This is Your Freedom
Helping to make your Charity Challenge more effective and enjoyable.British Adventurers to paddle from Bath to London
Between June 2nd and June 8th 2010 Dave Cornthwaite and Sarah Outen will take to the water and Stand Up Paddle between Bath and London, a distance of 150 miles. The two are not strangers to this sort of journey, last year Sarah rowed over 4000 miles across the Indian Ocean, and in April 2011 will begin a global circumnavigation from London to London, Via the World! Dave had paddled the length of Australia’s longest river and in 2006 he broke the world record for skateboarding further than anyone else, ever! He’s also planning a world distance record on a Stand Up Paddleboard in 2011.
The pair’s journey will start at Bath’s Top Lock at 10am on Wednesday 2nd June, following the length of the Kennet & Avon canal via Devizes, Pewsey, Hungerford and Reading, before paddling onto the Thames and making their way to London. They will finish at lunchtime by paddling underneath Tower Bridge.
We’d like to invite members of your club to join Sarah and Dave for a stretch of their journey as we pass through your neighbourhood. You could paddle in canoes, kayaks or on Stand Up Paddleboards, or even walk, run or cycle alongside. We’d like everyone joining us to help us raise some funds for our charities.
Dave and Sarah are big supporters of The Blue Mile project. A Blue Mile is a mile travelled on or by the water. If each paddler aims to raise £10 per Blue Mile paddled with Dave and Sarah this would be absolutely wonderful. We are aiming for a total of 1000 Blue Miles and if we achieve our target, this will mean we’ve raised at least £7000 for our charities, which would be amazing!
All donations and sponsorships should be donated online at www.justgiving.com/greatbigpaddle
Finally, Dave and Sarah will be supported by a small and very fun team who will be making a documentary and taking photos of the event. We’d love to hold fundraising events each evening and if you’d be interested in organising one, please take a look at the schedule on www.thegreatbigpaddle.com and get in touch. We’re also organising where can stay each evening, so any help with this would be greatly appreciated!
This event is all about getting people on the water and promoting exercise, water sports and a passion for the environment, so the more people who take part, the better!
We hope you can be involved, and look forward to hearing back from you.
Best wishes
The Bath2London 2010 Team
Email: hello@thegreatbigpaddle.com
Tel: 07872 986084
For full details of the event, please visit www.thegreatbigpaddle.com
To find out more about Sarah, visit www.sarahouten.co.uk
And to learn more about Dave, visit www.davecornthwaite.co.uk
The Great Atlantic Swim
Later this year we’ll be closely following the first leg of Brit Dan Martin’s amazing Global Triathlon as he swims across the Atlantic, but following not too far behind Dan will be a relay team of 15 swimmers, led by Brit Chris Ford. The team will attempt to cross the Atlantic Ocean non-stop, taking it in turns to swim individual sessions up to 5 miles, which they hope will eventually accumulate the 3200 miles between New York, USA, and Penzance, Cornwall.
The Great Atlantic Swim is all in aid of the Marine Conservation Society, and you can following this incredible venture throughout the year through http://www.thegreatatlanticswim.org.uk/
Olly Hicks: Global Row article in The Times
An old article it may be, but this article in the Times still makes super reading about Olly Hicks’ attempt to row around the planet. The journey was suspended in New Zealand but nevertheless the ingredients remain for a superb adventure story.
A film called Tenacity on the Tasman has already had its Premiere and the DVD is available here http://www.tenacityonthetasman.co.uk/
Tomo Chisnall completes New Zealand skate
Kiwi Tomo Chisnall has been on our radar for more than a year now. A teenager wanting to skate the length of New Zealand is one thing, but actually doing it is another. We had a quick chat to Tomo about his adventure:
I’ve just completed a 64 day skate down the entire length of New Zealand for cancer on my longboard, a total distance of 2100kms.
I was inspired to do this after reading Dave Cornthwaite’s book, ”Boardfree”. Not long after I had read this book I was planning my own skate through New Zealand for cancer as I lost one of my best mates to cancer.
I found that planning was very continuous and constantly being on a computer trying to find sponsors, let’s just say I was far far happier to be on the road than behind a computer.
There were many times where I thought it would never happen , on the road when I was coming into Hamilton on Day 12, I was ready to drive home, it was very surreal and I felt worn down mentally. I took some days off and decided to continue to push.
There are so many awesome times but I cant really give you one I guess. To top it all off rolling through a toliet paper line at 10.07am on the 10/1/010 and jumping off the board realising I’d just lived my dream and conquered New Zealand on a longboard!!
We have raised about $4000 dollers so far and will continue to fundraise over the next few months which will help us hit the $10000 goal. The money goes to the Nelson Region Hospice and the Nelson Cancer Society
We’re working on the freedomskate movie “Living the Dream” What’s next for me? There’s a huge planet out there with many more causes that need to be skated for over all types of countries! For me just gonna keep rolling!!!
100 Things: What’s on your list?
When Sebastian Terry heard about the death of a close friend, it sparked him into action. Everyone has at least one thing they want to do or achieve before they die, he reasoned, so he decided to take the idea a little further and made a list one hundred items long.
100 Things stand between Seb Terry and true fulfillment, and he’s currently on his way to ticking every one of them off the list. A couple of days ago his Facebook status read ‘Sebastian Terry is about to tick off item #46- Learn French! Step 1- Move to Geneva, Switzerland for 3 months. Flight leaves at 12.30pm tomorrow.’
Committed he is, and to date he has totted up an impressive haul of experiences including running with bulls, hitch-hiking across the USA, posing naked for an art class and meeting a namesake. For write-ups of these and the rest of Seb’s antics, visit www.100things.com.au
The Plastiki Expedition
Crossing the Pacific in a sailing boat is one thing, but using a boat made almost entirely of plastic bottles? Hold back your cynicism, though, because the Plastiki is no ordinary…erm…boat made of bottles.
The brainchild of David de Rothschild, the Plastiki Expedition involves a 60 foot catamaran crossing the Pacific from San Francisco to Sydney with a mission to highlight the issues of plastic dumping in the ocean and to inspire sustainable solutions to solve the subsequent ecological damage done to the world’s oceans and their inhabitants. Plastic waste kills up to 1 million sea birds and 100,000 sea mammals each year, it’s time for talking to turn to action now.
A quite incredible craft and a genuinally unique scientific adventure might go some way to turning heads towards one of the planet’s most critical ecological problems. Find out more at www.theplastiki.com
Jessica Watson: No Bounds
Australians will know this name, others may not, but Jessica Watson deserves global recognition. She is attempting to become the youngest person to sail solo, non-stop and unassisted around the world. Currently, she is about 1200 miles from rounding Cape Horn, and with 75 days on the Southern Ocean already under her belt her determination is beginning to shine through.
Naturally, there were questions asked about the sense of a 16 year old attempting this feat. Is she mature enough to deal with the hardships that WILL be thrown at her on this voyage? Does she have the experience to deal with the oceans at their most volatile? She has laid a foundation to all of these questions by taking the first step needed towards completing any challenge: she decided to do it.
Jessica is a trailblazer, human spirit has evolved with leadership like hers. Stay safe Jess…
Jessica Watson on New Year's Eve 2009
Watch her progress on http://www.jessicawatson.com.au/
Revolution Cycle
In November 2008, Simon Evans and Fearghal O’Nuallain began the first Irish circumnavigation of the globe by bicycle. Their unsupported expedition will cover over 30,000km, passing through 30 countries and some of the highest, lowest, driest, coldest, warmest and loneliest places on earth. In doing so, they will be promoting the positive contribution that cycling can make to mental health by encouraging people to get on their bikes, and by raising funds for Aware.
Visit their journey website http://revolutioncycle.ie
Savage: Roz’s journey so far
Ever been in a rut? Roz Savage’s inspirational story of the day she wrote two obituraries for herself – one for the life she was leading and the other for a life she longed to fulfil – led to a series of trans-oceans rowing expeditions that have embedded her firmly in the upper echelons of modern day adventurers.
Roz marries her breathtaking voyages with technology, so even from the middle of the Atlantic and Pacific she has been able to share her stories and thoughts with anyone tuned into her website, http://rozsavage.com/
Buy Roz's Book, 'Rowing the Atlantic'
Felicity Aston: Modern Day Adventurer
Felicity Aston is an accomplished explorer, writer and photographer, mixing the contemporary skills needed to sustain a career in adventure and exploration.
At 31, Felicity already has an enviable expedition portfolio. She’s raced in the Canadian Arctic, led a team of women across the inland ice of Greenland, searched for meteorite craters in Quebec, skied along a frozen river in Siberia, traversed the winter ice of Lake Baikal, completed the infamous Marathon Des Sables across the Moroccan Sahara and spent three years living and working in the Antarctic. She is now leading an all-women expedition to the South Pole.
Find out more about Felicity at http://www.felicityaston.co.uk
