I always loved the description of Winkipop




Winkipop - The NameBy Paul ‘Chicken’ Dyer [Written 2006] Surfing in Australia and in general has such a short history when compared to many other sports. For the vast majority of our surf breaks,the very people that named them or the people they’ve been named after are still alive, and I believe it’s very important to get these stories out there before it’s too late to hear them first hand.Lucky for me I have the honour of knowing a man who surfed Winkipop in the very early 60’s, with a group of mates from Melbourne and Torquay who stood on the beach one day wondering what they should call this place.His name is Roger Falahey, [born 1940] who used to drive down from Melbourne most weekends to surf a great wave called Bells Beach.

A few of the names he threw around that used to trek through the Bells family property to get to the beach were Brian Trist (Tristy, a plumber from Melbourne), Brian Poynton and a local Peter Troy whose dad owned the local newsagency, and who Roger believes was one of the first few blokes to do a surf safari around the globe.Roger tells- quote “one weekend Tristy drove down from Melbourne and brought with him some plumbers piping and timber. They then dug in some steps and erected a small handrail to get better access from the small grassy ledge on the right side of the creek at Bells. Those original steps lasted for about 10 years”.They back then had another problem, there wasn’t a toilet so they had to do their business in the creek and used to call it **** Creek. On another day they brought down enough timber and corrugated iron, dug a hole and erected a dunny on the small grassy patch where you now head up to the Bells cliff. Roger says but by Sunday someone had ripped it down. He doesn’t know why but maybe for firewood.I asked him if they used to surf Winki then and he said why? we had Bells. Occasionally we’d paddled over to the next right now Centreside or even around to Southside.

Roger said Tristy had a couple of body building mates from Melbourne that would come down to Torquay for weekends and camp with him. One of Tristys older mates was a guy called Bill Keenan. Roger explained how Tristy and Bill Keenan used to always use a certain code word while joking around. Bill used to party with some serious party girls in Melbourne and one particular lady, who apparently couldn’t get enough,if you know what I mean, used to always say to Bill come on “let’s go have a Winkipop”. Sex in her words. The name was born.Roger Falahey remembers one day at Bells, he reckons about eight of them thought they would check out this wave they could see to the left of Bells. After paddling around the point now known as the button and surfing, a few of them were standing on the beach wondering what they should call this place. History has it Tristy looked to the ground and saw two crabs linked end to end and said to his mates “ look, they’re having a winkipop.”I asked Roger, after this day did you surf Winki much? To his reply “yeah,too right we did”.