Surfing spots in South Australia

[sherco_el]

Does anyone know a great surfing spot in South Australia? preferably close to Adelaide

[surf patrol]

Kangaroo Island has some great surf, or you could get in the car and head for the great ocean road - loads of surf spots.

[Bob]

Middleton and Goolwa can be good some times.............or else Chinamans at Innes National Park (although thats a bit further to go

[sdsurfin89]

Whatup, I'm from the US and I'm moving to Adelaide. I'm trying to find some surfing buddies, guy or girl its all good, just someone to show me the spots and chill out with. I also will have no ride, so if anyone with a car needs someone to rip with let me know. Also what's up with the sharks down there, I'm still in the US so i haven;t asked around but are there certain places to avoid? booyakasha

[dougirwin13]

"Near Adelaide" (metropolitan) mostly means the Port Noarlunga to Maslins stretch. That's 30-45 minutes south of the city centre by car (depends on when you travel).

A bit further afield there's the Chiton Rocks-Goolwa stretch (with Middelton in the middle of it). A bit over an hour from the city.

Finally there's the Wait's-Parsons stretch. That's up to 90 minutes form the city.

Further afield there's Yorke Peninsula and the Eyre Peninsula - road trip!

Check out wannasurf.com for more info.

-doug

[sdsurfin89]

cool, thanks for the help man. I ride a 6'8 nectar. Spent the last few months in central america, saw some big tiger sharks. pretty consistent surf there though, i feel like adelaide might bum me out a bit surfwise. me and my girl will be chillin if youre down to drink some chelas and hit the surf.

[dougirwin13]

Don't get me wrong, there's surf here. But you'll do best if you go for more volume than you normally do.

You'll do even better if you learn the swell windows and are prepared to drive a bit.

If you want to put up with my kids and my 9'6" we can catch up some time

-doug

[sdsurfin89]

anyone in the water near me will make me feel better with all those biteys around. thats cool that your kids surf. what are the crowds like? i basically dont want to be surfing alone. I surfed alone in costa rica for the last 3 months and it was irie but even there i felt like sitting bait sometimes. saw an 8 ft tiger shark breach like 100 ft away from me. unfortunately i wont have a car

[dougirwin13]

"Teeth" aren't as big a deal as people seem to think - tho South oz does have a rep as Australia's most shark infested state

Doesn't bother most of us, tho. The reality is that you there's soemthing like a 1:900000 chance of being attacked here, as opposed to the 1:1000000 in the other states.

Still far more likely to be savaged to death by a crazed porker or die driving to the beach.

Surfing alone really isn't an issue, either way. Head to any of the places I outlined and you'll be amongst a group of other surfers. Head there and explore and you'll find somewhere uncrowded. Time of the week and swell obviously matters, tho.

If you choose to surf here you'll probably want to get your head around not worrying about sharks. We get two species - the Bronze Whaler and the Great White. So we really don't tend to worry unless a shark is over about 3 1/2 meters. And you don't see the one that gets you. I suppose you might say we just learn the warning signs. The standard stuff you can find all over the web. You'll find some here.

If you won't have a car the best thing you can do is try to get a place on the mid-coast stretch and save up a few hundres AU$ for a cheap car. It'll make a bigg difference to the scope of waves available to you.

Oh yeah. At 4 and 8 years old my kids are just learning

-doug

[sdsurfin89]

yeah i dig that, im much more scared of cars than sharks. if i saw a shark larger than 4 meters i dont think id be able to do anything but pass out. unfortunately i'm gonna be living near downtown and i dont have a job yet so we'll see what happens. if you know anyone looking for employees let me know, i'm a college graduate with experience in a variety of fields. take it easy

[dougirwin13]

No probs. We'll have to catch up for a beer sometime.

-doug

[sdsurfin89]

for sure man. my email is christianberman@yahoo.com I'm psyched to drink aussie beer again, always so good