The Why Not? Blog

At the tender age of 25 Dave started skateboarding. 14 months later he became the first person to skate the length of Britain. Another 8 months on he had crossed Australia on his board, breaking a world record & raising over £20,000 for three charities. Now, at 27, he's writing his first book, is a motivational speaker and a businessman, and he's only just gotten started on a lifetime of challenges which from the outside look just darn crazy. So, why? You know the answer, don't you. Why not?

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Bags, both of disappointment and tiredness

04:11: The Knight Rider theme tune blasts out of the mobile phone on my bedside table. Not expecting a call until 06:50 Kate and I woke with a start. As always, when a noisy telephone wakes me from a deep sleep, I take as long as I can to compose myself. Kate was still looking for the phone when I answered.
“GOOD MORNING DAVE, MY NAME’S BRUCE!” boomed a horribly chirpy Australian voice, “I’M CALLING FROM ABC RADIO QUEENSLAND AND WE’D LOVE TO GET YOU ON THE BREAKFAST SHOW IN A BIT MATE, WOULD THAT BE OK?” I paused, trying to get my head around why anyone would be this happy at this time of the morning, and then I realised it’s a few hours ahead on the other side of Australia.
“Erm, yeah mate, of course it’s ok!” Bruce must have noticed a bit of bewilderment in my voice as he followed up by asking where I was. “I’m in Perth, mate” I said gently, not wanting to sound too bitter.
“OH SHIT! I’m really sorry mate, we read about you in the Sydney Daily Telegraph and just assumed you were in Sydney, man it must be really early in Perth!” I glanced at the clock,
“Yeah mate, it’s about quarter past four.”
“Jeez I’m really sorry again Dave, I’ll let you get back to sleep. Would you mind if I called you up in an hour to get you on the show?”
“Not at all Bruce, speak to you then.”
“Good on you Dave, in an hour…”

And so it began. By 9am I had done three live radio interviews, two in Queensland and one in Perth. Paul Kane from Getty Images swooped Kate, Dim and I around Perth in a shoot which resulted in some outstanding photos, and included a session in a sanctuary where I crouched with a mob of kangaroos and pulled some cheesy smiles.

At 12pm Triple J (JJJ) from the East coast called for an interview, they’re a cool station linked up to ABC and the interview will go out on Sunday morning.

And then back to the van business. A cross-Aus vehicle hire company had expressed a potential interest in sponsoring BoardFree but despite my pleas for a quick resolution I hadn’t heard from them in three days. Pissed off and desperate I called the office in Sydney, where I finally reached the Marketing Manager. After a yo-yo session of calls the final answer was “No, sorry we can’t help, good luck and goodbye.” Just up the road from our accommodation (www.emperorscrown.com), the company had a vehicle hire office with five un-hired vans in. They would have been perfect, but having waited for an answer for three days and coming out with nothing I wasn’t in the mood for any more rejection.

Hopper, the owner of our accommodation, then suggested a friend of his who ran a 2nd hand car business. We gave him a call and an hour later he drove to us in a Toyota High Ace van.

George was like an uncle you could trust. The van was bare but spacious, and his complete unwillingness to sell it to us until he’d serviced the brakes was fully reassuring. He was willing to put a bed in it, and curtains and storage space for barely much more than the $3000 asking price, and by the time he had driven away I was confident we’d found a van, finally! I called him two hours later after talking to the team, telling him that we’d like to take him up on the offer of the van and furnishings. He didn’t call back before bedtime, but we’re sure he’s not the type to let us down.

Having met George and seen his van, I was confident that we had found our vehicles, at last! Yesterday we had seen a superb vehicle, a Mazda E200 which was a home on wheels. The owners, a young English couple, had seemed keen about BoardFree and very straight up and honest about their van. I told one of them Jake, that I was very interested in his van and that I’d like to know if someone else made an offer on it. He agreed wholeheartedly.

With this is mind, and without a call from Jake to confirm he had found any other interest, I was ready to make him an offer. I rang, he answered, he told me he had promised the van to someone else and that was that. I swore to the camera that had followed me around all day, and slumped against a wall, exhausted from a long day and furious at being let-down by someone I thought I could trust. If there’s anything that gets my goat, it is being let down. I was gutted and we were back to square one, again, with less than two days until the journey began. Delays began to loom.

The team was completed tonight. Holly turned up soon after midnight following a long flight from New Zealand, all smiles, nice and tanned, camera in a hard case. We have a photographer and BoardFree is ready to be snapped.

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