Surfing Kansas? Two wacky Aussies surf all 50 states

Jonno Durrant and Stefan Hunt slipped into gray track suits and sprinted up the front steps leading to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

But it's how they traveled down the steps — made famous by the "Rocky" movies — that had people stopping to stare in bewilderment. Durrant and Hunt placed their surf boards at the top and glided down the steps as if they were surfing a set of gnarly waves.

"Wrecked up our boards a little bit," Hunt said with a grin.

Just part of the adventure for these two Aussies. Durrant, 25, and Hunt, 19, spent seven months in a beat-up ice cream truck, putting nearly 20,000 miles on the vehicle, to complete their task of surfing in all 50 states.

They had no set itinerary. Durrant and Hunt simply asked random people what was famous about their state and then surfed it. Although, asking the best place to surf in Iowa was met with raised eyebrows.

"We'd always start out by saying, 'I've got a bit of a crazy question for you. We need to find a way to slide a surf board around your state,"' Hunt said. "Sometimes, it worked out well."

That's how they ended up surfing on a conveyor belt of potatoes in Idaho, towed through a cornfield by an all-terrain vehicle in Nebraska, pulled by a rope behind a cowboy and his horse in Texas, dragged by a boat through a swamp in Louisiana and wheeled through a street in Memphis, Tenn., on top of skateboards while dressed in full Elvis costumes.

"We surfed sand, snow, grass, stair cases, rivers, lakes — you name it, we surfed it," Hunt said. "We surfed some crazy stuff."

Getting started

The idea was first proposed by Durrant. He'd just finished reading Jack Kerouac's novel "On the Road" and was bitten by a case of wanderlust. Durrant, an environmental scientist from Melbourne, has always loved surfing and decided it would be a good way to explore America.

He sent out a feeler e-mail to friends and while a lot liked the idea, only Hunt, who's from Sydney, could get the time off.

The two were originally going to surf all 50 states in 50 days, but didn't want to rush through the experience.

With five donated surf boards, Durrant and Hunt landed in Los Angeles on Aug. 10, 2006, and met with their primary sponsor, Hurley, who agreed to give them the on-its-last-legs ice cream truck and 800 T-shirts to sell for gas money.

The truck turned out to be more of a curse. It went through two engines, a battery, two alternators, a fuel tank and three tows. It played 32 different ice cream songs, which brought many a kid running down the street toward them, disappointed they didn't have Popsicles.

"Technically, the truck was the worst piece of machinery," Hunt said. "We spent so much on repairs."

With a shoestring budget, Durrant and Hunt didn't have money to spend on hotels. So they relied on the generosity of people. In 200 days on the road, they never paid for a hotel room, and slept in the truck only 14 times.

"We stayed in the houses of the people we met," Durrant said. "That's one thing about America — it has great hospitality."

To single out a few of their surfing adventures was hard for them.

"Each had its own charm, its own great story," Hunt said.

But a few states stuck out more than others, as they're discovering now. The two are going through nearly 70 hours of video they shot for an upcoming movie about their adventure, which is expected out later this year.

Surfing Kansas

Kansas remains at the top of the list. At the Kansas state border, they stopped at an information center and asked if the "Wizard of Oz" was playing anywhere. When told there was a festival in Wamego, Kansas, Durrant and Hunt headed for the small town.

When the townspeople found out what they were doing, they dressed Hunt up as a scarecrow and Durrant as Dorothy, strapped surf boards to their feet, hoisted them on a harness and flew them across the stage.

"It was great. We surfed through the 'Wizard of Oz,"' Hunt said. "And then they actually helped us get hooked up with people in Nebraska."

Here are a few more tales from their trek:

• In Vermont, they put on wetsuits and surfed down a mountain.

"We got some weird looks from some snowboarders," Hunt said.

• In the District of Columbia, they surfed behind a small-motored boat — in freezing weather — on the Potomac River with the Lincoln Memorial in the background.

"It was so cold that on the way back we sang '99 bottles of beer on the wall' to keep warm," Durrant said.

• Since Texas is so big, Durrant and Hunt also "tanker surfed" in Galveston. They waited for a supertanker to leave port and once it passed, they rode the waves it created back to shore.

• The Aussies concluded their 50-state excursion by surfing the Banzai Pipeline in Hawaii.

"A beautiful way to end the trip," Durrant said of the excursion that ended in March. "Got some good waves."

Now, they're back in Australia, concentrating on their movie (appropriately titled "Surfing 50 States").

But working on the film has motivated them for a return visit.

"We already have an idea — watching the movie in all 50 states," Hunt said.