Tahlija Redgard is somewhere “near Yamba”, on the NSW north coast, where she has been plundering late winter swells and catching black fish. The next destination will depend on what the waves are doing and where the fish are biting. Equipped with her self-styled Toyota Troupe, her rods and her boards, Tahlija knows she can go anywhere she likes on a whim… “There are no plans in this camp,” she says proudly, over the phone, the co-conspiratorial chuckle of her Swiss partner, Charlotte, clearly audible in the background.

This sense of freedom has become second nature for Tahlija, who has been using various customised vehicles as mobile homes for the last 15 years. She first hit the roads as a bold teenager, busking her way along the east coast with a boyfriend. Well before van-life was on trend or seen as a viable alternative to paying steep rent or volatile mortgage rates, Tahlija was already roaming the Australian coast, moving from one town to the next and working when she needed to. She owes her life as a surfing nomad to a unique upbringing, a fiercely independent streak and a knack for living off the land.

By the time she was four, Tahlija was tying hooks and catching her own fish in the waters off Bundaberg. Her dad worked six days a week as a sub-contracting cane farmer, but any spare time he had, was spent fishing and diving with his three kids. It wasn’t long before Tahlija had a job delivering coral trout to local families. “On me pushy for a bit of extra coin on the side,” she explains. Most kids want lolly-bags and cakes on birthdays, but Tahlija has a different recollection of turning seven. “Dad went for an early dive. And he speared this huge, blue ...