This gives me ideas

I missed this one when it went viral in 2009, but back then I was planning my own adventures. Now, on a sunny London afternoon (yes, they exist), having just been for a walk in the park (… for those counting, this is a pre-scheduled post!) it seems like a fantastic idea.

But how far could I push myself on a project like this? A week? A month? A year? Where would I do it? China has many obstacles; the language would probably be one of the biggest. Also, though, the culture isn’t something that fascinates me. Europe? Or is it too developed to be fun? Australia? Would I survive the wilderness?

Would I walk, or ride a bike, or drive a car like I did in 2010?

At Congo, New South Wales, on a crisp winter afternoon...

Could I build surfing into the trip, and if so, how would I manage the gear? Could it be an amazing way to experience the United States?

As you can see, my head is buzzing with ideas. London has been an urban adventure, but it doesn’t sate in me the hunger awakened by my youth at the shack, then travel with my family aged 11, then 5 months with Dad aged 15, and my own adventures since.

View Larger Map

That there is The Shack at Point Turton, and it holds some of my most precious memories.

If you navigate the map downwards (south) of those buildings, you can see a dark brown area of land – ‘the swamp’ – which we, as a handful of kids, used to explore and trek and play in. It was full of twisted trees and sheep bones and little mystery hideouts. We clambered through barbed wire fences and felt a sense of wonder at the world, but also what I can only describe as naturalness at being there, a state that can only be achieved when the journey is not about achieving ‘place x’ but simply to see what’s there.

OK, this is garbled and long, but it has planted a more determined seed than the existing one inside me which chatters away, vaguely telling me to ‘see more of the world’. It might not be tomorrow, it might not be this year, but… watch this space.

We are at the pinnacle of a pyramid, standing on the shoulders of Giants…

Sometimes, captured images can just blow my mind. I’ve just had one of those moments.

Courtesy of George at Biochemical Brother, I watched Michael Konig’s reworking of time lapses taken from the International Space Station of late. It’s brilliant. Take 5 minutes, and watch it. I advise muting the Vimeo version’s music, and putting on a bit of Radiohead (below) to creep it all out a little. Fullscreen is, of course, a must.

Think of all the convergent lines of human endeavour that have culminated in our ability to appreciate our unique world like this. All the people, their struggles, their tedium, the dramas of their lives… some celebrated in history, but so many stories lost. We’ve come a long way from the time of celestial spheres, and we can’t take for granted the effort that’s gone into imagining, building and understanding the world we live in.

Where will we go next?

Hope in a can

I got a bit Space Shuttled out this year, but one comment caught me off guard. I shouldn’t have been surprised – it’s from Abstruse Goose, one of my favourite comics.

It was one of the only genuine "awwwww" moments of the Shuttle coverage for me.

So last Friday, I made the small effort of queuing up for twenty minutes to get a close-up look inside the Apollo 10 command capsule when the Science Museum opened the hatch to the public.

It's a fairly uninspiring thing to look at - until you reflect on the fact that it carried people to the moon and back, 40 years ago.

I personally put my hope in power generation as the inspirational change of the next century; what field would you like to see, leaping forward into the future?

Luna Park

One of my all-time favourite bodyboarding movies is Damian King’s bio, The Joker. A stand-out session in the vid is Kingy and Toby Player’s first sessions at a crazy southern Australian reef called Luna Park. Mickey Smith, the videographer on the day, has posted a bit of the footage, both seen and unseen, along with his story of the day – well worth a read if you go through to the vid’s Vimeo page.

Breaking Ground at Luna Park from mickey smith on Vimeo.

The sheer power of Luna Park is frightening, and having visited the place and seen how hectic the setup is, it’s not on my list of waves I want to surf.

Make no mistake, this place is insane.

However, I can relate to the crazy stoke that comes from pushing personal limits in the surf. A couple of years ago on a remote South Pacific island I shared a session with a few mates which, at first, spun me out. Having scratched under the first wave of a set at the end of the reef I watched in awe as a long, thick line of swell, blasted by a stormy offshore wind, unleashed for a hundred metres over shallow coral. Looking back on that session two years on, it still sticks in my mind like no other.

Pulling under a thick lip. Photo: Edward Saltau (shot links to his production company)

The look on Toby Player’s face when he comes screaming out of one of the barrels epitomises what bodyboarding is about for me: the moment of adrenaline and mindless stoke from a sick wave. I may never go near a wave as heavy as the ones in the video but it inspires me none the less!