Solo Trip Round Aust. Completed

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32359, 27 July 1970, Page 5

Solo Trip Round Aust. Completed

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

SYDNEY, July 26.

The Danish-born lone adventurer, Mr Hans Tholstrup, completed his 9000-mile journey round Australia in an open motorboat in Sydney today.

Mr Tholstrup, aged 25, cruised up Sydney Harboui amid a flotilla of small boats at the end of the first solo circumnavigation of the Aus tralian continent.

He left Sydney on May 11. 77 days ago, in his 17ft out-board-powered open boat, Tom Thumb. “It’s never been done before,” was the only explan ation the son of a ship-own-ing family from Middlefart, near Copenhagen, gave for his decision to make the journey round the Australian coast.

Navigation, he explained, was simple. “I just keep Australia on my left.”

After modestly accepting the applause of several hundred well wishers today, Mt Tholstrup said his only present plans were “to go back to work for a couple of years.” “I have nothing else planned,” he said. “This took a couple of years to plan. You can’t just plan for a week and set off. If I’d done that I’d still be in Brisbane.”

Mr Tholstrup said he could not add to his earlier explanation of why he undertook the journey. “I wondered about it a lot out there, and I don’t know,” he said. “Most of the time I was wet from six in the morning until whatever time I finished at night.”