Australian Surf Culture

Two things run through Australian beach life. The first is surf lifesaving, organised in volunteer clubs from the early twentieth century, which produced the red and yellow flags, the instruction to swim between them, and the nippers programme that puts small children through beach drills on Sunday mornings. Clubhouses sit above the sand at hundreds of beaches and carnivals are held through summer. The second is board riding, which took hold after the 1950s and built an industry around Torquay on the Victorian surf coast, where the major surfwear brands started and where a national surfing museum sits. Bells Beach, just down the road, has hosted a professional contest at Easter since the early 1960s.

What you actually see

• The flags and the patrol - volunteers setting the safe swimming zone each morning through the season.
• Nippers - children in coloured caps running beach and water drills on summer weekend mornings.
• Bells Beach - the red cliffs and the right-hand point break used for the Easter contest.
• The surfing museum at Torquay - board design, contest history and the origins of the local surf industry.

When to go

Patrols run roughly from September to April depending on the state, and outside those months many beaches are unpatrolled. Nippers happen on summer weekend mornings. The Bells contest is held over Easter and draws heavy crowds to a small stretch of coast, with limited parking. Winter brings the biggest swell and the fewest people in the water.

Honest expectations

Bells Beach is a viewing spot rather than a beach to swim at, and outside the contest it looks like an ordinary stretch of cliff and sand to anyone who does not surf. Rips kill swimmers every summer; the flags exist for a reason and unpatrolled beaches are genuinely dangerous. Surf schools book out in January. Water on the Victorian coast is cold enough to need a wetsuit year-round.

Nearby

The Great Ocean Road begins just west of Torquay.