What you in all probability would not have recognized was that he was a good distance from dwelling, skating alone on an epic voyage of discovery that led him from Melbourne all the method north to Cairns, a 4,000-kilometer route on simply 4 little wheels.
When he set off at the finish of October, Drury had no thought what could be attainable. When requested on his ‘Gordy Aboard’ Instagram web page the place he was heading, he responded merely, “As far up as possible!”
But it quickly grew to become a daring try and traverse nearly the complete facet of a continent, a grueling however inspiring journey motivated by the international pandemic and the seemingly interminable lockdown.
Drury’s Instagram web page shows his early forays into the Outback from his hometown of Broken Hill in New South Wales, and ultimately he plucked up the braveness to take his board a little additional afield.
“I’m from rural Australia and I haven’t actually seen anything anywhere on the coast before. So, this is all a new experience to me,” he defined.
‘This is so silly!’
Friends and household have been initially skeptical of his early ambitions and — for a transient time – he thought they could have been proper.
“I think when I first told them I was going to skateboard to Cairns, it was like, ‘Whatever.’ But when I started this trip, by the third day, I thought, ‘This is so stupid!’ I was exhausted, and my body was broken.”
But with the encouragement of his family members again dwelling, Drury discovered the resolve to proceed.
No stranger to onerous work, Drury was an offside diamond driller in his hometown mine, working 1,400m beneath the floor of the earth. Among the quite a few jobs he is had, it was bodily the hardest work he is ever skilled.
“Hard and dirty, in really hot conditions,” is the method he described it. “I knew if I could work there 12 hours a day then I could skate 12 hours a day in the sun!”
Treating his skateboarding problem as simply one other job proved psychologically key for Drury.
“I knew it’s going to take me a few weeks to adjust to. After that, I’ll get into the rhythm and that’s exactly what happened. That’s when I was like, ‘Holy shit, I’ll be able to do this!'”
In a WhatsApp change with Drury along the route, he catalogued a few of the occupational hazards of a trans-continental skateboarder: “Fallen off twice. Severe chafe three times. Nearly stepped on four deadly snakes. Ran into the police five times. Nearly had heatstroke six times.”
He skated something from 50 to 100 kilometers day by day. On one event he was on his board for 15 hours as he traveled 115 km.
“The traffic’s been really hard on the highways here,” says Drury. “We just have loads of double-trailer semi-trucks that are whizzing by me. And I’ve constantly got my eyes out on the road for rocks and sticks and snakes and traffic.”
‘Idiot on a skateboard’
Some of the drivers who’ve encountered him have known as the police referring to Druray as “an idiot on a skateboard” and he is then needed to discuss his method out of hassle.
“I would just ask them for money for a fund raiser and they’d leave me alone,” chuckling as he shares this life hack: “If you ever need anyone to ever leave you alone, ask them for money and they will go!”
He’s modified the wheels and bearings on his board quite a few instances and worn by half a dozen pairs of sneakers along the method, typically strolling as a lot as boarding on the upslopes of Australia’s Eastern Highland vary.
He’s received many new admirers for his good-natured tenacity, and he is been interviewed by journalists from as far afield as Germany, Norway, Iceland and Dubai.
“I’d get bored if the road was flat the entire way. When I started the trip, I hated hills but now I’ve grown to love them because it gives me a break off the board. And then, you know, I love flying down the hills with my music on! I’m having so much fun doing it.”
While detailing the tougher elements of the journey, he makes no try and sugarcoat the intense warmth of the Australian summer time, which might simply have scuppered the complete factor.
Drury estimates that the common temperature all through his journey was round 33 levels Celsius, or 91 levels Fahrenheit. But on the stretch between Gin Gin and Miriam Vale in Queensland, the temperature was a lot greater.
“It’s really hot, it was dry, and the sun was just screaming at me. My body was just shaking violently, and I was thinking that if I didn’t find shade, I’m going to be in trouble. I’m out in the middle of nowhere by myself.”
Drury’s Instagram submit for that day in early March reveals the true feelings he was feeling.
“I was nauseous, my body and mind were so stressed, I burst into tears. I laid on the grass and sipped on water, contemplating what I was doing and if I should continue.”
He pushed on although, reaching his vacation spot with blood-shot eyes and recalled the feeling of triumph upon reaching his vacation spot: “At the end of that day, that beer has never been sweeter!”
Remarkably, Drury says his 100kg body has principally stayed the identical because it was when he first embarked on his problem — he blames beer and his poor food regimen for the lack of weight reduction.
However, he has observed one tangible distinction in his look — he thinks one leg is now larger than the different, whereas he boasts “the best tan in all of Australia.”
‘We dwell in concern’
Drury’s experiences have been detailed on his Instagram web page and the sights and sounds of his travels are specified by a presentation of kaleidoscopic marvel; a lot of it’s small-town curiosity, blended in with breathtaking vistas and the numerous strangers that he is met along the method. He’s stayed with lots of them and now considers them to be associates.
“We live in fear, not just of people but of the elements,” he mentioned. “My mental health has never been better since I’ve started this trip; I’m feeling so clear and I’m feeling so in touch with nature and also in touch with people in general.
“I’ve blown everybody’s minds by arising right here on my skateboard, [so] I’ll by no means inform myself that I will not have the ability to do something, ever once more.”
In a year when skateboarding will gain new-found attention by becoming an Olympic sport for the first time, Drury has done his own little bit for the growth and expansion of the sport on a global scale.
He’s been raising money to help build the first skate park in Laos; his GoFundMe page explains that Laos is the only country in Southeast Asia without one.
A week before he reached Cairns, the initial target of 25,000 Australian dollars ($19,000) had already been met. Additional donations are gravy and will support classes and maintenance.
Nonetheless, Drury admits that he’s been homesick and can’t wait for life to return to normal. He plans to head back to Broken Hill in search of a new job and though he’ll never try anything like his marathon skateboarding trek again, he’d certainly recommend the experience to anyone.
He believes that he’s the first person ever to skateboard so far north in Australia but doesn’t think it’s a record because others have skated greater distances in other places, but he’s not worried about setting landmarks.
“I will not be in the Guinness World Record ebook,” he noted. “To be trustworthy. I do not actually care about my title in the ebook.”
He says he doesn’t even want the skateboard that has carried him so far, explaining, “I do not actually have any attachment to issues generally.”
But he’ll always treasure a lifetime of memories, and not least for this skater from small-town Australia: “I’ve undoubtedly acquired the street-cred round the skating world, so I’m fairly comfortable about that!”
