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Image Not Available for Heroic Canoe Trip
Heroic Canoe Trip
Image Not Available for Heroic Canoe Trip

Heroic Canoe Trip

Author
Publisher
Subject or historical figure (1907 - 1993)
Date09 February 1952
Object numberANMS1249[044]
NameNewspaper clipping
MediumInk on paper
DimensionsOverall: 300 x 100 mm
ClassificationsEphemera
Credit LineANMM Collection Gift from John Ferguson
DescriptionArticle written by William Bennelong from the Herald Newcastle titled 'Heroic Canoe Trip' about Oskar Speck's journey. Illustration depicts Oskar in his kayak facing rough seas and a large shark. History'Heroic Canoe Trip Migrants who come to Australia in the Whirtiest, the most crowded ships, even those who come stowed away in lifeboats or the bilges, are all luxury travellers compared with Oskar Speck. Mr. Speck left Germany Ifor Australia in 1932 on what was probably the most heroic voyage in human history. He paddled all the way from Germany to Australia in an Eskimo-type canoe and travelled 30,000 miles up and down rivers and coastlines and across oceans. The journey took seven years and four months. He had started off down the Danube in May, 1932, in a collapsible rubber kyak, 18 feet long with a freeboard of nine inches and a total weight of 65 lb. His only navigation instrument was a prismatic compass. He paddled down the Danube to Bulgaria, Turkey, Cyprus on to Syria, down the Euphrates to Irak, along the coast of Arabia to India, Ceylon, Burma Singapore, Sumatra, Batavia, Bali. He was capsized ten times in the surf, blown off his course, taken prisoner by East Indian tribesmen. When Mr. Speck reached a llittle island north of Thursday Island late in 1939, Australia was at war with the Germany he had left when Hitler was almost unknown. There, he was met by three native policemen, and he finished his journey in an official launch on the way to internment. Today Oskar Speck is settled in Sydney, where he has a business cutting and exporting Australian opals.' Oskar Speck (1905 - 1995) was a German adventurer who, in the 1930s, paddled his kayak SUNNSCHIEN (SUNSHINE) from Europe to Australia. He departed from Ulm in Germany on 18 June 1932, paddling down the Danube at the start of a 50,000km voyage to Australia. His voyage of seven years and four months saw him stopping at ports in Germany, Austria, Hungary, former Yugoslavia, former Macedonia, Greece, Cyprus, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia, Iran Jaya, Papua New Guinea and Australia (Saibai Island). He arrived on Saibai Island near Papua New Guinea in the Northern Torres Strait on 20 September 1939. Speck arrived with a swastika on the bow of his 5.3 metre German built Folbot kayak a few days after Australia declared war with Germany. Speck was travelling on a German passport and was promptly arrested as an enemy alien on his arrival on Thursday Island. He would spend the next six years in internment camps in Australia, including Tatura in Victoria where he managed to escape. SignificanceThe remarkable story of Oskar Speck is one of extraordinary endurance. He undertook an epic seven-year, 50,000 km voyage from Germany to Australia in the 1930s in a five-and-half metre collapsible kayak SUNNSCHIEN. It is also a story of the hostilities of WWII and of those who made Australia their new home.