Hotham in a whiteout Courtesy of Burton

Editor's Note: Most of us can only dream of setting off on a world tour. This year, Jake Burton and his family will be living the dream, embarking on a 10-month trip to snowboard all over the globe, covering six continents and following winter the whole way.

Jake, Donna, George(13), Taylor(10), Timmy(7) and niece Victoria (15) set off in July for a year of adventure travel. They will be snowboarding at resorts and in the backcountry of Argentina, Chile, New Zealand, Australia, Morocco, throughout Europe and in the Himalayas (India). To round out the trip, they will be surfing in the Galapagos Islands, Peru, New Zealand, Tonga, Australia and Hawaii, sea kayaking in Thailand, and touring through China, Tibet, and Vietnam.

From Jake
We hated to leave New Zealand, but Melbourne, Australia is a city that will make you forget about your worries pretty quick. Located in the state of Victoria, Melbourne is a super clean city with 3.5 million people and always something to do. This time around, we were there just for the night because we had to drive up to Mt. Hotham (5 hours) the next morning to catch the last week of the Australian snowboarding season. The majority of the drive was through gum tree forests that had been scorched by bush fires the previous year (in fact 7.5 million acres/ 3 million hectares of the country burned). Halfway through the drive it started to rain. Then, as we climbed in altitude, it turned to snow. We put the chains on for the last hour of the drive, and by the time we got to the mountain the place was buried. We soon found out it had snowed over a meter (3+ feet) in the last week, and it pretty much snowed the whole time we were there. Nice way to end the season.

The unique thing about Hotham is that the lodging is on the top of the mountain. This makes starting the day real easy, as you just go outside and ride. But at the end of the day, it's hard to stop since you are at the top and it's too easy to take just one more run. The snow was on the heavy side and was locally referred to as Foster's powder, named after the rich heavy foam that sits on top of Australia's #1 beer. That said, it was super fun riding. Lots of slashes, natural gullies, tree runs, and plenty of cool features like a house you could ride/air off the top of. The park was closed because all the rails and kickers were buried in powder. So the kids built their own kicker that we all hit until the ski patrol shut it down. We rode with locals Dan and Dennie, as well as Wes and Andy from Burton Australia. The mountain was empty since it was the last week, so there was freshness to be found on every run.

	Busted! Courtesy of Burton

The snow at Hotham was great, the terrain was excellent and the whole vibe was all about fun, but once again on this trip, the local animals are what we will remember the most. We saw alpine rats hanging out around the lift towers and echidna (alpine porcupines) were all over the place, but it was the wombats that stole the show. Wombats are furry creatures that look like a cross between a bear and a rat. They are big (30-40 Kgs/70-90 lbs) and they are hard to find, as they are nocturnal and they hate the sun. Most Australians will go their whole life without ever seeing one. Thanks to a late spring (not much food left) and consistently snowy weather (no sunshine) they were out and about looking for food. One even walked into a bar while we were there. On our departure day from Hotham we woke up early and went for a last couple of runs and a hike before leaving. We were closing out our southern hemisphere winter season and Hotham was a great place to do it.

We headed back down to Melbourne for a couple of days of city life before hunting for waves down south. I am a pro sports freak, and seeing as catching a Celtics game was out of the question, we picked up some tickets to the Davis Cup Tennis semi finals (Australia beating Switzerland) and the semi finals of the Australian Rules Football League (the local Collingwood Magpies crushed Port Adelaide). After less than 48 hours and two killer sporting events in Melbourne, we drove down to Torquay.

Torquay is a surf town in the southeast corner of Australia. It is the birthplace of Rip Curl and Quiksilver. Its surf heritage and roots run deep, and surf culture is about as mainstream as it can be here. The focal point of the town, other than some world-class right hand point (such as Bells Beach) is the surf mall (Surf City) in the middle of town. It is somewhat reminiscent of any mall/shopping center in America, except that all the stores are surf or skate and there is a surf museum and a municipal skate park in the back. It's set up the way it should be in a lot more towns on this planet.

We surfed with a local named Gally there, and he knew the area like the back of his hand. The weather and wind were constantly changing, but he always seemed to find enough swell, off shore winds and manageable crowds, if any. The water was chilly (full 3/2 and booties), but after surfing in Christchurch, NZ it felt like a hot tub. I surfed early in the morning at some of the better known breaks while the kids did school. Then the kids would skate while I did my work, and then we would check out the mall all together and finish up with a long afternoon surf session with the whole posse. It seemed like every day was a breakthrough day for all of us. We were only in Torquay for four days, but we got a lot in, and had no problems sleeping at the bed and breakfast place we were parked at.

Despite having been in Australia for ten days, we had yet to see a kangaroo and we were starting to think the whole thing was a myth. It seemed like everywhere we went, we were told to keep our eyes out for kangaroos. Like wombats, kangaroos don't tend to do much in the daytime, so they can be hard to find. We had seen every type of bird imaginable (cockatoos, galahs, kookaburras), but no kangaroos and Timmy (age seven) was getting pissed off about the whole thing. Gally told us about a golf course on the way out of Torquay that was known for having kangaroos just hanging out. We found the place, and sure enough we were not disappointed. There were packs of them including little ones hanging out in their moms' pouch. We hung out in the middle of that golf course for a long time just staring at these upright animals that had little interest in us.

We then drove from Torquay to Port Fairy on 'The Great Ocean Road' along the south coast of Australia. As is often the case, the surf on this coast was HUGE and usually unmanageable, but a lot of fun to look at. Some of the rock formations (such as 'the twelve apostles') along the way were equally spectacular, the kind of sight anyone would check out. Port Fairy was pretty chill as it was cold and rainy with on shore winds the two days we were there. I earned local respect at the pizza place in town by ordering a large Vegemite pizza and eating the whole thing. We also played some serious 'hide and go seek' in the bed and breakfast where we stayed.

— Jake Burton, Burton Snowboards