Real Axe, Starring Creed McTaggart: Drive Across Australia

Creed McTaggart’s a student of Australian surf culture, and, as any keen student knows, if you really want an authentic experience, then you’ve got to hit the road. After finally getting his licence, Creed picked a Toyota Landcruiser from the classifieds of the local newspaper, scooped up brother in arms Beau Foster, filmmaker Toby Cregan and photographer Duncan Macfarlane, and hit the red dust east in search of surf and the Australian dream. The loose plan was to drive from Creed’s family home in Margaret River, to his adopted habitat in Byron Bay. Whether the boys realised quite how far this was (5,000km in a straight line) is at this stage unknown.

As we know, fortune favours the bold, agenda-less traveller, and the boys scored some classic waves down the dusty trails of the Nullarbor. Most significantly a flawless righthand reef that could well be the quintessential South Australian surf spot. Unfortunately, Beau Foster hurt his arm fairly early on, so Creed was left out there bobbing solo. “I wouldn’t even know how to get back to that right that we found,” says photographer Duncan Macfarlane. “That’s one of those spots where we just drove in from the main road. It’s in the Nullarbor somewhere. Creed surfed it on his own because Beau had his arm injury.”

Next stop was the iconic righthand walls of Winkipop in Victoria, after a brief detour to Adelaide to watch the Cosmic Psychos, where the boys’ luck continued as they rendezvoused with the swell of the year. Riding contemporary crafts on the timeless canvas didn’t seem just, so the gang, along with new recruit Ellis Ericson, raided the shed of a local friend. “Creed got an old Webber, Beau got a 6’4” Al Byrne, it was incredible, Ellis was on an old Dahlberg,” raps Dunc. “We surfed Bells for two days on these old boards.” Forced to pick their lines and draw out their turns, this exercise couldn’t help but to give the journey a pilgrimatic feel. Was this a modern surf trip, or an ode to the trail blazers past? Whatever the case, as the boys wound down with a few fun novelty surfs on the track north to Byron, it’s hard to argue that the state of Australian Surf Culture is in safe hands with Creed, Toby and pals. “It has to be one of the best trips I’ve been on,” says Dunc, and boy, it looks anything but a bad time!