The cobbled streets of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile have carried footsteps for more than 900 years. They’re the cultural heartbeat of a city built on ancient stone, where narrow medieval closes and Georgian townhouses blend in with modern shopfronts – a dazzling mix of old and new. For any traveler, it’s an essential stop – plus, there’s Edinburgh castle too.
It’s hard to imagine that just a short drive away, cutting-edge wave technology is generating inland surf at Lost Shore, Europe’s largest wave pool, with its own community emerging around it. And that’s not just locals – surfers from Spain, Germany, France, Portugal are regularly making their way to Scotland to make full use of the pool’s facilities.
More recently, US surfers have started to hop the pond for a dance in the tub, at a price roughly on par with (perhaps slightly more than) traveling to a domestic pool. You can fly to Edinburgh, hop in a cab and it’s a 10 minute journey to Lost Shore from the airport. Easy as that.
For Lee Wood, Managing Director of Lost Shore, that melting pot of ease of access, of old Edinburgh framed across the new technology, is exactly what makes the destination so compelling.
November will mark the two year anniversary of Lost Shore opening, and though it’s a relatively new kid on the block it’s gaining a reputation for hospitality and all-round quality of wave.
“If you’ve never been to Europe there’s obviously this attraction to west-facing Atlantic coastlines,” he said. “But here in Scotland, there’s a different cultural element, a lot of uniqueness you don’t find anywhere else. It’s a different frequency, with the old cities and ancient heritage. It’s that nuance, and the uniqueness, plus the hospitality that make Lost Shore feel another world away, except it’s right there.”
The realms of possibility are being shattered when it comes to Wavegardens. Lost Shore having all that extra size, means a more powerful wave – it’s capable of 1,000 waves an hour, from beginner settings, right up to waves equally at home at a reef pass, as they are in a wave pool.
There’s a reason people wax lyrical about the surfing at Lost Shore. The pool is fitted with 52 wave producing modules, compare to Atlantic Park’s 46 – but the same size as California’s DSRT Surf. Those extra modules allow bigger and more powerful waves to be pushed through the pool, with 30 second pauses between sets to let the water settle.
There’s no funky first section – and no idea what they have done to the bathymetry, (and no, Lee won’t tell me) but the pool can pack a punch. It’s a world-class wave by any standards – and just so happens to be on the doorstep of one of the most culturally rich cities in the world.
Related: 5 Things We Learned From Lost Shore’s Hi-Land Fling
Australian surfers Jordy Liackman and Skyla Tothill popped by the pool as they cruised down from Scotland to Morocco by van. “It’s just sick,” said Jordy, after a turns-to-tubes session. “It’s a bigger pool than any I’ve been in, and I don’t know what they’ve done with the settings, but the wave is insane — probably the best pool I’ve surfed.”
The resort was designed around one simple idea, get surfers in the water, give them plenty of waves, and make the experience feel relaxed rather than regimented.
“We deliberately keep the numbers tighter than other pools so it doesn’t feel cramped. The sessions are programmed to move through different settings, generally progressing from smaller waves into more critical ones, which makes it feel like a pointbreak, all the time.
“You go again, and you go again. There’s a real sense of surfing with friends, just moving around a pointbreak, straight back into the lineup,” said Lee.
As for his favorite settings; Manoeuvres Plus and Turns to Tubes. “You’re always dancing between trying to fit in two turns or doing one turn and setting up a deeper tube,” he said. “Everybody who experiences that session leaves with a grin on their face. It’s one of the more advanced settings, but we also have beginner settings, a cruisey longboard wave, barrels, and waves for newer surfers. Everyone’s made to feel welcome here. Surfing shouldn’t have a barrier.”
Skeptical? Plenty of surfers are, especially those who’ve been burned by other wave pools across the globe. “But every single pool skeptic I’ve seen has gone away and gone, ‘Oh my days, I want to stay longer,’” said Lee. “As soon as you stand up on that thing, you’ve got water moving across a perfect reef in front of you. And it all goes out the window.”
The pool is built for pushing yourself. “You get so many opportunities,” Lee said. “Once you’ve figured it out, you take off, then you start to get to work.”
Attached to Lost Shore is Lost Kitchen, a poolside canteen serving all kinds of food, plus on-site accommodation, waterfront pods and hilltop lodges, for a relaxed, stay-a-while environment. But running a facility like this comes with its own challenges. “Obviously we want people to go surfing,” said Lee. “But one of our challenges is just letting people know we’re here, how easy it is to get to us and that we’ll take care of you once you’re on site.”
There’s also coaching on-site. And it’s probably best to take a few pointers on how to read those sections before setting up for a barrel. But it’s relatively simple, if you’ve got a background surfing reefbreaks. “You can ask for feedback, get clips, whatever you like. Progression is just one thing we want people to feel here, but equally, if you want to just turn up, cruise, enjoy yourself and be part of the community that’s ok as well. Not every surfer just wants to progress and progress – but that can get addicting when you’re comparing clips.”
Also, there are group bookings too. If you want to tailor the pool to your group, give the team enough notice and they’ll custom build a session for you around different wave types.
“You can book out one side of the pool with 10 people,” said Lee. “Just let us know when you’re coming, what settings you’d like and we’ll dial it in. You can probably sweet talk the staff to play whatever music you want while you’re in there too.”
As for flight times from major US airports:
LAX to Edinburgh: 12.5 hours.
New York to Edinburgh: 6.5 hours.
Atlanta to Edinburgh: 7.5 hours.
Have a poke around their site, too. HERE.
Related: Watch: Metallica’s Robert Trujillo Surfs Europe’s Biggest Wave Pool (Video)