Outback skateboarder travels complete east coastline of Australia to fundraise for skatepark in Laos
A gentleman from Broken Hill in Significantly West New South Wales is on a mission to skate much more than 3,600 kilometres up the east coastline of Australia to provide his like for skateboarding to fellow enthusiasts in underdeveloped countries.
Tom Drury, 28, has presently travelled 1,200km together the shoreline from Melbourne to Wollongong in a bid to get to Cairns in Significantly North Queensland by March.
“I begun at Melbourne Central and then I went down the Mornington Peninsula and acquired a ferry to Phillip Island and I’ve just been pursuing the coastal street all the way up — it is really been killer,” he said.
Mr Drury’s very first extensive-distance skateboarding venture was in June this year when he skated 115km from Damaged Hill to Menindee in one working day.
He now ideas to be the 1st particular person in the world to journey alongside the east coast from Melbourne to Cairns fully on a skateboard, while documenting his travels to his followers on .
“I’m performing any where in between 50 and 80km a working day, but I commonly regular all-around 70km a working day,” Mr Drury stated.
Relying on the generosity of strangers
A great deal of the highway on his trek to the best of Australia is rocky, slender, and incorporates some of the busiest highways in the state.
“Some sections of the Princes Freeway there is certainly a large amount extra site visitors, the roads weren’t built for me and my skateboard, some pieces have been super annoying, but I’m however alive,” he explained.
Mr Drury says he is developed up very the name with motorists, who have stopped to give him water and snacks, or pulled more than out of sheer curiosity.
“I have been sofa browsing the total way, a several times men and women have attained out to me on my socials and have provided rooms, so I’ve sort of been remaining with strangers,” he explained.
“I’ve experienced to doorknock before for the reason that I ran out of water and I went to a farmhouse and was in a position to fill up my h2o there but that was my most challenging working day.
“The weather has been so humid, so I have been chaffing.”
Mr Drury has not only embarked on this wild undertaking fully by itself but he has carried absolutely nothing but the bag on his back.
“I have received my a single backpack with all my drinking water, three sets of outfits, my drone and my GoPro, a pair of flip flops, my melodica, which is a keyboard instrument, and some resources,” he claimed.
“Just the bare necessities, but it really is rather weighty at the time I have bought all my things on.”
‘A excellent mind-set and an open mind’
Aside from his unequivocal adore for skateboarding, Mr Drury’s main incentive is to elevate $25,000 to build a skatepark in Laos.
Mr Drury has been functioning with NGO to secure land for the skatepark, and suggests the dollars he is boosting will go straight to constructing prices.
“Laos is the only country in South-East Asia that will not have a skatepark and the skate scene is large in excess of there,” he said.
Because the commencing of his prolonged-length skate, his has erupted with donations, but Mr Drury claims he has a prolonged way to go right before he reaches his journey and fundraising goals.
“I am just a huge believer in skateboarding … it can be been a enormous vice in my everyday living and it truly is vital to have a safe place for individuals to skateboard,” he reported.
In spite of his significant job ahead, Mr Drury suggests it is worthwhile.
“A large amount of persons imagine you need to have to be actually in good shape to do this stuff,” he explained.
“It is not about that, it really is about having a superior frame of mind and an open brain about issues that may come about on the highway, but you are unable to let that cease you.”