Dan / Matt
Have been following this post from over here in the UK and it's great to see the intrest the topic has created. I do a lot of shore fishing both in the UK and Oz as my daughter lives in Cronulla and I stayed with her over Xmas just past for 9 weeks and got quite a few sessions in and managed to catch 24 different species.
Due to luggage restrictions I could not bring over my favorite rod, a Century Tip Tornado, Power GP which is a type used by tournament casters, casting wise I cannot do it justice, however it's great for sending big baits out about 100 metres into very rough ground and being able to haul the fish back. It is a very stiff rod and it takes a lot of power to compress it during casting and that's where the pendulum comes into play.
One of the best exponents of this is John Holden and he has his own channel on Utube, he also demonstrates more easier casting styles, OTG, Easy cast & Brighton cast. These are the most popular used styles over here and with practice distances of 150 metres should be attainable.
Multipying reels, Penn 525 mags, Abu 6500, etc loaded with 12lb main line with 70lb shock leaders are the norm to achieve maximum distance.
As earlier mentioned I could not bring over my favorite rod so I bought a Jarvis Walker 12ft beach caster for about $40 and used my Penn 525 with it, because it was so soft the most I could cast was about 80 metres which put me in the far gutter when I fished Wanda Beach. It also allowed me to pull out a Bronzy Whaler from the rocks just south of Shark Island.
I'm coming back over later in the year for 12 weeks and will be wanting to buy a more stiffer rod so your recommendations would be welcome, it will also be interesting to see how far your casting then.
Cheers
Dave