BoardFree: a simple introduction
In the spring of 2005 Dave Cornthwaite woke up and realised enough was enough. Twenty five years old, stuck in a nine to five with the horrible feeling that life was just one long, straight, endless road. It was time for a change. Dave realised the only thing he looked forward to was the skate in and out of work, so there and then he decided to go on a journey on his board. He had only been skating for two weeks but coupling his oldest passion, travel, with his newest, longboarding, seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

As the days went on the ideas formed together. Eventually one journey turned into two, the first was a 900 mile/ 1450km length of Britain skate from John o’Groats to Land’s End in May 2006, which was intended to be a warm-up for a much bigger journey later that year. The second journey was a huge ask, a 4000 mile/ 6300km across Australia from Perth to Brisbane. If successful this Australian journey would become the farthest distance anyone had travelled on any form of skateboard, ever.

It soon became obvious that travelling hundreds of miles on a longboard was going to attract attention, so Dave decided to take advantage of this and redirect the interest in the journeys onto three children’s charities; the Lowe Syndrome Trust, Link Community Development and Sailability Australia. As an additional aim, Dave aimed to encourage people of all ages and abilities to take up boardsports. After all, they had changed his life, why couldn’t others benefit?

The ideas that formed after that fateful spring morning in 2005 are now summed up for hundreds of thousands of people around the world in one word, BoardFree. Yet again, life is a long, straight road for Dave Cornthwaite, but now there is very much a destination in mind.

On June 2nd 2006, fourteen months after he had stepped onto his first longboard, Dave Cornthwaite crossed the finish line at Land’s End to become the first person to skateboard the length of Britain. His determination to reach Land's End despite massive blisters and a battle against the wettest May in decades. And if the UK journey was an inspiration, imagine how BoardFree Australia shook people up. On January 22nd 2007 Dave reached Brisbane, Queensland, having skated 5823km from Perth. The five-month journey now takes pride of place in the Guinness Book of records, until somebody else comes along to beat it, of course.

BoardFree is now so much more than one man's dream. Dave and his team's efforts through the UK and Australia have inspired others to take on long distance boarding challenges themselves. In the summer of 2007 no less than six journeys are already in planning, with BoardFree forming an umbrella organisation to help these intrepid explorers do their utmost not only to complete their task, but to maximise publicity and funds raised for their supported charities. See the journeys page for more about these. In addition to helping people push for change, BoardFree continues to encourage and inspire people of all ages and abilities to get outside and take up boardsports, through the BoardFree Initiative.

Dave continues to head up BoardFree, but remains busy in other areas. He is happy to report that the 9 to 5 days of graphic designing are a distant memory now, find out more about Dave here, and rest assured there are some more journeys in the pipeline., not all of them on a longboard.