A Pictorial History of Surfing in South Australia

The birthplace of South Australian surfing

Surf Chasers

I began surfing in 1959, and the first board I rode was a cumbersome homemade balsa board, made by some older friends who bought the balsa from J.B. Boats. These old balsa boards were so heavy, it took two of us just to carry them to the water. The first spot we tried to ride these boards was a huge shorebreak at a place called Port Elliott. It wasn’t long before we went a little further around to a spot named “Surfers”, where we found the long rolling swells best suited to learn on.

There were not too many people surfing in those days, mostly Lifesavers from various clubs who joined together, purchased old vehicles and had special racks made up and mounted to carry a large amount of boards. These guys called themselves the “South Coast Surf Chasers”. And of course the novelty caught on and before long more “Chasers” began to appear. The surfing explosion began with the showing of surf films, brought out here by Americans such as John Severson and Bruce Brown and the like. To this day I can remember quite vividly the first night I saw a movie of those guys who rode the big surf at Sunset Beach and Waimea Bay, and after that night my life took a different direction. I can't speak for the other guys I started with, but I really fell into this wonderful sport and spent every waking moment thinking about how I could get myself into the water more often.

For about 10 years I hardly ever saw my family and if I did it was usually when I was coming home or leaving for a session. I used to get very irritated when the guys I first started surfing with got interested in girls and wanted to bring them down with us. As far as I was concerned, women and surfing were a bad combination, as the girls seemed to take forever to get ready, just to go down to the beach sit there and look lovely...

Bob Bolton	Bob Waldeck	The Chicken Run	The Competition	The Competition	D Robbo - Surfers
D Robbo - Middleton	D Robbo - Middleton	Eaglebeak - Malcolm	B Young - Speed	The boys - Surfers	G Frost - Middleton
Greg Frost	G Davidge - Surfers	Hindu - Surfers	B Johnston - Middleton	Bill Johnston	Jim Miller - Chiton
Moose	Murphy's Mob	Noseride	The Paddle	P Robbo - Middleton	P Robbo - Middleton
Bill Pryor	Pud - Surfers	Southbay - Members	Southbay - Members	Speed - Middleton	Speed - Middleton
Speed - Surfers	Speed - Middleton	Stoker	Surfers	The Trophy	Pud - Waitpinga

Even today I can still recall my first impression of "Surfers" as being quite an intimidating sort of break because when we stood on the beach and looked out to the horizon, all we could see was white-water.
In fact, the wave outside may have only been 6 foot, but the amount of sandbars between there and the shore were many and that's what makes it such a long rolling wave. Perfect for learners.
It was early January and the weather was stinking hot. With no shelter at all we made makeshift tents with our towels with driftwood and took turns running in and out of the water with the boards. I can still recall the first long ride I got standing up as if it were yesterday.

We would generally stand waist deep in the water and wait for a white-water wave then we'd try to go from half-lying to kneeling, then standing. Surprisingly we managed to stand up in what seemed like no time at all; perhaps it was because the boards were so huge and buoyant that it was almost like riding a barge. We spent the whole of our Christmas holidays at Surfers without seeing a single soul let alone another surfer, and I think it may have been months or the following summer before we realised that anyone else was surfing. God! I remember years ago, going out at Middleton with my brother, when it was ten foot. We started paddling Saturday morning and got out the back late Sunday afternoon and it's a good thing we took a cut lunch.

At Middleton, or as some people call it “Piddleton”, the swell rolls in over a number of sandbars and can start breaking about a quarter of a mile out. If you have to take off from the beach, you have to push your way through quite a lot of white water. It's a good thing that there's a type of point there that goes about halfway out that you can jump from, but even that can be a little bit hairy, as you can quite often get caught inside by a large set. The wave itself is pretty ordinary, as it has to rely on the sand being just right for it to break properly, and that rarely happens. I managed to get a few decent rides and one in particular was just about my wave of the year. My girlfriend happened to be sitting on the point when I caught it and had a good look at it, and when I came out of the water she said, she never knew that I could surf that well. I replied "you should have seen me twenty years ago, I really used to rip this place apart." This spot can get crowded, and if you don't like it, you just move a few metres down the beach, as from Middleton on, almost to the Victorian border it's just like this.

Going the other way back in a Westerly direction, towards Victor Harbour and beyond there are a number reef breaks etc. that work when it really gets big. Places like Boomer, Chiton Rocks, The Dump, Kings Head, Parson's Beach, and Waitpinga. Nothing to rave about though, and they all tend to be a little bit sharky, especially Waitpinga. 'Waits' in particular is a very sharky area as there is a lot of Salmon there and over the years there has been at least one fatal attack. Not only is it sharky but it's generally regarded as a short board wave and gets pretty crowded.

Arab - Waitpinga	B Bolton - The Dump	B Bolton - Middleton	A Dabernig - The Dump	Unknown - The Dump	Unknown - The Dump
Unknown -The Dump	Unknown - The Dump	Four Point Shack	C Frisby - The Dump	G Godfrey - The Dump	G Godfrey - The Dump
G Godfrey - The Dump	The Girls	Jan Holmes	J Lindsaar - The Dump

The Old Bedford Ute

I stand at the window and watch the drizzling rain and wonder when is it ever going to stop? Why should it, when winter is just around the corner? While staring, my mind wanders back to similar days of long ago when I was much younger, so were my friends who I first started surfing with but they are either departed or doing something else now. I'm thinking of similar days in the early sixties when driving to Victor Harbor, some 77 kilometres away was a much different drive than it is today. The road is much wider and shorter, due to the changing times and needs of the modern day traveller. Where, once it was a two-hour trip, it's been narrowed to 40 minutes. We'd leave on a Friday night, after work, make the trip and arrive at Mount Compass to find it drizzling as usual, then onto Middleton, Surfers or wherever down south, just as the sun was trying to set. The horror stretch was that part up the old Willunga Hill, which used to wind like a corkscrew, almost never ending. Many a vehicle came to grief on that stretch, either due to overheating or just plain bad driving, causing many a long hold up. It was a hill of great frustration. Most of us that made that trip didn't have cars, so we relied on our friends to take us down, while we contributed to the petrol costs by putting in.

With the roads being so bad down south and the continual wear and tear on their own cars, the three other guys I was hanging out with at the time, decided to purchase an old 30's model Bedford Ute for a very meagre sum of money. This vehicle was ideal as a surf chaser, as we could just slide the boards in the tray, which at night became our bed with a piece of tarpaulin pulled over us, to keep the weather out. Prior to this, our sleeping arrangements were either sleeping in the sand hills or in and under the cars when it was wet, depending on how many people were in the vehicle. Surfing those days was even more archaic, with none of the modern day surfing equipment that the guys have today. There were no wetsuits, so we used to use old footy jumpers, with the sleeves cut out, making long swims after leashless boards at places like Middleton even longer and colder. One good thing we could do to get relief when it was cold was to be able to light a fire on the beach, something that is illegal today. When you look around today, you can see houses and holiday shacks going up everywhere, whereas in those days there wasn't a building in sight. The nearest place to get anything to eat or fill the car with petrol was back in the town of Middleton at the local store, where a slab of cheese became a meal. Waking up at Surfers or Middleton in those days to see the morning sun trying to peer through the overnight sea mist was a real treat, with paddling out for a surf a few minutes later a glorious experience. I distinctly remember paddling out early one summer morning, with the sunlight hitting the spray caused by the slight offshore wind on the waves it to look like lemonade fizzing.

After an early morning session, breakfast was no problem as we used to take cans of Rosella baked beans or spaghetti with us, just open the can and place it on the coals of the fire to heat it up. On a Saturday night, we'd make the long trip into Victor Harbor for, perhaps a decent cooked meal and some evening entertainment, watching the locals roll up the footpaths. Victor Harbor, in those days of winter was not the tourist destination it is today and in some ways I regret the advance on civilisation on the place, as it seems to have lost some of its charm.

I can't quite remember, just how many trips we did down there in that old Bedford Ute, but one I do remember quite vividly was the last one. We had left the south coast to come home after a weekend of surfing when just outside Victor one of the back wheels started to wobble. Mind you, this vehicle was no speedster and if it was doing 30 miles per hour it was going flat out, down hill. Anyway, when we checked the wheel we noticed that the nuts on it were sheared almost smooth. So to keep going, we had to take it i n turns jumping out of this vehicle, with a wheel brace in hand, tightening the nuts up while still moving. You can imagine that it was a murderously long trip home, especially coming back down Willunga Hill and I don't think we travelled any faster than jogging speed. Eventually we made it home after several hours, a few days later, after a thorough mechanical inspection, which found out that there were more problems than just the wheel. We retired the old bomb to a friends backyard, where it spent a number of years gathering rust until it was finally taken away to the wreckers where it received a decent Christian burial.

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