A dirty big metal pipe ... that’s what’s brought them here. Queensland’s emerald right-handers are caused by longshore-drift, the rapid movement of sand in the lee of pointbreaks. With permanent buildings built on these shifting sands, retaining walls were built to protect them when big hairy Cyclones roared into town. These proved ineffectual until extra sand was piped to the beach five years ago from the nearby Tweed River. The result? Man has assisted nature in creating the world’s most flawless sandbank. The wave now spins and tubes for the majority of it’s 400m distance

It’s more a matter of when Snapper Rocks discovered surfers. The wave is so long, keeping the same constant zipper shape, that it exposes groups of surfers who start performance revolutions.
Snapper Rocks is actually famous for the unveiling of the ‘involvement’ school of surfing, where during the 1965 Oz Titles Nat Young, Bob McTavish and Keith Paull started doing re-entries - attacking the wave for the first time -instead of planing out on to the face with their longboards, as was the style of world surfing previously. In the 70s, the area was home to the power-flow style of the Free Ride generation; Rabbit, Michael Peterson, and first ever pro surfing world champ Peter Townend. In the early 2000s, history repeated with another trio, Mick, Parko and Dingo, known as the Coolie Kids.

Fanning, Dingo, Parko, Josh Kerr, and the entire Snapper Rocks Boardriding Club.

Nat Young, Michael Peterson, Peter Drouyn, Rabbit, Wayne Dean, Taj Burrows, Mick Fanning, Joel Parkinson, Dean Morrison, Kelly Slater.

Quiksilver. They snatched the rights from under the nose of local archrivals Billabong, turned it into an elite event at about the same time an inconsistent, mild-mannered sandbar turned into The Superbank - and caught the surfing world’s attention as the planet’s longest and most perfect barrelling righthander.

The A-frames of Duranbah are a short walk away. If you’re after a liquid libation, Snapper sits halfway between the concrete sin-pit of Surfers Paradise (Surfers Palestine) and the bohemian bars of Byron Bay.

Looking down from a helicopter, the beach is blanketed by sunbaking women (most of them are imports from Brazil) worshipping their idols and the burning ball in the sky that will later blanket them in melanomas.