About my time on the NSW South Coast
I spent a lot of time from the early 70s onwards surfing and photographing the South Coast around Ulladulla. I know most would go north towards the warmer waters of Byron, the Gold Coast and Noosa but living on the southside of Sydney in Cronulla it was just easier to jump in the Kombi on a Friday night and head south for the weekend. Even after the Kombi went and the kids came along we would still head south to our favourite spot at Rough Robbies cabins on Wairo Beach.
Eventually we bought an old weekender overlooking the ocean at Dolphin Point and thinking we would retire there we knocked it over to build the forever home (for number of reasons it was not to be and we would eventually sell for the familiarity of back in Cronulla). The last two images are of the house we built and the view from the living room where we got to watch the dolphins and whales swim by.
From early 2000 through to 2013 I spent a great deal of time down south and managed to score some epic surf to both photograph and surf. I got to become part of the community there and made some great friends over the years. I got to know what reefs/beaches broke on what swell and which winds where best for them. I photographed some great surfers when they were young such as Kipp Caddy, Russell Bierke, Kurt Nyholm, Timmy Taplin, Sam and Tim Wrench to name just a very few.
Looking through the trees towards the left at Golfies and the right at Crystals
This was one of my favourite breaks in the 70s and while the crowd was on the classic left across the bay this spot mostly had only a few on it.
I first stumbled onto this beach/reef break back in the late 70s and managed to jag it good a number of times over the years - it could hold a big swell.
This is the same break as the image above but a diferent day. You could often score this place with no one out - I would be thinking I wish someone else would show up to surf with. Surfing out of the way spots by yourself can be intimidating
This only breaks when it's BIG! They held one of the Billabong Challenge events here back when Occy was on the comeback trail. Even Tom Curren fronted for the event. It was VERY BIG for those few days.
I'm never saying where this place is but if you have surfed here you will know straight off where it is. It also can hold a big swell.
My favourite beach break on the South Coast and the reason why I kept coming back so often - just magic. When there was no swell anywhere else you could always be guaranteed to find a wave here.
We bought an old beach house here in this spot at Dolphin Point over looking the ocean. We knocked it over and built what we thought would be our forever home. As time went by and as much as we loved the area we realised retiring here in our older years was not going to be for us. We eventually sold the house but we had 15 wonderful years at Dolphin Point with 8 of them in the house that we built.
