Surfing in the Gold Coast of Australia

Aloha,
I am a huge surfer and every time I travel somewhere I try my very best to surf as much as I can. There is just some thing about the feeling of surfing a new spot especially when the waves are good. I grew up surfing in Hawaii and could say my expectations for waves are pretty high. When planning my semester in Gold Coast, I knew there was good waves before I went. But I never knew what to truly expect. Let's just say my expectations were fully met. I lived in an apartment in the main city which was a 3 minute walk to the beach. This was amazing but it gave the opportunity to literally walk to the beach every single day and surf. I literally would surf every single day once in the morning once for sunset, with friends or by myself. However, unfortunately my semester was the main season for surfing. So though I surf a lot of great waves and had some amazing sessions, I also surfed some pretty poor waves. Just the ability to walk to the ocean and surf was a blessing in itself. During there Fall (January-April) is when the waves on the Gold Coast turn from really good to world class. Surfers from around the world gather and surf these amazing swells produced by Cyclones. These waves are right handers and when it's a perfect swell you can be barreled multiple times on one single wave.

However, with these great waves comes a huge crowd of people. Considering what I said about not being in the best season for surfing with this next statement. When I surfed one of the better swells for the winter season there were about 200-300 people in the water. All of them, including me, fighting for these amazing waves. This takes place and snapper rock, this infamous and world class surf spot. Considerably one of the best waves in Australia. Considering the constant and insane crowd of people at Snapper I would often surf other spots. Gold coast, oddly enough is a long coast filled with golden surf spots. Where I lived up North was the top of the Gold Coast where the waves started then going all the way down south to Snapper rock and Duranbah was the end and the epicenter of amazing waves. Whenever, I felt like getting great waves and fighting the crowd I would go down south. This actually happen pretty often, lucky enough to have a good class schedule I would catch the light rail train system and the bus for 40-60 minutes down south every morning for sunrise just to score these great waves. Later throughout the semester I made a great group of friends who surfed and had cars. This was a real advantage and was able to check out some secret spots that I cant name haha. However, lets just say my favorite spot on the Gold coast was less than a 15 minute drive from my apartment in Surfers Paradise. At this spot it has some of the best beach breaks barrels than anywhere I have surfed in the world. Surfing in Australia and especially the Gold Coast is a must. If you surf, and there is swell, there is a good chance you score some great waves!