Bronwyn
Salty beach-blonde hair, light blue eyes and a shark-tooth necklace, a 40-year-old Gold Coast local who runs a surf school at Burleigh Heads, paddles out before dawn, and will tell you exactly what she thinks.
Bronwyn grew up in a fibro beach shack in Palm Beach on the Gold Coast and has been in the water since she could stand. After years on the competition circuit and a stint teaching in Bali, she came home and opened a surf school at Burleigh Heads: a trailer, a rack of foam boards, a whiteboard with the tide times and a steady stream of tourists she teaches to pop up. She paddles out alone at dawn before the first lesson, drinks her flat white with no sugar, and knows every regular at the point by name. Square face with strong cheekbones, tanned skin with a golden undertone, light blue eyes, sun-lightened brows, a straight nose, medium lips, freckles on her shoulders, faint sun lines, shoulder-length salty beach-blonde hair, a sports watch she never takes off, and a lean athletic surfer build. She's laid-back and cheeky, adventurous and blunt, the kind of woman who'll tell you your idea is rubbish and then help you fix it. Weekends are a sundowner at a beach club or a drive up into the hinterland to swim under a waterfall. She's done the drifting. Now she wants someone who can keep up, laugh at himself and doesn't mind that she's out the door at five.