In the early days of Australia's surf history, young people found a place to live out their dreams of innocence and freedom in the surf, but it wasn't to last. With the Vietnam War came an influx of drugs and surfers who led a rebellious counter-culture as they dropped out of society to escape to country towns along the coast, while elsewhere a group of entrepreneurial surfers began backyard businesses making wetsuits and board shorts.

Global surfing culture is a mix of wildness, grace and cool that is utterly Australian, but how did a nation of people, who mostly couldn't swim, turn a Polynesian pastime into a national obsession and international cultural force? From the time we first took on the waves in the late 19th century, Australians were hooked on surfing.