Duranbah

Surf Guide

D-Bah is just across the Queensland/NSW border and situated near the mouth of the Tweed River. It is a series of A-frame beachbreak peaks that can, banks depending, be world-class. Better and more consistent, even, than the famous Hossegor sand pipes. That said, it's no Puerto Escondido - it can't handle anything over five foot. --Derek Rielly Once you're out of the Kingscliff-Cabarita coastal loop and back on the Pacific Highway, the road heads south through some deep coastal rainforest country. Dairy farms and rural getaways abound, and you just know in some of those deep short valleys, someone's growing something they shouldn't. After a half-hour or so, you'll come across the first (most northerly) turnoff to Byron Bay. It's clearly signposted and hard to miss. A few more minutes and there you'll be, at Australia's most easterly point and most beloved yuppie-hippie-alternative-lifestyle Energy Center -- and almost coincidentally, at a really good location for Surf. For surfers, the "Bay" part isn't what defines Byron -- it's more the Cape, which does in fact stick further out into the Pacific than any other piece of Aussie mainland. Naturally enough, in the process, it has enabled a considerable quantity of surf spots. Let's start with the best known, which is the series of right points and reef/beachbreaks down the Cape's northern side. First, on the tip of the Cape there's Watego's and Little Watego's, kind of a combination reef-sand pointbreak producing slow rights and a beautiful swimming zone, as long as you're not particularly afraid of sea life. (Well, what do YOU think swims around Australia's most easterly point? Not goldfish, that's for sure.) Then the whole thing opens up into The Pass, Byron's serious point -- a long, winding right, dependent on sand distribution, but usually starting close to a top-end rock outcrop and peeling way down toward Clark's Beach over a half mile away. Often the wave gets hollower as it runs. Competition for set waves on good days isn't so much intense as almost impossible; Byron is one of Australia's first post-'60's style Surf Towns, and it's the home of Longboard Rebirth,which means tons of very savvy (and perhaps not-so-savvy) older longboard riders, all out exercising their length at once. Choose sessions wisely and after a good look at who's dominating the lineup. Further down the line of the cape, right opposite the town center, lies the remains of a wrecked ship, drawing to itself a soild sand deposit from the general waterflow along the beach. Creatively known as Shipwrecks or the Wreck, this is a wedged-up wave, occasionally very hollow and a lot of fun. There's a few little beachbreaks between the Wreck and the Pass, but nothing you'd stake a long paddle on. All these spots require an east to northeast swell to really fire. None of 'em pick up much from the predominant southeast swell angle -- not unless it's really big. To cash in on smaller souths, you've gotta head south of the Cape to Tallow Beach, a lovely long clean sand stretch of occasionally superb quality beachbreaks. Protected from the northeast seabreeze, Tallows is the haunt of mobile surfschools, surfing families, and most of Byron's hot young crop, who'll be out there busily emulating Danny Wills; if it's not WCT tour time, Willsy'll likely be out there too. Way off down the other end of this stretch, several miles away past the small town of Suffolk Park, lies Broken Head, Byron's gorgeous semi secret flankpoint. Best in an east swell and a south wind, Broken's unpredictable sandbar is at times a unique long right barrel. You may not be able to count on it, but as the saying goes: if you ever get it, you'll never forget it. Oh yeah: be aware of sharks at every location. Byron was once a meat processing and whaling town, and the genetic memory of all that blood still lingers in the regional aquatic food chain. A great white took a scuba diver off Julian Rocks, the boulder outcrop a mile or so off Wrecks, less than a decade ago, and there were plenty of attacks before that. So don't be shark-dumb.