Bali remains a rite of passage for young surfers for good reason

Impossible? No, not at all.

My group finished our HSC during the height of Covid.
We made it to Crescent Head post exams, but didn’t get to use our passports.
I’d heard all the stories from family and friends about Bali being a rite of passage for young Australian surfers leaving school, it certainly was that way for my aunty Jacqui. Her first overseas trip after finishing school was to Bali in the 70’s, back when Uluwatu had just 2 warungs,

Uluwatu back in the early 80’s when you had to trek in

My dad also raves about his 1st overseas trip with the Boardriders Club in the mid 80’s. when there was barely 2 levels of warungs on top of Uluwatu, and the old rickety ladder down to the cave but nothing else.

I’d been to Bali a couple of times as a teenager with the oldies, but due to Covid this was my first real opportunity to head overseas with a couple of my best surfing buddies,

Of course, these days Uluwatu is full of up-market resorts with infinity pools, bars and restaurants like Single Fin.

Sunset at Single Fin is always nice

The one constant though is the waves, and the seasons don’t change.

Uncrowded Bingin, rare but you can get lucky

We opted for Bali purely for budgetary and surf consistency reasons and we decided on September uni holidays and stayed out on the Bukit in an affordable guest house at Ulu’s, and were not disappointed.

Our chosen 2-week window was September 12 to 26, and we pretty much lucked into the best fortnight of swell and consistent offshore ESE trades on the Bukit all season.

The view from Salins of Ulu’s

I went with a goal to surf at least once every day, even if the surf wasn’t worthy. However, because it ended up pumping nonstop, it quickly turned into a minimum of two long sessions every day, and having to save ourselves for the optimum tide/wind combo so we didn’t burn out.

We arrived in Bali at around 2am and to kill the time before our boards came out, we decided to have another check of the forecast as we were getting very psyched. Unfortunately, the first day was supposed to be the worst on the outlook, but when you are transitioning from full steamers in Sydney to boardies on the Bukit, can anything ever be bad?

Last light at Ulu’s

We arrived at our accommodation in Uluwatu in the pitch black during the early hours of the morning. We booked the cheapest, but longest route complete with stopovers in Radelaide.

Instead of getting up for the dawn session, we decided to sleep in as we were led to believe our first morning in paradise would be below average wave-wise.

We slept in till midday and walked down to Uluwatu to scope it out, and what do you know, it was pumping.

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The late afternoon low tide session at Racetrack (furthest in distance) often delivers

We cruised down into Salins Cafe (our hang for the fortnight) overlooking Uluwatu, and were all stoked to see perfect 3ft peeling barrels with a light offshore ESE trade blowing, and reasonable crowd.

Post-surf hangs at Salins

We didn’t know whether the surf forecast was off, or if this was the start of a new swell no one had picked up on, but there’s one thing we did know – we were now in the land of the gods!

After surfing fun racetrack all afternoon, we walked back up the stairs to take in the first sunset of the trip at Salins Cafe above Uluwatu, where we filled up on the best nasi goreng in Bali.

Salins has the best view

In truth, every day followed a similar pattern: Surf, eat, sleep, repeat.

We barely left the Bukit Peninsula.
There was no need to.
We surfed Racetrack most days, ventured to Padang on the big day (when Outside Corner was a solid 10ft on the sets) and had a bunch of surfs at Bingin and Impossibles to mix it up.

Chunky Uluwatu

In the evening, we’d hit up Single Fin, and we only ventured into Kuta/Legian on one night out to Sky Garden for laughs.

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Rare road trip

One trip into Kuta was enough, TBH

So yeah, in summation, Bali is still definitely the perfect rite of passage for young Australian, and indeed international surfers. We all got bikes, saved on transport, accommodation and food by staying on the Bukit in a guest house. We met some super fun members of the opposite sex, partied and surfed ourselves silly which was pretty much what we hoped we would be able to do.

Everything, including the surf, was beyond expectations.

I strongly suspect we will be back on the Bukit next year.

My crew are already eyeing where we are going to stay next year at: S-Resorts Hidden Valley.

No matter what your budget or taste is, Perfect Wave have something for everyone in Bali.

Whether you are a young bunch of 18 to 25 year olds wanting to stay on the Bukit, singles wanting to bar hop in Seminyak, families who want to chill at Legian or Nusa Dua, or crew wanting to chill out at Canggu or older cruisers wanting to hang at Balian or Jasri

Check out Perfect Wave’s myriad of Bali options here

Stand up pit at Bingin

The track always delivered for the late

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