Cattle farmer, vigneron & ex Busselton GP, the late Dr Kevin Cullen purchased a rural property at Wilyabrup in the early 50s. A powerful left hand reef break in front of the Cullen family beach house was appropriately named Gallows.
As word spread about this hot new wave, the dirt track to the house (Cullen Rd) became a main thoroughfare. The track stopped approx. 2 kilometres from the coast and surfers had to sneak through the bush past the Cullen beach cottage to the beach lugging their heavy Malibu’s. The surfers would often disturb Dr Cullen’s attractive daughter sun baking nude in the back yard.
In the early 60s the West Coast Board Club used all the money they had in their bank account £20 to pay local cattle farmer Boodge Guthrie RIP to bulldoze a rough dirt track through the remaining bush to the coast (Gallows and Guillotine).
The track’s black ilmenite sand was very hot in summer & there were bush flies in plague proportions. But the popular reef break was now accessible to all SW surfers.
Gallows Photos
Murray d’Arcy, one of the founding members of the North End Board Club in Scarborough, was passionate about photography and captured these classic Gallows surf break photographs in 1963.
Easter 1963 John ‘The Mess’ Stevens at the top of the Gallows track. Murray d’Arcy pic.
January 1963 flotilla of Malibu’s at the Gallows. Murray d’Arcy pic.
January 1963 summer wave line-up at the Gallows. Murray d’Arcy pic.
January 1963 wave line-up at the Gallows (pre leg ropes). Photo Murray d’Arcy.
Special thanks go to Jim Breadsell, a fellow North End Board Club member from the 1960s, for providing Murray d’Arcy’s collection of vintage surf images.
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