One year isn't enough....

2007 is 24 hours and a couple of dramatic fireworks displays away, and as I sit in a room overlooking a dark Rushcutters Bay in Sydney I know I've just had the year of my life. There are two other years in my past that I can look back on and say, 'yep, just had a real goodun.' 1999 shook my body free of school and introduced me to adulthood, to travel and to self belief. 2001 led me back to Uganda, to a strange few months of waking up under canvas to the rumblings of baby redtail monkeys using my tent as a slide. It was a time when I realised the values I'd take with me through life - some were selfish and dedicated to freedom and happiness, others led me to believe that whatever you were doing and wherever you were, things can end instantly. Five and a half years ago I had long hair to my shoulders and was at my best when a parrot sat on my shoulder, but for all my hippyish actions and appearance I was totally businesslike in my approach to life. Commonsense came first, and logic dictated that if a chance came along and I didn't take it, then I'd be kicking myself too hard not to regret missed opportunities. I wasn't going to grow old with regrets, I wasn't going to rely on the school-university-training-work cycle of life to send me forwards. I'd behave, I'd have ambition, I'd take the little chances that came along and sooner or later something would smack me in the face so hard I'd be an absolute fool not to sit up and take notice.

As a kid I'd daydream about drawing cartoons and making comics. Once in a while I'd take up a pencil and the resulting drawings looked like I'd taken ten dogs for a walk at a time. I couldn't draw. I loved football, I played until I was sore and aching, until I could barely walk home from the park. I dreamt about making it pro: I wasn't good enough. I started to write in '99, a daily diary I kept in Uganda about falling in love with a country and a girl. Later that year and into the next I wrote a book called River Road, based on the area in Nairobi that the guide books warned travellers about. I loved River Road, stayed there every time I visited Nairobi. The book was about following your own instincts, about positivity breeding positivity. It wasn't preachy, it was just a story that I fell in love with. I didn't back up my computer, I had only printed out a handful of pages, I got home and nothing worked. No retreaval possible, it was gone. Hundreds of hours, hundreds of thousands of words. It hit hard. I didn't write anything longer than a newspaper article until my first longboard turned up in the post four years later. It wasn't so much that I couldn't write, it was that I'd lost a little bit of my spirit. I'd simply had nothing to write about.

The hills I used to walk became new again. For two weeks I looked around from the passenger seat of a car or through the window of a train, thinking 'skating that road would be amazing, every road out there is skateable.' I pushed along getting stronger and stronger, physically and mentally. This was it. I woke up, I love this thing. I want to skate all day. I left the job. I decided to skate all day. I skated. I planned.

And in 2006 I skated all year long. The length of Britain. Never been done before. 900 miles of hills and cars and blisters and new friends. No regrets. The skin on my right heel would never be strong again. So what. No Regrets. I'd just found something that very few people ever did and it made me dizzy with happiness! Why the hell should I be the only one to benefit from this, EVERYONE should get a board and try this. It might not work for everyone but it HAS to work for someone.

This is brand new, this is amazing. This isn't a crazy dream, this is unusual reality and that's why it's special. What do you mean you're going to skateboard across Australia. You're never going to make it, YOU'RE NEVER GONNA MAKE IT. It's huge! Do you know how big Australia is? Do you know how hot it gets? Have you heard of the Nullarbor? It means no trees, and that means no shelter. With your pale skin we're taking bets on how many hours you'll make it out of Perth. Do you know what a kangaroo looks like after a road train hits it. Forty metres of red stain on the road. That's you if you try this. That's you.

People wrote these things. Strangers said I would die. Friends said I would fail. Who denies a dream! I'm f***ing doing this!

So I did. And now, with less than 24 hours to go until 2007 I have done it. Sure, another 800km or so separates me from Brisbane. That's to come shortly. But I crossed Australia on a skateboard this year. I skated across the Nullarbor, through Adelaide, along the Great Ocean Road, through Melbourne, across the hills and mountains, up the coast. Into Sydney. Across Australia. People came with me. People who I ddn't know a year ago. People who I did. A select band of people who believe in dreams and wanted to see this one through. Sure, it was my dream, but dreams are infectious. Jobs were left, lives were halted. Income stopped. This new word entered the vocabulary. BoardFree. What does it mean? Subtract Board, add your dream. That's what it means. Just be free. It always takes a risk, but if you make it count then it's worth it. Every time I step onto Elsa, my board, I BoardFree.

Nothing was wasted in my 2006. Despite tears and debt and arguments and strain, I don't think anyone on my team would say they've wasted 2006. Do I regret BoardFree? No chance. BoardFree changed my life, it gave me a new life. Can you get any better than that? The best year of my life is ending. I might just try and do better next year.