John Smythe travelled the east coast of NSW with a little Box Brownie, No it’s not something you eat, for those of you that don’t know what that is you will have to Google it. It might shock you but we used to have to wind film & wait a week to see if any of the photos were any good.

These images made of John and his mates travels and adventures, some of the people in these images are some young guys having fun, which is what we used to do any given day of any week. We would drive along looking at any maps and forest trails were a popular choice as they skirted through bush and often led to the next bay. There was only one problem? They needed a bloody tank to get through sometimes as they weren’t maintained very well, and we were in beat up old cars, that go bogged or the suspension collapsed from so many corrugations.

Those were the days when we found some of the most secret of spots. Angourie, Green Island, Conneely’s, just to mention a few. What you say??? Everybody knows them. Well not in those days, Most were secret spot numbers 1 to 100 or Spot X, Y.Z Only a few would surf these places until loose lips would tell Bill, who would tell Frank and so on until the world knew.

John was one of the lucky ones who had mates with cars, and that was not as common as you would think. Most of us had to surf your local break or catch a train with a 9′ Mal to go anywhere else.

Amongst these images, there are three shots of, John Smythe on a 6′ short board in 1962?? John’s comment below.

They talk about the short board revolution???
The shots of John were taken at North Steyne C 1962 he is riding a small 6′ board and at that time I remember Johnny Ottons bigger brother made him a 6′ board and David (Baddy) Treloar had a small Hobie board which his brother brought for him on the Hawaii USA trip C1960-61.
My board was custom made for me in 1962 by Gordon Woods it was 6′ he also made a 6’6″ for a mate Mal Greenop.