Anastasia Safioleas & Mike Ladd, The forgotten adventurer who kayaked 50,000km around the world, ABC News, 6 August 2025
When German Oskar Speck came ashore on tiny Saibai Island in the Torres Strait, he was greeted by three Australian policemen and the cold shock of arrest.
It was September 1939, and the kayaker had just spent seven years paddling from Germany to Australia, an astonishing 50,000-kilometre journey down rivers and across oceans in his collapsible kayak.
According to Penny Cuthbert, curator at the Australian National Maritime Museum, Speck then completed his first extended ocean crossing, paddling two days across open water without sleep until he reached Syria.
Read more: Oskar Speck and his 50,000km odyssey
