Christmas time, blistered toes and wine

Christmas is over and another 4 days of the BoardFree xmas break is left. I've not been with everyone for Christmas so i hope everyone has had a good time!
I went to a family friends for xmas and it was bliss. I don't recall ever having eaten that much nor drinking that much in my entire life! They're going to have to roll me back to Sydney like that blueberry girl off Charlie and the Chocolate factory!
This is the third xmas without my mum and being around such a loving family made me a little sad but overall i appreciated everything that's happened to me. Without it, i wouldn't be me. And i most certainly wouldn't be in Australia enjoying fine oysters and champagne sitting on a verrandah overlooking a lake!!!! it's a tough life i hear you say?! Tell me about it!

We've got just under a month to go before we reach Brisbane. It's a strange feeling to think we're finally going to get there, especially now that the world record has been broken.
Now all we need are the donations to start rolling in. Fingers crossed.
I've said to many people that i think that a fair few people are waiting to see if Dave actually makes it. It's like any sponsored event, you want to see the person succeed before you hand your money over, which is fair enough but come on, he's made it this far, there's no way he's giving up now.

I have to say i've thoroughly enjoyed our new and larger team. Having Laura here takes strain off Becki and Bev with fundraising and she's got everlasting stashes of energy hidden somewhere! She's always offerring to help out with everything.
Pete is just wonderful. He's exceptionally mature, level headed and wise! But that doesn't stop him from getting his botty out at the 4000km mark for our entertainment! I think that Dim is getting a bit home sick so it's good that they've got each other to help with filming, directing and production etc!

I think out of everybody Si and Bev are getting upset/worried that BoardFree Oz is coming to an end. Mind you, Simon has been getting upset about it since September! Saying how it's nearly January! Daft monkey!

I can't tell with Dave, in that, he's a very difficult person to read and doesn't give much away the majority of the time.

The closer it gets to going home the more you miss it, or at least that's what it feels like. And i'm glad to be meeting up with the team again after xmas but my goodness am i going to miss the big double bed, cups of tea, champagne for breakfast in a morning?! Nope. It's best that i go now though because i don't want to get too used to it! The life of luxury.


Toodle oo

Over half way

Melbourne

What’s better Perth to Adelaide or Adelaide to Melbourne? That was the question I was asked by Dim and Si the other day. Honestly, I couldn’t say.

Between Perth and Adelaide there wasn’t a high population. We went to bed when it got dark and woke up when it got light. We stayed in an incredible amount of varied accommodation and appreciated all the scenery. From flatlands and cliffs to roads that went on for miles and miles and miles. There were copious amounts of wildlife, both dangerous and harmless. Everyone, except for Bev, got bitten by something or other. We arrived in Ceduna in perfect time for the Oyster Festival. Dave became the first man to skate across the Nullabor. Dave impaled his foot the same day he completed his skate across Adelaide city.
This is only a trifle of the happenings during this time!

Between Adelaide and Melbourne the population picked up. We learnt how to maximise the fundraising and took advantage of the people we were now surrounded by. We went to bed later, after going fundraising and started waking up when necessary. Bev got bitten to shreds in Adelaide! The skating days were filled with more traffic and less kilometres. Each day, a new scene. Rainforest, farmland, lakes, sea and beaches. We started learning to surf after picking up our REALWINGS and surf boards.

And now, we’ve been taken in, yet again, by kind souls. A lady we met near Wellington who offered to put us all up in her home has been our saviour. Due to U2 and John Mayer playing in Melbourne this weekend we’ve been unable to get accommodation. Also we’ve got our new team member ‘the hatwell’ or ‘hatters’ coming out and joining us later on tonight. We’re all going to the airport to pick her up later.

Tomorrow we’re going to a Victoria Skate comp so we can do lots of fundraising.

On Monday we’re hopefully meeting up with Alan Fletcher…Dr Karl Kennedy from Neighbours.
Then setting off again to Sydney at some point next week.

Sorry the blog is brief!

Just call me Holly T-Bone Ten Shot Allen

There are rain clouds above, yet still no rain! Usually it'd be a bad thing, for it to rain while Dave is skating...but he's not, as of yet!

He sat us all down last night and told us he wouldn't be skating today, and that he would actually be having a day of elevation. (his foot). The whole team breathed a sigh of relief. None of us want an infected foot. It'd be BoardFree uk all over again. And no one likes a smelly infected foot, lets face it! Especially with us all living and sleeping within such close proximity of each other!

The title has evolved from one evening of devouring a T-Bone steak, when the chance at trying to join the boys in a 20kg steak eating competition was stolen from me...i still have the tee shirt, but never the less, i've aquired the nick name T-Bone or T-Bone Allen! The ten shot is a more recent nickname i picked up during a game of minigolf.
For Dave's birthday he took us all (including the lovely pilot from Nullarbor) to a place called The Beachouse. What a place. Everything you wanted when you were a kid but either wasn't allowed to do, or missed that birthday party because you had chicken pox...you know the deal! Arcades, water slides, water bumper boats, dodgems, ice cream, minigolf...the list is endless! We all god 38 credits and tried to win as many tickets as we could to win prizes. In the beginning of the golf game, i was doing well, i was getting holes in one, and two shots! Very good considering my hand/eye coordination! Then came the seventh hole.....i have a hockey swing so i'm told...i push the ball rather than 'tap' it! And i pushed the ball all the way back over to hole four! Oooops. Start again! Long story short, i didn't get the ball in and told Dave to put me down as having ten shots. Then it happened again and i lost my temper with the golf apparatus by kicking the ball and throwing my club on the ground stomping my feet and repeating, 'i don't like this game anymore'. Needless to say, i came last. My opinion is that i got the highest points so it's not all bad!

Hopefully setting off tomorrow, as i say, depending on Dave's foot. The team gutted the vans yesterday and layed all of our kit and rubbish on the lawn of the house belonging to the lovely Dierdre and Bob! My goodness, what a mess. It was horrific. SEeing how much stuff we had. Although now we've got a new roofrack on George so hopefully, less clutter in the vans! I cleaned George out top to bottom. First the rubbish, then the important stuff, then everybodies clothes boxes, then the bedding and finally matresses. I swept out the floor, then re loaded everything. I get great satisfaction from tidying! And now, george is so pretty!

We had a tough time in Adelaide at first. But i've grown to like it here. I'm sad that we're leaving but i want to get back on the road. I think we all do. Who knows, i might even come back here one day.

Forgive me for the neglecting of my blogs.

Holl

No title as of yet

It’s Wednesday 4th October at One o’Clock in the afternoon. We’ve finished for the day already after a 70 something KM day from Poochera to Wudinna.

Dave’s pushing himself. I’m not sure whether he’s pushing himself too hard but his spirits seem to be high still so we’ll carry on taking each day as it comes.

A great deal has happened since I last blogged and the reason for the lack of blogs as you will probably already know is because we’ve been on the Nullarbor.

As of last Friday we finished the Nullarbor, a week sooner than we’d expected too!
The weather at the moment is exceptionally hot. Yesterday it was 35 degrees celcius and today was heading that way until the clouds and wind came over us.
I can’t even begin to go through all that’s happened, partially because my arms wouldn’t be able to handle typing it all out!

I’m going through today’s photo’s and we’ve just been shown the Road to South Australia video for the web. I cried. It just summed it up, well and truly. Most of the team were pretty choked and I know that Dave was almost overwhelmed by it.
I haven’t seen the photographs that Dave’s been putting on the website yet so it’ll be interesting to see the website….it’ll be completely different from the last time we all saw it. When you look at it every day you don’t notice the little things that change!

All the boys shaved their beards/handlebar moustaches off at Ceduna and looked like a bunch of 15 year olds!

We met so many different people in Ceduna. After putting Dave in a parade and giving nearly 97% of people there leaflets we went fundraising around the Oyster Festival and managed to raise a fair bit of $’s.

As always, the kindness carries on in Southern Australia and tonight we’re staying at the Mobil Motel which has kindly been given to us for free by the owners who’ve ALSO offered us a free dinner each. Last night we stayed in actual Caravans at Poochera Caravan Park/Motel, and previous nights have been spent in the bush, parking spots, caravan parks or motels too.

I’m not feeling too great in terms of health. Last night was super hot and I woke up this morning with a sore throat, funny nose and a bit of a stuff head….typical, in the heat, I get a cold! Again nurse McKinlay had a poke of my neck and told me I had a ‘fat face’ from my glands being up. It made me giggle.

At a road house at some point on the Nullarbor or maybe even before it, Dimitri and I wrote some lyrics for a BoardFree song. A few weeks ago Bev used the words and came up with the melody for it and it’s absolutely breathtaking and so fitting!

We’ve got a new bike, which I tried out yesterday. I couldn’t go very far as it’s too small for me so fingers crossed we get a new wheel for the old racer. Everyone is having a great time exercising on the bike, especially Bev as she’s been pining for exercise since Perth!


In Ceduna at the Festival, there was a tug of war competition with a prize of $200.
Of course, us being the Pom’s that we are, we entered it, not realising our opposing teams could possibly be from the wrestling/sumo federations!
Girls first. Off we went, up to the rope to toss a coin. We clocked sight of the girls we were going to be tugging against. All of our faces dropped. Now, I’m not a particularly petite girl, but when I saw these girls I felt like Kylie Minogue!!!! These women were 6ft by 6ft! Needless to say we lost the first round. Then it was the next round. Time for us to pull against the other female team. And whaddya know, it was the security officers for the festival. I thought we nearly had them, everyone was cheering for us but eventually we lost. THEN, we saw the boys opposition. Now imagine the size of Dave’s calf. The first team looked like they’d eaten ten of Dave’s calf sized steaks EACH!….The boys lost and now Dan and Dave have got blisters on their hands where the rope. Worth a try eh and good for the camera!

Also at Ceduna we went swimming in the sea for the second time since we’ve been in Australia. It smelt of dogs so we didn’t spend too long!
On Sunday, Becki, Bev and I got dropped off at the drag racing with a view to fundraising and leafleting. We asked if we could and we got told there’d be a conflict of charities as the company that organised the racing has their own charities, so off we went and tried to give out leaflets but the crowd were only interested in one thing, the racing! We ended up getting chatting to a few of the blokes who bought us a few drinks and they donated too which is brilliant!

Right....in a bit of a rush....so i'll wrap it up by saying, keep looking at the vids and pics....i'll be back soon!

Holl

One more day in the Best Western

Lying on my bed in the Best Western Hotel in Norseman I look back over the past year and see how far we’ve all come. I’ve only known these guys for 7 months and I’m just about to cross the Nullabor Desert with them having spent 3 ½ weeks with them prior to doing so.
So much has happened since February; from my getting accepted onto the team; to two of the team being unable to come to Oz; to two more people getting accepted onto the team.
Sure the times may be stressful for us; Dave especially. But honestly, everything’s brilliant. I couldn’t be happier. I know that my happiness isn’t what this is about but it sure as hell helps the task in hand if everyone’s smiling!
Kate, Bev, Becki and I have just had a girly evening. Last night was spent at the road side in a little lay by and at the end of the night Kate joined Becki, Bev and myself as Becki plaited kates hair, I put mascara on everyone and chatted. We don’t get to do this everyday so it’s nice when we can. We’re all usually split up on the road, each member doing a different thing. Then this evening we decided that the girls should go out for dinner and have a bottle of wine between us. What an excellent decision that was!!!
After we asked for the bill, the owner of the Best Western Hotel came up to us and told us we don’t have a bill….because….wait for it……the boys had paid for us!!!!!!! We’d seen Dimitri and Dave walk into the reception but we thought it was to have food delivered to the rooms……what a lovely surprise…thanks lads! It means an awful lot to us boardfree chicks!

Anyway, yesterday was interesting. Whilst having a shewee, Kate discovered MASSIVE ants!..Soldier ants I think they’re called but I reckon they’re monster ants. About an inch long and vicious little critters!!! The boys were poking away, provoking the big insects with their camera’s as I sat sensibly in the back of the Jackaroo…I saw Dimitri drop his camera and move away as all of the ants had climbed on it and were attacking his fluffy!!!! Now I know Dim quite well when it comes to his camera equipment and he’d never put it down in mud without just cause!!! Then I heard ‘Holly, come over here, Dave wants you to take photo’s of the ants’…..so I rolled my eyes and reluctantly made my way over to the area of commotion…I saw one big ant and wondered why everyone was making such a fuss….THEN I saw hundreds of them all running (somewhat more quickly than I realised) towards me….I got a few snaps of them but didn’t want to get too close as they were trying to reach to get onto my lens….eeekk…I started walking away and felt a stabbing pain in the top of my leg….I looked down and an oversize ant was looking up at me as if to say ‘Ha, that’ll teach you…you humans, all the same eh!?’…I flicked it off and ran out to the team whilst grabbing my crotch and crying out…they thought I just had one on me so started laughing…then the tears came. I danced around for a minute not knowing what to do then Becki instructed me to take my trousers off……all the while, Si was filming this on tape…..I pranced over to Kylie and got a blanket to strip in privacy…Nurse Mckinlay was on the scene with cream and checked out my bite….the little b**ger had bitten me right through my jeans! How rude!!! And in possibly the most painful part of my body he could’ve bitten too! I now have a big red patch with two slash marks in the middle…not that big and not painful now it’s gone down but that will definitely teach me!!!!!!
It’s actually making me itchy talking about it so moving on!!!! SWIFTLY!

Over the past few days (not including today) I’ve been a bit quiet. I guess I just felt tired….to tired to be my usual giddy self. A good nights sleep in Kylie sorted that out and this morning I was back to normal! George wouldn’t start this morning as the inverter had been left on over night so we ended up calling out one of the miners who had befriended us and was also a mechanic by trade…or as Dimitri quite simpley put it ‘a guardian angel by trade’….luckily he fixed everything and even gave us a spare battery just incase….so we finally got rid of the TV that came with Kylie..it’s the least we could do for him.

So far, throughout Western Australia, we’ve encountered mass amounts of generosity. Cooperate and non cooperate. Random people, driving past who’ve heard about us giving us donations on the road. School’s we’ve visited, passing a bucket around the kids. Hotel owners letting us rest up in their hotels all the while telling Dave how much they support him. People asking for autographs, people giving us food for the road. We’re grateful for all those people out there who are as giving as they are. BoardFree wouldn’t be the same with out you. It’s amazing what little things can do to people’s moods. Like, instead of having peanut butter on bread (as yummy as it is), we had salad leaves, carrot sticks, meat in fresh buns with cheese. It perks not only Dave up but the whole team. You get back from life what you put into it. I thoroughly believe this!

A large newspaper supplement in the Uk is wanting to do a feature on Dave and BoardFree…they said they wanted ‘panoramas’ but I suspect that means landscape shots. They want it to be stunning too and at the moment, it’s raining cats and dogs outside and has been doing for some days. The weather hasn’t been the best for the last couple of days so I can’t wait to get the ‘stunning’ shots where the sun is beating down and Dave’s skating on the Nully all lonesome and what not. It makes me nervous though…I keep thinking ‘what if my shots aren’t good enough’….then I realise that it’s only self belief that gets people where they want to be!!

I’ve had a few emails from my neighbours back at home, a chap I met at the Sailability launch, family and friends which is nice! And if anyone’s reading this who wants to get in touch, don’t hesitate to email me at Holly@boardfree.co.uk……it’d be great to hear from you.

This is my last blog before setting off tomorrow across the Nullabor so I’ll blog you when we’re over the other side!!!!

Bed time I think. Even though it’s a rest day tomorrow, sleep is always a wise choice!!!

G’night!

x

Highs and Lows

Not only have i been rubbish at updating my blogs but now that i get a chance to enlighten you all about the happenings of the last 11 days i can't remember a lot! Useless!

Ok, so it goes a little something like this -
The Lakes: RoadHouse - our first camping night. Good food, good laughs, good sleep.
Northam: We were greeted by loads of kids thinking Dave was Tony Hawk, quite comical at the time. We stayed at the avonbridgehotel kindly donated to us! Another good sleep.
Cunderdin: Dan's birthday. I've never seen one person love a straw that repeatedly played happy birthday as much as Dan did. We stayed at the Cunderdin Museum thanks to a chap called Chum!
Kellerberrin: A day of highs and a night of lows. I got the news that my grampa died on Saturday. Heartbroken. I cried, lots. And when i was sitting in the sand got bitten, lots too! We stayed at the Caravan Park there. The boardfree team were there for me. Each did something to make me more comforted/warmer/laugh etc. I'm so grateful for having them to make sure i'm ok.
Merredin: I got to spend the night with Dan, Dim and Si and we laughed lots again and discussed playground games and old tv programmes.
Bodallin: Road House - kate fell off her bike, Nurse Mckinlay came to the rescue.
Southern Cross: S. Cross Motel - lovely beds.
Coolgardie: campsite so far...rest day today.

You'll notice that i'm mainly talking about sleep and beds. There've been too many good times to list. Sometimes the going gets tough for us all, Dave especially but that's why we make such a good team. We pull together and get on with it!

The shewee is amazing. It means all the girls no longer need to squat!!

My mind is all a smush at the moment.
I"ve had lots of emails giving me support, telling me jokes and generally informing me about stuff.
Thankyou everyone.

Keep in touch!

Over and out.

Hollthesquall

Also i'd like to add my condolances to Steve Irwins Family. He was a legend and shall remain so in many peoples hearts.



x

Take two!

This is my second attempt at writing this blog, my last one decided not to work. HOW RUDE!!
I'm sat listening to a song ' i wanna walk up the side of the mountain, i wanna walk down the other side of the mountain, i wanna swim in the river, i wanna lie in the sun, i wanna try to be nice to everyone'....very upbeat! Ironic seeing as i put that on Dave's compilation CD and i don't think he will want to walk up the side of a mountain, and he can't lie in the sun because it's pouring with rain! Gutted!


The push off launch was amazing. So many people turned up for it. It made a refreshing change from just five people clapping and going 'whoop whoop whoop' as he set off! About 11 skaters followed him, one gave up after less than a km! Fantastic...the rest were loving it. And Dave was loving the support. Sailability was fantastic and Rachael organized so so much for us, for which we are eternally grateful. I met Paul from Getty images and we chatted photography for a bit. I was so envious of his camera models (expensive!!!) and lenses (enourmous!!!) but then he asked to try out MY fish eye that i bought in New Zealand...get in! And some of the shots of his on Getty website are with my fish eye....he then told me he wishes he had one...how funny is that. I wanted his lenses, he wanted mine. I wouldn't mind having two camera's hanging from my limbs though! He's hopefully going to put in a word with Canon Australia. keep your fingers crossed!
Dave had to keep stopping for camera crews and photographers and eventually at the end of the day made it 25km east of Perth to Midland. Then the jackaroo broke down, typical! Well, in the words of Bev, 'it wouldn't be BoardFree without something breaking down'....too true!


I'm writing this before i go and check on the washing that should be drying...lets see what i've shrunk!! I've already manage to dye one team mates tops (who shall remain nameless til i tell them)!!!

So i've done the washing and made Si a cupy o tea whilst he sits and edits the reels of footage. I'm putting bulletins out to musicians regarding mp3s and i've received a few emails from friends saying they've seen Boardfree in the paper/tv/websites etc!

The media attention has been overwhelming! Kate is constantly on the computer mailing out photo requests or answering the phone regarding interviews with Dave, Dave is constantly sorting out the website/kit etc, Becki is trying desperately to get all the cars sorted and kitted out before we need to go (as is the glorious George), Bev is researching nutrition, accomodation and camping gear, Si and Dim, like me, forever in people's faces capturing those 'kodak' moments! and Dan is sorting Dave's shoes out and playing chess (poorly might i add - he gets confused easily!).

We went out for a meal at a wonderful resteraunt owned by some of Si's relatives and had a really good time. The girls made an effort and all looked beautiful and the boys, well, the boys wore snazzy hawaiianesque shirts! At the end of the banterfilled evening the guys tried some port (not a lot) and the girls all learnt to make lotus flowers out of napkins....when we get to adelaide we'll have hundreds seeing as the resteraunt owners gave us a pack of 100 bright yellow napkins!!! SORTED!

I was going to do a shoot with Dave today near the waterfront but it's been heavily raining on and off for the morning...i'm not sure the afternoon is going to be different, there's meant to be a storm coming! EXCITING! I went to get some money out from across the road, and as soon as i had finished it poured it down on me!!!!! I got soaked just from walking across the road....and this morning Beks and myself got a taxi to George's to get a van, i stepped in a puddle i thought was a few cm deep...oh how wrong i was, probably a few inches deep at the least! Blooming taxi driver didn't park close enough so i had to leap into it!

Dave, Kate, Bev, Becki, Dan and Dim have gone to the Royal Perth Yacht club to say thankyou to Rachael for helping us out with the push off day and also grab some camping equipment. George has been working hard for us. He's so lovely. He looks very handsome, sort of like Sean Connery in the james bond days. And he's so warm and kind. So willing to give up his time!
Right, i'm off to fold some clothes. But before i do, i just want to say, i'm so glad i'm here.