The SkatingSouth website has gone live. Three of my best friends, Rob Hanson, Zoltan Nagy and Ben C Hall are heading on a skate trip south. On the 27th July they head off south from Trondheim in Norway to the ’stag party capital’ of Europe, Prague. 3000km later.

Norway - Sweden - Denmark - Germany - Czech Republic

I’m so stoked for this, I was there when we all started talking about and planning this. All three skaters have distance in their blood, they don’t mind a few beers (essential on any distance trip I reckon!) and they are good mates. Its going to be amazing. Keep your eyes on the site, join the facebook page, and as ever check skatefurther.com for more info!

Watched the Pro-tec Pool part this week on Fuel. Jeff Grosso won the boardslide comp. 28 blocks. Legend.

The second part of Paul, Aaron and Adam’s Trip across South America.

What a few weeks. Erm, where to begin…

Firstly this.

Holesom boards are shipping. All the way to NZ for me. This beauty above is for me. Holesom deck, Chocolate randals and Fireball wheels (more on them in the coming weeks!). As soon as it arrives it will be getting a good working over by me and the members of GCS. Which brings me onto my second bit of news. Christchurch Sessions is no more. Garden City Sessions will live forever!

Only had a couple of skate events over the past few weeks, the weather has been crappy and I’ve been super busy with work and my mum visiting from the UK. We did manage to get a late night skate for Greenskate.org sorted though and had a great turn out. The picture below pretty much sums up the Christchurch scene. Big, wide, smooth streets, rad friends and good times. Thanks to Mark Bridgewater for sorting out the photos (view more on his webpage) Watch out for the write-up in Concrete Wave Magazine.

Apart from that, well it’s all going swimmingly. Need to skate a bit more though, but am loving spending time with my wife and little man.

I got a bike the other day. $50 from cash converters. I was going to use it to cycle down to the ferry and to work on the other side. I took it for a test run today.

I skated to work yesterday. Today was way more tiring, so so much more sketchy on downhills, noisier, more hassle and generally much more effort than with a skateboard. I think I’m going to stick with my board.

Now I know this has been posted up on Skatefurther’s front page, but some of you don’t visit that site that often (you should) so I thought I’d post it here too. It deserves to be seen.

Currently Adam Colton, Aaron Enevoldsen and Paul Kent are beginning their skate across Morocco, this video is the 1st episode from their skate across South America.

I found this via abut 5 peoples facebook page. Doesn’t make it any less true.

I am an adventurer, a skateboarder, a philosopher and much more.

I am like so many others who dream of the Promised Land, except I am different because I know where to look.

I resemble in body a fallen warrior – broken and humbled, yet still strong and courageous.

I care about destiny, but also about those I love. I am going to ride this piece of wood until I no longer can stand upon it, experiencing the happiest contentment and the worst of pains.

I will learn new tricks, but more importantly I will learn to embrace new ideas and think new thoughts.

I want to skateboard until my heart no longer beats with passion.

I am a skateboarder; nothing short of death will change that.

I often long to escape the painful and deceitful world and seek refuge in the glorious and honest world of skateboarding, where you are master of your own fate.

I regret that I have at times chosen to do other things that I did not need to do, for this is nothing less than a betrayal of my soul.

I am in search of a world that does not exist, save for those who have caught the disease called skateboarding.

I know that I am happiest when on my skateboard, sharing a secret utopia that only my friends and I can be part of.

I guess that if I did not live skateboarding, I would rather not live at all.

After much anticipation, the Holesom website has gone live! I’m still waiting to get my hands on one of these (last i heard DJW was paddleboarding over from Laguna Beach to NZ to hand deliver it) but when I do, you’ll hear about it here. The site is offering a great deal at the moment - order a deck and you’ll get a free skate rack. If you order a complete you’ll receive a free t-shirt! Can’t say fairer than that!

Go and visit www.holesom.com, ride with a smile and keep it Holesom!

So, a few months down and I finally feel like I’m not just holidaying here. Our new house is bought, job is secured, family happy and the skating is beginning to pick up.

The house is going to be perfect, it’s in a little place called Lyttelton which is the other side of the mountains to Christchurch (only 10 mins through a tunnel) and overlooks Lyttelton Harbour (a dormant volcano crater). Work is across the other side of the harbour in Diamond Harbour, so I will be skating and getting a ferry to work.

Skating wise, Christchurch is the perfect skating city. A flat city surrounded by epic hills with new sub-divisions being built (they build the smooth tarmac roads 1st!). Hill sessions with the Banks Longboarding crew have been fantastic. They are a great bunch who love going hard and fast. You can find out out more on their Facebook page. Alex makes some great boards and I’m stoked to be part of what is happening in Lyttelton.

Over in the city, the word is slowly spreading. Through Christchurch Sessions I have organised a couple of events, with great turn outs. The first ‘Cruise and booze‘ saw the biggest number of longboarders ever assebled in one place in Christchurch. Skating through the city streets surrounded by skaters is always the best fun. We hit up a few garages and ended up at The Dux for a beer. Perfect.

Following the success of this event, we decided to start racing at on particular garage. It has 11 floors, is smooth as hell, lit, with a lift! ‘Raceface‘ was our first race. 4 man down, limited push area, bragging rights for the winner. 16 skaters turned up and it was fun as hell. We had a few great bails, some car contact and everyone left with huge smiles.

Overall bragging rights went to Christchurch local Joe Scorgie who creamed the competition with 1st places in all five of his races. We of course ended up going to The Dux for a cheeky beer.

In the middle of all of this was the City2Surf. 15,000 people walking, running, inlining and this year skating the 12km from the city centre towards the coast. About 12 skaters turned up and managed to complete the course, the fastest time was 36 minutes.

Tonight is going to be pretty special too, we have managed to procure a set of keys for the carpark and therefore are going to be running the first ever ‘Midnight Raceface’. Same garage, but this time it will be just us. There is talk of a launch ramp and cones to make it more interesting. See the Midnight Raceface facebook event page for more.

This film got premiered last night in Vancouver. All the usual names were there. Cannot wait to see this first hand.