"Gary Elkerton: Still the Authentic Power Surfer," by John Ellis, ran in the July 1996 issue of Deep magazine. Elkerton was 32 years old, and heading into what would be his last year as a touring pro. This version has been shortened and slightly edited.

You just surfed your first WCT event since last year

Yeah, I had a bad accident in September. A dog ran under my front wheel when I was riding my mountain bike. I fell onto the bitumen and broke a bone in my wist called the scaphoid which is the slowest-healing bone in the body. It was five months of healing and rehab.

It was quite shattering—especially the first two weeks. It’s the first injury I’ve had for 12 years and it kept me out of the water for five months. I’ve never had an injury that bad. It was the first time l couldn’t do the sports I love to do; surfing, snowboarding and motocross. That’s when you really start to appreciate it all. But yeah, those first two weeks were a very low point.

How'd you pull yourself out of that period?

Eventually I had to start training, ’cause I was quite heavy. Before Hawaii I always bulk up. With the size and the offshore winds over there, the heavier you are the better. I like to be really solid, so I eat a lot of meat and stuff to be at least a stone heavier. If you put on a stone it is not going to hinder your performance; it’s going to help. Anyway, it was quite hard at first because I knew it was going to take five months and I knew I wouldn’t be back until Bells. I had decided last year to finish the tour, call it a career, for a lot of reasons. Mostly, just out of frustration with the ASP and the way things are getting done. So Hawaii was going to be my last stop. But after those first two weeks of being hurt, I started running and I then I just got into it. I’m still doing it; an hour-and-a-half every morning and sit-ups and I’ve gone from 16 stone to 11-and-a-half stone. 

[Note: 16 stone is 224 pounds; 11.5 stone is just over 160.]

Nah, I was huge, but now I’m feeling really, really good. The break allowed me have a look at everything, too, and I got the itch to compete again. I’m fitter now at 32 than I was at 22. It’s a strange feeling. To me, this accident was meant to happen.

You’ve always been into other high-risk sports like snowboarding and bikes. Not many of the other guys take any risks with injuries outside of surfing. You do. Do you ever worry about injuries?

No, it doesn’t worry me. When I was five and living on the boat my dad bought me a Monkey (a kid’s motorbike) and we’d go up to Cairns or to Karumba and he’d take it off the boat and I’d ride it around the wharf. So from day one I was used to having a motor bike. I mean, yeah, it is dangerous, like snowboarding is too, but I just think life’s too short to put all your concentration into one thing. But I do have a limit with the other things. It's a fine line. In surfing you don’t really have a limit, you can charge and you don’t hurt yourself unless you land on the fins or someone runs you over. Snowboarding and motocross are different, there are a lot of things that can take you out. But I have fun. I’ve been doing motor-cross for 15 years and snowboarding for 11 years and I’ve never had any bad injuries— touch wood. I’ve had more from surfing but you can reduce that risk with training.

You just said that before you were injured you were thinking of quitting the tour. What about now. Are you thinking beyond this year?

I’m not going to make a decision beforehand, I just feel too good right now. My objective is to finish better than 24th, which I know I can do, and that’s about it. I just want to make it to Hawaii and have a good run there. There are some good events on the tour this year, Jeffreys and G-land, so I'm looking forward to that.

Only one CT-rated event on the North Shore, though, which seems ridiculous.

Yeah, the tour has never been the same since they took Sunset off the CT. Pipeline is great, but Sunset is the proving ground for everyone! Anyone who is a surfer and they want to have a go, Sunset is still the place. I’d like to see the other surfers, the guys at the top, like Slater and Machado, take a stand [and get Sunset back as a CT event]. The whole contest scene in Hawaii just isn't what it used to be. Like how can they call the Triple Crown anymore, when it's only one championship event and two qualifiers. Calling that the Triple Crown is garbage.

You’ve been doing the tour since ’84. During those 12 years, what were the highlights?

My wins in Hawaii. Probably the most satisfying was Pipeline [Elkerton won the 1989 Masters], that was all-time, 'cause it was a big day and there were some really heavy waves out there.

Probably when I got rid of the Kong thing and the Australian media, and the world media, you know, didn’t want me to. The Kong era in the early ’80s, for me, was incredible, and it was a sad thing for me to get rid of it—but I don’t regret it.

Yeah, I suppose losing three world titles, especially the last two by the incompetence of the system . . . .

Those four-man heats in Hawaii cost me two world titles. 

[Note: in 1990 and 1993, Elkerton's world title bids were both thwarted in heats where surfers not in contention for the championship appeared to block him from catching waves.] 

But it’s not something I dwell on. I know I was probably the best on the tour that year [1993], but I also know the numbers don’t really mean anything. After the last five months, I just want to go and catch waves. I’ve got the hunger I had five or six years ago. I lost that, I was really stale and just rolling along with the system. Like I say, the accident was meant to happen—I was meant to have that break.

You mentioned the Kong thing before—how old were you when you decided you were over that?

Twenty or 21. Or maybe later, like 22. Around there.

I was one of the guilty editors of the time who just kept calling you Kong.

There was a lot. In Australia, when you have a nickname and that whole thing, people love it. The ’80s were great, we had a good time. But on the other hand, I think the Kong thing got a little bit misunderstood. Chappy [Jennings] and I were there for one reason and that was to have fun. The stories got exaggerated, though.

The idea was to get your career on a more professional track?

My career, and just who I was going become in general.

You were firm about the "no Kong" thing at the time, but what about now?

I let some of my friends call me Kong, yeah, it slips out all the time. I don’t have a problem at this point; I laugh. I just had to make it clear back then that I was changing my name, that I was serious and wanted the title.

You’ve been living in France for years now. What is it like being an ex-pat, living in a different country?

I’ve lived the last 10 years in Lacanau but I just bought a place in Hossegor. But those years in Lacanau were really good. It's a small village after the summer so I found that space I needed when I came back from competing each year. I fit in well, the waves are uncrowded—I really like France. I had the choice. Pasquale [Elkerton's French-born wife] wanted to live in Australia; she really likes Sydney, but the tour at that time was more structured to that side of the world, so financially and for tax reasons it was better to leave the country - like most Aussie sportsmen do.

t was such a big move. I mean, we’ve all traveled, but to actually go and live in another country . . .

It was easier for me because I had Pasqual. I would never have done it by myself.

What was it like in France, with all the protests worldwide over the French nuclear tests at Muraroa?

Well, I’ve got a bit of a problem with Australia at the moment. Like I’ve been in France for 10 years and I’ve got a lot of French friends who are beautiful people, just like I’ve got a lot of beautiful Australian friends. And this thing about boycotting French products is bullshit. What a lot of Australians don’t understand is that Australia has been mining uranium for 25 years now in Kakadu. There are areas and Aboriginal reserves that have been contaminated by the mining, the Australian Government sells this product to France which is then used to make the bomb and the Australian Government makes millions out of the deal. Then they call for boycotts which hit the local French people who may not have voted for Chirac. They don’t buy French wine and they don’t go to French restaurants. Meanwhile, it's Australia selling the uranium to France. I think it’s sick, there has to be some logic here. I’m Australian and I’ll always be Australian but that’s not on. The Australian people have to take the blindfolds off and do something about the mining in Kakadu.

There’s a good chance they’ll open another mine in Kakadu.

Right, ’cause it makes millions and millions of dollars. The French tested those bombs and the results and plans are available to America, Russia . . . who knows? All my friends in France are totally against the bomb and Chirac. All the shit I’ve read in Australian surfing magazines about how fucked the French are, frogs this and frogs that—I say open your eyes, check out where the shit is coming from before you open your mouth. As long as [the Australian government] is making the money—$50 billion a year from the French, from the Americans, the Russians, whoever is buying uranium—they're gonna pull the wool over the average Australian’s eyes.

Yeah, I don’t think Australians in general are all that aware about this issue.

They’re not aware of a lot of things that are happening in this country. Like if we keep cutting down the eucalyptus forests at the rate we are, in 20 years the koala bear will be extinct—the only place you’ll see 'em will be in the zoo. This animal, which is unique to Australia, doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world, because we don’t replace eucalyptus trees, we plant pines instead.

You didn’t cop any flak in France for being an Aussie during the protests?

No, not at all. They know what’s going on.

Do you ever sit out there at Hossegor in that freezing winter weather and think of those trips when you a kid, 15-years-old and surfing the Barrier Reef by yourself?

Yeah, just in the last few years I’ve started reminiscing about those trips with my dad. I did that trip to Darwin and the Gulf of Carpentaria 15 times. We’d be away for eight months. I didn’t appreciate it when it was happening. But looking back on it now, all the places we stopped, the islands, the water—it is a fantasy.

My family and . . . jeez, blue heelers and meat pies! (laughs) What blows me out when I come back here is the animals. In France, you could camp out in the bush and you wouldn’t even see a snake. Down at Johanna the other day we’d just arrived and there’s an eight-foot brown snake crossing the road! Those things can kill you. It’s just an extraordinary country

You’ve been married for 10 years, how do you think that has influenced your career?

It’s made it more stable. I did all my partying before I was 21. I went to France in 1984 and the first day I was in Lacanau I met Pasquale. I saw her and that was it—the next year we were married. I was so sure she was the one for me, and she is. She changed a lot of things in my life. She made me more professional in my approach. The stability—I don’t have the boys hanging around and all that other bullshit. I like to have time with the boys, like everyone, but I need to have my space.

Nah, after 10 years she’s over it. We’ve got a new house, we’re moving all our stuff from Lacanau—she just wants to settle in there. All my trips are 10 days, so it’s not too bad.

Yeah, they come to Bells every year. I don’t see them much anymore, maybe twice a year, so it’s a big thing for me.

Where are you with your own surfing at the moment, what do you want to achieve at this point?

I’m not taking it too seriously this year. I know I can lose by .01 in the blink of an eye. I’m ready to accept that. I’ve had 12 years doing this. Last December, when I was injured, I remember thinking, "I don't want to finish up laying in a bed." On the other hand, I’m looking at it differently. There are more important things in my life than pro surfing. Like my wife who I love and been with for 10 years. That’s quite unbelievable to a lot of people who said it wouldn’t last more than three months.

Just a moment more on your experience as a kid. Do you reckon your experiences on the boat when you were growing up hardened you, or gave you a taste for risk?

I saw some pretty radical things on my dad’s boat. Through the Evans Head bar and the Ballina bar, I’ve seen some ocean swells I can’t tell you how big they were. That’s part of my surfing, for sure. I was on a boat going up and down waves so many times it has to count for something at 15-foot Sunset. I’ve never had a problem in the ocean. I feel relaxed out there. I grew up with it. It’s like my dad, he’s 62 and he’s still fishing. He’s been fishing over 45 years and he can’t handle being on land for more than a week. His gills start going dry, his scales fall off—he’s like a dried mullet!

That spirit you had as a grommet, jumping off the boat and catching waves, just going surfing—is it still there?

Last year and the year before were quite boring for me surf-wise. I really preferred to do other things. I think the last three years for me have been hard. Thinking a lot, the grind of the tour, the planes, the rental cars, the hotel rooms, boards—then you’ve got 25 minutes in a heat to express yourself. I was burnt out. That's why the break was good; I’m jazzed on surfing again. The five months of not surfing have made me appreciate surfing like I’ve NEVER appreciated it before.

What do you think of the type of surfing and maneuvers which had evolved over the last few years?

I’m not against it at all, and the tour has accommodated it well with all the small-wave events we’ve had over the last five or six years. But I just wasn’t brought up with that sort of surfing. I was brought up to think if my tail slid out it was bad; you get bigger fins and you draw your line out further. I remember Occy and myself doing tail-slides and 360s in 1984 and getting laughed at. Now that kind of thing scores 9.5. It’s a different style, is all. On the other hand, when it’s six-feet or bigger you really notice the difference between a power surfer and the guy who does these maneuvers. It’s black and white. I had a theory a few years ago about weight divisions. I brought it up at a meeting, to have two weight divisions, heavyweight and lightweight. It makes for sense for a guy like Machado to surf against a guy his weight—eight stone, seven-and-a-half, whatever he is - than against a guy like me. And vice versa. It'd be better if I surfed against guys like Luke or Poto. It’s the only way you can separate the two styles. I don’t whole how the judges can even do it these days. I can’t work it out when I see Slater doing tail slides and Sunny doing gouges. Although I can’t really compare Slates now ’cause he’s more all-around. He’s doing what he wants. It’s more people like Machado and Kalani Robb. It’s only in the last few years that Kelly’s been drawing long lines—he’s experimental and he can surf big waves.

Besides Kelly, whose surfing has impressed you lately? Anyone?

Ummmm . . . no-one really. Then again, I haven’t been around the past six months. I dunno. Occy impressed me at Winki the other day, but no one else, really.

I suppose the burst of the new guys on the scene recently is not unlike you, Occy and Potts after the MR, Shaun, Rabbit era.

Yeah, it happens every 10 years in surfing. Some freak comes along.

You’ve seen a lot of great surfers throughout your career, who do you rate as up there? How many greats have there been?

For me, it’d just be Tom Carroll. I really respect people who come back from injuries. He got really hurt then came back and won two world titles. Before that it’d be Mark Richards, Rabbit and Shaun—all those guys from the ’70s—they were my heroes. When I started I wanted to emulate them, they were all inside me, kinda thing. But in the last 10 years, yeah, Tom Carroll— he’s a great friend and such a fantastic surfer, and he’s blown my mind more than once or twice.

[Photos: Robert Beck, John Seaton Callahan, Martin Tullemans ]

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