There is a famous tale, told by Snowy McAlister himself, about a surfing contest at Newcastle in 1928 (Snowy was reigning Australian surfboard champion at the time) and Snowy doing his trade mark move, a headstand while riding a wave. It seems Snowy was not confident of winning the event as it progressed and felt he had to pull out the big guns to ensure the win. Snowy caught a wave and adopted the inverted perpendicular pose riding it all the way to the sand. The board came to a halt but Snowy was still committed, maintaining his pose, until one of the judges came over and tapped him on the back saying "That'll do mate, you've won". Not an easy thing to do, riding a wave inverted (looking back at where you've been . . . upside down) so it is ironic then that one of the two oldest known photographs of surfing in Australia shows Tommy Walker adopting a head down bum up stance on a wave at Yamba in the summer of 1911/1912.