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“Addictions can be very, very bad but addiction itself is not bad.
It’s a case of what you’re addicted to.
You better live each day like it’s your last, ‘cos one day you’re going to be right”.
Ray Charles.
Link tip a friend
Sean Boz
Sean (on right) was destined to be a shipyard worker in the bleak industrial Polish city of Gdansk, so how was it that he went from a pre-schooler with a vodka problem, to being a global whitewater paddler with a social conscience?
Admit it, you’re intrigued; go here for the extraordinary story ……
Xavier Rosset
Xavier Rosset wanted a challenge and hell did he ever get one. The Swiss snowboarder decided to he wanted to relearn some of the most basic lessons of survival and pit himself against a completely foreign environment, in this case a tiny island in the South Pacific.
This inherently is not a particularly difficult thing to do for perhaps several days. Pack some gear, fresh batteries for the iPod, couple of sandwiches ....... no problem.
But how about 300 days, no gear, no food, no iPod, in fact no nothing apart from ....... a penknife and a machete? In just the first two months he lost 18 kg while he was gaining the skills he needed to go on; it's a fantastic story and well worth a read here
Nathan Millward
This is Nathan Millward. This is Nathan Millward holding some broken parts off his Honda while on an expedition riding from Sydney to London.
According to Nathan, this breakdown will present no problem because he claims he was trained for 4 years at the official Honda mechanics school in Japan and he was personal mechanic for team rider Dani Pedrosa on the Moto-GP world tour.
Why then does his facial expression seem to be saying: “What are these things?”
Clearly this needs more investigation and it’s here
Passport
For anyone who’s been on the legendary Australian climb Passport To Insanity, when you see it, you just want to get on the thing. The fact that the guidebook comments that the thing has an awesome amount of exposure, how bad can any route be that’s only 130 metres high?
The answer is incredibly clear when you even get to the top of the first pitch …… it feels surprisingly bloody high.
Just a fantastic adventure whatever level someone climbs at, here’s a shot to whet the appetite and the full spiel here and some shots from the sadly departed Shawn Kratzer.
Aaron Black
Actually, the intro to Aaron may have been a bit over the top but some of it’s true inasmuch as he is Canadian and he can surf and here’s a shot of him doing just that but for a surfer, he makes a very good climber and climbing photographer. Have a look at some of what he does and where he does it and you can do it here ….
- Surf session, Lorne, Victoria.
Freya Hoffmeister
There are 2 good reasons why when a German says they are going to do a sea-kayak circumnavigation of Austria that this trip should be considered a soft touch:
* Austria’s landmass is only 98,000 square kilometres.
* And it has no coastline.
If however this person made a massive geographical blunder and came by mistake to Australia instead, they would find that the kangaroo-land was:
* 7,706,168 square kilometres.
* And has plenty of coastline, in fact 13,810 kilometres of it.
It seemed impolite to grill Freya about whether she made a simple airline ticket purchasing error or she had planned this all along. Going here might answer it though ……..
Shipstern’s Bluff
Looming over a massive right-hander is Shipstern’s Bluff itself which was sighted first by Europeans in 1798 when Bass and Flinders first circumnavigated Tasmania. See why here it took exactly 199 years before someone had the idea to surf it and from some of the wipe-outs in the video at the bottom of the page, you’ll see why
- Devil's Thumb
Fred Beckey.
Climb: Devils Thumb Direct Traverse – Devil’s Spiral
Location: Colorado, United States
Lat/Lon: 39.97800°N / 105.684°W
Route Type: Trad
Time Required: A long day
Difficulty: 5.6 (UK = S, Oz = 13).
First Ascent: Fred Beckey 1940
A recent shot left of a route first climbed by Beckey in 1940 and probably an easy climb even for him on the day but things got ramped up a lot during the subsequent years for this climber whose career on rock, ice and snow spans more than 70 years. More here for a snapshot of the man and his life ….