2,911,500 PUSHES | 156 DAYS | 3618 MILES | 1 BOARD | 5 SETS OF WHEELS | 14 RIGHT SHOES | ONE GUINNESS WORLD RECORD FOR THE LONGEST SKATE JOURNEY
This is where the adventures started for me. Two weeks of skating around a town I’d lived in for six years offered a brand new perspective. It gave me a nudge towards living a more unique, meaningful life rather than the monotonous drag of a 9 to 5 I wasn't very good at, and hated to boot. So I quit my job, made a plan and went for it.
I called the project BoardFree: two long distance skating journeys which inspired many, many more, with a charitable motive included. But really, deep down, I just hoped that those miles and experiences ahead on British and Australian roads would somehow show me what I was meant to be doing. It was a long, slow shot in the dark.
I’d never done anything like this so took a little warm-up, an 896 mile length of Britain journey. After that it was across Australia, and that 3618 mile journey from Perth to Brisbane became the longest skateboard journey in history. By the time I made it to Brisbane, it was less than two years since I first stepped onto a longboard.
The BoardFree journeys helped open the floodgates for countless long distance skating efforts which continue to take a simple, beautiful sport beyond new boundaries. BoardFree still underlines the principle objectives that it has always been based upon; inspiring ordinary people to achieve extraordinary things, all the while benefitting worthwhile organisations. The successes of numerous BoardFree journeys to date have now joined forces with the book I wrote about my trips, BoardFree, to inspire and encourage endless people to make a difference in their own lives, and those of others.
Anecdotes and Questions
In April 2020 I chatted about the Australia trip during a livestream on Facebook. The following stories were prompted by people listening in and I hope gives a rounded, if not chronological, feel for the journey.
Why Australia? And how did you find a route?
I was just looking for a big road to skate along. The previous world record had been broken by Jack Smith across the United States so I didn’t really want to do it there. I’d considered skating from Wales to Shanghai but roads in Siberia didn’t seem skateboard-friendly. The only stipulation was that it had to be longer than 3000 miles and then I opened up a Lonely Planet Guide to Australia and there was a big old road running across the country. “That’s it!” I said out loud, and it turned out to be that simple. Ish.
What animals did you see?
We saw so many more creatures in the first half of the trip than in the second half, mostly because there are fewer people in Western and South Australia. Snakes and spiders, shingleback lizards commuting across the highway. I raced an emu one day, it just started jogging alongside! Eagles and parrots and kangaroos daily. Seeing a wild animal different from native creatures we were used to brought me back to earth, it was like being in a nature park. Magic.
What was it like going down steep hills?
Exhilarating. The sheer consequence of going 35+ miles an hour on a board like that, flying down my whole body was tight, mind focused. I only let go when I was sure I’d stay up. If the hill was long and I knew I’d be out of control by the bottom then I’d drag my foot to brake until I was ready to ride safely. Falling would have been the worst thing to happen on a journey like that, to have injuries and maybe even worse, doubt on the next hill.
At one point on a busy traffic day I was flying downhill and my board clipped a stone and bounced sideways, I was more than 45 degrees over at an angle with my tippy toes just clutching the board but somehow, maybe through sheer will, became upright. I remember the team afterwards saying “how the heck did you stay up?!!”
How many shoes did you go through?
First up, my shoes were cool! C1rca gave us shoes that had “It’s Time” embroidered on the side. I loved that.
I pushed with my right foot but the wear and tear happened on that foot because it was also my brake. I wore through fourteen right shoes across the trip, one of them lasted less than a day the hills were so steep. I could smell burning rubber sometimes.
At the end of the trip I still had fourteen dusty left shoes and gave them to a chap who happened to have one leg and my shoe size. He seemed quite grateful.
Of the total distance, how many kilometres do you reckon you walked?
About 9 or 10km, a few hundred metres in towns crossing busy intersections, but a good stretch of Eyre Highway was under construction - dirt road wasn't good for the bearings!
What was it like being passed by the roadtrains?
Roadtrains were scary but you had to respect them. Out on the plains we'd pull off the road and then just as the roadtrain whizzed by I'd push out and get sucked along for a while, it was awesome!
Did you get any injuries?
The most frequent physical damage was blisters. The skin on my soles and around the achilles on my right foot started weak after a very wet length-of-UK journey and although we were so much better as a team ensuring that my feet were in good nick, eventually my right foot started falling apart. There was swelling and towards the end, rubbish blisters around the achilles, which is constantly rubbing against the back of my right trainer.
But the biggest injury was to my left heel. We’d reached Adelaide, jubilant after finally making a new city after two months in the relative wild. I saw a signpost to a road called Cornthwaite Street so decided on a whim to get a photo next to it. The day had just ended and my feet were always swollen, so I took my shoes off and for some reason jumped up next to this sign. At the base of the pole was this metal spike and it went straight up into my heel. We went to hospital, got a few stitches and doctors orders not to skate for a fortnight. We were back on the road four days later which probably wasn’t wise, but there was a lot of country left. Silly things we do!
PHOTO GALLERY
BOARDFREE AUSTRALIA Playlist
THE BOARD: ROLLSROLLS LONGBOARD
When German engineer Peter Sanftenberg saw people longboarding in California he resolved to make the most efficient skateboard in history.
The carbon kevlar rollsrolls Sportster rollsrolls longboard, with its low standing deck, high wheel arches and distinctive design, has been used for two distance world record journeys, the other being Jack Smith's trans USA push in 2001.
