Competitive Surfer & Swim Coach
Surfing the East Coast of Victoria in the 1970’s was a very lonely and difficult challenge for one young teenager. Peppie Simpson, then Angliss, decided against all odds to take on this sport that saw no women surfing on her coast at all. It was one year competing at Bells in the late 70’s and meeting the Hawaiian women that inspired her to take a stand and encourage other Aussie girls to get involved too.
48 years later Peppie is still competing. She is a multiple winner of the Noosa Festival of Surfing and current Australian over 60’s female longboard champion. Peppie is still encouraging women today, especially the elders to surf.
Peppie will be a guest speaker at “The Modern Rise of Women’s Professional Longboarding”: Our forum hosted by Belén Alvarez Kimble & Sarra Robertson. The modern rise of women’s professional longboarding in Australia during the mid to late 90s and into the 2000s is best told through the platform that the @noosa_festival_of_surfing provided then, as it does now.
