Our Story
A Tale of Two Surfers
The two main characters here – Mike Simm and Dave Simons – are both mellow cats who prefer to give the limelight a swerve, but too bad, because the tale of Tanah Mympi is very much their story.
It begins at opposite ends of the Australian continent, around three decades ago. Dave Simons is living the grommet’s dream, growing up in the idyllic East Coast surf hamlet of Crescent Head. The Cresso Longboard Club is the only show in town and the kid gets a taste of competition. By the time he’s 18, he’s a pro longboarder. It’s the late ’90s, the surf industry is thriving, and Dave’s paid to travel and surf the tour, ticking off some of best surf spots on the globe.
Over on the other side of the country, a teenage Mike Simm’s surfing experience couldn’t be more different. Just getting to the beach from the landlocked Perth suburb of Gosnells involves a two-hour public transport mission – where simply having a surfboard under your arm makes you a target for bored bogans spoiling for a fight.
By the time Mike’s 18, he’s got a heavy machinery mechanics’ apprenticeship under his belt. By 20, he’s up in the Pilbarra mines. Surfing takes a back seat for the next decade and a half as the industrious young fella throws himself into his work. Between shifts in the mines, he’s fixing cars, trucks and buses. A customer talks Mike into buying his bus company, and thus the foundations for his epic business – Northfleet – are laid.
Back to Dave. By the mid 2000s, the longboard pro tour bubble has burst as the surf industry starts to falter. Dave finds himself out at the newly built Telo Island Lodge, and realises that, jeez, the Telos beats every other place on the planet that his pro surfing career has taken him to! It points the course of his life on an entirely new direction. He guides, manages and runs the marine ops at Telo Lodge, runs the construction of Pinnacles Resort, then becomes part of the Resort Latitude Zero team, running their impressive marine ops. Come for a fortnight, stay for decades!
Meanwhile, back in remote Northwest Australia, around 2010, Mike’s best friend Toby convinces him to join a mate’s trip to the Mentawais and the surfing fuse is re-lit. Mike becomes a regular guest at RLZ from 2012 onwards, and falls hopelessly back in love with surfing.
Mike becomes good mates with RLZ’s legendary Matty Cruden. In 2016, they have a big night on the beers after a full day of surf. Mike wakes the next morning, a little dusty, and smiles as he remembers that sometime in the course of the evening, he’d purchased the island across the channel from RLZ: a postcard-perfect gem they called Tanah Mympi!
For a number of years, Mike and his family and friends enjoyed regular visits to Tanah Mympi and the modest dwelling they’d built. Thing is, though, Mike’s got a big circle of friends – and friends of friends – and it soon became apparent that once the non-compete had expired, there was scope to turn Tanah Mympi into something more substantial.
Something you should know about Mike is that if he’s going to do something, he’s going to give it his absolute all. It’s how he built Northfleet into one of Australia’s biggest transport providers and built a range of other successful businesses.
Now, Mike and Dave’s paths had crossed back in the early days at Telo Lodge, and they’d become firm friends out at RLZ, so when the time came for Mike to pull the trigger on making his Tanah Mympi dream a reality, he knew Dave was the man for the job.
Mike’s brief to Dave was simple: build a surf resort that matches the level of quality, comfort, service and luxury found in the most deluxe non-surf resorts anywhere in the world.
Covid came along and did its best to throw a spanner in the works, but by 2024 Mike and Dave were deep into the monumental build of Tanah Mympi, not to mention developing the best marine ops fleet ever seen in the region. And here we are!
