Australia 2010

Winter in Seattle is just about how you might imagine it...chilly and rainy. Unless you are spending your time snowboarding in the mountains, you might as well escape if you get the chance. After the holidays this year my decrepit leg was actually starting to work again, so I decided to jump a plane and fly to Australia and spend some OZ summer time riding with my Metal team brother Alex Liiv!

Once landed after a 22 hour flight I was picked up at the airport by a group of cats compiled with the likes of Alex, Jamie, Steve, and Jordan. These dudes picked me up from the airport in Melbourne and we drove another 8 hours to Canberra to spend the next 6 days checking out the " Cam Jam " and riding street in Canberra. Needless to say, " I was beat from 30 hours straight of travel!"

Once settled in our room we headed out to a local bar and ran into a bunch of BMX'ers. One of them being an old friend of mine from the waaaay backs Cory Nastazio! after a few drinks with him and other cats I was beat and took off back to the room to crash!

I woke up the next morning to find out, later on in the night, Alex got arrested and put in the drunk tank for the night and Cory knocked out some big bouncer who punched Alex, but got to sneak away clean! Good shit already on Day 1! Thanks for the help Nasty, it was awesome hanging again!

The next couple days were spent at Cam's place watching the GNAR jumping contest that had a 40 foot set! The shit going down on these huge ass jumps was AMAZING! I was stoked to watch all the dudes. To many shreders to start naming! Stoked on Cam for putting that Benefit Jam together. Met up with a bunch of old friends and made new ones there. The last couple days was our crew riding street in Canberra. We all found some rails and what not, but The High Lite being Alex hopping a HUGE gap to flat and blowing up three times before fucking his ankle up. Alex told me that the second crash was so hard...he slightly shit his pants!

We loaded back up and Steve drove us all back to the Blue Mountains where we stayed with Alex's super cool family! Thanks Liiv's! His mom even heard of my B-day through the guys and made me a B-day cake! Thanks! A few days were spent hanging in the Blue Mountains hitting crazy swimming holes with scary animals and huge spiders. Our first stay in Sydney was a weekend spent with Clement and the rest of the French BMX crew at their place in Bondi Beach. Stoked staying at the summer time beach in February with these cats! We tended to bounce back and forth between The Blue Mountains or Sydney to stay with John in Newtown Sydney. Good riding days and funny drunken nights with John and all the Sydney dudes along with crazy Xaiver punching us in the balls! Thanks John for putting us up. A lot of Time hanging with Matt Holmes from 20/20 magazine and the Hell on Wheels shop. Matt Got me a ticket to see AC/DC play in Sydney! 70,000 tickets sold out in 15 seconds and he got us tickets! Thanks bro! Matt and his lady took us to the show and I saw the most AMAZING SHOW! These dudes are in their late 50's and 60's and are some of the most compelling rock stars PERIOD! and by the way Americans, although I've been a huge fan of theirs since 81-82 I never knew the correct way to pronounce their name in OZ. They are not AC DC they are refered to as Aka Daka. It was a slight history lesson for me.

After all this three weeks had already gone and Jamie and Jordan had to head home. Alex and I got flights to Melbourne to stay with Chris Polack. Chris is the man behind Rebel Yell magazine and is a fashion photographer/BMXer. We stayed with Chris and his lady and went to a jam at the local indoor home made Skatepark in an abandoned warehouse. It was getting torn down that weekend so a big crew showed up! loose shit! My last few days in Australia was cool riding and hanging with Chris, Alex, Leigh Gaison and Bo from Anchor BMX Greg, Adam, and really all the Melbourne cats from the bowl too! Bo actually introduced to to the most known fellon in all Australia Mark " Chopper " Reed and Chris shot a photo of he and I shaking hands! Crazy shit going down in the Southern Hemisphere! Thanks for a Loose month down under!