The purpose is to create awareness—and to test myself like never before,” Lee says in our short film, shot around his attempt to cross K’gari north-to-south. “I’m doing it for my family… for Mum, and for Dad.” In the dark stretch after midnight, he says he felt his mum’s presence guiding him into first light.
The challenge was simple to say, brutal to do
Start at the top of K’gari, finish at the bottom, almost entirely on soft sand, and do it in roughly a day. To drive home the message, Lee wore a 19kg backpack—originally chosen to mirror the 19‑minute stat from 2022. Updated reporting now puts it at every 11 minutes.
This was for Mum
Lee’s reason is personal. His mum died from a stroke in 2019; his dad survived a stroke in 2006. Stride4Stroke, the Stroke Foundation’s annual fundraiser, became the vehicle to turn private grief into public action.
He pushed through a night of setbacks. “So many things didn’t go to plan… we’re just going to keep going,” he says in the video. Lee completed the crossing in around 26 hours, meeting his father at the finish line.
