“A statement of contemporary elegance, but with undeniable heart and soul.”
The three-time world surfing champion and shark attack survivor, Mick Fanning, has augmented his already impressive property holdings with a three-mill buy a little off the Gold Coast Highway and just under the flightpath for Coolangatta airport.
Four hundred yards or thereabouts to the Gold Coast’s fifth best point.
The joint, which backs onto a bird sanctuary, was a hot target for buyers in an already over-heated market. Three mill for a house a ten-minute walk from the beach? A few years back, you’d be stretched to catch a buyer willing to shovel a million bucks at it.

Anyway, 5 Farrell Drive, Tugun, is pretty enough, has three-beds, features a three-foot indoor mini ramp, owner Luc Conforti is a local shredder, and the house is, if we can quote the promotional material, “A statement of contemporary elegance, but with undeniable heart and soul.”
An astute investor, Fanning made a surprise pivot away from surfing four months ago when he bought a yoga studio in Byron, a brave move as the West falls deeper into its culture wars, cultural appropriation, of course, a not-too-distant cousin of that gravest crime of all… racism.
Brrrrrrr. Shiver up spine etc.
Yoga has been labelled the “whitest sport on earth”,and was the subject of a brave essay in The Atlantic in 2014 where its “white privilege”, “upper class privilege” and “implicit racism” was laid bare, shattering the woke bona fides of tens of thousands of white skinny gals in plastic pants everywhere.
“I’m always looking at businesses … and Byron is one of those places where I think it’ll do really well,” explained Fanning, who has scoliosis.
No word, yet, if Sarah Foote, the mysterious strawberry blonde who invited herself into Fanning’s beachfront house at nearby Bilinga and who was subsequently charged and convicted of unlawful stalking and entering a dwelling with intent (sentenced to fifteen months in prison with immediate release on parole), will be invited to celebrate the happy purchase.