AUS120.com™ – Sean O’Brien, Tour Diary

Leaving my James Bond experience in Lake Garda behind, I continued on my epic drive north through the Austrian Alps and then Germany onwards to my home in northern Holland. With a bit of foresightedness mixed with some sheer pot-luck I managed to pick a very sunny and clear day to drive from Lake Garda in northern Italy in Austria through the Brenner Pass which allowed some nice photos of the snow capped Austrian mountains as well as an opportunity for me to stop and go exploring a few of the walking paths into the mountains. For someone like myself who comes from a hot, tropical island in the southern hemisphere, seeing snow more than twice in your life is a real highlight. This was actually the third time I have seen real snow in my entire life (believe it or not!) however I still have never seen it actually falling. So some might think it a little pedantic of me to stop my car off the side of the motorway and go exploring by foot into the hillside however, this seemed to me quite the logical thing to do. Enjoy some photos…

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So in the process of filming one of the car chases in the latest Bond 007 film Quantum of Solace, some crazy stuntman managed to crash Bond’s Aston Martin DBS (worth AUD$315,000) off the side of a cliff and plunge it into one of the most famous windsurfing lakes in Europe; Lago di Garda (Lake Garda). So of course I went to explore, however it would appear from the above article they scooped the car out of the lake relatively quickly (I think I missed it by a good 6 months or more), however suffice to say, any excuse to see Lake Garda on a crystal clear wintery afternoon was worth the punishing drive and long ferry ride the night before from southern Sardinia to see…

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Today I had (almost) the first day’s sailing in Sardinia, Italy, since I arrived 5 days ago. The wind was from the south today so we drove for one hour through the windy mountain roads of southern Sardinia to a small beach in front of the Villagio Mandorli (some Italian resort, that appeared pretty closed for winter). The P7 guys were blessed with a few hours of sunlight and good winds for slalom before I could get rigged up as a big lightning storm ruined our fun and cut the wind for the next few hours. So after getting all our gear blown down the beach in the storm’s squall, we packed up and headed back home to do some formula sailing at the sailing club in front of our house. Read on to see a few photos of myself, Andrea Cucchi and Peter (sail designer) from the Point-7 team testing out the new 2009 race sails before the storm hit.

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With the rain and super cold weather in Holland the past few weeks, I couldn’t turn down an offer from Andrea Cucchi to come down to Sardinia and do some windsurfing in the warm and sunny conditions winter brings to Sardinia. Leaving Holland on Wednesday night I drove through Germany, Austria (across the Alps through Innsbruck) and down to Torbole Sul Garda (Lake Garda) to visit my Italian friend Alberto Menegatti (ITA-456). Spending a night or two in Lake Garda enjoying the cold I kept driving south through Pisa (yes, I visited the leaning tower) to Livorno – where I met up with Andrea and caught the 12 hour ferry to northern Sardinia. Another 4 hours driving through Sardinia to Cagliari in the south and we had arrived. Enjoy a short movie I made to keep myself awake in the long driving hours…

Yesterday I travelled to a tv studio in Mijstrect for the filming of the Dutch version of MTV’s “Pimp My Ride” tv show – De Grote Beurt, hosted by the lovely Jorinde Moll. A good windsurfing friend of mine, Dennis Littel somehow managed to get picked for the show and got his old and (at the time) un-roadworthy Chevrolet camper-van completely PIMPED. We stuck around for a few hours with an opportunity to be in the background crowd during the filming and of course to checkout Dennis’ sick new surfvan! I filmed a sweet video of the van to show it off but unfortunately I am told I can not put it online until 1st of November when the show goes to air… ouch! Stay tuned for the video later!

Straight after the Nordic Championships in another part of Denmark, my Aussie gymnast friend Jarod and I decided we would visit one of the great themeparks of the World; LEGOLAND!! For those who don’t know, Lego is one of the greatest toys ever invented and most Australian children I can think of (as well as all the Danish ones obviously) grew up building with Lego blocks and most likely still own the Lego Pirate Ship somewhere at their house – I know I do!

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