THE REAL SURFERS' PARADISE

Jim Cavill may have called his pub the Surfers Paradise Hotel back in 1925 because of the miles of rolling breakers perfect for body surfing, but once board riding became the vogue, the real action was about 30 kms to the south at Coolangatta’s mighty point breaks of Snapper Rocks, Greenmount and Kirra.

Generations of surfers have ridden the waves of their lives along these sublime, sand-bottomed peeling barrels, in bath-warm water in front of beaches packed with swimsuited beauties. For surfers, life doesn’t get much better. The Coolangatta surf scene produced Australian surfing’s first three world-beaters of the professional era, Peter Townend, Michael Peterson and Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholomew. 30 years later, the much-vaunted Coolly Kids - Mick Fanning, Dean Morrison and Joel Parkinson - are again riding high on the international stage, except this time with million-dollar salaries, palatial homes and fleets of luxury cars. The surfing lifestyle has come of age. And thanks to a little miracle of modern engineering - the $100 million Tweed Bypass sand pumping system, a government initiative to replenish beach sand - surfers are enjoying an unexpected windfall.

The steady flow of sand has turned the three point breaks into one mighty, mile-long ride, the so-called “Superbank”, the longest wave in the country and one of the most mind-boggling wave riding experiences in the world. Just don’t expect to get one to yourself. On any given day, a dozen or more of the world’s best surfers and a few hundred of their closest mates clog the Superbank line-up. It all goes to prove that old adage about man’s inhumanity to man - having inadvertently created the longest wave in the country, it’s often impossible to ride it for more than 50 metres without someone dropping in on you.