Boardfree OZ
“Boardfree OZ” is a four-part miniseries following 26-year-old Englishman Dave Cornthwaite who decides to skateboard 6000 km across Australia with a team of eight others. Smashing an existing world record for skateboarding distance by more than a 1000 kms, Dave faces every obstacle that Australia can throw at him. Since it is a country the size of Europe with some of the most diverse and harsh landscapes on the planet, this has never been done before for good reason. Dave and his team face the challenge of 40 C degree heat (about 104 F degrees) on the desolate Nullabor Desert, 1000 km of nothing in an uninhabitable landscape. Viewers watch as Dave battles the morale-sapping mountainous climbs of the Great Divide. It’s not only the landscape that proves a challenge, relationships are strained, team members are pushed to breaking point and run-ins with the law all add to the task at hand.
EP 1- British man David Cornthwaite attempts a world record skateboarding across Australia.
EP 2- David faces challenges in his attempt to skateboard across Australia.
EP 3- Just as David and his team are hoping to celebrate and take a rest, disaster strikes.
EP 4- Sydney and a place in history awaits if David and his team manage 1,000 more miles.
ABOUT DAVE
Born in October 1979 Dave Cornthwaite led a peripatetic childhood, which later encouraged considerable wanderlust. Preferring writing and travel to studying, he edited the Swansea University newspaper for two years and regularly hitch-hiked to Morocco for charity. After graduating in 2004, Dave stayed in Wales and founded a local newspaper, HadOne.
In April 2005, two weeks after first stepping onto a skateboard, Dave quit his job, founded BoardFree, a charitable initiative designed to raise funds and awareness for three handpicked charities, and started to plan two journeys.
Between April 31 and June 2, 2006 Dave pushed a rollsrolls longboard from John O’Groats to Lands End, becoming the first person to skate the length of Britain. On Jan. 22, 2007 Dave completed his second journey, his “Everest,” which took five months and a world-record 5823km to skate from Perth, in Western Australia, to Brisbane on Australia’s east coast.
Later in 2007 Dave formed BounceFree, which revolved around a human powered hydrofoil called an Aquaskipper. In September ’07 he broke the British speed record, having been made the “face of Aquaskipper.” His Mum was very proud.
In early 2008 Dave’s first book, BoardFree, was published, leading to a couple of tours which established Dave as a motivational speaker. BoardFree’s success gave a helping push to countless other skaters who went off and warmed up the tarmac on behalf of their own charities, and Dave has since set up This Is Your Freedom, a website designed to help ordinary individuals achieve extraordinary things.
In 2009 Dave has been polishing off his second book, Confessions of a Temporary Serial Dater, as well as learning to kayak, canoe and stand-up for a brand new adventure project called The Great Big Paddle, which, yes, you guessed it, involves some big journeys on water, with paddles.
Meet Boardfree OZ’s David Cornthwaite
David Cornthwaite is a “thirtysomething” British graphic designer who set a world record by being the first man to longboard—think skateboard, but with larger proportions—across Australia.
