Rip Curl Pro @ Bells Beach

Another massive international top-sport event near Melbourne: The RipCurl Pro surfing festival at Bells Beach! Each year the 44 best surfers of the world battle each other in the ASP World Championship Tour. During this tour they travel around the world to surf the best waves of our planet: At Pipeline in Hawaii, Cloudbreak in Fiji, Hossegor in France and.. Bells Beach Australia! As a keen surfer I obviously couldn't miss out, and thus I caught a train to Bells Beach, in company of my ex flatmate Chris from the Netherlands, who visited Melbourne as part of his 9 month back-packing trip through Australia.

We chose a fantastic day - in terms of wave-quality and spectacular surfing action, that is. Solid 2 - 3m lines greeted us in the morning when we arrived on the contest site, which itself was just awesome: A true festival village had been build on the cliffs overlooking the ocean, with surf shops, bars, food stands, a big stage from where bands and dj's were entertaining the crowds, and even a snow track where Australia's best snowboarders showed their sickest tricks...

Of course, the heats between the worlds most talented surfers were what it was all about that day. With all the "big guns" still in competition and the waves being just about as good as it gets at Bells, there was not much more we could wish for! Andy Irons, Kelly Slater, Taj Burrow, just to name a few, they all entered the water and paddled out just a few meters in front of the spot we'd conquered on the beach. Although the waves were breaking a bit far out, it was a really great experience to see the pro's surfing in real. I was amazed by their incredibly fast, radical and powerful way of surfing! Apparently it all looks even much better and spectacular in real than it does on the surf videos!

In terms of weather, we were less lucky that day. In the afternoon lots of dark clouds and rain poured over Bells Beach.. Autumn in Victoria! Totally soaked we decided to visit a laundry to dry our wet clothes, allowing ourselves to travel back to Melbourne warm and dry, all and all looking back on a very exiting and pleasant day!

Full of inspiration and "stoke" I went surfing myself the next day, on a beach near Bells Beach. Later that week 7 times world champion Kelly Slater claimed victory of the RipCurl Pro.