Andy Jones and I met in 1971 in Year 12 high school, after my family had moved to Woody Point on the Redcliffe Peninsula north of Brisbane. We only lived about 5 minutes’ walk away from each other and so spent a lot of time together inside and outside of school. Andy was instrumental in getting both my brother John and I interested in surfing. Though we’d both grown up on the Gold Coast we’d concentrated more on body surfing. Soon we began to do trips together north to the Sunshine Coast and south to the Gold Coast and Northern NSW region.
Images: 1972 Qld Peregian Beach on the Sunshine Coast – That was my first car… a 1962 Holden EK.
L-R Stephen Jones, (Andy’s brother), Unknown (forgot), Andy & me holding my first dog ‘Shud’.
Right: Me surfing Peregian Beach on Sunshine Coast.
Image: 1973 Qld Noosa – the boys after surf Alexandra Bay.
Left: L-R Me, Andy, John & Stephen Jones.
Right: L-R Andy, John & Stephen Jones
In 1973 Andy did a trip across from Qld to the SW of WA with Mark Favell and Neil Justa. I was invited to come along too, but reluctantly declined as I was just getting to my feet financially, from what was my normal (near) penniless state. From our frequent correspondence at the time, I knew he really liked it here, but he then decided to move on to live and work in Victoria for a while.
Images: 1970s Qld my brother John surfing Kirra Point on the Gold Coast.
Images: 1970s Qld Mudjimba Beach on Sunshine Coast.
Top: My brother John surfing Mudjimba Beach.
Bottom: Mudjimba beach with Mudjimbu (or Old Women’s Island) in the background.
Image: 1970s Qld my brother John slurping strawberry milk on Sunshine Coast.
By 1975, Andy wanted to return to WA and this time, I was pretty keen to come with him, even though I was still pretty broke. We were travelling in my 1962 VW beetle with a couple of surfboards each and a two man tent in which to camp at nights, the beetle being clearly too small for our 6 feet+ frames to sleep inside. Leaving Queensland in early September we planned on a month-long trip to WA.
We travelled down the east coast getting the odd, somewhat forgettable surf, but ended up staying a couple of days at Seal Rocks where we had good uncrowded waves at nearby Treachery Beach.
Image: 1975 Sept NSW Seal Rocks Campsite with Two Man Tent – me feeding equine guest.
Images: 1975 NSW Andy Jones surfing sequence Treachery Beach near Seal Rocks.
We pretty much bypassed Sydney, as we’d done an earlier surf trip thereabouts together, the previous year. Unfortunately, at the time, the South Coast of NSW, whilst very scenic, contributed little in the way of surf. It seemed to be perpetually offshore, but flat and we kept being told, “We shoulda been there yesterday.”
We stayed with friends in Melbourne and Torquay, where we had some pretty reasonable surf which seemed to be getting even better as we headed west. At Johanna, we shared really nice waves one clear offshore afternoon with Wayne Lynch and Maurice Cole totally by ourselves. We also had good waves at Port Campbell, where we greatly amused ourselves by accessing a local reef break via jumping from a cliff face. You can see Wayne Lynch and Nat Young do the same sort of thing in “A Day in the Life of Wayne Lynch”. We also scored really nice uncrowded waves near Peterborough, as we got closer to the South Australian border.
Image: 1975 Vic Boobs surf break near Torquay.
Image: 1975 Vic looking west along cliffs to Lower Winki’s surf break
Image: 1975 Vic near Kennett River on Great Ocean Road
Image: 1975 Vic Andy pit-stop Great Ocean Road
Images: 1975 Vic Johanna countryside and coastline (Top & Bottom)
Image: 1975 Vic Peterborough surf break.
Image: 1975 Vic Andy in the countryside.
As we crossed into South Australia, we encountered some rough, turbulent weather and some unusual customer service behaviour. We entered Hahndorf (in the hills above Adelaide) on a very rainy Sunday night, which obviously precluded us from erecting the tent. We decided to hire an overnight caravan at a local, large, quite modern (for the times) caravan park, in which we ominously noticed there were barely any other guests. The managers/owners made it pretty clear they didn’t like hiring out to surfers, but grudgingly would on this occasion, if we paid them a very large bond, on top of an already outrageous tariff. Wanting to just get some much-needed rest, Andy and I handed the money over, expecting there’d be no problems having it returned the next morning, seeing we weren’t planning to cook and just wanted to get to sleep in our sleeping bags. (They gave us no linen.) Imagine our surprise the next day, when upon inspecting the van, the management refused to return the bond to us, as they sneeringly accused us of stealing a couple of knives (which we hadn’t done).
What followed was classic Jones! Now many who know Andy, know he can be a bit gruff at times (especially in crowded surf), but as a lifelong friend, I’ve literally never known him to hurt a fly. LOL! I don’t ever reckon I’ve seen him WILDER. He stormed into the park office, followed by me, rushing to keep up and proceeded to climb up on top of the counter, dance around aggressively and threaten to cause a great deal of disturbance and upheaval to the office furniture and anyone who got in our way, unless we had our “bond” returned. It worked! Despite initial threats to call the local police, the scammers backed down, handed back their ill-gotten gains and we hit the road quickly, relieved to leave Hahndorf behind us.
Image: 1975 view of ranges from Eyre Highway South Australia
We journeyed on to Cactus, where we camped for quite a few days and had some good surf at the various breaks between Cactus Point and Caves with very few other surfers.
Image: 1975 Andy fixing flat tyre on my VW at Cactus.
Images: 1975 Cactus pink lake and dunes.
Image: 1975 Andy on Cactus dunes
Image: 1975 Cactus coast looking East.
Image: 1975 Cactus coast looking West
Image: 1975 Gary with Cactus crab – we ate the crab for dinner!
Leaving Penong behind we pretty quickly hit the Nullarbor Highway, which back in those days still consisted of around 400 km of corrugated, washed out dirt. Needless to say, the beetle got a real thumping from which it never really recovered. We were stoked to hit Eucla and the WA border and regain a bitumen footing.
Image: 1975 The Nullarbor Highway in all its glory.
Image: 1975 Me with VW on the Nullarbor
Image: 1975 Andy on Nullarbor pipeline.
Pausing at Esperance, which was offshore, but unseasonally bucketing with rain, we just decided to carry on straight through to Dunsborough, where we were given welcome temporary lodgings at Mark and Julie Favell’s house in the Green Acres Caravan Park, where they were the caretakers. Sure enough the trip across had taken us exactly a month.
The next day as an introduction to the area (for me) we went surfing at Yallingup followed by a little fishing expedition to Canal Rocks.
Image: 1975 Oct WA ‘Southee’ Mark & Julie’s dog, ready to go fishing.
Image: 1975 Oct WA Canal Rocks fishing with Mark (RIP) & Julie Favell
Andy and Gary are retired and still live in the South West.
Andy Jones and I met in 1971 in Year 12 high school, after my family had moved to Woody Point on the Redcliffe Peninsula north of Brisbane. We only lived about 5 minutes’ walk away from each other and so spent a lot of time together inside and outside of school. Andy was instrumental in getting both my brother John and I interested in surfing. Though we’d both grown up on the Gold Coast we’d concentrated more on body surfing. Soon we began to do trips together north to the Sunshine Coast and south to the Gold Coast and Northern NSW region.
Images: 1972 Qld Peregian Beach on the Sunshine Coast – That was my first car… a 1962 Holden EK.
L-R Stephen Jones, (Andy’s brother), Unknown (forgot), Andy & me holding my first dog ‘Shud’.
Right: Me surfing Peregian Beach on Sunshine Coast.
Image: 1970s Qld wave Peregian Beach Sunshine Coast
Image: 1973 Qld Noosa – the boys after surf Alexandra Bay.
Left: L-R Me, Andy, John & Stephen Jones.
Right: L-R Andy, John & Stephen Jones
In 1973 Andy did a trip across from Qld to the SW of WA with Mark Favell and Neil Justa. I was invited to come along too, but reluctantly declined as I was just getting to my feet financially, from what was my normal (near) penniless state. From our frequent correspondence at the time, I knew he really liked it here, but he then decided to move on to live and work in Victoria for a while.
Images: 1970s Qld my brother John surfing Kirra Point on the Gold Coast.
Images: 1970s Qld Mudjimba Beach on Sunshine Coast.
Top: My brother John surfing Mudjimba Beach.
Bottom: Mudjimba beach with Mudjimbu (or Old Women’s Island) in the background.
Image: 1970s Qld my brother John slurping strawberry milk on Sunshine Coast.
By 1975, Andy wanted to return to WA and this time, I was pretty keen to come with him, even though I was still pretty broke. We were travelling in my 1962 VW beetle with a couple of surfboards each and a two man tent in which to camp at nights, the beetle being clearly too small for our 6 feet+ frames to sleep inside. Leaving Queensland in early September we planned on a month-long trip to WA.
We travelled down the east coast getting the odd, somewhat forgettable surf, but ended up staying a couple of days at Seal Rocks where we had good uncrowded waves at nearby Treachery Beach.
Image: 1975 Sept NSW Seal Rocks Campsite with Two Man Tent – me feeding equine guest.
Images: 1975 NSW Andy Jones surfing sequence Treachery Beach near Seal Rocks.
We pretty much bypassed Sydney, as we’d done an earlier surf trip thereabouts together, the previous year. Unfortunately, at the time, the South Coast of NSW, whilst very scenic, contributed little in the way of surf. It seemed to be perpetually offshore, but flat and we kept being told, “We shoulda been there yesterday.”
We stayed with friends in Melbourne and Torquay, where we had some pretty reasonable surf which seemed to be getting even better as we headed west. At Johanna, we shared really nice waves one clear offshore afternoon with Wayne Lynch and Maurice Cole totally by ourselves. We also had good waves at Port Campbell, where we greatly amused ourselves by accessing a local reef break via jumping from a cliff face. You can see Wayne Lynch and Nat Young do the same sort of thing in “A Day in the Life of Wayne Lynch”. We also scored really nice uncrowded waves near Peterborough, as we got closer to the South Australian border.
Image: 1975 Vic Boobs surf break near Torquay.
Image: 1975 Vic looking west along cliffs to Lower Winki’s surf break
Image: 1975 Vic near Kennett River on Great Ocean Road
Image: 1975 Vic Andy pit-stop Great Ocean Road
Images: 1975 Vic Johanna countryside and coastline (Top & Bottom)
Image: 1975 Vic Peterborough surf break.
Image: 1975 Vic Andy in the countryside.
As we crossed into South Australia, we encountered some rough, turbulent weather and some unusual customer service behaviour. We entered Hahndorf (in the hills above Adelaide) on a very rainy Sunday night, which obviously precluded us from erecting the tent. We decided to hire an overnight caravan at a local, large, quite modern (for the times) caravan park, in which we ominously noticed there were barely any other guests. The managers/owners made it pretty clear they didn’t like hiring out to surfers, but grudgingly would on this occasion, if we paid them a very large bond, on top of an already outrageous tariff. Wanting to just get some much-needed rest, Andy and I handed the money over, expecting there’d be no problems having it returned the next morning, seeing we weren’t planning to cook and just wanted to get to sleep in our sleeping bags. (They gave us no linen.) Imagine our surprise the next day, when upon inspecting the van, the management refused to return the bond to us, as they sneeringly accused us of stealing a couple of knives (which we hadn’t done).
What followed was classic Jones! Now many who know Andy, know he can be a bit gruff at times (especially in crowded surf), but as a lifelong friend, I’ve literally never known him to hurt a fly. LOL! I don’t ever reckon I’ve seen him WILDER. He stormed into the park office, followed by me, rushing to keep up and proceeded to climb up on top of the counter, dance around aggressively and threaten to cause a great deal of disturbance and upheaval to the office furniture and anyone who got in our way, unless we had our “bond” returned. It worked! Despite initial threats to call the local police, the scammers backed down, handed back their ill-gotten gains and we hit the road quickly, relieved to leave Hahndorf behind us.
Image: 1975 view of ranges from Eyre Highway South Australia
We journeyed on to Cactus, where we camped for quite a few days and had some good surf at the various breaks between Cactus Point and Caves with very few other surfers.
Image: 1975 Andy fixing flat tyre on my VW at Cactus.
Images: 1975 Cactus pink lake and dunes.
Image: 1975 Andy on Cactus dunes
Image: 1975 Cactus coast looking East.
Image: 1975 Cactus coast looking West
Image: 1975 Gary with Cactus crab – we ate the crab for dinner!
Leaving Penong behind we pretty quickly hit the Nullarbor Highway, which back in those days still consisted of around 400 km of corrugated, washed out dirt. Needless to say, the beetle got a real thumping from which it never really recovered. We were stoked to hit Eucla and the WA border and regain a bitumen footing.
Image: 1975 The Nullarbor Highway in all its glory.
Image: 1975 Me with VW on the Nullarbor
Image: 1975 Andy on Nullarbor pipeline.
Pausing at Esperance, which was offshore, but unseasonally bucketing with rain, we just decided to carry on straight through to Dunsborough, where we were given welcome temporary lodgings at Mark and Julie Favell’s house in the Green Acres Caravan Park, where they were the caretakers. Sure enough the trip across had taken us exactly a month.
The next day as an introduction to the area (for me) we went surfing at Yallingup followed by a little fishing expedition to Canal Rocks.
Image: 1975 Oct WA ‘Southee’ Mark & Julie’s dog, ready to go fishing.
Image: 1975 Oct WA Canal Rocks fishing with Mark (RIP) & Julie Favell
Andy and Gary are retired and still live in the South West.
Thanks Gary for sharing your ’75 surf trip pics.
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