The interesting thing about Australian surfing culture is it’s so young some of the pioneers are still alive, yet so much has changed and evolved over its short history. Even though Australia was first introduced to surfing in 1915 by visiting Hawaiian Duke Kahanamoku when he demonstrated standing up on a wooden board at Freshwater beach in Sydney, it was a slow burn and many of the country’s biggest surfing discoveries didn’t come until decades later. And right now I’m sitting at one of those discoveries where it took more than three decades for the ripples of Duke’s astonishing demonstration to hit its shores.
It was not surfed until 1950 before rapidly becoming a mecca for surfers across the country and later, the world: Crescent Head on the mid-north coast of New South Wales. A huge crescent-like headland and cobblestone shore help capture the sand flushed (at some ferocity on big tides) from the Killick Creek to produce right-hand waves that can roll on for hundreds of metres, gifting some surfers the longest ride of their life. Crescent Head is one of Australia’s National Surfing Reserves which seeks to recognise, protect and preserve the cultural and environmental significance of a surfing location.
It was when Surfing World Magazine arrived in the early 60s with some of the nation’s best surfers including Midget Farrelly, that the secret was out and surfers from generations over have been coming to Crescent Head hoping to score the wave of their life. I .