Kiwi's Middleton Session

One day a few months ago I returned home from the beach and went upstairs to check my email messages. Included in the many that I received was one from a surfing and diving mate from Victoria. Dave said I must check out the "Castaway Surfing" site as it contained excellent photos and stories about the history of South Australian surfing.

I logged onto the web and brought the home page up and quickly scanned the pages. I was really impressed with the thought and amount of work that had gone into preparing this masterpiece.

My feelings ran high as I read about the old days down the south coast. I looked at the photos of old friends of mine and was especially thrilled to see a photo of the South Coast Surf Chaser, a 1934 Ford V8 sedan. The old chaser was my home for many a night as she was parked down at Surfers beach in front of the old tin shed not far from the concrete pool. I made my bed in the huge back seat and early in the morning I would get out of my sleeping bag gobble down a few cold baked beans and head out for a surf, before any of the others were awake.

So thrilled after catching up on my past through Ron’s efforts I emailed him to thank him for bringing back so many memories, it wasn’t long before I got a reply and over the following months we kept in touch.

Early in September I had to go to Adelaide, so I rang Ron and said I would be in town for about a week. And that I would bring my wetsuit, booties etc. over with me, just in case there happened to be a surf during the time I was in Adelaide.

It was about 7.30 in the morning when their car screeched to a halt in front of the Arkaba Hotel on Glen Osborne Road. I was warmly greeted and asked to hop in and we hit it off straight away. Ron was driving and Sibylle was in the rear and the 77 kilometre trip just flew by as we talked about the old times, the waves we had and the people we knew in surfing.

A short time later we were at the car park at Middleton Point. I was impressed, as here we were at a popular surfing spot, Middleton with small clean lines wrapping past the point, with a slight side offshore breeze blowing and only one person out. A few seconds later I was outside the car and untying the two 9.4" Malibu surfboards from the rack. Ron said, "What's the hurry, let's check it out for a while". My response was, "I want to get in the water as soon as possible before the crowd gets here".

I have not surfed the beaches of Adelaide or Victor Harbor for at least fifteen years and I was keen to go out. After getting into my wetsuit I took a block of wax and proceed to wax a board when I had finished Ron said, "Thanks for waxing my board but the other one is yours for the day". "You bastard!" I laughed, "why didn't you tell me". His reply was, "I’d never stop anyone from waxing my board, it saves me the trouble". I just had enough time to wax Sibylle’s Cutloose Malibu before Ron had suited up. We walked down to the point together and paddled out into the cool but refreshing water. It felt so good to be on a big Mal once again, it was so easy to paddle, so easy to catch waves and great to ride. I felt like I was in a time warp going back almost forty years. Before, the only company we had were two female surfers, a surf ski rider and another male surfer. It definitely wasn’t crowded and the waves were fun. Sibylle was on the point with her camera and tripod taking heaps of photos and most likely wishing she was in the water with us. So after about an hour and a half I said to Ron I was going in so that Sibylle could come out for a surf. Ron said for me to stay and he gallantly went ashore and gave Sibylle his board. Sibylle had a couple of nice waves before the wind freshened up and so we decided to call it quits for the day.

I came out of the water feeling high, as it was so much fun and it made me feel like going to the first surf shop and ordering a new Malibu. After we changed we went looking for an old time friend of mine Jimmy Miller, but unfortunately he was away so we stopped in at the local Middleton Bakery for a snack before heading back to Ron & Sibylle’s home at Seacliff.

The trip home was very quick and before long we were inside having lunch and coffee. Sibylle took off for the local photo shop and in an hour or so was back with a packet of coloured photographs that she had taken that morning. It didn’t take us long before we had selected some nice images and they were scanned into the computer, with some being sent to my email address at home. The rest of the afternoon was taken up talking and finding out how Ron & Sibylle produced the Castaway surfing site. Before long it was time for me to leave and so I was driven into town and dropped off at my unit.

I have not seen the delightful couple since that day but we are in touch, regularly and I hope that they will visit me over here in Port Lincoln on South Australia’s West Coast. I would be only too pleased to show then around our area. Once again Ron & Sibylle thanks for letting me into your world, much appreciated, keep in touch regards.

Kiwi White, Tuna Spotter, Fisherman

Port Lincoln S.A.