A southern voyage

Jem takes his friends back to where it all began.

Jem Cresswell grew up in Adelaide, or not far from it, though he made his name in the surf photography business by spending large amounts of time and money scouring the coastline beside the Nullarbor Plain all the way west to the border of WA. It fills us with envy and fear. The breaks aren’t just uncrowded they’re often completely virgin. The downside is you’re living on the set of Wolf Creek and you’re approximately 400 per cent more likely to be killed by a shark there than anywhere else in Australia.

This trip he went back (he now lives in Sydney) with fellow SA desert rat Matt McArthur, Michael Novy and Glen Thurston. NSW was flat and they saw a decent swell coming so the four of them jumped a plane to Adelaide and drove overnight to Matt’s parents’ house; a remote but blessed surf location.

“We were only there for three days but it was pumping all day; offshore, sunny and those good front-lit conditions that SA has,” said Jem, who’s planning a few more trips down there this summer. “I have a few new spots up my sleeve that I’m hoping to get. They’re actually bigger wave spots, most of the places I normally shoot are up to six-feet but these ones can get bigger I think.”

This one has featured in Movement before. It’s only accessible through a private farm and, thanks to their local status, the boys get personally chauffeured out to the break, saving the sketchy paddle from the shore. The first time they surfed this place they were sharing their exploits with a fisherman who told them that the previous day he’d chased away a 12- and a 15-foot White Pointer that had been lurking near his boat in the channel they’d just paddled through.

All photos and captions by Jem Cresswell