West Oz

You've probably seen pics of this place. It's one of the most photogenic in the region. Popularised when the CT moved Margs comp here on a firing day. Photographers can get tight shots from the rocks or swim into the channel and snap aspiring professionals pulling into the outside death section.There are two sections: the outside pit, which looks reasonably makeable from the take-off, then the shallow inside section. Making both takes a lot of skill. Seriously good surfers rule here, taking off deep and gunning a high line through one of the heaviest barrels in WA, leaving only the odd scraps for the lids and lesser surfers who clamber over it from the safer take-off spots.Don't want to risk it? Join the crowds on the point and enjoy the action.

A couple of lefts here during a solid six to eight-foot swell will be burnished on your brain for decades. Paddling with the pack towards an incoming set and realizing that you are best-positioned to spin and take off is one of the most amazing feelings you will ever have as a surfer. The drop looks heavy and the wall looks long, but cast your doubts aside and go. At this size, the wave gives you an extra moment or two before it pitches, by which time you will be at the bottom, lining up one of the smoothest, fastest turns you will ever do along a solid face, even when it's onshore. If you're lucky, you'll follow this with a pit through the inside section. As for the righthander, one look at it from the car park will tell you all you need to known: don't ride too close to the dry reef on the inside. If there's a set behind when you pull out, you're in trouble. Ending a session here is fun, too. Keep cutting back into the whitewater, and you can ride along the edge of the reef for a couple of hundred meters, doing the little hotdog turns the waves outside wouldn't let you.

Well worth surfing over four-foot, and best when it's six-foot-plus. At that size, there's nowhere to hide when long-line sets charge into the lineup, mowing down anyone caught too far inside. You won't hit the bottom (unless you're caught inside on the righthander), but the undiluted power of the place is going to hold you down for a while. But sit far enough out and have the ability to catch one of these beasts, and you will find yourself in command of a long, charging wall, peeling easily into a long, deep channel on the left, or throwing fast sections on the right, which eventually closes out in front of dry reef. For intermediate surfers, this is the safest way to get a taste of pure power. You don't need a lot of skill to keep up with the left, but you'll still get a chance to bury a rail on a serious bottom turn if you want to. Advanced surfers known that if Yal's is on, there is some seriously better gear going down elsewhere.

One of the main factors here is the crowd. Locals from Yallingup, and a few from Gracetown and Margaret's, descend on it like flies when it's on (which is often). Jostling in the take-off zone can get a bit frisky. If you're not into that, sit a bit wide and pick off the occasional set wave that leaves the pack too deep, scrounge the smaller insiders, or go the left, which isn't as good as the right but still fun.Wrangle a decent set wave and you'll learn what the fuss is about. This wave is one of the best around. There's a tight but makeable pit on low tide, and a wall that will give you two or three big hits before you play your cadenza on the closeout near the shore. When it's medium size, it's got the feel of a slightly serious beachbreak. When it's big, it assumes the full southwest WA menace. Either way, it's a reliable right-hander, picks up any swell that's going and doesn't vary much from tide to tide.If it's too crowded, have a look a bit further afield. Big southwest swells can wrap into the point, where there is a long left. But it gets a bit shifty, and there's a rock shelf in the middle that can catch you by surprise.

This is the southwest coast's original ledge, a left and a right. Back when the region was known for its long, walling waves like Margaret's and Yallingup, surfers looking to avoid the crowds started pushing their boards over this shelf at high tide and reaping the rewards with high-speed top turns, barrels or just a fast, smooth slingshot across the dredging reef. That's because there's a sweet spot in the reef that gives a good surfer an early drop into the wave before the whole thing jacks up. It's not deep enough to be a backdoor, but it can set you on an amazing line. It's okay on low tide if it's less than three-feet, any bigger and you'll have to wait for the incoming. The bank next to the reef rarely disappoints. Once you clear the spooky, dark shallows over the reef and hit the clear, emerald green of the sandy channel, you'll be so stoked that you're likely to throw down a big hack, just to celebrate. And the closing section on the inside offers big hits to anyone prepared to do a couple of duck-dives to get back out.

In winter, when the onshores blow for more than a couple of days, this beach can crank. Swells from the SW or NW aren't blocked by Rottnest Island, and when they hit Scarborough's relatively steep banks, they can pack a punch.Most of the time, though, it's an average beachbreak, albeit one with banks spread along a couple of kilometers (the whole stretch goes from Brighton in the south, to Scabs, Contacio, and Trigg). This is Perth's equivalent of Manly, in Sydney.

Get a taste of the spirit of adventure for which this area was once known. Gas Bay is at the end of a narrow road south of Margaret's. Once you've parked, you need to walk a fair way across a sandy bay and over the rocks on the far side. It's a bit of a hike, but with each step, the feeling that you're leaving the crowds and conveniences of lesser urban breaks behind, and reacquainting yourself with something a bit freer, grows.The wave is a right-hander with a super-sucky take-off over rocks followed by a sandbank going to the beach. Getting shacked is a doddle for naturals, and not too hard for skilled goofies either.The other right-hander in the area is Grunters, which is on the point near the car park. It handles anything from 4- to 8-foot. Some of its sections pack a lot of power, although on any given day it's not quite as heavy as Margaret's main break.

Spend two weeks in one of the lux exo-tents, surfing the long backlit tubes and retiring post-session to your deck with an icy Swan Lager and you'll feel as if you're living in some heavenly afterlife. Bliss. To find it, it's 100 km north of Carnarvon. Take the Blow Holes turnoff.

Like most classics, no one was ever going to be able to keep Gnaraloo a secret. One hundred miles north of Carnarvon, the wave is a quarter-mile long left-hander that features outrageously shallow step-filled barrels and endless rippable walls. And all before the watchful eye of hundreds of sharks. You're a long way from medical help here, so pack well, surf sensibly, and keep your eyes on your buddies.

A six-hour drive north of Perth is Kalbarri, home to the jacking lefthander Jake's Point. One of those idiosyncratic waves that are absolutely owned by the local surfers, unless you're at WCT level or you've come from Teahupo'o, you won't dominate or even catch sets on a good day. Like most reefs, Jake's breaks from two foot upwards. And the tough fisherfolk who populate this picturesque desert town don't want to touch it when it gets small.