Surfing Victoria

When I was 16, I stayed in a tent at the Torquay Caravan Park for a few months in 1962, and as I didn't have a car, I had to be content to surf the Torquay main break plus a couple of other local breaks. It wasn't that long before I got friendly with another guy my age whose folks were also staying there, and they also enjoyed some variation of surfing. This new friend of mine's father rode an old plywood plank and used to drive us to all the other surf-breaks that were working and one of those included "Bells".

Bells

Cathedral Rock

Point Impossible

Photos here were taken during the Easter period of 1967 when the Australian titles were on.

On one particular morning we were checking the surf at Torquay and it was very big, too big to go out, so the father suggested we have a look at Bells. If a person has seen the movie "Point Break" with Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves, then they would have the wrong impression of what this break is all about. In fact, when I saw the closing scenes of that movie I couldn't help but roll around on the floor laughing. God! Hollywood always gets it wrong!

Bells Beach is not really a point break but a reef break, which breaks over a shallow shelf that runs out quite a distance from a headland and finishes in a small cove. The "Bowl" is out in the bay, about 3/4 of the way across from the left headland. There are a couple of other breaks nearby; one is Southside to the right and Winkipop to the left, and of course Centreside somewhere in the middle. And, with a small swell running and when the tide is high, there's Little Rincon, which works inside the Bells mainbreak and breaks very close to the headland.

It's very hard to estimate the size of the waves from the headland, as it breaks so far out. It's only when you get out there that you really get a good idea of the size and type of break it is. On this particular day anyone having a look could only say one thing 'Bells is big!'

I guess we watched for a while, as there were guys out the back already, probably about a dozen, and most of them seemed to know what they were doing; they must have been out there before when it was this huge. Even though it was pretty big outside, launching from the beach was relatively simple and generally is, apart from where the wave breaks along the platform shelf and the shorebreak. Other than this, the water is reasonably deep.

I was the last one in the water so I was virtually paddling out by myself, and I launched far down the bay near Winkipop. I must have been paddling for ages although it probably were only a few minutes when I had a good look, just to see how much further I had to go. I could see the others sitting out, about another 100 metres, so I started paddling further over to the right. This was to be a big mistake. The next time I looked out, beyond me the boys out the back were starting to scratch for the horizon and my worst fears were soon to be realised. A rogue set was marching through, and there was no doubt that I was going to get caught inside. The blokes out the back made it over the lot, then the first one approached me and as it started to break with the whitewater rushing to engulf me, I ditched my board and dove as deep as I could. Seeing that I was very near the "Bowl" area, there was quite a lot of underwater turbulence as it spun me around as if I was a rag doll. I don't remember how long I was held down, but I do recall that I was being dragged a long way and my greatest fear was hitting something on the bottom, although it never happened. I eventually surfaced as it let me go, quickly looked around for the next one, grabbed a lung full of air and dived again. This time it wasn't so bad, as I must have been in slightly deeper water, or so I thought. After diving under another one of these bombers I finally had a chance to swim further over to the left, into clear and safe deeper water. I'll never forget that swim as it took ages to get back into the beach to find my board. I guess the reason why I went back out again after such a thrashing can only be explained that I didn't want to be seen as a wimp, even though I was feeling intimidated by that episode.

I eventually made it out the back, albeit this time with a lot more caution and rode about 6 of the big ones and it was really awesome to have those walls of water ever threatening around me, especially in the Bowl. It's something I'll never forget. Strangely enough, my worst wipeout came at a break in Adelaide, called the Southport Left, which wasn’t a large wave but a 6 foot wave breaking over a shallow sandbar, and it really gave me the impression that life was going to end and that was nearly it.
To quote Greg Noll about the death of the famous Bob Simmons... " It wasn't that big a day -- certainly not beyond Simmons' skills. "The irony of it is that it was only a six-or-eight-foot day," wrote Noll. "That's the way it always goes. For the most part, it's not the big waves that get a guy. It's always some quirky thing."

One of the best surfing trips I ever did was a sojourn to Lorne in the early seventies with Mick Knill and Ian "Farmer" Bone. This trip had everything; good surf, good weather and best of all good times in general. While we were in this part of the world, we stayed in a bungalow at the back of a house on the side of a hill in this popular seaside town. From there, we moved up and down the Great Ocean Road each day, looking for the best places to surf. On one particular day we took some local advice and went down to a place called Kennett River, which was a right hander that only worked on the low tide. We arrived there about an hour before the tide started to drop, and by the look of the place it didn’t ever look like breaking properly. There was some swell there, showing some potential, but every wave seemed too fat to break, so we hung around and waited to see what would transpire. We waited and waited and then suddenly, as if the place had been blessed by a miracle, it started to work. It was about 6 foot with a 100-metre ride from the point to a gnarly shorebreak with almost perfect shape and the only thing I didn’t like about it was the long tentacles of black Kelp. Well, over the next few hours the three of us made a real meal of this break, getting some of the best rides of the whole trip.

Afterwards, we changed and decided to go back to Lorne to get something to eat as we were quite famished, and in those days there were no fast food places around nearby. I can't quite remember just how far we got, when someone noticed a large cloud of smoke drifting away from the land out over the sea. Mick said, 'That looks like it's coming from Lorne' and I tended to agree but good old "Farm" didn't. 'Nah!' He said, 'It's at least 10 miles away from Lorne', as we continued our journey towards it.

Everything became much clearer as we rounded the last bend and came down into the tiny township. The whole of the North Eastern side of Lorne was ablaze with a raging forest fire and with the wind behind it, it threatened to destroy the whole town.

There were sirens going off all over the place, with firefighters and police almost everywhere, while livestock and wildlife were running amok through the main street. Despite a warning from one of these authorities, we drove through the heavy pall of smoke and ashes to get up to the bungalow, where we had left most of our valuables. We reached the bottom of the road that lead up to house, but weren't allowed to drive any further, being stopped by a police car, which was parked in the middle of the road, blocking our way. So we left the car and decided to complete the last 200 metres or so, up the steep hill by foot, despite the near blinding, choking smoke. Strangely enough, by the time we reached the bungalow, the wind had switched direction and both the wind and the fire went the opposite way. While we were checking to see just how close the fire came to the premises, the owner was out back doing the same. We were all amazed to see that the fire had stopped about a few metres short of his fence, as if turned back by an almighty being.

That night and for many after, there was a constant smell of stale smoke around Lorne, and every time we drove in from the other direction we could still see the glow of smoking trees on the sides of the hills. Apart from the small amount of damage that the fire inflicted on the town of Lorne, I reckon the most damage was done to "Farms" record of judgement, in estimating grand surfing session and other glorious deeds. We never let him forget his, "It's at least 10 miles away from Lorne!"