Margaret River surfer Bill Gibson grew up at Coffs Harbour in NSW. His family moved to the WA in the mid 60s and he became addicted with surfing while living at Scarborough.
In 1975 Bill moved to Margaret River with his wife Kaye.
Bill still charges and competes in WA surfing contests with his son Hamish and grand-daughter Arabelle. At the State Longboard Titles held at Parry Beach on the South Coast 11-13 May 2018, Bill won the O/40 Logger division and was crowned O/60s State Champion.
Photo: 2018 Bill Gibson at Denmark adding to the already overflowing trophy cabinet. Photo courtesy Indian Ocean Longboard Club.
These are Bill’s surfing recollections and photos from 1955-1975.
Getting Started.
My name is Bill Gibson. I was born in Coffs Harbour NSW in 1955. My family moved around the coast of Australia in my early years. Before I was 10, I lived in Maroochydore, then Coffs Harbour and Bucket Heads (near Yamba). There were lots of surfers around Maroochydore.
I can’t remember when I wasn’t around the water. I suppose I learned to swim before I could walk. I know my younger brother and sisters would think the same. Surfing became part of my life very early in the piece. I think I first saw people riding waves in Maroochydore when I was around seven. Around the Noosa area things were beginning to change. Surfing was becoming a lifestyle that was changing the Australian coast line. My Dad had always worked around the ocean. He understood its power. He never told me, but I have the feeling he was impressed by the skill of these early surfing pioneers.
He was a great handyman and was never afraid to try something new. I remember my first surfing experience was on a plywood belly board with a little spoon in it, he knocked up in the shed. We took it down to the beach and both of us proceeded to get the flogging of our lives. I was hooked. I think Dad figured better leave that to the young fella.
My father worked dredging harbours and building breakwaters up and down the east coast until I was around nine then my family moved to WA.
Dad had a job dredging the harbour at Port Hedland and we settled in Scarborough in a housing commission house. I moved into the hub of Scarborough and surfing was really starting to happen. Al Bean and the Forsythe bros lived two streets away and Mick Graham was nearby.
The Scarborough area has now changed. In the early days it was full of families looking for a place that they could bring up a hoard of kids without breaking the bank. The land behind our house became City Beach, but when we arrived it was just sand hills. Can remember climbing the sand hills to check the waves at Ventor St. A magic place to grow up, heaps of kids just fanging to go surfing and get into mischief.
Photo: Early 1970s Bill at home in Scarborough.
The next progression was the coolite. What an invention! So many kids grew up on these machines. Rashed our bodies, cut them to pieces, discovered rocker, stuck fins in them, painted them with stuff that made them catch fire. We became surfing innovators. We shared our exploits with our mates around the corner. Some took the craft to the next level and continue to show the same innovation. Al Bean lived about 2 streets up from me and still has the same buzz that we got from those early coolite days.
On my 11th birthday l hassled and pestered for some money to buy a fibreglass surfboard. A new one cost around $60. No way was the old boy going to part with that much, but I did convince him to give me $10. I’d saved another $5, so I was in the market. Found a Peter Hawke mal down on Hastings Street with the added bonus of a White Stag diving wetsuit thrown in. The wettie had those stainless steel swivels that held the flap that wrapped under the crutch. Unbelievably uncomfortable but a bloody bargain!
Getting that mal home was a mission. Couldn’t get my arm around the thing, so it had to go on my head. By the time I got home I was lacking a neck so I figured I needed assistance to get it to the beach. My younger brother Andrew wasn’t that keen after I started to punch him up one day on the way home. The old lady who was watching the action told my old lady and I was in big trouble. It was time for the short board revival to begin.
Again I called on the expertise of the old man. His knowledge of boats was some help. Also around the corner a guy named Wayne Neame was cutting mals down. I think Al Bean might have taken a few tips from him too. Together with some chop stand cloth and resin I created my first short board. What a work of art! About 6 ft long, flat as a pancake but way easier to carry to the beach. Didn’t really worry me that it looked and went like a piece of shit, to me it was way cooler than the Mal.
Tommie Blaxell was a good friend of my dad. Dad in his spare time used to race power boats and he was using Tom’s boats when he started racing. He only raced 50hp class but he made them go pretty fast. My dad had a good knowledge of the ocean and was always trying to tune boats.
Photo: 1970s Bill’s dad racing his boat ‘Randi Rider’ past the north mole at Fremantle.
Tom was a bit crazier, he wanted to put bigger and bigger engines in smaller boats. Tom Blaxell holds the speed record between Freo and Rotto.
Photo: 1970s Tom Blaxell’s Surfrider power boat ocean racing to Rotto. Tom Blaxell pic
School years were great. Had a great bunch of rat bag mates from the Scarborough area. We used to all collect down at the Waller’s place on West Coast Hwy and surf Brighton beach. We would play pool when the surf was crap and hang around Murray Smiths little shed watching him shape boards until he’d tell us to piss off.
I ran amok at school. Seemed to get into all sorts of mischief. I didn’t knuckle down till the last 3 months and passed all 8 subjects for my Junior Certificate. Mum wanted me to stay but I wanted out. After bumming around the beach for the summer the old man got me an apprenticeship down in Osborne Park. Around this time l really started to get serious about going surfing. There were three surfboard factories within cooee of where I worked. I was earning $12.50 a week and living at home wasn’t costing me a cent. A new surfboard was soon on the menu.
Murray was working at Hawke Brothers, Greg Laurenson had set up shop close by and Tom Blaxell was down near the Nookenburra pub. Most of my close mates were riding Tom’s boards and he had a couple of cool shapers working at the factory. Tony Hardy and Tom Hoye. My first new board was a 6’2″ Hoye.
Photo: 1970s Bill at Scarborough Beach.
In 1969 I joined the Dolphins Surf Riders Club as a cadet at age 14 with Tommie Blaxell, Trevor Kenyon, Jim McFarlane, Ray Nelmes, Kevin Merifield and a few of the guys that hung out at the White Sands pub in Scarborough.
Photo: 1970s XL Falcon was one of Bill’s beasts at Scarborough.
My mum and dad bought me down to Margaret’s for the Australian Surfing Titles in 1969. I was only 14 and didn’t bring a surfboard, but I was in awe of the whole surfing scene. The surfing was amazing down south and I went back to Scarborough addicted and decided to get off coolites and cut-down mals. Dad gave me a lot of help cutting down the mals. We had some ugly botch-ups, but I learnt the craft of surf board building at this time.
The whole aura of the SW stuck with me. I kind of knew that I would be back as soon as I possibly could make it happen.
Going down south.
Travelling down south was always an adventure. Before I had a licence it was a mission, but always fun. I used to hang around Blaxell’s surf shop late in the week to see if I could scam a lift. As long as you had about $4 in your pocket you had half a chance. As the grommet you usually had to put up a bit of shit to earn a ride. It never worried me as the surf was worth it. If you couldn’t score a lift there I would try the White Sands Pub at the Thursday happy hour. I was a bit of a freckled faced short-arse so this wasn’t always successful. Bouncers were always kicking me out! Never put me off though, I was getting an education and you had to work to get a lift.
Failing this I would hassle the old lady to drop me of at the Newmarket Pub in Freo assuring her that I had a mate picking me up from there. As soon as she was out of sight, it was out with the thumb. Most of the time you would score a regular. There were a few guys from other areas of Perth that you never saw during the week that were chafing at the bit like me and we’re glad for a bit of company.
Once on the road it was great. The adventure began! The road was narrow and when you got south of Bunbury it seemed like a tunnel. Peppy trees hanging overhead, and giant tuart trees that looked like monsters in the dark. There were no service stations open after Halfway house so you always called in for a feed and to top up. Occasionally if you had set off early enough Busselton had a garage open, but this had its draw backs. You had entered a strange world. Surfers were some sort of weird hippie from another planet. The local lads took great pleasure in taking the piss out of a surfer and they were usually in greater numbers than you so you had to cop it sweet or suffer the consciences. I remember being followed out of the garage and down the road one night. How someone didn’t wind up in the ditch was a miracle.
On one trip down south, I pinched the rubber ‘dink’ cord from Halfway House petrol station on Old Coast Road. I got my mate to drive in between my car and the cashier and then hacked into the rubber cord on the drive way with an axe. I got about 10 mtr of the cord. I removed the steel rope in the middle and replaced it with cord to make leg ropes. I stretched the rubber over the cord to allow a shock point, then I attached it to a sock wrapped around my ankle. This was pre manufactured leg ropes. We had previous used jelly rubber as leg ropes, but that was damn right dangerous!
Photo: 1970s Bill with single fin boards at the beach.
I wasn’t the only one that had become addicted to the pilgrimage. If the weather looked good it was a convoy. We used to get up to all sorts of mischief on these trips. The food fight in cars was a favourite. Standard food for the weekend was baked beans and rice cream. All you needed to arm yourself was a spoon, an open tin, someone to handle the weapons and a maniac driver! It worked best with the element of surprise. You would creep up on the car in front with your lights out, then pull alongside and let them have it. The VW were always in trouble because the weak as piss windscreen wipers could never handle baked beans. If the window was open you could score maximum points with a hit on the driver. Other antics included climbing out the window and riding on the roof. Always a hoot! I would shudder if my children ever tried something like this, but perhaps you become wiser with age. Ha!
I got lifts with all types of people and through that first winter I got addicted. I did 13 weeks in a row and I think I surfed Rocky Point every time I came down with crew I was with. To this day I hate Rocky Point, it’s on my banned list (-:
Around age 16 I purchased my first car, a ’59 VW beetle. After a bit of work in the shed with the old man it was ready to go. We changed the colour and sprayed it sky blue which was an improvement from bog brown. It definitely made it go faster! Max speed was about 100 kms / hour with the wind behind you and downhill. I still didn’t have a licence but that didn’t stop me from test driving it. Convinced the folks that my mate was driving and we were off down south. Man that car could track off road. No one had 4 wheel drives in those days. Best off-road car was the beetle although the early Falcons weren’t bad either.
Taking it down the Bears track was like rally driving. Where Vidler road is now, was an entrance into d’Espeissis farm. This track was about the best, but we also used to do it from rabbit hill and Ngilgi Cave. Both tracks had their hard sections but once you had negotiated the sand it was time to turn into Jack Brabham. Vidler road had a swamp section to negotiate first followed by long sandy hill section that sorted the men from the boys! Then the fun began racing through the s- bends as fast as you could go. Always good to have a few on board for extra weight and to push when bogged. Always a laugh with 5 surfers cramped into the VW beetle. A fart could kill and these were plentiful living on baked beans!
The rabbit hill entrance wasn’t always passable. The sand hills moved around a bit and were hard to get through. Once through it was the same as the other track. Rally car time. This track had the added bonus of a couple of tracks so you could race another car. Needless to say this did take a toll on the vehicles. In the first couple of years I had my licence I went through about 10 cars. I remember blowing up an FJ Holden one day in the swamp at Vidler Road. We limped back to Caves House and proceeded to drown our sorrows. After a suitable mourning period we left the pub and rolled it off Yallingup hill. Bloody hell that was fun! The next day a couple of the Van Maris boys from Cowaramup came down and hauled it back up. Wound up turning it into a stock car and raced it at the speedway in Margaret’s.
As the years marched by another attraction started to demand my attention. Girls! I was always interested in this chick I’d seen in my earlier days at school. Had the shortest dresses and the most amazing legs. Kaye lived around the corner and used to frequent Scarborough Beach with a few other spunky chicks. When I got a car and licence I was suddenly cool. Kaye and her friends would hit me for a lift to the beach or to the White Sands when a good band were playing.
We soon became an item and it was time for the next phase of my life.
Photo: 1970s Bill decked out in flares at Kaye’s place in Doubleview.
Photo: 1973 Bill and Kaye washing the dog at Scarborough.
Photo: 1973 Bill and Kaye at a friend’s wedding.
Moving down south.
In 1974 I begrudgingly finished my Fitter and Machinist apprenticeship, it is good to have a trade. I did six months work up north then I came down south and got a job at Capel. At the time, Dave Hattrick, John Malloy, Glen Lance and Ronny Ratshit also had construction jobs with the Mineral Sands Mining Coy at Capel. As luck will have it, I rented a small unit on the foreshore at Busselton then John Malloy and David Hattrick who were living in a small cottage at Wyadup Valley, heard I had the flat and moved in with us.
After the Capel job finished, I scored the little two roomed cottage out the back of Wyadup House for $5 a week. What a place! Heaven on earth. Couldn’t have wished for a better introduction to the South West.
Then I got this offer of a job in Busselton while I was living in Wyadup Valley, it was just the best place to live. The first year I was there I surfed Injidup Car Park about 5 times a week. I got to know the tides and had about 2 hours of surf at Car Park daily, it was great fun. The view of the valley down to the ocean is fantastic. David Hattrick got in a partnership with Ian Cairns for a while and had a couple of Surf Expo’s early in the piece. They were good mates. Dave Hattrick had a 175hp trail bike and we used to race it across the dam wall, up the hill and down the paddock and come around and throw this right angle hook and drive across the dam wall. We did this circuit. Dave was pretty good at it, I was shit and never a motor bike rider, but Cairnsy was a nut. He could do it in half the time. He was a big boy on this little 175hp Yamaha and he went friggin fast! One side of the dam went into water and other side dropped 20ft. We had stop watches and used to time ourselves.
The place is special! The parties that went on in that place were legendary. It always had crew calling by checking up on gossip, wanting to go surfing or just wanting to chill. Helen Smith alias “Spotty”, ruled the biggest kitchen in a corner of the house that soaked up the sunshine in the winter. Always something delicious to eat. Spotty was brought up in Victoria as the daughter of a publican that owned the Torquay Hotel. She knew how to entertain. Eventually she fell for the smooth talking Dave Hattrick and were married at a loose ceremony at the house. The celebrant was a local bachelor farmer Bob Stafford. He rocked up in a Hawaiian shirt with a ten gallon cowboy hat and a pet goanna with a diamond collar in tow. Just outrageous. Needless to say the reception was beyond reality. Man there were some far out souls in that crowd!
Pipeline leg ropes started in Wyadup Valley about 1975.
Photo: 1975 Pipeline Leg Rope factory at Wyadup. John Malloy pic.
In September 1975 I married Kaye, my girlfriend from school at Caves House Yallingup. I married the girl around the corner. Always had a bit of a crush on her.
Photo: 1975 Bill with male wedding guests including Steve Fordham and Barry Young at Caves House Hotel Yallingup.
Photos: 1975 Bill & Kaye’s wedding at Caves House Yallingup.
Land price was reasonable in the 70s, we put an offer on a 4 acre block on Caves Road but wasn’t successful. I think Rob Malcolm bought it. It was down past where Tom Hoye was doing boards in Smiths Valley.
Anyway Kaye’s parents weren’t keen on us living where there was no work, so we went down to Margaret’s and I got some work with John Terry at the Garage, He goes right back to the Bussell family in the SW.
To be continued. Coming soon Bill Gibson’s surfing Life – Part2 1975 to Now
Margaret River surfer Bill Gibson grew up at Coffs Harbour in NSW. His family moved to the WA in the mid 60s and he became addicted with surfing while living at Scarborough.
In 1975 Bill moved to Margaret River with his wife Kaye.
Bill still charges and competes in WA surfing contests with his son Hamish and grand-daughter Arabelle. At the State Longboard Titles held at Parry Beach on the South Coast 11-13 May 2018, Bill won the O/40 Logger division and was crowned O/60s State Champion.
Photo: 2018 Bill Gibson at Denmark adding to the already overflowing trophy cabinet. Photo courtesy Indian Ocean Longboard Club.
These are Bill’s surfing recollections and photos from 1955-1975.
Getting Started.
My name is Bill Gibson. I was born in Coffs Harbour NSW in 1955. My family moved around the coast of Australia in my early years. Before I was 10, I lived in Maroochydore, then Coffs Harbour and Bucket Heads (near Yamba). There were lots of surfers around Maroochydore.
I can’t remember when I wasn’t around the water. I suppose I learned to swim before I could walk. I know my younger brother and sisters would think the same. Surfing became part of my life very early in the piece. I think I first saw people riding waves in Maroochydore when I was around seven. Around the Noosa area things were beginning to change. Surfing was becoming a lifestyle that was changing the Australian coast line. My Dad had always worked around the ocean. He understood its power. He never told me, but I have the feeling he was impressed by the skill of these early surfing pioneers.
He was a great handyman and was never afraid to try something new. I remember my first surfing experience was on a plywood belly board with a little spoon in it, he knocked up in the shed. We took it down to the beach and both of us proceeded to get the flogging of our lives. I was hooked. I think Dad figured better leave that to the young fella.
My father worked dredging harbours and building breakwaters up and down the east coast until I was around nine then my family moved to WA.
Dad had a job dredging the harbour at Port Hedland and we settled in Scarborough in a housing commission house. I moved into the hub of Scarborough and surfing was really starting to happen. Al Bean and the Forsythe bros lived two streets away and Mick Graham was nearby.
The Scarborough area has now changed. In the early days it was full of families looking for a place that they could bring up a hoard of kids without breaking the bank. The land behind our house became City Beach, but when we arrived it was just sand hills. Can remember climbing the sand hills to check the waves at Ventor St. A magic place to grow up, heaps of kids just fanging to go surfing and get into mischief.
Photo: Early 1970s Bill at home in Scarborough.
The next progression was the coolite. What an invention! So many kids grew up on these machines. Rashed our bodies, cut them to pieces, discovered rocker, stuck fins in them, painted them with stuff that made them catch fire. We became surfing innovators. We shared our exploits with our mates around the corner. Some took the craft to the next level and continue to show the same innovation. Al Bean lived about 2 streets up from me and still has the same buzz that we got from those early coolite days.
On my 11th birthday l hassled and pestered for some money to buy a fibreglass surfboard. A new one cost around $60. No way was the old boy going to part with that much, but I did convince him to give me $10. I’d saved another $5, so I was in the market. Found a Peter Hawke mal down on Hastings Street with the added bonus of a White Stag diving wetsuit thrown in. The wettie had those stainless steel swivels that held the flap that wrapped under the crutch. Unbelievably uncomfortable but a bloody bargain!
Getting that mal home was a mission. Couldn’t get my arm around the thing, so it had to go on my head. By the time I got home I was lacking a neck so I figured I needed assistance to get it to the beach. My younger brother Andrew wasn’t that keen after I started to punch him up one day on the way home. The old lady who was watching the action told my old lady and I was in big trouble. It was time for the short board revival to begin.
Again I called on the expertise of the old man. His knowledge of boats was some help. Also around the corner a guy named Wayne Neame was cutting mals down. I think Al Bean might have taken a few tips from him too. Together with some chop stand cloth and resin I created my first short board. What a work of art! About 6 ft long, flat as a pancake but way easier to carry to the beach. Didn’t really worry me that it looked and went like a piece of shit, to me it was way cooler than the Mal.
Tommie Blaxell was a good friend of my dad. Dad in his spare time used to race power boats and he was using Tom’s boats when he started racing. He only raced 50hp class but he made them go pretty fast. My dad had a good knowledge of the ocean and was always trying to tune boats.
Photo: 1970s Bill’s dad racing his boat ‘Randi Rider’ past the north mole at Fremantle.
Tom was a bit crazier, he wanted to put bigger and bigger engines in smaller boats. Tom Blaxell holds the speed record between Freo and Rotto.
Photo: 1970s Tom Blaxell’s Surfrider power boat ocean racing to Rotto. Tom Blaxell pic
School years were great. Had a great bunch of rat bag mates from the Scarborough area. We used to all collect down at the Waller’s place on West Coast Hwy and surf Brighton beach. We would play pool when the surf was crap and hang around Murray Smiths little shed watching him shape boards until he’d tell us to piss off.
I ran amok at school. Seemed to get into all sorts of mischief. I didn’t knuckle down till the last 3 months and passed all 8 subjects for my Junior Certificate. Mum wanted me to stay but I wanted out. After bumming around the beach for the summer the old man got me an apprenticeship down in Osborne Park. Around this time l really started to get serious about going surfing. There were three surfboard factories within cooee of where I worked. I was earning $12.50 a week and living at home wasn’t costing me a cent. A new surfboard was soon on the menu.
Murray was working at Hawke Brothers, Greg Laurenson had set up shop close by and Tom Blaxell was down near the Nookenburra pub. Most of my close mates were riding Tom’s boards and he had a couple of cool shapers working at the factory. Tony Hardy and Tom Hoye. My first new board was a 6’2″ Hoye.
Photo: 1970s Bill at Scarborough Beach.
In 1969 I joined the Dolphins Surf Riders Club as a cadet at age 14 with Tommie Blaxell, Trevor Kenyon, Jim McFarlane, Ray Nelmes, Kevin Merifield and a few of the guys that hung out at the White Sands pub in Scarborough.
Photo: 1970s XL Falcon was one of Bill’s beasts at Scarborough.
My mum and dad bought me down to Margaret’s for the Australian Surfing Titles in 1969. I was only 14 and didn’t bring a surfboard, but I was in awe of the whole surfing scene. The surfing was amazing down south and I went back to Scarborough addicted and decided to get off coolites and cut-down mals. Dad gave me a lot of help cutting down the mals. We had some ugly botch-ups, but I learnt the craft of surf board building at this time.
The whole aura of the SW stuck with me. I kind of knew that I would be back as soon as I possibly could make it happen.
Going down south.
Travelling down south was always an adventure. Before I had a licence it was a mission, but always fun. I used to hang around Blaxell’s surf shop late in the week to see if I could scam a lift. As long as you had about $4 in your pocket you had half a chance. As the grommet you usually had to put up a bit of shit to earn a ride. It never worried me as the surf was worth it. If you couldn’t score a lift there I would try the White Sands Pub at the Thursday happy hour. I was a bit of a freckled faced short-arse so this wasn’t always successful. Bouncers were always kicking me out! Never put me off though, I was getting an education and you had to work to get a lift.
Failing this I would hassle the old lady to drop me of at the Newmarket Pub in Freo assuring her that I had a mate picking me up from there. As soon as she was out of sight, it was out with the thumb. Most of the time you would score a regular. There were a few guys from other areas of Perth that you never saw during the week that were chafing at the bit like me and we’re glad for a bit of company.
Once on the road it was great. The adventure began! The road was narrow and when you got south of Bunbury it seemed like a tunnel. Peppy trees hanging overhead, and giant tuart trees that looked like monsters in the dark. There were no service stations open after Halfway house so you always called in for a feed and to top up. Occasionally if you had set off early enough Busselton had a garage open, but this had its draw backs. You had entered a strange world. Surfers were some sort of weird hippie from another planet. The local lads took great pleasure in taking the piss out of a surfer and they were usually in greater numbers than you so you had to cop it sweet or suffer the consciences. I remember being followed out of the garage and down the road one night. How someone didn’t wind up in the ditch was a miracle.
On one trip down south, I pinched the rubber ‘dink’ cord from Halfway House petrol station on Old Coast Road. I got my mate to drive in between my car and the cashier and then hacked into the rubber cord on the drive way with an axe. I got about 10 mtr of the cord. I removed the steel rope in the middle and replaced it with cord to make leg ropes. I stretched the rubber over the cord to allow a shock point, then I attached it to a sock wrapped around my ankle. This was pre manufactured leg ropes. We had previous used jelly rubber as leg ropes, but that was damn right dangerous!
Photo: 1970s Bill with single fin boards at the beach.
I wasn’t the only one that had become addicted to the pilgrimage. If the weather looked good it was a convoy. We used to get up to all sorts of mischief on these trips. The food fight in cars was a favourite. Standard food for the weekend was baked beans and rice cream. All you needed to arm yourself was a spoon, an open tin, someone to handle the weapons and a maniac driver! It worked best with the element of surprise. You would creep up on the car in front with your lights out, then pull alongside and let them have it. The VW were always in trouble because the weak as piss windscreen wipers could never handle baked beans. If the window was open you could score maximum points with a hit on the driver. Other antics included climbing out the window and riding on the roof. Always a hoot! I would shudder if my children ever tried something like this, but perhaps you become wiser with age. Ha!
I got lifts with all types of people and through that first winter I got addicted. I did 13 weeks in a row and I think I surfed Rocky Point every time I came down with crew I was with. To this day I hate Rocky Point, it’s on my banned list (-:
Around age 16 I purchased my first car, a ’59 VW beetle. After a bit of work in the shed with the old man it was ready to go. We changed the colour and sprayed it sky blue which was an improvement from bog brown. It definitely made it go faster! Max speed was about 100 kms / hour with the wind behind you and downhill. I still didn’t have a licence but that didn’t stop me from test driving it. Convinced the folks that my mate was driving and we were off down south. Man that car could track off road. No one had 4 wheel drives in those days. Best off-road car was the beetle although the early Falcons weren’t bad either.
Taking it down the Bears track was like rally driving. Where Vidler road is now, was an entrance into d’Espeissis farm. This track was about the best, but we also used to do it from rabbit hill and Ngilgi Cave. Both tracks had their hard sections but once you had negotiated the sand it was time to turn into Jack Brabham. Vidler road had a swamp section to negotiate first followed by long sandy hill section that sorted the men from the boys! Then the fun began racing through the s- bends as fast as you could go. Always good to have a few on board for extra weight and to push when bogged. Always a laugh with 5 surfers cramped into the VW beetle. A fart could kill and these were plentiful living on baked beans!
The rabbit hill entrance wasn’t always passable. The sand hills moved around a bit and were hard to get through. Once through it was the same as the other track. Rally car time. This track had the added bonus of a couple of tracks so you could race another car. Needless to say this did take a toll on the vehicles. In the first couple of years I had my licence I went through about 10 cars. I remember blowing up an FJ Holden one day in the swamp at Vidler Road. We limped back to Caves House and proceeded to drown our sorrows. After a suitable mourning period we left the pub and rolled it off Yallingup hill. Bloody hell that was fun! The next day a couple of the Van Maris boys from Cowaramup came down and hauled it back up. Wound up turning it into a stock car and raced it at the speedway in Margaret’s.
As the years marched by another attraction started to demand my attention. Girls! I was always interested in this chick I’d seen in my earlier days at school. Had the shortest dresses and the most amazing legs. Kaye lived around the corner and used to frequent Scarborough Beach with a few other spunky chicks. When I got a car and licence I was suddenly cool. Kaye and her friends would hit me for a lift to the beach or to the White Sands when a good band were playing.
We soon became an item and it was time for the next phase of my life.
Photo: 1970s Bill decked out in flares at Kaye’s place in Doubleview.
Photo: 1973 Bill and Kaye washing the dog at Scarborough.
Photo: 1973 Bill and Kaye at a friend’s wedding.
Moving down south.
In 1974 I begrudgingly finished my Fitter and Machinist apprenticeship, it is good to have a trade. I did six months work up north then I came down south and got a job at Capel. At the time, Dave Hattrick, John Malloy, Glen Lance and Ronny Ratshit also had construction jobs with the Mineral Sands Mining Coy at Capel. As luck will have it, I rented a small unit on the foreshore at Busselton then John Malloy and David Hattrick who were living in a small cottage at Wyadup Valley, heard I had the flat and moved in with us.
After the Capel job finished, I scored the little two roomed cottage out the back of Wyadup House for $5 a week. What a place! Heaven on earth. Couldn’t have wished for a better introduction to the South West.
Then I got this offer of a job in Busselton while I was living in Wyadup Valley, it was just the best place to live. The first year I was there I surfed Injidup Car Park about 5 times a week. I got to know the tides and had about 2 hours of surf at Car Park daily, it was great fun. The view of the valley down to the ocean is fantastic. David Hattrick got in a partnership with Ian Cairns for a while and had a couple of Surf Expo’s early in the piece. They were good mates. Dave Hattrick had a 175hp trail bike and we used to race it across the dam wall, up the hill and down the paddock and come around and throw this right angle hook and drive across the dam wall. We did this circuit. Dave was pretty good at it, I was shit and never a motor bike rider, but Cairnsy was a nut. He could do it in half the time. He was a big boy on this little 175hp Yamaha and he went friggin fast! One side of the dam went into water and other side dropped 20ft. We had stop watches and used to time ourselves.
The place is special! The parties that went on in that place were legendary. It always had crew calling by checking up on gossip, wanting to go surfing or just wanting to chill. Helen Smith alias “Spotty”, ruled the biggest kitchen in a corner of the house that soaked up the sunshine in the winter. Always something delicious to eat. Spotty was brought up in Victoria as the daughter of a publican that owned the Torquay Hotel. She knew how to entertain. Eventually she fell for the smooth talking Dave Hattrick and were married at a loose ceremony at the house. The celebrant was a local bachelor farmer Bob Stafford. He rocked up in a Hawaiian shirt with a ten gallon cowboy hat and a pet goanna with a diamond collar in tow. Just outrageous. Needless to say the reception was beyond reality. Man there were some far out souls in that crowd!
Pipeline leg ropes started in Wyadup Valley about 1975.
Photo: 1975 Pipeline Leg Rope factory at Wyadup. John Malloy pic.
In September 1975 I married Kaye, my girlfriend from school at Caves House Yallingup. I married the girl around the corner. Always had a bit of a crush on her.
Photo: 1975 Bill with male wedding guests including Steve Fordham and Barry Young at Caves House Hotel Yallingup.
Photos: 1975 Bill & Kaye’s wedding at Caves House Yallingup.
Land price was reasonable in the 70s, we put an offer on a 4 acre block on Caves Road but wasn’t successful. I think Rob Malcolm bought it. It was down past where Tom Hoye was doing boards in Smiths Valley.
Anyway Kaye’s parents weren’t keen on us living where there was no work, so we went down to Margaret’s and I got some work with John Terry at the Garage, He goes right back to the Bussell family in the SW.
To be continued. Coming soon Bill Gibson’s surfing Life – Part 2 1975 to Now
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