening, and pretty expensive in fuel. At Bondi I went to the northern beaches an hour away every weekend to get away from the crowds, going as far as Gosford to sleep in the van overnight for the dawn surf... Ahh memories. But I still walked to the beach the other 5 days a week, that's the difference.
I want to live at snapper and have a fence around it all to myself right down to Kirra so if I can't have that I'm not driving 30km to the beach.
excuses
look I sympathise with you but I live in Perth, which to be honest is probably last on the list of Australian capital cities with good waves.
i surf 3-5 times a week, the nearest surf beach is 18km from my house and average at the best of times, all surfs out of town consist of a minimum 200km round trip.
its flat here from November until March, flat no swell at all unless you want to tackle the great whites and surf the reefs miles out with mixed results, wave of your life or chased back to the boat.
you have to be hungry for it
"The problem is not the problem the problem is your attitude to the problem" ( captain jack sparrow)
I agree buddy it's hard going driving those 30ks (think of the wear and tear on the car!), it'll prob be too crowded or no banks or the wind starting to puff up and that sand stuff gets everywhere
I reckon give up. There's already far too many kooks in the water.
I thought that was only in my proximity...
Hey in an ideal world you walk out your front door and ......Da Da!
But its not an ideal world, do what you gotta do to get there.
You never know, life has funny ways of turning around.
It's kinda like going to work, none of us want to do it, but if you wanna surf on the weekends and have a house and stuff....Well you gotta do it.
Just get off your arse and go.
Don't bother. Surfings a crap sport and you have way better things to do with your time.
Lifes tok short to waste driving that far.
You could try taking the family with you. You might find the family love the beach so much they want to move. At the very least you spend more time with them. The thirty minutes will fly by.