This site is to celebrate the surfing history and culture of the East Coast or the Mornington Peninsula, or the Hoax Coast* as we sometimes like to call it.  This site is about the coast that is not the Surf Coast, but which has a story all of its own.

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*Hoax coast - affectionate phrase apparently popularised by John Collins to describe the East coast of Victoria, aka the Mornington Peninsula, particularly in relation to the west coast which had named itself 'The Surf Coast'. 

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The phrase refers to the somewhat illusory quality of the Peninsula's surf and how if you looked at a map of the Peninsula you might think there'd be surf everywhere but there aint. 

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John Collins remembers the origin of the name differently. He wrote in the hoax coast forum:

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‘The real origins of the term hoaxcoast (to set the record straight) was when i first started working in Torquay around 87' running Surfing Vic competitions, two young TORQUAY GROMMETS Shawn brooks and Johnny Robertson (when they were about 12 years old) hated going to the east coast to compete in the state rounds and used to bag me about the east coast calling it a hoax for never having good waves . Johnny started calling it the hoax coast , used to really piss me off but it stuck with the grommets over there. I often used it as a joke when i came home to live on the east coast and wazza pickup up on it and called our website the hoaxcoast ‘ 

(JC - August 2005)

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Important note: we love this place. We use the phrase with great affection!

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Copyright remains with the photographer.