Around The World In 80 Waves

A large section of the Great Ocean Road is under the control of Surf Coast Shire which is a real place as opposed to a figment of my imagination.

The centre of the county and the capital of Australia’s surfing scene is Torquay which also marks one end of the Great Ocean Road.

As well as being the home of Rip Curl’s headquarters there is an entire shopping mall here in Torquay, which is called Surf City.

It is dedicated to all things wave riding, and all the usual suspects have a massive retail outlet here. Quiksilver, Billabong, Rip Curl, etc.

It is like surf porn!

The plaza is also home to the Surf World museum, which I can’t resist checking out.

There is a fantastic selection of old surf boards and a wealth of surfing memorabilia from the last hundred years. 

The Bells Beach contest held at Easter just down the road each year is the longest running surf competition contest in the world and there plenty of souvenirs from that event. However I also learned that the beach would not even be in use if the local surfers had not clubbed together to hire a tractor in order to put a road down to the break in the fifties.

Surf world also host the Australian Surfing Hall of Fame in which each of the inductees are presented on a board of their own style.

There is a biography of these outstanding surfers and a detailing the highlights of their wave riding lives

The names in this room are legends of Australian surfing for all kinds of reasons, but there is more than their fair share of world title holders. Nat Young, Tom Carroll, Mark Richards, Wayne ‘Rabbit’ Bartholemew, …