Mick Fanning on chasing waves, lions and simplicity.
The world-champion surfer on chasing waves, lions and simplicity.
Now that I’m not competing, my job is essentially to find places off the beaten track that have great waves. I’m lucky to work with some great people, like Rip Curl and Red Bull, who send me on surf trips around the world to search for these more raw and wild surf spots. In South Africa this year I camped in the desert for five days and picked crayfish straight off the rocks
– it was incredible. Chasing waves, following swells and telling people I’m unavailable because I want to surf is what I do.
Two destinations I keep returning to are South Africa and Fiji. There’s incredible surf, some of the world’s biggest waves, at Cloudbreak off Tavarua, close to the main Fijian island. Plus Fijians are beautiful people. In South Africa you’re surfing one moment, then you drive for two hours and you’re chasing lions. Scary, but fun.
Travel is definitely character building. There are so many things that can and will go wrong. Learning to roll with the punches and getting out of your comfort zone, that’s where you grow the most. When the shark incident happened in South Africa, it was definitely hard and a process to come back from [in 2015, Fanning fought off a shark by punching it in the back]. For me, it was accepting it for what it was – it was just an incident. I look at it as walking across the street and almost getting hit by a car. You still have to cross the street the next day. For me, sharks are just part of my job.
I’ve spent a bit of time in Alaska, both for surfing and for conservation work. It’s an awesome place where you can see mountains covered in snow, right there at the beach, as you surf in three-degree water, or you can go fishing for rainbow trout and have bears right across the river.
My ideal kind of trip is just anywhere you can get off the grid. I love camping. I love getting down and dirty, getting back to nature and not having to use my phone.
I’ve had some killer road trips. As an ambassador for Mercedes-Benz, I recently took their new X-Class V6 around Africa. We could put it in 4WD and get on dirt roads, and then head back onto the highway. It’s a perfect car for what I do – throw all the bad stuff in the back and keep the good stuff in the front. And in 2016 I drove their V-Class van from France to Portugal. It was pretty cool to pull over on the side of the road and turn the van into a hero camper.
I’d travel with about 12 surfboards when I was on tour [Fanning retired from pro-surfing last year]. Now I can narrow it down to four to six, all for different conditions. It’s like girls packing their suitcase – you have to have the right dress for every occasion.
Surfing becomes an Olympic sport at the 2020 Games
in Tokyo, and I’m keen to go. Not to compete – I’m old and slow and not very good in those conditions, plus there are people out there who are so much better.
I’d get flogged. But I want to go and experience it.
My dream for this year and next is to slowly travel around Australia. I want to deck out an X-Class ute and just get off the beaten path and explore Australia – I’ll figure it out as I go. ●