Hey there!

How about a chance at a free trip to Tasmania?!

Don’t be afraid. This is fun. What do you have to lose? Just upload a picture of your boots and a few words about them and your Blundstone boots could take you and a friend to magical Tasmania. To enter click here.

Here are some of my highlights entered so far:

If you’ve need an excuse to enter the Your Boots contest at Blundstone.ca for the trip to Tasmania – besides the scenery, the air, or the wildlife – then here’s one: the unusual history. A prime example would be the naming of the Hazard Mountain Range in Freycinet National park, and how it came to be named after a wily ship’s captain called Richard “Blackie” Hazard.

Story has it he was a former convict who, having served his time, scraped together some money to buy himself a rickety old ship and began ferrying supplies to British whaling camps from the mainland. One evening while making a delivery his ship hit a coral reef and, being the bucket that it was, sank almost instantly. Capt Hazard and all of his men managed to swim to a small island close-by, but once there they realized that there was little in the way of food, water or shelter. Knowing that none of them would last long under the hot Australian sun once it came up the next day, Hazard then did an extraordinary thing: he took off his boots, jumped back into the ocean and swam for land, which was over a kilometer away through dark, shark-infested water. Once ashore, he then ran all night – barefoot – over the mountains and into town to raise the alarm. Miraculously, they were able to save all of his men the next morning, and, because of this insane act of courage, they chose to name the mountain range after him.

This story was told to me with a straight face by a tour guide while we hiked through the mountains, who swore that every word of it was true; given how strange and wonderful Australia is, I don’t doubt it.

- Casey