‘Paradise on Earth’: Sale of iconic site of world-famous Australian surf spot spark concerns
A pastoral station home to a world-famous surf spot has been listed for sale for the first time in 20 years.
WA News
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It’s home to one of Australia’s ultimate surfing proving grounds and for the first time in 20 years, it’s up for sale.
Gnaraloo Station, located on Western Australia’s remote Ningaloo coast and 150 kilometres north of Carnarvon, has been listed for sale with pastoral and tourism leases at an asking price of around $17.5 million.
The iconic site, which was last sold in 2005, stretches 84,000ha and boasts 62km of beach, including the revered ‘Tombstones’ surf break – a shallow barrelling left-hander on the bucket-lists of advanced surfers the world over.
The sale includes a homestead with over 30 cabins and homes and 1,500 goats as livestock.
Jarrad O’Rourke, licensee and general manager of O’Rourke Real Estate, which is overseeing the sale, said he’s been flooded with messages from hundreds of interested buyers since he shared a “teaser” about the sale on social media a week ago.
“The next thing I knew, everybody jumped onto it,” Mr O’Rourke told news.com.au.
“We’re approaching from (an asking price of) $17.5 million, and we’re still getting inundated,” he said.
“We haven’t put it online yet. I haven’t needed to, some of the people I’ve heard from can certainly afford it and certainly are interested in it.”
Among them are professional surfers, expats and wealthy Australian families.
Mr O’Rourke said a few families from Western Australia are currently ‘leading’ the pack. However expressions of interests are still pouring in.
“The families are (interested in) buying it not to have it as a commercial making business,” he explained.
“They’re buying it for both the business and emotional reasons. They’re more passionate about it, they we want to protect it.”
Mr O’Rourke predicted the price of the site could reach close to $20 million.
A Western Australian “icon”
It’s not hard to see why people are interested.
“There’s some of the best surfing in the world at Tombstones, but then you’ve also got some of the best snorkelling you’ve ever seen and some of the best fishing you’ve ever done,” said Mr O’Rourke.
“It’s probably my family’s favourite holiday spot in the world. For a lot of people in West Australia, it’s a bit of an icon for just the real West.”
Owner Paul Richardson purchased Gnaraloo Station back in 2005.
After two decades, Mr O’Rourke said Mr Richardson is selling the site as he’s having to travel to Ireland more to see his family. But he’s not looking to just give it away to the highest bidder.
“He doesn’t want somebody who’s going to come along and ruin the place, and try to make it a money maker and ruin the environment,” said Mr O’Rourke.
“He’s looking for someone similar to himself, he’s protected the place for 20 years. He hasn’t tried to max it out in any means. He’s tried to manage around what he’s got.”
Sale stokes fears
For decades, surfers from around the world have travelled to Tombstones to take on its challenging breaks – even hosting the 1995 and 1996 Billabong Challenge, featuring world surfing royalty including Kelly Slater, Rob Machado, and Mark ‘Occy’ Occhilupo.
“If you speak to anyone who’s been going for a number of years, or anyone worth even half their salt as a surfer, they’ll tell you it’s easily one of the best places in the world,” surfer and film director Cian Salmon told news.com.au.
Mr Salmon – who lives in Geraldton and visits Tombstones two to three times a year – was concerned when he heard the site had been listed for sale and could turn into an expensive holiday park.
“It’s really, really scary,” he said of the sale.
“The first scary bit is the idea that someone, a rich surfer, would buy it and turn it into a place like (surfing resort) Nihiwatu or a place like Cloudbreak (in Fiji), where they build big, fancy accommodation right at the wave, and then, if you can’t afford to stay in that accommodation, you can never surf the wave.”
“The other scary idea is that a mining company will buy it and just go, ‘nah, nobody on this property, too much effort for us.’”
He said they are concerns held by others in the surfing community.
“I can’t speak for everyone, but I’d say that it’s probably in the back of people’s minds, for sure.”
Mr Salmon said he would like the site to continue to be accessible.
“It would be so easy for whoever owns it to stop access, to completely block it off, and then you’d only be able to get there by boat.”
“It should be World Heritage listed or something; that’s how good the wave is.”
Others online have also expressed concern of a tourism or mining company taking over the site.
“This is how to ruin one of the best place in the world, sell it to some billionaire that don’t care about anything,” one person said, speculating the owner would build a “massive” hotel on the site.
“If I could own it, it would be kept a secret and no one would be allowed near it,” said another.
Another said they hoped the property would be bought by someone who “understands how much this means to all the desert rats out there!”
“My goodness if the bluff doesn’t remain the same then Australia is proper f*****!” they wrote.
Mr O’Rourke understands that “everyone’s got an opinion” about the future of Gnaraloo.
“Everybody feels like it’s their own. And that’s why I think it’s got the inquiry and the interest that it’s got, because of everybody so passionate about it and love it so much,” he said.
“It’s paradise on Earth.”
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