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WorldNomads.com Van-Tastic Adventure Announces Winners of South Australia Leg

World travellers, Steve Beyatte and Victoria Brewood will take on South Australia as the winners of the next leg of the WorldNomads.com Van-Tastic around-Australia Adventure.

American, Steve and Briton, Victoria, met on New Years Eve in Portugal and have been travelling the world ever since. They’ll pick up Geoff, the Van-Tastic Adventures van, in Melbourne on February 3 and drop him off in Adelaide six weeks later, on March 17. Their task? To ‘road test’ the best of South Australia’s holiday and adventure offerings – and share their adventures with the world via blogs and videos on the Van-Tastic Adventures website.

Theirs will be the fifth of seven legs of the Adventure, which started in Queensland and will see seven teams of travellers drive Geoff more than 13,000 kilometers through every state and territory of Australia. Steve and Victoria won their free, six-week adventure on the basis of their application video.

The South Australian Tourism Commission, Van-Tastic and the South Australian tourism industry have teamed up to provide Steve and Victoria with a host of adventures to report on during their trip. They’ll be wine-tasting in SA’s wonderful wine regions; heading deep into the Outback on a walking safari in the Flinders Ranges and trying their luck, mining for opals at Coober Pedy. They’ll be in Adelaide for the Fringe Comedy festival – second in size only to Edinburgh’s Fringe festival – when the entire city becomes the butt of its own jokes.

There are plenty of wildlife encounters lined up: swimming with wild tuna and sea lions at Port Lincoln; getting up close and cuddly with koalas on Kangaroo Island and – if they’re up for it – diving with the ocean’s most fearsome predator, the Great White shark.

Says Steve, “Excited? Excited doesn’t even touch the surface of what we are! Everyone says South Australia is the ‘real’ Australia so we’re stoked to be spending six weeks getting to know it. Throw in the whole activity-packed Aussie road trip and a shot at making a kick-ass web series and we’re blown away.

“But diving with the sharks… That one’s going to be a real challenge on the nerves!”

Applications are still open for the final two legs of the Van-Tastic Adventure, a competition designed for enthusiastic and adventurous travellers who are willing to tackle – and capture on video – one leg of an Australia-wide road trip.

The winning teams of one or two travellers will be flown from wherever they live to Australia and will spend six weeks driving across the country in Geoff the Van-Tastic van, which is fuelled up and kitted out with camping equipment and all the technology to enable them to capture their adventure on video and in blogs.

Applications for the Van-Tastic Northern Territory leg close on January 17, 2010. The last leg, Western Australia, closes for applications on February 28. The Van-Tastic Adventure finishes in Perth in June, 2010. At the end of the adventure, the viewing public will vote for the best video produced during the year-long, 13,000 kilometre adventure – and the winning team will take home $10,000 cash.

To apply for the remaining legs, and to see how the first teams fared on their holiday of a lifetime, visit: http://vantastic.worldnomads.com

For media partners and general media, this kit includes a detailed outline of the Van-Tastic Adventure, WorldNomads.com profile, Van-Tastic media release, partner profiles and imagery.

Click to download the updated WorldNomdas.com Vantastic Media Kit

Tim Akroyd – British film-maker, blogger and winner of the WorldNomads.com Van-Tastic Adventure in Victoria, Australia – has hit the road, making a bee-line in Geoff, his colourful Van-Tastic chariot, for Apollo Bay on the Great Ocean Road. And he’s already posted funny first-impression videos of his six-week adventure.

Victoria is the third leg of the Round- Australia Van-Tastic Adventure, which will send teams of travellers from around the world on an adventurous road trip through every state of Australia. Along the way, they’ll blog, snap and video their adventures, in a bid to win them the grand prize of $10,000.

Tourism Victoria, Van-Tastic and the Victorian tourism industry have teamed up to provide Tim with a host of adventures to report on during his trip, which started in Sydney on November 3, and ends in Melbourne on December 15.

Tim has spent his first few days getting used to the Aussie climate (after wintery England) and surfing Johanna Beach on the Great Ocean Road.

“The highlights so far have been catching my biggest wave ever at Johanna Beach – and living to tell about it! I’ve been blown away by the intense colours of the place – greens and blues – the weather’s been perfect and we’ve had awesome sunsets every night,” said Tim of his time so far.

Tim plans to touch down in Melbourne, November 17-19 before heading down the Mornington Peninsula and to Phillip Island for the penguin parade. Then it’s north through Gippsland for some horse-riding; Bulla for mountain-biking; the Grampians and a last dash along the Great Ocean Road to arrive back in Melbourne in time to hand the baton on to the winners of the next Van-Tastic leg: Tasmania.

For the past five years, Tim has been making ‘Snowfix’, the world’s most popular skiing and snow-boarding podcast, as well as a TV ski show that screens  across Europe on the Extreme Sports Channel.

Throughout his Victorian trip, he’ll be drawing on his film-making expertise, his on-road and off-road adventures – and the local ‘talent’ he meets along the way – to fuel his blogs and fill his video posts on the Van-Tastic website.

The competition is still open for adventurous film-makers to apply for the last three legs of the Van-Tastic Adventure. To see Tim’s posts, apply for the remaining legs, and to see how the first teams fared on their holiday of a lifetime, visit: http://vantastic.worldnomads.com

The Matador Network, the world’s largest independent travel magazine, has called out to “Bring on the contest, Bring on the van!“. We agree: Australia is a big and beautiful country, and the only way to see it is from the road, and why not see it for free!

Matador has heaps of stories up their sleeve to whet your road trip appetite – from 15 things you can’t miss in Australia and The 5 Best Road Trip Scenes Of All Time to crazy camper vans to take for a spin.

The Matador Network connects a community of passionate travelers, adventurers, and grassroots organizations through stories, photos and videos to inspire, share ideas and information in a way that isn’t bounded by geography or culture but ripples out from one traveler to another worldwide. (Thanks for the cool contest alert Matador, we think you’re pretty cool too!)

Thanks to Tourism Victoria, Van-Tastic Adventures has been given a big mention by The Armchair Traveller, Joshua Crouthamel on NineMSN. We’re hoping his readers will stop dreaming and start doing!

Armchair travellers of the world: it’s time to get off your couches and get cracking on your entry to win a 6 week trip across Victoria. You’ve got until 30 August people!

One of the largest travel communities online, Travellerspoint have lent their support to Van-Tastic Adventures. People who use Travellerspoint really know how to travel, and we’d be very proud if one of the Travellerspoint community won the chance to travel around Australia with Van-Tastic.

Are you a member of Travellerspoint? Have you applied yet?

Nurturing travel addictions for over 150,000 travellers worldwide, Travellerspoint connects people who want to share their travels through forums, blogs, photo galleries and a wiki travel guide.

Ant Stone from Trail of Ants has thrown down the gloves and unleashed a quest to find Captain Van-Tastic! Inspired by a very strange dream, Ant has taken on the challenge to help us find 7 Van-tastic people (and their side kicks) who are up for the challenge.

As an intrepid World Nomad, Ant Stone is on his own round-the-world adventure fulled by a passion for travel and writing. Trail of Ants is the creative melting pot of his journey since 2007 from his England home, across Asia and to remote parts of Australia, where he is currently camping somewhere in the outback. As a World Nomads guest blogger, Ant has shared his insight into the sometimes lonely and crazy side of long term travel and other travel stories on WorldNomads.com.