Point Sinclair National Surfing Reserve is located on the remote west coast of the Eyre Peninsula, with the nearby town of Penong being the last community before the long drive across the Nullarbor Plain to Western Australia. Point Sinclair lies at the end of a dirt road, 20 km south of Penong. However, despite its remoteness the point and surrounding area has attracted surfers from across Australia and the world. Point Sinclair juts 2.5 km out to sea, facing south. Along its western side is receives continual Southern Ocean swell which breaks over three rock reefs – Cactus, Castles and Caves, two lefts and a right.
The area was originally inhabited by the Wirangu, who with white settlement were replaced by the Gugada who moved down from the northern desert country. The coast was mapped as early as 1627 by the Dutch and the location of the mythical Gulliver Travels is a few kilometre to the west. The area was not initially settled until the 1850’s when large sheep runs were established, with Penong founded in the 1880’s.
The first recorded surfer at Cactus was Jack Bell who in 1956 paddled out on a ten-foot plywood ski. Not much happened after that until 1962 when two Ceduna boys got a mate to fly them along the coast looking for potential breaks, and saw the waves around Point Sinclair. They returned via the dirt road from Ceduna and started surfing a left. 1963 brought a few more locals out to surf the area and even a couple of travelling east coasters. In 1964 the Middleton-based Day Street Boardriders stumbled upon the break while exploring the west coast. The secret was outed in 1964 when the surfing magazine Surfabout published an article on ‘Surfing the Nulla(r)bor”. The author made up the name ‘Cactus’ and it stuck. In 1968 Wayne Lynch surfing Cactus featured in the surf movie ‘Evolution’. By the 1970’s surfers were camping more permanently at Cactus and in 1972 Paul Witzig bought land behind the break and built a shack. This was followed by the first shacks built by surfers behind the dunes. The shacks lasted until 1975 when they were removed and Witzig developed a camping area that’s still there today. By then surfers were moving into houses in Penong and old farmhouses in the district. Today the area has not changed much, the dunes,
salt flats and the camping area are there and a few legal shacks behind the dunes, otherwise it’s the same old Cactus, always wanting to keep a low profile, maintain the fragile desert environment and priding themselves in never having had a contest held there. Let’s keep it that way. It was dedicated Point Sinclair National Surfing Reserve in a lowkey ceremony in January 2013.
