Surf in Australia. What a passion!

     Some people in the world cannot swim. Australian children would laugh about it. They learn to swim as part of their school curriculum and swimming, boating and surfing are all extremely popular. 
     The whole Australian coastline, 19,200 km, is rich in golden sandy beaches and rolling surf and everywhere in the country summer holidays normally mean camping or caravanning along the coast by the sea. Also big towns, like Melbourne and Adelaide, have long suburban beaches in bays sheltered from the ocean, while Sydney and Perth are well-known for having surf beaches an their doorstep.

     Australians love lazing on the beach not only in the sunshine; on very hot summer evenings many families go to the beach to relax, to swim or to enjoy a picnic in the cool. And if swimming is a popular pastime, best of all young Australians love riding on big waves on surf boards. They will proudly tell you that their waves are the biggest, the most dangerous and the best surfing waves in the world.

     Many young people, both boys and girls, spend all their spare time surf riding. They drive up and down the coast, sleeping by the beach looking for the right winds and tides to give them perfect waves.

     At all main Australians beaches life-savers are placed to warn of sharks and to look out for anyone who gets dragged out by currents. The life-savers do their work for fun, not for money; they have to be very good swimmers and each beach takes great pride in its life-saving team. They regularly hold competitions known as Surf Carnivals. Rival life-savers’ club compete in swimming, rescue works and life-saving techniques and in surf boat racing.

     Source: Excursion, an old Italian book.