Crescent Head
The longboarding capital of Australia
On the lands of the Dunghutti people.
A tiny surf village perched on a headland above one of the longest and most perfect right-hand point breaks in Australia. Crescent Head has been a pilgrimage site for longboarders since the 1960s and retains an unhurried, uncommercialised character that bigger surf towns have lost.
Crescent Head sits on Dunghutti country on a headland that juts into the Pacific about 20 kilometres east of Kempsey. The village has a permanent population of fewer than 1,500 people and consists of a general store, a surf club, a holiday park and a handful of houses scattered along the ridge.
The main point break peels off the rocks below the headland and wraps into the bay in long, smooth right-hand walls that are tailor-made for longboarding. The wave can hold its shape for up to 300 metres on a good swell, allowing riders to cross-step, hang five and noseride for the kind of extended rides that made this place famous. The annual Crescent Head Malibu Classic, held since the 1960s, is one of the oldest longboard competitions in the world.
Behind the headland, Killick Beach is a wilder, more exposed stretch of sand that picks up bigger swells and is better for shortboarding. The Limeburners Creek Nature Reserve, just south of town, has a network of walking tracks through coastal rainforest and wetland.
Crescent Head is a detour off the Pacific Highway and most visitors arrive specifically to surf. There are no chain restaurants, no traffic lights and no high-rise buildings. The surf club does a decent counter meal and the general store makes solid coffee, but the appeal is the wave, not the amenities.
You may also like
Attribution
Sources & credits
Content
- Background text summarised from Wikipedia: Crescent Head , licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Images (3)
- Crescent Head.jpg · Yun Huang Yong · CC BY 2.0
- Goolawah national park.jpg · writenq · CC BY 2.0
- Top 500 airports by enplanements in the United States.webp · Wikideas1 · CC0
Images sourced from Wikimedia Commons under licenses that permit commercial use. If you are the rights holder and believe an attribution is incorrect, please contact us.