Surfers Paradise not blissful for Hoffman

Editor's note: UNLV basketball player Kendall Wallace will provide occasional postcards from the team's six-game "Down Under" tour of Australia:

For the past couple of days we have been in Brisbane, Queensland, which is a two-hour flight north of Sydney. The weather here is much warmer than in Sydney, with days usually having temperatures in the 80s.

On Monday, we went to Surfers Paradise, which is on the Gold Coast, about an hour's drive south of Brisbane. It is supposedly the fastest-growing city in Australia, with 1,000 new residents per week. It was a really high-class place; we saw some homes that were estimated at more than $15 million.

After driving through the town, we went to the beach and a few of us decided to go swimming. Rene Rougeau and I decided to rent a couple of boogie boards and test the waves. The waves were big, somewhere between 7 to 10 feet high.

Joe Darger and Scotty Hoffman decided to join us, but they were beginners. The waves were especially tough for beginners. Scotty found out how powerful the ocean can be. After catching a few waves, he was having a great time, but then came a big one, which he tried to ride and, man, did he pay! The wave took him and slammed him face-first into the sandbar and dragged him across the bottom. Scotty now has two burn marks on the left side of his face to show for it.

We now travel to Cairns, about 11/2 hours from here, for our final basketball stop.

-- KENDALL WALLACE