{"id":126395,"date":"2026-05-04T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tracksmag.com.au\/?p=126395"},"modified":"2026-05-01T14:39:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T04:39:34","slug":"going-dutch-an-australian-surfing-in-the-netherlands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tracksmag.com.au\/going-dutch-an-australian-surfing-in-the-netherlands","title":{"rendered":"Going Dutch: An Australian surfing in the Netherlands"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For a tiny country located at the northwestern tip of the European continent, the Netherlands has had a surprisingly large impact on the history of Australia. The Dutch were the first recorded Europeans to reach the wide brown land, with navigator Willem Janszoon landing at Cape York Peninsula in 1606. Abel Tasman, the first recorded European to sight Tasmania (this author\u2019s island home) in 1642, was Dutch. Most early European maps referred to the great southern land as \u2018New Holland\u2019 before Captain James Cook claimed the East coast of the country for the British Crown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to surfing, though, you might be surprised to learn that the Netherlands boasts as proud a surfing culture as Australia. OK, maybe not as proud, but strong and thriving in its own way. You won\u2019t find peeling azure sub-tropical point breaks here, more the mushy brown frigid North Sea variety, but Dutch surf culture is alive and well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had spent the last two decades living abroad, having left Australia in the mid-naughties when John Howard was still prime minister, when Double J was still Triple J and when you could still buy a pot of Carlton Draught with the spare change in your pocket. The Aussie youth rite-of-passage had brought me to the UK by way of a post-grad degree in journalism in Japan. Like many Aussies in London I had woken up one day and realised, as WA band The Waifs put it so aptly, I was in London still.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fast forward 15-odd years and two kids later, and the wife and I had called time on our London experience and decided to up and move across the English Channel to the Netherlands. Partly it was work-related, partly it was in search of a new adventure. London is one of the world\u2019s most incredible cities, but save for a wave pool around three hours\u2019 drive west in a different part of the country entirely, and it\u2019s hard for surfing to be a part of your everyday life. For someone who grew up surfing the breaks around Hobart, living away from the ocean was a painful but necessary evil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The harsh European winters don’t stop the Dutchies from getting amongst the elements.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So, one August, two little kids in tow, we left London and took \u2018Le Shuttle\u2019 \u2013 the train that goes under the English Channel onto which you can drive your car \u2013 across to France. From there, it was a four hour drive via Belgium to The Hague in the Netherlands where we would start our new lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most Australians will likely associate The Hague with two things: the location of the International Criminal Courts and the site where Slobodan Milo\u0161evi\u0107, the former Yugoslavian president, was tried for war crimes and died in 2006. But The Hague is also famous for being the surfing capital of the Netherlands (now there\u2019s a sentence I bet you never thought you\u2019d read). More specifically, it\u2019s famed for a city beach break called Scheveningen which is around a 15-minute cycle from the centre of the city. Fun apocryphal fact: in World War II, Dutch resistance fighters were said to have outed German spies by asking them to say \u2018Scheveningen\u2019 (the word is notoriously difficult to pronounce for non-Dutch natives).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dutch surfers are a funny lot. They have an uncanny ability to ignore whatever weather pattern happens to have set itself loose upon the country that day and go surfing regardless. It could be 1-foot, 8 degrees, onshore with squall-like conditions and a handful of Dutchies dressed head to toe in 5\/4s will be sitting out in the line-up with smiles on their faces. It took me a while to figure out why the Dutch are so indignant when it comes to the weather. As opposed to the UK, where the slightest drop of precipitation will send Brits indoors, in the Netherlands, attitudes towards the weather are best described as nonchalant. It could be pissing it down and the Dutch will be cycling or walking their dogs sans umbrella as if it were a fine spring\u2019s day. Outside of the summer months, the weather is pretty miserable and the Dutch approach appears to be: if we let the weather dictate our lives, we\u2019ll never get anything done. So they don\u2019t let it. The Dutch even have a word for going for a walk in the rain \u2013 uitwaaien \u2013 which literally translates as “out-blowing.” The concept is about walking in windy, rainy, or cold weather to refresh oneself and de-stress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surfers in the Netherlands appear to take this concept of uitwaaien to another level. As winter descends and the truly dark depths of the Northern European winter begin to take hold, the weather does little to dampen locals\u2019 spirits. I remember one December morning going for a jog along the beach with snow having fallen overnight and the entire beach looking like a Christmas wonderland. Out in the line-up I saw three black figures bobbing in the brown North Sea. Crazy Dutch, I remember thinking to myself, wondering what it would take for a Dutch surfer to decide it was too cold to go out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Wouters De Regt finds some thick cover in sub zero conditions.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One morning, having had enough of watching from afar, I decided to join them. The outside air temperature was 12 degrees and the water temperature was a balmy 8 degrees. There was no wind. A consistent 2-foot swell was rolling in from the northwest \u2013 the only direction from which swell is guaranteed to form in any sort of rideable way hitting the Dutch coastline and making things interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you ever find yourself at Scheveningen Beach under such conditions and in need of a surf, there are two main spots to hire a board: Hart Beach Surf Club and Aloha Beach Club. Neither would look out of place on the Kamehameha Highway. Both sport restaurants where you can grab a post-surf burger and a smoothie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bob, the 25-year-old 6-ft-2 blonde local manning the rental section at Hart Beach hooked me up with a board. \u201cWhere are you from, man?\u201d he asked. I told him I was from Australia and that I\u2019d previously had no idea that Dutch people surfed. \u201cYeah, we do,\u201d Bob said. \u201cIt\u2019s not as good as in Australia I\u2019m sure but you can have a lot of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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