Surf ‘N' Turf

Top-ranked surfer Matt ‘Wilko’ Wilkinson shows MH around his favourite Byron Bay surf spots.

- Ben McKelvey

For a moment, it looked like it was going to be a short day.

An hour earlier Matt ‘Wilko’ Wilkinson, Byron Bay local and one of the world’s best surfers, arrived at my hotel in his Holden Colorado Crew Cab. With coffee and towels in the cab and surfboards and wetsuits in the tray, the plan was to spend the day touring some of Wilko’s favourite local breaks. In the water, he would teach me how to get up on a board; in the car I’d get a sense of the man.

I learn something about Wilko five minutes in, when he says he’s “psyched” to spend the day with me, a rank surf-beginner and complete stranger. The funny thing is that it appears he means it. I don’t think Wilko has too many bad days.

“Conditions don’t look great at Seven (Mile Beach), but we have the time, we might as well hit it up,” he says.

As we drive through the hinterland, I ask Wilko the biographical staples. He replies in a slow but thoughtful drawl. He grew up in Sydney’s West, and there he and his brother rode motorbikes competitively until their parents split and financial pressure meant his father couldn’t keep his boys on bikes anymore. Wilko Sr figured surfing would be a cheaper pastime, so he moved the boys to the central coast. Wilko Jr remembers ritually trudging to Avoca Beach as the sun rose each morning, his father pushing him into the breaking waves on a banged-up old Ziegler board that had the fins missing.