We Shouldn't Be Friends

Of the world’s many pro surfing tragics, few are as tragic as your unlikely hosts. Maybe that’s why we’re so tweaked by the WSL’s much-surfed yet little understood Challenger Series, where 14 year old supergrommets, old school ex-superstars, and dozens of hopeful nationalities do battle in search of the CT limelight. What little surfing society is this, and how come it’s just been given a ticket to none other than the Coliseum itself, Pipeline? The gracious and super skilled Jacob Willcox joins Nick and Hannah from Newcastle, NSW to help us all understand the Changa that much better.

Learning about each other in the surf is the basis of our wacky friendship. It’s why this poddy even exists! But conversations about the lineup often seem so basic — let’s face it, is there anything more tedious than complaining about crowds? There’s a lot more going on out there. In this fantastic and very challenging episode, Nick and Hannah talk with brilliant surfer/academic Dr Rebecca Olive, who takes us into some very deep water indeed.

After 10 days at Burleigh Heads, Nick and Hannah stagger back home with their heads full of WSL gossip. But what’s actually happening at the sport’s pointy end, what calls are being made and who’s making ‘em? We enlist one of pro surfing’s happiest back room operators, Christian Bessera of the surfers’ organisation WPS, to explore how the surfers make it all work the way they want.

In this very special episode, we head north to the land of right-hand pointbreaks, the southern Gold Coast, and ask four fantastic guests to explain for us what makes it home. Recorded live at the Coolangatta Sands with Jay Phillips, Dean Morrison, Sally Paxton and Jesse Starling. First of a series from Australia’s great surf towns, supported by Flotsam Festival and Surfing World magazine.

When a huge easterly gale forms off New Zealand and points shotgun-like at the whole NSW coast, Nick talks it up like a wildman while Hannah gets ready to shoot her brains out. But Tom’s stolen the jetski! What happens next?

Professional surfing has been around for almost 50 years! It’s like Nick and Hannah’s middle sibling. Here we explore one of surfing’s most divisive yet inescapable subjects, and answer a vital question: why is Hannah such a fan?

Complete with jet-ski and little brother Tom, Hannah and Nick hurtle northward to meet the mighty Tropical Cyclone Alfred head-on, and end up with minor bruising and special guests, Lilliana Bowrey and Clint Kimmins!

Hannah and Nick met-cute through of all things, surf media! Here we invite our very first guest, the legendary surf journo Sean Doherty, to help us understand just what it is we all got ourselves involved with.

This wacky friendship didn’t just fall out of the sky. Hannah and Nick take a look at surfing’s past, at the times when they could have been friends — and the times when they definitely couldn’t.