Tracks

It’s arguable the average Australian surfer has a better understanding of Indonesia than most of our politicians. For us, Indo almost feels like an extension of our own wave-rich continent – a seventh, surfing state if you will. Geographically, this

SURFER: RUSSELL BIERKE  PHOTO: ARTHUR PICARD Photographer, Aurthur Picard, had pledged to traverse Scotland and Ireland by train rather than be complicit in the airline industry’s contribution to fossil fuel emissions. Public transport made timing hi

Kelly Slater, however, takes off in the white-water, lying prone on a 5’3” Cymatic snub-nosed quad. He simultaneously stands up and does a bottom turn and heads towards the lip before the wave closes out. He performs a tight, technical, and theatrica

Never thirsty, always dry, said Nath, a brash, long-haired Aussie out in the surf. And yeah. It feels fitting riding this empty, scorched 500km long road, through barren corn-fields and half-baked fishing villages. I’m in a hurry to get across this i

Blood is seeping down Dave’s arm from a shallow fin chop. Behind him, another peeling six-foot Nihiwatu set goes unridden like the archetypal surf mirage. Dave’s shifting his feet unstably up the sand. I wonder how bad this one’s going to be. He coll

In six months he traversed 22 countries in total. It was an odyssey replete with hollow waves, hard lessons, dramatic revelations and occasional calamities. Much more than just a surf trip, it was a transcendent experience, which took Lachie across b

Imagining which of the Mentawai’s 50-plus waves you will bank and glide across enlivens a thousand pre-departure dreams. The excitement begins the minute you book your charter and only grows. Soon enough you will be navigating a tropical wonderland,

Indonesia is a place where the currency of waves tracks high and chaos runs rampant. I recently made Bali my Indo base for a year and a half of my life; a time span that seems at once remarkably long and somehow short – a sort of fever dream that has

Our actual honeymoon in December 2021 was a rained-out few days on the NSW south coast. Both of us are surfers so this could have been a laidback trip in old stomping grounds where I learned to stand up; were it not cut short when the Airbnb flooded.

I am a solo artist by the name of Abraham Kenny (aka The Diamond Blow), a musician currently on tour in Ukraine, playing shows in an act of solidarity with the Ukrainian people against Russia’s invasion. In 2007, I left Australia with one hundred cop

The 10 bucks in my pocket would cover my bus fare, Amex had my flight, and freelance writing gigs trickling into my inbox would fund the rest. It’d been two weeks since I’d seen the sun, and even longer since I’d surfed anything with shape and qualit

To pinpoint when I first met and surfed with Peter Townend would be a guess. In the late 60s/early 70s I was surfing North Narrabeen and would be onboard Col Smith’s VW Combi for the annual sojourn to the Coolangatta area, so that seems to make sense

Take the North Coast of NSW. It is a geographical Disneyland for surfers, especially natural footers, with some of the finest right point breaks in the world scattered like sparkling jewels between Crescent Head and The Pass. People speak of these sa

URBNSURF, the ultimate surfers’ playground. No swell? Find perfect waves all day and night in Sydney and Melbourne. 1 YEAR (6 ISSUES) FOR ONLY $99.99 (SAVE 33%) • 6 ISSUES DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR ANNUALLY SUBSCRIBERS RECEIVE A SPECIAL GIFT WITH EACH I