Week two... by Simon Garrity

Surf Camp Lombok is situated down the south west of Lombok, they offer coaching for beginners (that'd be me) through to intermediate and advanced surfers. Prices are reasonable, especially for Indo, the price includes accommodation, food, coaching and use of all facilities. They have a Skate Bowl(!), a climbing wall, two stand up paddle boards, ping pong, and access to some incredible reef breaks to suit all levels. The beginners coaching team is run by an English lifelong surfer, Philip Locke, but it's the Indo boys who really made the experience unforgettable (sounds dodgy, but bear with me). Dawn and sunset sessions start with stretching and pop up practice then you're taken to the waves by boat where the Indo coaches call you into the line-up and push you onto some incredible waves. It doesn't really matter how often you stack it because as long as your arms are still working you just paddle back and they'll put you on another one. So much more fun than trying to catch crumbling waves on a beach break. The learning curve is quite steep but before you know it you're standing up on every wave, only falling off a few, and even pulling a few turns into the right and left handers. The boys make sure you get no grief from from any of the experienced surfers there an the vibe is really chilled out, funny and easy going.

The camp nestles into the fishing village of Gerupuk and the staff run a voluntary foundation for the villagers, organising eye tests and glasses for the old folks, waste managements projects, the construction of a Community Centre, etc. Guests are invited to teach english at the local school, share any fun skills they have with the kids, a Swedish couple Chris and Tess taught all the girls to climb the wall one afternoon. Another swedish guy Jo showed some kids how to make jewellery and chains from ring pulls, by evening they'd collected hundreds of them and were ready to go. Really cool.

The local kids run around the camp through the day, they are awesome barefoot skateboarders, and the camp has adopted a couple of the waifs and strays. Keito, a deaf village kid had been kicked out by his family so turned up at the Camp, grabbed a broom and started sweeping

up. After a few days of this they gave him a Tshirt and now he's a feature of the place. He'll happily kick your ass at chess or cards, skates the bowl like a pro, awesome surfer and will drain your phone battery beating your top scores on all your game apps (grr).

I have to say the people at the camp were some of the nicest people I can ever remember meeting, and they taught me how to surf, too!

Can't recommend the place highly enough, if you decide to visit and you sort it, try to take along some decks an trucks for skating, badminton rackets, climbing shoes, anything like that for the foundation, I promise you won't regret it!