"What is this all about?” mutters Chris as our six-strong group, looking a little wan after another late night, are ordered to adopt positions more suited to a yoga class on top of our surfboards.

It was a valid question. Our original plan was to spend a relaxing time doing nothing but lounging on the beach all day and burning our money on fine wines and local seafood in the evenings.

This beginners’ surfing lesson at Newquay’s Fistral beach was intended as little more than a sop to our consciences — a brief, facile dip into the surfing culture Cornwall is famous for — before slackening the pace once again. Unfortunately it proved more demanding than that.

“We’re going to start with a few light exercises,” cries Barrie “Baz” Hall, our instructor, paying scant attention to the bleary uncomprehending faces staring back at him. “Then we’re going to get you out there in the ocean and make surfers out of each and every one of you.”

As a consummate pro and head coach at the British Surfing Association, Baz was hardly going to say what seemed to be self-evident — that we were a sorry bunch of wastrels who looked about as comfortable in our wetsuits as a left-winger looks in the Labour party these days.

We trooped into the sea to meet our watery destiny, but, despite Baz’s upbeat encouragement, we turned out to be useless — toppling like dominoes into the sea.

It should have been enough to convince us to abandon the surfing lifestyle, but the sport is such an essential part of a holiday in Newquay that we couldn’t resist arranging to hire boards again the next day.

While the beaches are probably the most attractive feature of the resort for holidaymakers, the town centre is certainly not. A stretch of drab pubs and kebab shops dominate the main street that we visited at lunchtime and decided to steer clear of at night.

Even the town’s tourist attractions looked less than impressive — an exhibition depicting Cornish legends entitled Tunnels Through Time was housed in a building that looked like a large lavatory block and a billboard advertising Newquay Zoo featured a cheetah with its jaws open wide as if letting loose an almighty yawn.

Fortunately there is another side to the Cornish resort. While there is little hope of the town ever reverting to the charming fishing village it once was, there is a move to shake off Newquay’s dubious reputation as a haunt for binge-drinkers and stag parties.

The surfing explosion is going some way towards changing that. Cornwall is the UK’s leading place for beginners and experts alike to try out the sport. It is an influx that occasionally prompts howls of protest from veteran local surfers, who claim the sport is becoming too commercialised, but the money the incomers bring is helping to modernise Newquay with a number of buzzy bars and restaurants opening up along the seafront.

Among them is a branch of Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen at Watergate Bay that has been booked solid since it opened at the beginning of June. We failed to get in because we weren’t organised enough to book ahead, but we did manage to satisfy our gourmet cravings at The Riv in nearby Mawgan Porth and also at the Lusty Gaze beach restaurant in Newquay itself, where we relished Cornish scallops and lobster, and imbibed a few salty margaritas and several bottles of wine, a combination that transported the tacky amusement arcades of the town centre to another world entirely.

Accommodation options in the area have also undergone a quiet revolution. We opted for one of the many basic but perfectly adequate holiday apartments, which we booked online, but there are plenty of chic alternatives, such as the Headland hotel at Fistral and Watergate Bay hotel.

In the end, we didn’t spend much time in the apartment, preferring to stay outdoors, lounging by the sea, honing our surf-bum skills on the beach, if not in the water.

Details: A standard sea-view room at the Watergate Bay hotel (www.watergatebayhotel.co.uk, 01637 860 543 ) costs £70 per person, including breakfast. The Headland hotel (www.headlandhotel.co.uk, 01637 872 212) has doubles from £80. A two-night package in September for two people in a standard double (including breakfast and dinner) costs from £300.

Beginners’ surfing lessons are available from the British Surfing Association (www.britsurf.co.uk) at Fistral beach. They cost £25 per person and last for two-and-a-half hours.

All equipment is included in the price.

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