3Bears Licence Plate

Convincing Vicky Jago to drive George, Mick Pierce and Mark Rudeberg to Sugarloaf Rock so the surfers could walk along the coast back towards Yallingup, was not at as hard as expected. But before you envisage a Dutch oven car ride, surfers with bloodshot eyes giggling mirthlessly, Janis Joplin blaring from the stereo and a flame-haired hippie at the wheel of a ’56 FE Holden fishtailing down the gravel Sugarloaf Road in a shroud of dust, George assures me “Vicky was the nicest of nice of ladies”. And so instead, the boys buckled into their seatbelts, minded their ps and qs as Miss Jago drove at the speed limit, paused at each give- way sign and waved to farmers in the fields before dispensing her occupants at Sugarloaf and disappeared over the horizon in a halo of golden sunshine.

The surfers watcher her go.

There was silence.

“How far do we reckon?” Mick finally asked

“7 mile” replied George. And without further ado, the trio started their epic trip onto Bears for the first time.

It was a Wednesday. It was August and there was a slack swell. The wind blew from the North, Nor-West at about 15 knots and so the troupe revelled in the fact they weren’t missing out on waves anywhere else along the coast. Two hundred meters into the trek and George hopelessly ill-prepared for the occasion blows out one of his Dunlop thongs and so now he’s barefoot and clutching the useless footwear to his chest.

Conditions are not good. The scrub although a lot sparser than walking in from the Rabbits end, is thick and impenetrable enough to deny them access and it forces the group down onto the beach in several spots. Despite best efforts to stay on the ridge, with no pathway yet made by human foot traffic, the surfers are forced down the cliffs and onto the beach along the soft sand, which makes the going tough.  They are hot, tired, scratched to shit, George is still clutching a thong and they’ve brought no water. Thank GOD it’s August and the relentless flies are not in season.

After hours pushing their way through the scrub, scarpering along the ridge and up and down cliff faces, the surfers finally crest the hill that overlooks Three Bears.

The sweet temptress that had called George for so many months was at this time, NOT a picture of beauty. Onshore slop, a small swell and lack lustre waves spilling onto three distinct reefs had potential, but it wasn’t ‘on’. They lingered at the top of the cliff assessing from high up the waves coming in, direction the bay faced and all the curves and dips in the reef clearly defined by aqua versus dark blue water. They could see three distinct channels, easy to walk across limestone reef, high cliffs that would favour a Nor- East wind for perfect conditions and a beach littered in shells and sea glass that looked ideal to shelter at post surf for a toke around the campfire. After some time assessing the spot, they headed off towards home, arriving at Yallingup around 4pm that arvo, utterly exhausted but feeling vindicated.

“We nearly called Bears, “Wednesdays” because we walked in their four Wednesdays in a row before we finally surfed it” says George now aged 73 sitting on his porch, scoffing down home-grown organic cucumber sprinkled with mineral boosting sea salt. So although they found the break in early August, it wasn’t until September when they scored.

“On the day we surfed Bears for the first time. Yallingup was about 3 feet, the wind from the North East, and I said to Tony, Bruce, Russel and Glen, “Let’s go!” We got a car ride up there to Sugarloaf, and high tailed it in as fast as we could carrying our short boards and when we got there…well…let me tell you. It was perfect. It was 4- 5 foot offshore perfection and mate, we were scrambling down the cliff, waxing boards, throwing on vests and racing out as fast as we could. We were beside ourselves with excitement.”

“I headed out to Babies and got a bunch of waves and then joined the others at Mummas. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing and the waves we were riding. It really was magic” reflects George resting back into his chair, a content smile that would be easy to label as smug AF!

I reflect on my most epic surfs at Bears and they too are peppered with nor-east winds, a medium swell and small crowd. So I can only imagine what it must have felt like to have surfed it for the first time all those years ago.

Can you?

The group of local misfit surfers kept their precious spot secret for about a year, but the summer of 1973 they were feeling the heat. Perth based surfers, or ‘weekend warriors’ were noticing that George and his mates disappeared for hours and days on end during smaller swells and a north easterly wind. Someone reckoned they saw a car parked at Sugarloaf and a fisherman declared he’d seen surfers up “that way” and suddenly, everyone was up at George’s melaleuca tree gazing north towards Three Bears.

“I think in the end, we took a few of the Perth crew up there. And it was actually one of them who called it Bears. For ages, Tom Hoye had called it MGMs after Mick, Mark and me but it never quite stuck.

Finally Bruce King said one day “It looks like the Three Bears” from the bedtime story and that name stuck”.

Surfers continued to park at Sugarloaf Rock and walk in for the next few years until another trio of locals: Jeff Culmsy, Craig Brentwhite and Ralph Redman rammed a track through from the Rabbits end. Their technique was not an example of engineering excellence (and these days we’d probably call what they did environmental vandalism) but quite simply, they drove Tom Hoye’s short-wheel base Landcruiser at the bush time and time again, till it gave way. They reversed up and charged at it again and again, and then, cut away bushes and rolled rocks out of the path for months until, they broke through to Bears.

And the rest of us followed in droves.

And droves.

And more droves…

To this day, surfers without 4WD cars continue to leg it into Bears along the track carved out by George, Mick and Mark.

Surfers now access the break in cars via Sugarloaf Road or Vidler Road and the City of Busselton maintain the 4WD track by dumping limestone in holes carved out over summer and fixing rubber mats on the sand dune to help drivers to pass through with as little environment damage as possible. It’s a shit-fight both in and out by the end of summer, and only the toughest of four-wheel drives and expert drivers get in and out to Bears unscathed. There are no plans by the COB to make it a more accessible road for the masses citing “we think there ought to be some places on our coastline that are 4WD accessible only and that offer people a sense of adventure when getting there”.

After all, fortune favours the bold!