NOTHING LIKE STARTING A MISSION IN MELBOURNE a few weeks after the SOTY crew went through and ripped that city a new one! That’s how skateboarding goes these days—there’s so many people traveling and getting it that there are very few places safe these days. And honestly, that’s a great thing! The day we flew in we met up with Alex Lawton, who is from Melbourne and was coming on the trip with us, the first words out of his mouth were, “Those dudes just killed every spot. We should just chill here for four days and get things started when we get to Canberra.” And although that sounded tempting, it’s kind of ridiculous to fly 8,000 miles to kick it and party for four days straight. So instead, we approached it like any other trip: we went to as many spots as possible, kept the crew hyped, had a good time and tried to make some shit happen. Hearing about the SOTY spot destruction just got everyone more fired up to get some themselves! And that’s what we did. With a mixed crew of US and Oz rippers, a lot of glory was found and a lot of meat pies went down Down Under. – WORDS BY RHINO.