PASSAGE 3 – Questions 21-30
COAST TO COAST
A 27-year-old graphic designer from Oxfordshire in England completed a record-breaking journey across Australia yesterday. It was a 5,800 kilometre odyssey - and he travelled the whole distance on a skateboard. David Cornthwaite, who started skateboarding less than two years ago, decided on his epic journey after waking up one morning and realising he hated his job. ‘I thought, the only thing keeping me going is the skate to and from work. I was a bit disillusioned and I was looking for something new,' he said. ‘I saw a Lonely Planet guide to Australia. There was a map on the back. Perth was on one side and Brisbane on the other and I thought, “that'll do".'
He decided to prepare by skateboarding from John O'Groats to Lands End: the two points furthest apart on the British mainland. That 1.442 kilometre trek, which he finished in June, took just over a month, during which an infected blister swelled to the 'size of a tennis ball'.
Crossing Australia on a skateboard brought unique challenges. The wind caused by huge road trains, the articulated lorries that thunder across the Outback, was so powerful that he was sometimes blown off his board. Multiple blisters and aching ankles, toes and feet, have kept him in almost constant pain for the last six weeks. ‘I feel like an old man. I'm not sure that anyone has ever had this many blisters,' he said. Temperatures of 40°C and above mean that he has used more than a dozen tubes of factor 30 sunscreen. 'There have been moments where I thought “this is ridiculous, I have to rest", but I never contemplated giving up.' He has worn through 13 pair of shoes and has an over-developed right calf muscle which he compares to ‘a giant chicken fillet'.
Skating an average of 50 kilometres a day and hitting speeds of up to 50kph on downhill runs, he left Perth, Western Australia, and skated across the fearsome Nullarbor Plain into South Australia. After reaching Adelaide he made his way to Melbourne and from there to Sydney. A support team of seven people trailed him all the way in a four-wheel drive vehicle, which included camping equipment for night stops. The journey has smashed the previous record for a long-distance skateboard, set by an American, Jack Smith, who covered 4,800 kilometres across the US in 2003.
David Cornthwaite was less than three kilometres from the end of his epic journey when he hit a hole and was so thrown off his skateboard, suffering cuts and bruises to his shoulders, knees, hips and elbows. 'I was only going at 40km at the time, so although it wasn’t pretty, it could have been a lot worse,' he said.
In the short term, he hopes to spend the next few days surfing on the Gold Coast, south of Brisbane, to build up some much-needed upper body strength. I've got huge legs but a skinny body - it’s a bit ridiculous. I need to give my body a chance to warm down and surfing sounds ideal. For the time being I’m hanging up my skateboard.’ In the longer term, he plans to give motivational speeches and write a book. Another long-distance journey is also on the cards. ‘I’m certainly not going back to the day job,’ he said.
