3. The longest kayak journey in the world
This photograph of a tropical mosque from the Australian National Maritime Museum is part of a set of photos from Oskar Speck who took a kayak from Germany to Australia in 1932 in what may be history’s longest kayak journey.
Speck’s adventures were reported widely in Europe, but he was not as well-known in Australia where he eventually settled and became an opal merchant.
He planned on publishing his photographs and writing about his experiences, but he did not.
Most of Speck’s original photographs, letters and journals remain in the Australian National Maritime Museum.
Vanity Fair magazine wrote about his trip in 2018.
One hundred and eighty-seven photos from his trip are available on the Commons.
We’ve also got stories about Irish folktales, UFO Desks, caravaning over Christmas, Washington DC oddities and history, decorated war pigeons, community-based photo id-ing, meeting some photographers, prisoners-turned-artists, tattooing in the 1930s, turkish street photography, aviatrices, books in motion, a cool bell, surprise celebrities, and, of course, cat pictures. All part of Flickr Commons’ sixteenth birthday.
