'I paddled around Australia'

In 2022, Bonnie Hancock circumnavigated Australia by surf ski, paddling 12,700km in 254 days and breaking multiple world records. In the process, she discovered she was stronger than she ever dreamed.

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I wanted to be an ironwoman so badly. It was my single goal. I started training twice a day when I was 12, moved to the Gold Coast at 17, studied nutrition as my first degree, and eventually became a professional ironwoman.

During COVID, our races were cancelled. The library was one of the first places to open back up, and I picked up three books. A book about Freya Hoffmeister, a German woman who paddled around Australia, was one of them.

I'd never considered dabbling in ultra endurance - I'm a sprint athlete by nature - but it captured my imagination.

The adventure aspect was what sold it to me. I thought, how amazing would it be to see these natural wonders from the ocean - like the Twelve Apostles, and the Indigenous carvings or petroglyphs in WA. I knew if I could withstand the wind and swells, fear and doubt, I could set a world record. I would be paddling the equivalent of two to three marathons a day.

If you considered everything that you would face on this paddle, you'd probably never start. There are crocodiles in the Northern Territory; there are great whites and killer whales down south. But it was a gut feeling - I had to do it.

I set off from the Gold Coast on December 19, 2021.

Mother Nature was on my side for the first few months we had tailwinds - but it was six weeks until I was able to comfortably sit in that ski and paddle for 14 to 16 hours a day. That is purely muscle conditioning. Those first few weeks were incredibly painful. I didn't think I was going to make it the whole way around.

That first section, down the east coast, is very civilised, and we did stay close to the shore. For the first month or so, I would just think, how far can I paddle? How much distance can I put on the record? I was racing, essentially, which is what I've always done in the ocean.