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Ep #2 Coffee Expeditions: Chris Mark - World Traveller, Outdoor Adventurer, & Firefighter
116 Plays6 months ago
Join us on this episode of Coffee Expeditions, where adventure meets the aromatic world of coffee! In this thrilling episode, we sit down with Chris Mark, a world traveler, outdoor adventurer, and dedicated firefighter. Chris shares his incredible journeys across the globe, recounting his most memorable travels and the unique experiences he's encountered along the way.
From cycling thru foreign countries to scaling rugged mountain peaks Chris's tales are sure to inspire your inner explorer. As we sip on some of the finest coffee from around the world, we delve into the essence of adventure, the thrill of discovery, and the bonds formed over a shared love for the great outdoors.
Whether you're a coffee enthusiast, an adventure seeker, or simply looking for a captivating story, this episode of Coffee Expeditions promises to be a rich blend of excitement, inspiration, and, of course, exceptional coffee. Brew a fresh cup, sit back, and embark on this unforgettable journey with us and our extraordinary guest, Chris Mark.
Checkout more from Coffee Expeditions on Instagram and Tiktok at: @CoffeeExpeditions
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
um um
Introduction and Meet Chris
00:00:08
Speaker
Okay, and we're live. We're doing the second episode of our Coffee Expeditions podcast and I've got my good friend ah Chris Mark, who's a co-worker and world traveler. He's been all over the world. We're going to get into some of his adventures. can't even begin to describe the amount of things you've done. So we'll start off with if you just find that introducing yourself and then we'll get into a good conversation about where you've been and the things you've done.
Chris's Background and Love for Travel
00:00:34
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, my name's Chris and, and, um, I, I work with Kat and Martin. I call him Kat, but, uh, read Martin. I, I worked with him in Adele's fire. Uh, I've lived in Canada for now eight years, I think. And I left the UK in 2011 and that was sort of the start of my.
00:00:54
Speaker
journey from the UK. So eight eight years you've been in Canada and you left in 2011. So maybe 12 or so years ago, yeah UK. um Yeah. So i It's funny, when I texted you, I said to you, hey, can you just give me some of the countries that you know you've been to and the adventures you had? And you came back and you said, it might be it might be easier to list the countries I haven't been in. I'm like, oh, yeah, this is exactly why I have you on the podcast. this This is the guy that I want, right? Because I'm not that worldly and I admire the things that you do. I just had Stefan Kesting on and some of the adventures he's been on are just unbelievable.
00:01:34
Speaker
So it's going to be great to chat about your adventures and things you did. And as I was doing research for this podcast, I realized like, oh yeah, you've been, you've been to some places and you've done some amazing things. So I guess just to start off with, like where where were you where were you where did you live or grow up in England? I just grew up in Leicester, which is um the very centre of the UK. You couldn't get more central. It's a landlocked, surrounded by farms. is' a The city isn't isn't the nicest city, but a countryside is lovely, but it's beautiful yeah beautiful country schiaiscu it's a very...
00:02:09
Speaker
Working classes. Yeah. Awesome. so It's on a to-do list for me to get to England one day. I just i can't wait to go there and and see it. it must be you You must see a cart a st stark contrast between England, with because there's quite a big population there, and Canada is spread out quite a bit. Canada is short and cheese with with with my upbringing in the UK. I feel that Canadian, especially BC kids have the luckiest upbringing. Just to be surrounded by what you have access to is mind blowing. We have to travel a long way to get access to what you guys have. The UK is lovely. It really is a beautiful place, but it's certainly a million miles away from what you have in Canada. It's pub life, farms, very comfortable.
00:02:56
Speaker
But not the adventure that you have. And and an old culture, like an ancient culture. like like That's something that I think we forget about in Canada, where like are you know we we have kind of a younger like you know history compared to England with the kings and the battles and and everything else that's happened there. I've grown up in Canada for our BC for my whole life and I still am stunned by it the beauty of the mountains and the things that are here and that's one thing too. you I'm hoping you'll be going into retirement soon, get out in the mountains a little bit more, get out hiking and and and whatnot.
00:03:31
Speaker
So did you always have a travel bug or did you develop that over time? Or I suppose I did. So I um yeah, I, my mom was here right now. So i was trying we were chatting about this and I was trying to put my finger on it because I grew up with five, five boys, one girl, we had a big family, six, six siblings. My parents were both teachers. So I was trying to figure out why we were the way we were. But ah My mum, she was a bit of a trendsetter from a young age. she was she She was hitchhiking across Europe and stuff. but That was yeah in the 70s when people just didn't do that. yeah and and just as so as ah As a solo female sort of thing. wow um But she never really told us about any of this sort of stuff, but perhaps it's just something that she passed on to us that we never... So my sister was quite an adventurer and and she she got about um and sort of...
00:04:22
Speaker
Um, I don't know, I have no idea where it came from, but we just sort of, yeah, it's in the family and like a very adventurous, uh, your mom loves to be very adventurous to be out. Like, like that is a pretty interesting thing for her to be back in, out height, you know, hitchhiking and seeing the, seeing the world. so ah you So, did you start like after high school? like or Were you already kind of out travelling or home? um i suppose Yeah. i mean When I first started learning how to drive, I suppose I could... you know um It sounds... it sounds ah
00:04:56
Speaker
Because I mean, in in Canada, you guys ah get used to driving for a day at a time or something like that. But in the UK, more than and a one hour journey is is considered long for us. yeah yeah But when I was 17, I had my first girlfriend and I, resource ah we drove eight hours up to Scotland and sort of did a little tour around the mountains around Scotland and so iground and and skied and all that fun stuff. But my mom at the time thought, well, she actually, them't they never they never um questioned it. But I was just 17 and just went off and and and and explored around Scotland. So I suppose around then, but then university, it really began to take off and then it gives it gives you the the ability, the time off and you you can earn some money and and and have some time to go and do some traveling. That's amazing.
00:05:38
Speaker
when When I think about it, you know, you know obviously, you and I have worked together. We've chatted a bit. And I always think about how how humble you are in terms of like ah sharing the things that you've done. and and And I remember, you know, we'll get into it a little bit more about it a couple of times. I'm like, oh, you know, Chris, where are you heading off to now? And you'll tell me the country. And I'm like, you know, Where is that? I don't even know no idea where you're going, but ah after doing some research, I can see why you've been to the places you've been to. there's Some of them look this fantastic.
Epic Alaska to Argentina Bike Ride
00:06:11
Speaker
One of the big ones that you know I wanted to get into is, um and and I've done a little bit of research on it, is your milesforamemory.com. um that's your That's the website that you had. you You cycled from Alaska to Argentina, and if you could maybe just share kind of like
00:06:28
Speaker
how that came about. on you know you know And then we'll get into like you know you know what yeah what that was like doing that. Because obviously, cycling from the northern part of Alaska to the southern part of South America is an incredible thing. like it's just That's like something that most people can would never even dream of doing. So but so it came about my from a tragic circumstance, unfortunately. My my sister was killed. um she She was riding her bicycle from work. and Uh, hit by a ah dangerous driver. And, um, so my brother's sort of done fundraising in her name since, and and she has a charity set up in her name. It's wishes for kids, which I think you guys have make a wish at something, something similar. similar yeah So that's some a charity was dear to her heart. So we have something set up in her name. And then my, my brother did a lot of sort of like long distance cycle challenges and he's got quite an athletic background. so Um,
00:07:22
Speaker
So I just sort of took the mantle from him and and and wanted to just do something just in my sister's name and just to try and raise some money for the for the charity. and i When I was doing the research for this, I actually didn't know that that was the history. I knew you'd done this some epic things and knew you'd done this right. So obviously, I mean, you know, you know, very yeah you know sympathetic for your whole family when I was reading it. And I was like, oh, you know, that's that really touched home.
00:07:50
Speaker
So you started to prepare for this and, you know, obviously in memory of her and the goal was to raise $20,000 for, for it's called wishes, wishes for kids. And that's in lesser less shirt. I'm going to say a lot of words that I can't pronounce today. So that'd be pretty awesome. But, uh, anyways, and so you started to prepare for that. Your brother led the way he'd, so he'd sort of done some fundraising and. Was your sister quite adventurous as well? Like, was she? She was. Yeah, she traveled a lot. And she um she was she was quite athletic. she did She was a big marathon runner. And um again, I feel we got an awful lot from my mom. She has a very athletic background. And she was one of those people that frustrated me sometimes. But it was ah you just set the bench high. So she was just like, if you're going to do something, go and do it. And yeah end the same for.
00:08:45
Speaker
for the highest you can achieve in that field, if if that's what you're going to do. So yeah, see Laura was, ah she was she um gave 100% effort into everything she did. and And cycling was also a big part of her world as well. And she would she never drove, she hated driving. So she cycled absolutely everywhere. And that was just um this part of her lifestyle. Oh, man. I had just obviously taken very young. Was she, she was about 25? 25. Yeah. And yeah, just taken so young. and the When you started to come up with this plan, were you you were already traveling in Korea at the time, is that correct? and Yeah, I was living there for a couple of years. yeah yeah and Was there like ah a spark for it? Did you have a few different ideas in terms of what you were going to do or was this the main one like that you had your eye on?
00:09:33
Speaker
Uh, so who, uh, I actually wasn't a cyclist at all. i know I'd never done a long distance bike ride or anything like that. So my, my, my good friend, Sean Pettit, who, um, he'd done a couple of, uh, a couple of bike rides and, and um, in his time, he suggested, uh, doing a bike tour and. and In typical fashion, just because of the way my mum has sort of raced is I just sort of googled the longest sort of stretch of road I could do. And, and that was the longest stretch. I was like, okay, well, I'll do that one. And I'll just, I'll, I'll, um, um
00:10:08
Speaker
do what I have to do to sort of prepare for that. Wow. So you you had no cycling background. And as it again, it's always humbling when I'm you know chatting with people like yourself or like Stefan, it really yeah you know ah makes everything that I've done. Like I feel like a pale in comparison. So like for me, a big ride was like getting ready for Ironman doing 180k ride. And here you're looking at from the Northern part of Alaska to the Southern part of with no cycling background. It's incredible actually. So when you started to prepare for this, were you starting to log big miles right away or just gradual? Yeah, so it was a real struggle, actually, in Korea, finding a bike in my size. Oh, really? Just a little bit. The German population is a little shorter. So I had somewhat of a bike that was too small for me.
00:10:58
Speaker
yeah But as a fantastic chap around the corner, he was he owned this little but local bike shop and just sort of helped me really fix it a little while and sort of like cherry rig it so it could sort of fit with me. yeah yeah And then yeah, Korea's covered in 70% of the mountains. So like it's it's a fantastic place to get hill climbs in. Oh, perfect. Okay. And I live right on the coast. So I just go up and down the coastline every every every day pretty much. and And I started work at two in the afternoon. So I had all morning to to go biking and go running and get up into the mountains yeah and and do their training. So the bikes are actually smaller. and for well and but At that time, they were. yeah Interesting. I guess, you know, obviously, depending on the population, that's local, that's what they're selling. And wow. So then you had to modify that to have with something that's functioning. Yeah, I was just in a little rural town. So it was what I could get. Yeah. yeah sort of That's awesome. And then so then you started cycling, preparing, um,
00:11:51
Speaker
Now, did you have initially any sponsorship that came on board or or was it more like also funded, like right away? Also funded. yeah i um To be honest, I'm used to that stuff. Yeah, it's challenging to figure these navigate those waters, right? I can imagine. My shortcomings is yeah I've got the the drive and energy, but I don't have the diligence at times to um to go down those channels to figure out how to and i get that sponsorship. I can put the the energy into the inner training. That's my problem. them and i'll I'll do exactly what I have to do for the training, but in terms of anything sort of administrative-wise, it was a steep learning curve and I had to
00:12:28
Speaker
Yeah, it so it's a lot for an athlete to take on just the training and and the logistics of planning and nevermind like blogging or like vlogging or any of these things are like getting cinematography like, you know, and and I would think that you did that in 2000 and started in 2015 or eight. like yeah So I would think that the We've come a long ways just in that short period of time in terms of like videography and tools that are available, even like drones, like whatever, like to capture, like picture, probably like now you could have even added more things a little bit easier if you wanted to, right? but um So you trained in Korea, obviously South Korea, and and you and you got in the mountains, you did lots of like training, then
00:13:11
Speaker
When you came to Alaska, you were going to start at the northern tip, but I think you came out of Anchorage because it was a weather problem. Yeah, it was the first time that in the years they'd had snow from the start of October and the roads were... There's one road. There's one road from Prudhoe Bay straight down and it doesn't get well looked after, but that's the most northern tip of Alaska. But that rose, unfortunately, when I landed. I never intended to start in the winter, but I had a wedding that had to be back for so I had to be back for it. Um, couldn't avoid it. So it was like, Oh, well, I'm going to have to start. Okay. And what month was that May or ah so October was when I started in Alaska, and alaska which is pretty much there winter by that point. It's funny cause I was trying to be diligent and like, you know, doing all my, um, you know, like my, uh, research.
00:13:57
Speaker
I thought you started in May thinking, oh, you're going into the summer months or so. So that's, yeah, that's a pretty cool time to be up in Northern Alaska. Yeah. Yeah. It was, and I ah started in the winter and finished in the winter. And again, it was something that had I, well, I mean, it was just unavoidable, unfortunately at the time, but it it it made for an interesting challenge. And straight off the bat, it was, ah it was camping in the snow, which is an unpleasant experience. in it yeah I've done it a lot now, but I i never particularly enjoy camping in the snow. It's just something that you do because you have to do and it just makes for more of an interesting. A little colder, a little more little harder to get things dry, a little harder to get started in the morning when it's when it's ice cold outside. and
00:14:39
Speaker
Uh, so did you, we'll get a little bit more into your gear, but you were just tenting at this point, right? And did you just have like saddlebags on a 10 speed kind of thing or a road bike rather? Uh, yeah. Um, uh, it was a touring bike. So it's like, uh, it looks like a road bike was a steel frame so that it just holds the weight of the bags. At the time I had two front bags, two rear bags. Um, and that was all my stuff for however long I was it was going to take. I'd banked for nine months. In the end, it took seven, but like nine was what I was sort of looking at. um
00:15:12
Speaker
and yeah and you know i i The gear that I take with me, I always like to use the best stuff. so like yeah I'd re-stood all my research about what time it was going to last in the wind and what time it was going to last in the cold, yeah um but that was my home for yeah the foreseeable. For in pretty much the whole time through. yeah yeah That's the thing that like, I think, you know, as you go through life, for me, and at least I found that trying to get the best gear you can afford is just it just ah at bar none is so important, whether it's clothing, ah you know, boots, you know, cycling equipment, it just makes such a difference. Obviously, there's a bit of a
00:15:50
Speaker
Tipping point there, I think we're like, you don't need to go maybe like duration components, um you know, because you're not racing in the tour, or like, ah or like a high level ah cyclist, but um on the same token, you want the best you can get that's reliable. At the same time, I really try to try to target those things. And ah you know Obviously, going by reviews that other people have gone by, I almost rarely touch anything below like a 4.5 out of 5 stars. It's just a headache otherwise, right? so Especially if you're camping in the snow by yourself. So like when you left Anchorage, then do you just like what's a typical day like? Do you just cycle till it's dark and then set up? or sorry ah
00:16:32
Speaker
No, well, what I tried to is is is look at the map and say, this is my target. So I want to hit my target every day. Yeah. Um, I was supposed to ease in gradually, but I, I'm a bit of a bull in a China shop sometimes. yeah So I did myself a disservice actually ended up like really stretching my Achilles quite badly on both. And it meant that every morning was like 40 minutes of pain before they sort of loosened up. And it lasted for about three weeks. Really? Yeah, which was, so I've done a lot of cycling and I've been wearing weighted, um, weight bags to sort of like mimic the weight, the extra weight on the on the bike. yeah But when it came to it, all my stuff that I'd ordered was arriving in Alaska. So like that was the first time I was using it was day one in Alaska. It just and just stop yeah meant for
00:17:19
Speaker
put a bit of extra weight on the and the legs and just something that I really should have been a bit more diligent about using in nice and gradually. But I think by day three, I was hitting 160k sort of days and it wasn't it wasn't supposed to be the way it it worked. It was supposed to be like the actual 160 kilometer days. that's That's pretty significant. That's definitely not gradually going. yeah One thing you touched on that I've tried to do in my little bit of like, you know, but whether it's doing a marathon or whatever, I try never to add something new on their day of race day. So you're you're having to adapt to new equipment, a new setup and everything right out right out of the gate. So that must have been a little bit challenging, I would have imagine. Yeah, definitely. um I'm ah ah very much, a ah I make, I learn from my mistakes. Yes. yeah that's Very much. say i Yeah. yeah so Sometimes it's the best way to learn is, ah you know yeah ah you know, like learning on the fly kind of thing and and having to deal with it. So then you would,
00:18:18
Speaker
Hit your target would it would it be a town or more like just somewhere randomly on the map like in in the wilderness? Usually a town because um if I could get access to a bathroom or or somewhere where I can just clean up and resupply supply and and then I'd sort of look about because wild camping is A is illegal, and and um and B, you can invite someone wanting attention to yourself. So you really want to try and, and then you've got the wildlife to contend with as well and in that part of the world. So you really have to sort of
00:18:49
Speaker
pick somewhere where you think will be the safest with all those factors. sort of Sure. Yeah. that that That must be a skill in itself is is recognizing the threats that are there and and and and then narrowing it down so it's as safe as possible, wherever you are in the world, I would imagine. like That's something that I would be pretty poor at. Obviously, wildlife is something I think I could Relate to but the other factors of like, okay, kind of, you know, maybe characters that are out there that are a little suspect or, or that did did you find that got better with time or 100% Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, my decision making was, was poor at the start. And then it sort of gradually got improved over time. And and yeah. yeah not
00:19:30
Speaker
To the point that now when I i travel with ah with a bike or or whatever, I sort of feel very comfortable with my decisions that I'm making. And you probably you probably start to figure out where to target, okay, this is a great like and up saying this is a great place I could just chill out and and and and and you know have a good good night's sleep. yeah And you learn to map read in terms of the topography of the day as well. So you know that, well, I'm starting off with a big climb or i'm finishing with a big climb or yeah that way you just sort of know what's coming ahead and you can prepare accordingly and try and map your day out. Did you find like, because it was cold, um this is something that I like when I've done a little bit like hiking or hunting, I'm always kind of hypersensitive to like thermal regulation. So if I've climbed up a mountain, I don't want to be sopping wet.
00:20:13
Speaker
And then, you know, maybe it's like one degrees out or even colder and then, they you know, either get rain or snow. And then did you try to time that at all? Or do you just kind of deal with it? like i grant um I was pretty poor with that. And um I always just got a helpful other and not not and I've had to learn over the years, especially out in Canada, it's it's been a real Canada can humble you pretty well in terms of Yeah, you're actually in the environment, you're in you're in a serious environment, you can't just take it lightly. So it's sort of, it's made me realize over the years, the more and more I've done this, how important those sort of things are, yeah tapering it back a little bit or taking a layer off or yeah really getting your thermoregulation like as sps b um the, um as I say, British Columbia in particular, at well, I'm sure Alaska, Yukon,
00:20:59
Speaker
It's rugged, like Yukon more, even more so. What 36,000 people and it's in the area of the land master size of the Yukon. Yeah, yeah, it is massive. Yeah. So you would probably go for long stretches without seeing anyone I would imagine. 100%. Yeah, you'd have like ah the roads. I mean, yeah, Northern BC as well is is pretty remote, like the Cassio Highway, there's 800 kilometres and you've got like, I say six stops, you've only got one town of 200 people at Dees Lake, but i got like maybe so yeah know ah there's ah there's a heli ski lodge, there's a gas station, a motel, you know like this that that along the route sort of thing. But you in between, it's just you and whatever's on the road, and it's rutting season then in October, and there's lots of grizzlies still out. and so Did you see a kind of wildlife? Yeah, tons of wildlife. It was a moose that really... Yeah. worried me, like the grizzlies ran away, but the moose, say they would stand in the middle of the road and I'd be stumped for 40 minutes where I couldn't approach, couldn't go forward. and Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. The moose are so impressive to see, uh, to see in person. I think like I've seen them.
00:22:06
Speaker
Not a ton, but, you know, good half a dozen times or more. And when you see them, you just in odd, the size of them, how big they are, how impressive they are. Yeah. It's incredible. Did you have any close encounters with bears or anything? Yeah, I had, unfortunately, a ah bear sort of sniff around my tent. I was quite early on as well. And I done my due diligence with, in terms of camping in the wild. So I had nothing that smelt in there besides myself. And, you know, all my gear was hung up in the trees a mile away, but still a bear was i He was nosing the side of my tent, and I was just in my tent, just sort of touching my sleeping bag, and I had my bath spray in there, and I had my knife, but it's not something I really want to engage with. oh yeah So I just sort of hoped that it would go away, and it fortunately did. Was it possibly a grizzly or? and It was a grizzly country, um and I'd seen grizzlies on the roads, so it could have been
00:22:55
Speaker
But it didn't fortunately come in a tent or just had a little poke around and that was that. Yeah. So it's sort of like popping up against the tent and just touching it and like, that's terrifying. It was. I was absolutely terrified. As an Englishman.
00:23:11
Speaker
Here's a really silly question. Do they have bears in England? We did. But unfortunately, and ah for wildlife in the UK, we just decimated everything. Pretty much we had wolves, we had bears, we had, we we have some deer now, but that's about it. It's so much population and I imagine the hunting back in like, you know, several hundred years or there where they weren't thinking of conservation like they do in British Columbia and and Alaska and whatnot. but Yeah, that's, that's, that's, that would be terrifying. I can just imagine what that must have felt like. And then you just waited till the bear just kind of wandered off and yeah just sniffing around and seeing what it could find. or Yeah. so Yeah. I mean, I've been your best friend one hand, but you're shaking away and hoping that he doesn't come in. I had a, I had a time. I was told a story at work where I, uh, we were in, I was, I was alone in a wall tent and, uh, I had a long story short, had a Cougar come out and I'd, I'd, I'd gotten a little lazy, he left my gun in my truck.
00:24:03
Speaker
in the wall tent, Cougar comes out and i I just fell asleep and I can't see you outside and the Cougar came out. And basically, I could hear it rattling around outside, kind of making noise, believe it or not. And it did an incredible cougar roar right beside my head. That was terrifying. Yeah, it was terrifying. I was like, same thing. I had my knife and just sitting there waiting for about 20 minutes and then had the light on and the tent. I didn't want to open anything up. And then I went back to sleep and about another half an hour later, it did it exactly the same. And that about two feet from your head is absolutely terrifying. You don't want them. There's nothing nice about that war. No, I can imagine. So you're going point to point. You're obviously dealing with figuring out best places to camp. You're going through Alaska, Yukon, British Columbia. Until you got into the States, did you have any poor experiences along that stretch or were people
Hospitality and Human Kindness
00:25:02
Speaker
pretty good? People were amazing, honestly. I was actually blown away.
00:25:06
Speaker
Especially, I mean, the Yukon, I didn't really see many people, but everywhere you went, people would offer you help. That's incredible. The Canadians were so lovely. It was, it's a point where you never asked for anything. Really? But, you know, I went to D Slake and asked, went to the post office and bought a, I think I bought a hot chocolate or whatever. Yeah. Had a little cafe there. I noticed I asked the post office lady, if she knew anywhere, I could camp around the area. She said, stop, stay at mine. I have a, ah ah a sweet outback in like a beautiful little log cabin with a fireplace. She cooked me so much food. And then her daughter, her daughter and her husband came around for dinner and we chatted away and three days later, I'm in the middle of nowhere and on the Cassio Highway and I see her daughter was pregnant and I saw
00:25:51
Speaker
This card is flashing its lights out of me. Well, she'd gone down to Prince George for her ultrasounds and stuff and just in the hope that she'd see me on the side of the road. She'd had a thermos, a hot chocolate and all these bags. Oh my goodness. And she just pulled over and gave me all this food. And I was just like, you couldn't For some reason, it was miserable. It was wet rain and about minus one. I was just so through. And just to get that amount of kindness, it was the first car I'd seen in hours. It's unbelievable. It's so
Navigating Various Terrains and Weather
00:26:18
Speaker
cool. It gives you that renewed faith in humanity when you hear about that. And I remember you've told me that before, and I always thought,
00:26:25
Speaker
That's pretty incredible and I think part of it also your incredible like demeanor too. You know you are um charismatic, you're humble, you're your' kind individual and I'm sure like that falls into it too. your right ear you know well yeah I think the more the more I've gone away and the more I've put myself in situations where you are just alone. and you just The more you realize it, 99% of people only want to help someone. like yeah They're always just curious, A-Y there. That's awesome. And then you never ask for a thing. You never have to because people will always just just offer it. That's amazing. And it's really there. That's like actually like, you know, give me like, you know, a real sense of hope for like, you know, humanity. Because, you know, you watch the news and when I see so much so many negative things. So that's one thing that I really enjoyed about doing the research about where you've gone.
00:27:16
Speaker
is It's like it it makes me think like, you know, some of the things you hear might not be so true in terms of like the dangers of where you where you can go and and well obviously you have to be careful but on the same token, you know, there's a lot of like goodness out there in the world, right? So yeah, and you um I think along along that whole journey, I can one or two bad experiences with people, but it's only the way, you know, It's only, it's always about people that that that make a name for everyone else, but like majority of people are lovely. That's awesome. That's so good to hear. Honestly, it's it's great. So.
00:27:50
Speaker
came down through the States and then you went or down through BC, then you came into the States. You went in through Montana and then to Idaho. Is that correct? No, that was the original plan. I actually ended up sticking down a coastline down Seattle. Yeah. Um, it's Seattle and then do taking the one-on-one and hug the coastline in the whole way. Oh, so you went down on the Oregon coast too. Oh man, how it must've been awesome. Stunning. Yeah. Uh, the, the California section is hard cycling, but just the most rewarding when you do like big sir. Yeah, that's so good. Well, this is a thing too. so Like we didn't really talk about the beauty of Alaska and Yukon and British Columbia because like we live here and we're used to it, but for people that have never been in those places, like if you can, like obviously it's, I highly recommend even like we did an Alaskan cruise and I did a run one morning. i I did a run on the deck and we had like blue glaciers floating around and mountains were like straight up on both sides. And I'm fairly used to it because of the fact that, you know, it's,
00:28:47
Speaker
growing up in British Columbia and, and, uh, I remember stopping on the deck and just listening to people talk that had never, like they weren't from British Columbia. I'm guessing maybe from like Saskatchewan or from Arizona, like somewhere were a little more flat and they were just awestruck. And so you must've had some incredible like scenery through that time. and absolutely yeah I mean, Alaska's, uh, just so big. I say any word I can describe it. Yeah. It's huge. It just stares at you. The Yukon's is raw, which I love about it. And then BC is just postcard picture perfect. Yeah, yeah's so that's a great way to put those three places. That's so cool. yes I drive home. Still, I've been I've been in the low mainland for almost six years now. And you drive home from work and you see Baker staring at you. and you't It doesn't get old. it Never gets old. Yeah, it's I often say that ah tell my daughter, she's both of them are, you know, into the outdoors, you know, and I say,
00:29:40
Speaker
Just be careful that the beauty doesn't draw you in too deep. You have to like, you have to respect mother nature here so much because it is so beautiful. And you know, you hear all the time where people like they don't prepare and they go out hiking and they don't realize how rugged BC is because it is, it just draws you in, right? And, and, uh, Yeah, so that's, that's amazing. So you went down the coast, which is again, stunning. Like I've been down to Oregon coast and it's beautiful. Like I love the States for like to have so such an array of beauty. I really do. Hawaii to like Colorado to Oregon coast, like just incredible. Um, so you went down there. Did you go all the way down California as well? All the way down California and then about Mexico, uh, to Mexico that way. And then took a ferry across to, um, uh, um,
00:30:25
Speaker
aqua have in a lower state and then because I had to do 20,000 miles because i that was the sort of the theme data miles and it was it was a pound for every mile. um And So I had to add miles on because the route itself was around 19,000 something miles. So I'd had to add miles on. So I oh i go across Mexico and then add ah and the Yucatan Peninsula and then sort of abilities and sort of come back round. And I just sort of find ways of like adding a couple of hundred here or there. That's amazing. So 20, yeah. So a pound per mile, 20,000 pounds was the goal. And you exceeded that and you got like, I think 24,000 pounds. yeah That's amazing. So.
00:31:04
Speaker
When you're coming through, just backtrack, going through Alaska, coming down the coast, was there days where you're like, what am I doing? hey Or was it pretty, were you pretty focused the whole time? I think, um, there's certainly days where you're just like, in the Yukon especially, it rained, it rained every single day. It was like, and then it got cold and it started, you wake up with ice and and snow in the morning and then, and then it would come and turn into rain. It was that sort of time of year. And I was just soaked through, my Achilles were just on fire. But you know again, this journey was so low and sort of like the the um setting up of it was sort of.
00:31:41
Speaker
I had to sort of put the energy into it, but so many people were helping with the fundraising and so many. So, no, it was never a point where I was like, what am I doing? I was just more wanting to like repay that, the help that people had done and support that they put into it. It kind of gives you that motivation that you don't want to let them down and and you don't want to like, you know, obviously, you know, you know let down the people that you're raising the money for as well too. So, so I
Experiences in Mexico and Central America
00:32:08
Speaker
was thinking about this. was there a point like when When we look at Canada and the States, like for me at least, I'm you know very familiar with like you know growing up here and why not. Going to Mexico, which I love, Mexico is beautiful, but you are kind of getting into a little bit you know more rugged kind of train. Was there a little bit of a point crossing that border where you're like, okay, here we go now. This is like a little different adventure? Well, again, about the Americans,
00:32:31
Speaker
they'd really been pumping the danger sort of every time everyone they spoke to, they were like, Oh, you're going across to Baja, you'd be by yourself, like, yeah, you know, you can get robbed and that sort of stuff. But again, the Mexicans I came across were just lovely, lovely, lovely people. And I did have one sort of dodgy section of Sinaloa state, which is sort of one of the two sort of states, you don't really go there. Yeah, Ferguson, Aloyo. That's where the cartels are. They just killed a couple of tourists recently. And I sort of cycled into a town and my Spanish was really poor at this point. This guy was sort of just you could tell he was angry with me. Oh, really? And I was just sat there eating some food in a restaurant. And a guy sort of explained to me that he's saying you shouldn't be here. Like, oh, really? This guy's covered in tattoos. And I'm just
00:33:21
Speaker
teardrops down the face and all that sort of stuff. So he's not it doesn't seem like ah he's a serious individual. Yeah, that's a serious person. um But then, you know, I just I shrugged it off and went my way and I was just getting some water at a gas station. Long story short, I'm guessing someone told the police about it because the police came. And they said, what's your lucky day? We've secured you a hotel for the night. And I was like, oh, OK. This is odd. And then the next day, they were waiting outside the hotel. And they did an escort through some of the lower states. They had a police car in front and a police car behind. And I was cycling in between the two of them.
00:33:55
Speaker
And I would just go across it was, it seemed bizarre to me, but obviously, like they were a thing on and the local knowledge that they know. um You'd go into the bridges and every time you went under a bridge, you guys on the bridge, like on their phones, like, seriously, it was really bizarre. But yeah, I just got me to the edge of the border of the state, which is about 150 k away. And they sort of tailed me the whole way. So the police, sounds like they, they sensed like this fella needs help. And were they aware that you were on this fundraising trip? Do you know? Not really. I mean, uh, they just saw a guy on a bike, I think. And and it was just a hard place for a tourist to be at that point. yeah yeah Um, it was unfortunately something I couldn't avoid where I i landed him as at land and then was going across, uh, to max guess that he was just something that somewhere I had to go across. Uh,
00:34:38
Speaker
And you can, you can be in a dangerous situation anywhere in the world. Yeah. So I was just, uh, just have to do it. But yeah, the, um, they didn't really explain why, but they, I was like, okay, well, if you want to come with, yeah, that's perfect. So, um, now you, that you carried on, uh, down Mexico on the mainland, I guess you'd call it, right? Like on, uh, and then did you, did that take you into Panama at that point? So I went into Belize and, um,
00:35:07
Speaker
Guatemala and then El Salvador, Honduras, Panama. And then at Panama, you can't there is a there's no road, the road stops. It's called the Darien Gap. Yes, the Darien Gap. I found that fascinating. I had a look at that. i ah There's no one there. like like Other than on the coast, there's some small towns, I think. Is that correct? or so yeah you can you can there's a couple of very small towns that are boat access only. so You can cross it. There are no roads, but you can pay a lot of money and to cross it. There's a lot of drug cartels that sort of hide in that area is zero and some tribes as well. um and there has been
00:35:39
Speaker
people at Tourists do cross it for sure. They pay a lot of money. to put whomu already Depending a lot on people at that point yeah to get you cross safely. is that right yeah and then A lot of wildlife in there as well. I hear there's white sharks, and great white sharks somehow in the rivers there. Oh, is that right? Yeah. Oh, wow. Which is bizarre. Interesting. It's a really bad wildlife. It's a dense jungle. So I took like a, I hired a little kayak, um but there's actually pirates around the edge as well, apparently, that will rob you and stuff. So it was an interesting journey. You got pirates, curtail, great white sharks.
00:36:12
Speaker
Yeah, that sounds great. Yeah, loads of the bike and a little canoe and this guy took me around and I sort of landed in Columbia. But I've never been more terrified in my life. The the waves were just enormous. And my bike just came up and slammed down and came up. In the kayak? Yeah, it was i actually was it was one time, ah probably the most fearful time on that journey where I thought something could happen because we were getting talked about. Were you still solo in that kayak? or yeah i was with the guy who was who who was the operator of that okay i see i see yeah yeah ah but he was nervous as well so i so i thought if you're nervous and yeah if you're nervous and and i should be nervous yeah yeah
00:36:47
Speaker
Oh, wow. So you got through that section and then where did that take you to after that? Columbia. Columbia. So I added more. I actually did the north coast of Columbia just to add, I think, 400 Yeah, miles or something like that and then cut through Columbia. Did you get that extra mileage? Yeah. When you're going I was with through the other side, there is the guy who no roads, right? And where was, who was the operator of the, uh, but he was nervous as well. So I sort of thought, if you're nervous, you had to kayak, there's like... No, right. Yeah. Yeah. So you just... I looked on the map. I actually typed it in. I had a thing I wrote in here. It said,
00:37:14
Speaker
And I put in Google maps, uh, biking from Anchorage to, uh, to like Southern part of Argentina. It says, sorry, we cannot calculate the directions for that. And I thought that's like, it makes sense right there. Cause you're gonna have to like take a little boat or yeah whatever. So wow. That's incredible. so I had, there was a nice route you can take. There's like, um, you can spend four days and tourists do it and they they get this lovely, uh, um, you get like a yacht that takes you around the island, you island, island hopping around the sandblasts. And it's like you're going to the Caribbean route. But I couldn't afford that. And they didn't have the time. And I sort of wanted to make it more of a challenge. But you know, in reflection, it was it yeah that was, that was definitely a scarier moment. Yeah. but i be the fun So through Columbia, and how was Columbia? Is it pretty beautiful, too? I imagine. Stunning. Stunning. Yeah. Yeah. When I when I look at the on doing the research that
00:38:07
Speaker
the pictures of like where you were, I can only imagine how beautiful like these areas were. Yeah, stunning. You were in the Andes. so You pretty much traversed the Andes then the whole way down the route. so Every day is a climb and a descent and a climb and a descent. so it The cycling's hard, but and there was one road in Trampolina del Muertes. there At the time, it was considered the most dangerous road in the world and it was just a gravel road that sort of snakes its way up. I think personally, probably safer on a bicycle than you are on a car. So, I guess like going back, you were having major Achilles issues in the beginning. Was your body pretty hardened to everything now? Absolutely. You wake up, you didn't feel tired. That's wild. In the morning, you get up and off you go again. Yeah. It's incredible what the human body can do. It really is. It adapts so quickly. Yeah, you must re re putting away a lot of calories every day. Yeah, yeah. Follow the porridge in the morning. But the porridge would be I'd have a saucepan and I filled a saucepan all the way to top for the porridge. Really? Yeah, like a kilo bag. I'd have three helpings out of that. That would be three breakfasts. Yeah, porridge. Yeah.
00:39:10
Speaker
And then I'd just tell me that and then it'd just be as... I didn't have any money really. So it'd just be as much food as I could get on the side of the road. Yeah. Yeah. Where we can kind of get it. What about like water? What were you doing for water? Were you just... Were you having to filter your water at all? Yeah. Just to save money again. See, I used to... an MSR, um, well, I can't remember the name of the, it was like, uh, it was, isn't it in built filter into my, into my bladder bags? Did you, did you boil it as well or just straight off the filter? Yeah, those filters are pretty good, right? Like 99.9% like gets rid of pretty much everything. Yeah. Yeah. And the tap water, the locals do drink it, but it's not, I mean, uh, if I drank it, it'd be bad for me. Um, but sorry, it was just making it somewhat drinkable for me. Yeah. Make it, make it more safe overall. Yeah. Yeah.
00:39:57
Speaker
So, and now how, like, this is like, this is like getting kind of like a little over halfway, I would imagine. Cause you're now you're in the Northern part of Southern. How is the bike holding up through that whole process? how sex Really? Yeah, it was interesting absolutely brilliant. Um, never had a problem with that bike really. The only problems I had were with the wheels, but that was really to do with me. I didn't realize that you're really supposed to be looking after your attentioning of your spokes. If you're doing. ah such a long journey because it ends up destroying the the rim of your yeah tire if youre if you if you're not conscious about it. It's about halfway through. I finally got a bike mechanic to sort of look at tensioning of my spokes and it just cracked all the rim. oh interesting ah so i was
00:40:37
Speaker
It's really difficult to find like good parts at that point. i mean oh really Not as hard as people had said. and When I've done all my research, she said, oh yeah I rode 29-inch wheels and the reason why, because three inches doesn't sound a lot, but you know if you're doing it all day every day, it can really save you a lot of time. You've gone that way in mountain biking a little bit. I really have. yeah like i think it was twenty I think I've got 27s on my old mountain bike. I've got like a full suspension, which I love that old bike. but then they've gone to like 29's as well. haven't they or lot they so It's a choice anyway. Maybe not. Everybody's gone to that. It is mostly 29's now. It just gives you for climbing and it just gives you that extra just extra but it boost. and it Nice rolling over like logs or whatever. um so Did you have to do a lot of roadside repairs too? Like broken chains or tires or anything? Yeah, chains. I chewed a chain up in um and the desert, which was annoying. and Fortunately, I was on the descent after that. and I got to this like little town that was in Chile. and
00:41:28
Speaker
And there was no bike tech. The like local police officer was the guy who sort of... knew what he was doing. He saw some parts for you. He saw some parts for me, yeah. And so we jerry-rigged, and I would, because I chewed up my derailleur as well, so I took a derailleur off a kid's bike and put it on my bike. And it sort of got me to the next stage. Oh, is that right? Yeah. So you kind of just, you jimmied it a little bit. Yeah. Wow. That's, that's amazing. Yeah. It was a, it definitely worked, but it wasn't, it wasn't
Cycling through South America
00:41:51
Speaker
good. So like you're going down to the local bike shop and, you know, locally here or whatever, and you've got everything you could possibly need. Well, that was a scrap yard. It just had a kid's bike and a scrap yard. And then I sort of ripped it up. This should work. That's amazing. That's what you have to do though, right? And when you're like being self-sufficient, you've got to, you've got to solve these problems. And, and, uh, so you went through Columbia and then what was the next, uh, I think, um, Peru or Ecuador. Okay. How was Ecuador?
00:42:19
Speaker
Stunning. I think they have the Rutila volcanoes. It's like just the highway that follows like the big volcanoes. They've got some huge 4,000-meter volcanoes at the south. Is there like lava rock everywhere? There is a lot of lava rock, but the scenery is just breathtaking. Hard cycling, but just so rewarding. Yeah, that's amazing. That's amazing. I did get very sick, though. It's the only time I got food poisoning. And I'm not gonna hold you on you, but for for about two weeks, I was, I was pretty sick, but I had to keep, keep putting them on. So you were sick, but still cycling? Yeah. Oh man, that must have been dumb. It was rough. It was really rough. That'd be hard. That'd be hard. Because I mean, the last times I think I've had food poisoning before all you want to do is like curl up in a ball and just like chill, nevermind, like riding through foreign country and
00:43:06
Speaker
um So you made you made it through that, then did you go where was the next going to be Peru? or yeah peru yeah And that's when you got started getting cold again, because you're really climbing the road, I think when I passed 5,000 meters on that section. Yeah. um And that's getting cold. it That would have been several months later. So this is probably more like January, February or? It must have been. Yeah, it must have been actually around February. Yeah. Yeah. um Food improves fantastic. So like dessert food is unbelievable. So like, you wow, you just in like a king for no money. Well, that's amazing. Yeah, yeah and I felt awful because you know, not people not have enough people come from humble backgrounds and in those countries. But I
00:43:47
Speaker
And I was living on a budget of about $20 a day and $20 can get you a lot of food. yeah And I was just being an absolute glutton. distract you're so thankful i bet oh You're so thankful just to have that that ah awesome food and yeah know for all the adventure you've been on through there. So then what about like wildlife? And where did you were you concerned? go i Dogs. interesting i had I think I had to get rabious shots and a couple of rabious jabs in a few countries. because i Really? bit A few times. So wild dogs? Wild dogs. And I mean, they're like no dogs easy here. That's huge. And they're so aggressive. Is that right? Yeah, you have to I learned over time. that's Wild. I had no idea. I'd be terrified because it would be a pack of dogs as well. And they'll smell you from miles away. So you've come up to a town.
00:44:31
Speaker
And you can see the town, Stu, you still know you've got a few miles to go, you can start hearing them. ah Seriously? Yeah, they they they can smell you and they're ready for you. And and are they packing up like a wolf pack? Yeah, and they bit me a few times. and ah um um Are they kind of like testing when they bite you? like are they oh they were going their full eye yeah They ripped quite a bit out of my calf at the time. Holy! um So I'd always have to go and get... rabies shots if I got bitten. But I learned over time that it's terrifying to do but you have to get off your bike when you see this pack come into you and you have to stand your ground and stare at them and get as big as you can. And and eventually and hopefully they stop and they always do stop but some of them get so close and they're so angry but it sort of has a lot of effort but eventually I learned that was the way to deal with them. And can you could you describe like
00:45:17
Speaker
I mean, were they all kinds of different types of dogs? Oh, just mutts. Just mutts. Just mutts, cross-breed mutts. And just, I mean, like they're not, there's nothing pleasant about them. They're covered in scars. Like they yeah they're tough huge. They're tough dogs and they're wild, essentially. and I saw one dog get ripped apart just in front of me. Like they ta they they packed this, pack a pack of them to attack this dog and they just ripped it to pieces in seconds. I've never seen anything like it. it was Holy man, I had no idea. Honestly, I would never get know what like what do the locals do with them? Like do they well, so the local you feel walking you find it's it because you're because I was on a bike because you're riding you're riding and You're not a car. You're you are an animal. Yeah, so it's just that
00:45:56
Speaker
That fight instinct, I suppose, a hunter instinct. and um That's why I'd have to stop immediately. It terrified me, but I'd stop, get off my bike, stand up stand on the ground. and they would they after After you stood your ground, would they you just disperse a little bit? They would come right at you, and then they'd be angry as anything, just like barking and growling and showing their teeth. Holy smokes. As long as you can get them stopped for long enough, then you can get back on your bike, keep eye contact, and then sort of like slowly- I'm not going to lie, that sounds terrifying. it definitely of all the animals, you know, you go through the bears and the bear. That's normally what I think. I don't think about a pack of wild dogs. Yes, that is incredible. I honestly had no idea. And it was that all the way through South America or yeah in Mexico to you or just ah Mexico was fine. Ecuador was really bad. Peru was bad. I find certain countries have really bad dogs. um Really? Yeah, it's just but depends on the country. yeah Depends on how the far they probably let them go to you. Right? Like how like if they haven't like kind of, you Curtail that or or or dealt with that problem you could get out of hand and the worst dogs we ever I have a chemical in Tajikistan they have these big shepherd dogs but then I don't know again what breed they are but that huge massive terrifying and like to stand your ground on one of those it is.
00:47:08
Speaker
yeah it It looks like a baby bear running at you. are they Like, are they like, kind of like, um ah you know, a couple hundred pounds or like? Yeah, I mean, i've as big as I'm for, I'm absolutely... I'm sort of standing there just... Honestly, I don't know why but i and it wasn't... I never even... that wasn't even on my radar. I never... thought's that's fascinating. so So... What about, uh, so people through South America were all pretty good or like, yeah, you didn't have any more problems like you did in your spidey senses. Sometimes you go into a town and you're like, it's time to leave. You stop and you look to get some food and you're like, no, no, it's the locals. And I'm not happy for me to be a time to get out of there and, and, and carry on. Yeah. I almost got hit by, um, two, I was going to call them Laurie's semi trucks. Um, sorry. Yeah. They, they were just inches away and that terrified me a little bit. Um, yeah. for sure. But for the most part, people love the culture is fantastic. It's all it's not they speak Spanish, but so they speak catch one most mostly and they have just incredible Andean culture. So beautiful people. And you can get a call to the hotel, you can get a
00:48:14
Speaker
ah about to sleep in for a dollar like in bolivia that was a dollar a night it's incredible to stay and so I've been, you know, I've had it similar
Reflections upon Reaching the Antarctic Ocean
00:48:22
Speaker
experiences. Like when I was doing a little bit trial on, on the road bike, I've been run off the road at least two or three times just locally. So not terrifying. Yeah. I said, yeah, I've got run into a ditch once I got, um, clipped once and then I had another problem with my own fault. i I went down hard on railroad tracks and I just woke up around over because I dropped in front of the traffic the way I'd landed. yeah um So yeah, I can definitely sympathize with like having semi-trucks coming inches off your your bike. that that's That's not good. Definitely. yeah Now I feel I've gone the other way. I'm far too, um I had to forget that all the traffic is on the road sometimes. So now when I'm biking, like I stick to side of the road, but I
00:49:00
Speaker
I just completely... I have my helmet on, of course, and I'm always in something for that for fluorescent. But I'm not as nervous as I should be about in the traffic just because it's I just have to forget about it. Yeah. You're you're you're getting comfortable with what your environment is. I found out with mountain biking, when I first started mountain biking, i ah on my mountain biking is very tame. It's just cross-country riding. But um I would be terrified to go by myself. And I found that I couldn't... uh, always line up people to go riding with. And after a while at 98% of my riding was solo and I was absolutely comfortable. Like I'm still very comfortable with it. It's just, you know, I've been, I've had lots of crashes of course, and, and whatnot, but it's just, I don't know anything different now. yeah exactly So it just becomes second nature, right? So, okay. So he came through Peru and then went to Bolivia.
00:49:49
Speaker
And then, and then Chile and Argentina. Um, it was there anything that in that last part of your journey that was like notable that you remember? It was, um, I did, uh, I rode across the salt flats and I, I only hit it because the local told me there's a train track and old train track and abandoned train track. Cause the salt flats have, um, I'm sure you can navigate with them with with GPS, but like in terms of like getting a reference, you're just this white, uh, and the most beautiful, um, environment is white. as white as far as the eye can see. Wow. You're at high altitude. I think you're above 3000 meters. The sun is scorching. He says, well, if you follow this old train line, you'll you'll get across it. Really? So I thought wow I was worth a go. And um and at start, it was easy because the salt flats were nice and hard and I was just making good time and I sort of follow the track. But then I didn't realize that they get soft very quickly. So i did it was only 90K that day.
00:50:42
Speaker
It was the hardest 90k of the whole day. Really? Do you have to like walk a lot of it? Or walk just but then he's dragging your bike through like, it's digging into inches of inches of salt and mud. It's like, sand's destroying the bike. Oh, yeah, yeah and for sure. For sure. Having to strike it, carry it. So yeah, that 90. Yeah. almost 20 hours. So it's just so fast. Like how far like night was it the full 90 K was all salt counting? Wow. Yeah, it must be beautiful. But like stunning. Yeah, stunning. But I got to the border with Chile and there's not much on the board. There's just like an army base and stuff. So I sort of crossed into the attic armors. It's the most beautiful environment. But it's the driest, I think the driest desert in the world. Wow. They've barely had rain in the last 15 years. But the journey, again, your altitude so like you just got these breath they can
00:51:30
Speaker
save All to yourself. would' see so yeah do you Did you find crossing the borders where like the border guard is kind of looking at you like, who is this guy? Yeah, they would yeah take pictures with you. They're lovely people, but yeah they're always a bit like... Who are you? i wait why why you like yeah yeah it says It's amazing because you know your adventures are like impressive to say the least. and For most people, like the layman, like myself, it's like, it's just incredible to imagine like what you've done, right? and And it's hard to put yourself in that, that, they that, that pit, you know, in that adventure, like it's free, you know, to to cycle from Alaska to the southern part of ah South America, when you kind of just quickly say it, it doesn't sound like a big deal. But when you start analyzing it and looking, it's like, that's an incredible journey. Like, it definitely yeah had a profound sort of impact on my life. Yeah. Yeah. But um
00:52:25
Speaker
Chile was was great. Like the the south of Patagonia sort of became winter again. that So that sort of added that challenge again. But yeah I actually met these Kiwis who were sort of traveling in a camper van through a similar sort of route. So I'd catch up with them every stop. They were going to a similar sort of pace. So yeah yeah sometimes every couple of days, I'd have some company again, which is was really lovely. That's awesome. That's great. So You went into Patagonia, obviously Patagonia is legendary for multiple reasons. but what At that point, what was the highlight for you in that area, just beauty? The scenery was just, you'd go to 200k between stretches. And by this point, I'd say by like Columbia, I was doing averaging 200k a day, pretty comfortably. That's impressive, man. i had um Your body against adapts, it just becomes yeah just something that... It's incredible. um But the the wind, and I had read about the wind and it was something I hadn't... Oh, really?
00:53:16
Speaker
ever had one day so one day I only managed eightlomets because ah the wind was that bad i was grinding and yeah i have heard of cars getting flipped with the pattern so for it wins and interesting i didn't know that so i so found At the time, there's only ah you're you're about 2,000 meters up. It's called the Pampas. There's no mountains, but just high hills. yeah so I sort of tried to find a hill I could put a tent behind. Hopefully, the tent was going to survive and sort of like just hunker down and yeah and then trying to try to leave the next one. and trying to find children ive I went on a trip one time with a buddy of mine. We climbed into this mountain pass. It wasn't like
00:53:51
Speaker
Hugely high and we set up our tents to get ready. Just one man tents and the wind came through there and I've never heard one like that. It sounded like a train coming through and and I honestly thought we're going to get blown off the mountain. It was insane. It was like waking up in the morning and having some calm was just like, it was such a relief. So until you've seen that, you don't, you're been through that. You don't, you can't appreciate how bad that would have been. When you found your campsite at that point, was it like we're able to like kind of like hide behind like a rock or something? Yeah, I just found a hillside. yeah but and and And then for the next few days, it was leaving at 2am just to try and get away from the I found that middle of night was the worst was sort of least of the wind. So if I could, if I could get leave it to and sort of get through like a section before the wind yeah before it came back in. So you got down onto to Southern Argentina. And how did it ended up?
00:54:44
Speaker
And then you bet went back into Chile, right? You have to keep going. You went back to Chile a few times. um This is the way the Panagonia is at that point. um And then you sort of work your way down. and um And the last day, you sort of get to the Antarctic Ocean, which is an emotional sort of time. And I hadn't realized, and i'm'm I'm annoyed at myself now, but If I just finished three days earlier, it would have been my sister's birthday, which was would have been a nice... I did read that. I read that. that it It was a little off of her birthday, which would have been really nice and still incredible. But obviously, like that would have been a real nice ah yeah nice say kind of moment for him.
00:55:25
Speaker
So when you finished, um, like what was, uh, you must've just taken a ah good moment to just like, you know, like sort of reflect on everything I would imagine. right or feel i kind of it so It was about K for the last day. And yeah it I'd meant to finish earlier, but the wind picked up halfway through the day and I, um, I was going to stop that day and I thought, no, no, I'm just going to get it done today. So it was about nine o'clock by the time I got into. uhu ah Yeah. And it was a bit anticlimactic. You see the lights of the city and you know that it's all the yeah the end of the journey. But when you get there, there's no one to greet you or anything like
Life Post-Adventures and Moving to Canada
00:56:00
Speaker
that. There's no big reception. It's just cold. You just wheel your way in then and just tired. um It's like, oh you're finally tired at that point. like you know like Everything just sort of catches up with you. um So yeah, there was emotions for sure, but definitely um just a bit anticlimactic. It was just the... Yeah.
00:56:19
Speaker
And the vagina, you know, but like you've been going for so long. I sometimes yeah I do find that sometimes when you, when you've shot for a pretty big goal, sometimes the moment of the finish. is a little anticlimactic almost. I don't know why that is. It's, it's, so it's like, it's, it's still awesome, but you're, you're, you've kind of, it's like, it's over, you know, you yeah you're it's interesting. I don't know. It's almost like, and sometimes you do, you don't want it to end. Exactly. Right. You want, you know, I think that that happens even with like elite combat soldiers or combat soldiers that they, you know, it's like when you're in an adventure, sometimes there's like some famous saying where you,
00:56:56
Speaker
look forward to getting home. And then when you're done the adventure and you're home, you look forward to getting back to the adventure, right? So did you feel a little bit like that? or but not yeah yeah i um I've never enjoyed it was never the like a you know sort of limelight i never enjoyed any of that stuff. um it yeah and i and the after Before there was like a few ah things on TV that I had to do and then afterwards a few things and and I never enjoyed that side of things. never It was never like missing or yearning that. yeah It was just ah that challenge. you know like yeah That was what you were focused on. Solid goal and you're and you're in every day it's there. yeah that I can 100% appreciate that. that's so What came next? so you you you you did some did you do You did do some media? yeah Yeah. Well, I ran out of money actually. I had no money left so I had to sell my bike. Oh, really? um and Then I hitchhiked back up to
00:57:47
Speaker
Um, I flew out of Brazil. Okay. Um, so I hitched up to Brazil. So you just hitched up. ah hit shot yeah How was that? Oh, great. Fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. Lovely. Really nice. I met some lovely you people and, yeah um, and yeah, I sold my bike and and got enough money to sort of pay for a flight home and really sort of fund me back up to, and I had no clothes. I went to a few charity stores and sort of bought what I could, bought some, bought a bag to sort of carry whatever clothes I had. Um, and yeah. I was they don't really have many charity shops there. So I was pretty interested in some pretty interesting. goodness is it yeah Yeah, that's awesome. But yeah, I got back in and then yeah, I had so when I got home, it was I was moving to Canada. um The following autumn, so I got home in June, ah has three or four months at home, like my best friend, he just bought a 400 year old house. So I spent the summer sort of like just helping him with his house and building his house and just seeing friends and family. It was a really, really nice time. I hadn't hadn't been in by that point, I'd lived away for about
00:58:45
Speaker
five or six years. It's nice to spend some time at home. That's nice to see all my friends. Catch up with everybody. Catch up with family and friends. It's funny you just said I helped them with a 400-year-old house. We don't have as far as 400-year-old houses here. It was to demolish some of the back walls. You just have to push and the walls would fall over. It's standing for that time. You could see his age in it. So then did you, from there, did you go to Canada pretty quickly after that? So yeah, by September, by June, June I was home and in September, I was October, I flew to Canada. So yeah, I just had some media commitments to sort of like, take care of, take care of it. And I visited my school and it did a nice, nice beach there. Cause my school was so lovely, my old high school. Yeah, they did like a 24 hour, uh,
00:59:36
Speaker
cycling challenge, oh incredible all the teachers and the students did it. really And then I felt I had to do 24 hours. So it was the longest ride. I did the longest journey I did of the whole journey. You did it. I did 24 hours whilst I was in Bolivia at the time. And then I did like, i chatted on the radio with them at the time when I started and I had to get the time difference right and then sort of go 24 hours whilst I was doing it. That's incredible. but Yeah, it was amazing. And they raised and in friends and family that my my family did lots of like auction nights at pubs and stuff and had a friend who even did like a comedy night. Wow. right That's amazing. So people really pulled together. the community Yeah, you never as one thing again, and quite a humbling experiences like yeah, you're the one doing it.
01:00:16
Speaker
During the physical cycling. Yeah, you're getting helped by everyone. You know, it is incredible. Wow. It is an incredible that just that alone is an incredible story um and journey that you had. Now you just said you were in Bolivia like so did you go from Cause you're coming to Canada, but did you go from England to other ventures right away or? No, straight to Canada. Cause I was, I got a job ski patrolling. So, um, i'm redo that at some peaks. Oh yeah. thanks So, um, my, my train, I, I know first aid training or anything. I started to come to Canada first, get all my, uh, first aid training sorted. And then training immediately started in patrol. So it was a whole new life for me. I'd by that point, um,
01:01:01
Speaker
not really been in the rescue industry or anything like that. It was all this new learning. What about like, did you ski in Europe? I skied in New Zealand. Oh, okay. So I lived in New Zealand for a bit. That must have been incredible. It was beautiful. They've got incredible mountains down there. I want to go to New Zealand for sure. It's like, I want to go see the Middle Earth. They've got Middle Earth like exhibits there and whatnot. It's a stunning, lovely people. There's a reason why they filmed that there. Yeah, it really is. So you had a bit of skiing a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. yeah I get, I mean, as a patrol, um,
01:01:33
Speaker
The Canadians are just born with skis on your feet. so you're incredible Just watching a Canadian ski. yeah I can ski competently and yeah fine and and and and and you have to ski a certain level to patrol. yeah But when you watch a Canadian ski, like they're just a different... Yeah, they like some of them have just grown up on the mountain. they' and there That's just their second like second nature to them. And the guys that do it, we've got lots of guys at the job that, you know, firefighting that are ski patrol. and You know, obviously, you know, dialed dialed in with all that stuff. So you started to learn that. Is that where you also learned like your, you know, some of your glacier climbing skills and that too? Yeah. Yeah. yeah Well, we need to just introduce you to those people who do those things. And then from there, you sort of learn those skills. You're in that circle. Yeah. yeah That's huge, right? Cause it can pass on that expertise into no ice climbing or.
01:02:20
Speaker
So did you start like stay there for a while and then start planning another trip like for cycling? Because I know you did. You said you did um around the Middle East. Was that the next one? so Yeah, I mean from there, i so I spent a couple of years because I i wasn't ah i planned to get my residency in Canada. I've lived in Canada previously in 2012. I lived in Kicking Horse. great So I knew I wanted to settle in Canada. so I had to spend the next two years getting my residency and um and then I also wanted to join the fire service. yeah like That was my goal. like the um The volunteer hall up at Sun Peaks put me through my training. Yes. yes um I heard that's quite a good program. Fantastic program. yeah I did the work experience program there and then volunteered pretty much the whole two years. and Then I got my residency after the two years and and then applied for my job yeah with Delta. Then the cycling, um the adventures from there, sort of
01:03:11
Speaker
it would ah I was fortunate I was with a partner who was also quite into that sort of stuff. So we sort of just planned then from then on. Heading
Middle Eastern Ventures
01:03:19
Speaker
off to a different thing. Well, we're lucky to have you in the fire service in Delta. That's so that's a big one. It's great having you. because um You know, I know I've been lots of calls with you and and and and it's always great to have someone like yourself that's engaged. um You know, you got expertise and lots of different, you know, um you know outdoor adventures, but which does sometimes help, you know, in just having skills, whether it's rope work or whatever. So it's it's been great to have have you, um you know, work with you and whatnot. I've definitely enjoyed that.
01:03:47
Speaker
So did you now once you're on the fire service, that's when you started going on a few trips then or Yeah, um it's sort of ah I could with the with with the tourism patrolling. I didn't have I had no time at all. I had no um I was um having to volunteer at the fire hall. I was either working or taking courses. yeah and then i did i I started a non-for-profit up in Sun Peaks as well, which took a lot of time, an awful lot of my time up. okay um sorry Between those things, I just didn't have time. so that when when i
01:04:21
Speaker
came to the low mainland, all of a sudden, you're getting some vacation, you're getting ah ah that ability to be yeah to start like planning those adventures again and that side of things. Start putting together your time, your your um your holidays accordingly. So what was the next big thing that you went and did from the point of view of like a venture? Well, COVID happened, unfortunately, like pretty much. So we did, we actually cycled, we did some more cycling around Canada. We went across the island and did like sort of cycled all around the island. It's beautiful. I love the island here. Absolutely beautiful. It's such an adventurous paradise. It is. Thank you, Ryland. It's absolutely awesome. It's nice because it's a little quieter.
01:05:00
Speaker
But you and you have a little bit everything you got a little bit of ocean you got you know obviously the forest and whatnot to lots of wildlife it's awesome i love it we went back to ucon and then we did. I can't wait to start relaxing the rules and and we we did some cycling europe was unfortunate i mean not unfortunate starting place which is for a brits like i have seen a lot of europe but it's a. quite an entitled position of him, but like we just we just it's like going to states that's so easy from Canada. i'm sorry You try and go a bit further afield, but like that was <unk> that was the only places you sort of could go at that time. so We went to Albania and Greece and did some biking around Eastern Europe as well. and yeah um and Then the Middle East came after that. and
01:05:43
Speaker
Unfortunately, but my my partner at the time, she was studying, so we had to go in the summer in the Middle East. so We had to suck, which was 45 degrees. and and The heat must have been intense. One day, she was actually pretty dehydrated and had to hose her down. and sorry yeah she was seen Right. Yeah. I'm very dehydrated one day. how How long were you like riding? Like, so, um, I don't want to, like, it's, um, there's so much, like, cause you know, obviously I'll be in in Greece would have been spectacular. But when you're in the middle East, what countries were you kind of mostly in Israel or Jordan? Uh, we did have Palestine as well. And then, um, Egypt. Wow. That must've been incredible on a bike. It was stunning. Yeah. Again, lovely people like yeah right yeah Islamic culture, some of the friendliest people. just are awesome Yeah. Yeah. And, um,
01:06:32
Speaker
you a part of their culture is is just to be so inviting. So like yeah you can't go through a town without being off of a tee or to come in and and have some food. or That's incredible. Which is just such a lovely part of of their culture. um So yeah, you really really met some great people and and super safe. Great food too. yeah great foods Great foods. The heat was the only thing that made it challenging. We were in Austin, Texas last September, which is was awesome. We had a great trip. You know, it's 42 degrees. So I can only imagine riding on your bike at 45 because 42 was intense and I like the heat. yeah I like the heat. It's a little bit over the top. yeah
01:07:13
Speaker
So I'm jealous on a couple of parts, because you got to bike there. Did you go to the city of Petra? or yeah we Yeah, we went to Petra. That's one I'm jealous on. And the other one is, the is of course, the pyramids and all that. but Yeah, we vibration cycle to the pyramids. Cairo was an interesting spot to to cycle around. Just, you again, when you get comfortable around traffic. Ancient culture again, like just like... Well, actually, my partner at the time, she got hit by a ah a vehicle, but just she was fine. um But yeah at the junctions, you'd have to sort of just take take your life in your hands and sort of try and get across. because There's no real rules. Did you say you got the borders, you mean? or No, sorry, the junctions in the city in Cairo, just trying to get across. ah Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, yeah because the traffic's going crazy. Yeah, we actually got, um ah we were on the Sinai Peninsula and we actually, we got off the, we had to take a boat from Jordan across to the Sinai, but the police came
01:08:10
Speaker
when I saw us and they, they, they wouldn't let us cycle on the Sinai, which is a bit odd, because you can, you can take a bus, no problem. um But they were hosting a the COP, the climate um I can't remember which cop it was, but it was they were hosting the COP Summit. oh and um They just didn't want any negative press. ah so so they they They waited outside. we We went to get on our bikes at 8 a.m. and they waited outside where we were staying. and They said you can't. You can't. they They put our bikes in the back of the police cars and and drivers like ah up to Shamashake. Oh, actually, they assisted you a little bit. They did. It was a little frustrating, though, because we
01:08:49
Speaker
we felt absolutely fine too. yeah And, so and you didn't really feel safe with or safer. Yeah. Cause you're like, where are we going here? Why are we doing why are you in this? Yeah. Frustrating. But, uh, but ultimately, suppose I suppose it was trying to do a nice thing. So what was, uh, what was the city of petrolite? Stunning. Yeah. Yeah. I really recommend going at nighttime as well. It's a different experience at nighttime. Is it like, so again, being a layman, not being that worldly, when you go to these places, like, you know, even like the pyramids is there there must be some sort of cultural rules associated with them that you've got to be a little bit aware of or know like 100% especially when because when you're on a bike here in the middle, you're in the very, you can be in very conservative little towns in the middle of nowhere. So
01:09:31
Speaker
I was travelling with a female and unfortunately for them it is far more of a um complicated minefield to sort of navigate. her yeah So she had to wear trousers the whole time and and cover up the whole time and and even in the cities that wasn't enough because she had sports yeah like her on. That's not acceptable so ah you'd have she'd have to wear like a shirt, like ah a full on a strong sort of round. to And then you still get um but a few angry angry locals at times, which is this something you have to deal with um and disrespect. It's your culture. And we had the same thing we we went on visited Tunisia, Northern Africa, which was
01:10:15
Speaker
Quite an, it was, it was, it was actually ended up being a bit of an adventure. Um, and it was the same thing when we went to the market. The markets are incredible. Like they're big. Um, the vendors are, uh, kind of both awesome and aggressive at the same time. And, uh, all the ladies that were there had to fully cover to be into, and to be in those markets. yeah There was like no role, no wickest ands or butts about it. So, but so what about like, when you're, when you go to the city of Petra, Is it kind of like a wide open thing? Or do you have to like, you know, is there someone like take you through it? Or no, you can you can go by yourself. It's actually quite a long walk. I think it's like, you're probably doing 14 15k over the sort of job. But if you go at nighttime, because you walk through a canyon super tight canyons. Yeah. And then
01:10:58
Speaker
you walk quite a ways and all of a sudden the city just sort of comes comes out of nowhere. It really is a terrific place. Wow, that's great. I think they filmed one of the Indiana Jones area. That's pretty, pretty cool. They filmed a lot. I think they filmed Star Wars as well. a lot of oh there in jordan and Wow, I definitely want to go one day. That'd be pretty incredible. So when you see something like just while I'm thinking of it, like I don't know if you look at it, but like there'll be like travel advisories like for certain places. like How do you look at those being that you've been in the world and you've seen things? Do you like you know fully respect them or take them with a grain of salt? or like how does that How do you? I take them with a grain of salt. I think you have to you have to do your own research and you can't be um can't be naive to what's going on. I mean, I did some cycling in Namibia. and um
01:11:43
Speaker
and If you've read the travel advisory there, you wouldn't go, but again, a super safe place. so and You have to take caution in certain places, but um but but there' there's plenty of tourists in Namibia. It sustains the the local economy quite well as well. Interesting. There's things you pay attention to and things that you don't, and yeah and then sometimes things that we were in, um we did the stand a couple of years ago and um in uh tech uh uh not to jig stand um one of the stands i've got ramen over now yeah
01:12:21
Speaker
ah there was Kyrgyzstan. In Kyrgyzstan, they actually had a little conflict that went on. So we were cycling the Pamir Highway and we were supposed to go across into Kyrgyzstan. But because they had had this border skirmish, they wouldn't allow us through something again that you just have to adapt with. And there had been some cyclists actually murdered a couple of years before that in that area. And there will be those unfortunate incidents. You have to do due diligence. And then again, the locals were so friendly. I didn't think i've I've come across brand new people. is there reading and the people in a pamea high They were so lovely. Well, it's it's a thing with an adventure. If you're going on an adventure, there's always an inherent risk. There's always going to be that level of danger. And, you know, so there, you have to be aware of that. But on the same token, it sounds like the you know, there's a lot of there's a little bit of latitude there in terms of as long as you keep your wits about you and um be aware where you're at.
01:13:20
Speaker
So you went through down to Egypt, and what was that like, seeing the pyramids on a bike? I mean, that must have been incredible, to have the freedom, right? Yeah, yeah. We actually, on the way back, we went through the rural communities on the outskirts of Cairo. Oh, yeah. And again, lovely people. Yeah. Because there's two sides of Egypt. You do have the touristy side, which can be aggressive and a bit frustrating. You can't get anywhere without being tried, you know, something to be sold. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it can be a bit annoying. But when you go through the villages, all of a sudden, you're just chatting to the locals. He's going through the farms and um thank goodness for GPS, because we had no idea where we were. And you're sort of just going across fields and this stuff. But ah it was lovely people, really friendly people. Did you find the um the pyramids, did they kind of meet your expectations or exceed them? Or or were they a little bit like less than that? or No, that's I mean, we we went to one called the bank pyramid, which is like one of the more unseen ones, because the the ones around the Giza are terrific, but so touristy, but I mean, nothing, no no amount of tourism can escape how phenomenal they are. They're just yeah huge. yeah But if you if you can get away from the crowds, all of a sudden, you've got this fantastic thing where it's just you and ah you can actually climb into some of the pyramids. That's awesome. Yeah, that's definitely what I'd want to be a part of.
01:14:40
Speaker
Did you go to the Valley of Kings or no? I did years ago. So when I was 17, I went and... That'd be pretty... Did you find that pretty impressive? That's very impressive. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because they have all like Tutankhamun and all the different burials or burial sites that they've they've yeah uncovered there. so Was that it for that trip then? Did you do more on that one? No, that one was it. Was that like over a couple of weeks?
Cycling Through Conflict Zones and Landscapes
01:15:09
Speaker
That was So... six weeks. Six weeks. That's a lot of riding, covering a lot of ground there. What was Israel like? Fantastic. Let's start with history. Dangerous cycling. Busy roads. Because of the drivers? Yeah, drivers, busy roads. I can't say poor drivers, but definitely drivers who are accustomed to cyclists on the road.
01:15:30
Speaker
Great food. But yes, the history is just phenomenal in Israel. Off the charts. They're all the way Jordan, Egypt. I've been big on, I was mentioning to Stefan, big on Napoleon. I've been studying him quite a bit. And just some of the, you know, he went through Egypt, conquered that. just imagining what that would have been like for them back then. But I mean, just, you know, so much history. So much history. All those places. And in Palestine, like Bethlehem, again, the people were just amazing. Really? Yeah. That's awesome. So it's nice. Palestine, just seeing the divide was a bit of an eye opener. Seeing the wall that they have, they have a physical concrete wall built there, which is sad to see, but also quite...
01:16:14
Speaker
Quite interesting, very interesting. Very cool, very cool. Now, so that was over six weeks and the other one um that it wanted to chat about that you did was through Afghanistan. Yeah, the Wakhan Corridor, it sort of follows the Afghan border. Yeah, that, like I was looking on a map and... You know, when you first told me about that, I was like, you know, we went where? yeah But then when I look on the Google map, I was like, oh, this is an incredible area. Like yeah they like the the valleys there and the mountains, like just, and this is just strictly on Google maps. I could just imagine how incredible that was. So yeah how long how how long long was that trip? that was Six weeks as well. Six weeks, yeah.
01:16:54
Speaker
ah We did, we started in Kazakhstan and then went to Kyrgyzstan and went to Kyrgyzstan and then ended end up having to go back down the Wakhan corridor, the Afghan border sort that and then went back into Uzbekistan. The Wakhan corridor looks incredible. It's stunning. It's just ah incredible mountains, beautiful valley, And I would imagine like there's probably quite a, of course, there's history there, but like, I would think it almost looks like a significant history there because it' isn't that so that's the border for Afghanistan, isn't it? Yeah, the history is thousands of years old and you've got ah so many big mountains there. We went up to about um
01:17:33
Speaker
5,800 meters or something like just on the border there. yeah um But the road goes up to well over 4,000 meters. So you're pretty high up. Can be cold. it can be I think I've heard in the winter, it can be pretty inhospitable. yeah For us, we had some pretty miserable weather. I had snow in the summer. But Afghanistan, it was so green. The towns were just really picture perfect. The country was such a bad name for itself. But yeah people were so friendly, always waving, always saying hello. That's awesome. yeah um And the little villages were just Beautiful. where were they ah so like This is another one that I cracked up. When you tell me about your your trip to the desert, which we'll talk about in um like in down in Africa, you fly into the airport and then you just assemble your bike and you just ride away from the airport. Is that correct? all right so I love it. you definitely have to I find with any sort of, especially like the sort of more challenging countries to
01:18:29
Speaker
to be in, you you spend the first couple of days making mistakes, you have to figure figure out um because I mean, you don't know what to pay for things as well. And you are a tourist, you are a bit of a target. So I mean, if that being said on a bike, they tend to be a bit night because you are in the middle of nowhere. So you're less of a tourist to them and more of a weirdo probably. Yeah. ah yeah But ah yeah, you spent the first couple of days to sort of figuring stuff out. So you just ride from the airport and then and figure out the roads, trying to get the land a little bit, trying to get the lay of the land a little bit. And yeah, I can imagine that must be pretty
01:19:04
Speaker
And were you still tanking on the side of the road, pretty much? Yes. In Namibia, I cycled through the... It was just me and I just went through the desert, Namibian desert, and it's a beautiful area. That must have been incredible. Probably some of the hardest cycling I've ever done because there was some roads which... There's like 40k sections which are just sand. So you're just pushing your bike for 40k in the heat. And there's no... You don't see anyone, so you just... No. So did you get to see any of the special, um, um, we call it like, uh, petrified, uh, uh, trees that are in, I can't remember, it's called like a Dell dead, dead bill. I can't remember. Yeah, I was there. I can't remember the name of it. Yeah. They're like six or 700 years old. Aren't they like petrified? Yeah. It gets iconic pictures against the beautiful desert backdrop. That's so cool. I was very full because you saw you, uh,
01:19:56
Speaker
To get through that area, you can't go on a bicycle. They wouldn't let you. It's ah it's a- Oh, really? Yes, yes. The basic, they just want you to pay an entrance fee and and then they want you to use- local off-road vehicles, because you have to pay them, and it keeps the economy strong. It keeps the economy on, so they don't watch on bikes. Yeah, but if you're a local, you can go across. I was camping just by the entrance, and these Namibian locals were going across. They got chatting to me. There were a bunch of students, actually, there were 23, 24, and they said, we want to come with us. There was 12 of us packed in the back of this pickup truck. Oh, really?
01:20:34
Speaker
cruising through frozenzing through the the sand dunes and stuff and it really is a cool it's so cool site. Man, i can just I can only imagine how beautiful that must must have been. Now, like through your travels, what would you say would be your biggest fears? Like when you've gone through or have you had any like that have just stood out? Like when you're on a trip like that and you're pushing your bike through the sand for 40 miles in the hot desert, do you start to get kind of scared a little bit or not really? no not not hugely. um I suppose maybe this is a bit of a naive way of looking at things. But things have always worked out. So yeah I think because of that, yeah i I try to be as diligent as possible. So like in terms of water, yeah I've had a few heavy moments of water when I've been a bit parched. um ah But for the most part, things have always worked out. and And maybe that's not a great way of looking at things. But I've always been like, I feel if you do enough
01:21:28
Speaker
I'm working you sort of yeah you you know where you gonna go then even when things get a bit tough yeah it will you know work cook out yeah this this last trip i I thought I'd almost bit off more than I could choose it was a. um I did a trail run, it was 72K, and it's called the circuit, the tube cowl, and it's not necessarily a length of it. It goes above 4,000 meters, so the altitude knocks you out of it, and it's about almost 6,000 meters of climbing, so it's like a- And that's in
High Altitude Challenges and Mountaineering
01:21:58
Speaker
Morocco, right? That's in Morocco, yeah. And is that the highest peak in Morocco, or- It's the highest peak in Northern Africa. Wow. It goes tube cowl. I'm not probably not saying it right, but that's- Yeah. 4,130 meters. But there's a circuit round, which is supposed to take a number of days for. But I always say that I trail run because I'm lazy, not because I don't want to take five days to do it. I just want to take one to do it. Yeah, you just get it done. Get it done. But by the end of that day, I felt pretty blasted. And it was a point when I'm just sort of getting towards a summit. And it's towards the end of the day where I'm like,
01:22:36
Speaker
yeah There's no water anywhere, so I've run out of water and I'm sort of pretty hungry by this point and they're feeling pretty lethargic. Pretty down. Yeah, you but you just keep your feet going, and keep your legs going, like you'll be fine. and The human body is pretty incredible. It's amazing what you can push through if you push yourself in. Most people have never gotten that far, like where they're like really hurting, but I think probably that's a little bit of what you're going through there. I would imagine where like, okay, I'm hitting a wall here. Can I get through this? And it's still, still something to be respected though, for sure. Paul Coggins is a 64 year old where you always have 40%. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. For sure. So I guess like, um, that's, those are some of your major ventures like and on the bike.
01:23:22
Speaker
um the but on the bicycle. yeah yeah yeah yeah Now you've also done some pretty awesome climbing, like not as maybe as much, but by the sounds of it, or would you say? or yeah Yeah, not as much for sure. It's certainly something that I um i i took a um liking for in Canada. yeah um but i mean yeah you You just have to just to you know be in Squamish for a couple of days. is yes There's so many amazing people in BC. You get humbled pretty quickly by what people get up to. just It's incredible. and yeah that that No one's watching them. no one They're not posting anything. They're just not in the middle of nowhere, climbing something. or yeah just and and Sometimes they're living in vans and that's their whole life. They're just in the outdoors. and you're like You're right. They're very humble. They don't post it. They're not they're just enjoying their're enjoying their adventures. right but
01:24:11
Speaker
So you, but you've done, um, you did Kilimanjaro. What was that like? That's fun. I was, I was at university at the time and it was just, um, it was a fundraiser. So we did a lot of fundraising for it as well. So that sort of, uh, that got me realizing with fundraising that like it's far, you've got to put Simon time into it, but it's far easier than, um, then it might see him. You just have to put the time in. If you stand on the corner of a road, and you get chatting to people and it's for a good cause. and People are so generous. generous People are very generous. I remember the boot drives at work. That's incredible. I was watching people throwing in some hundred dollar bills and so they're so generous. Yeah, every year when you know when we've done that, it's just incredible how generous people can be. was So my understanding with Kilimanjaro again, you you know, I'm pretty green on a lot of these things or, you know, um not very worldly. In this case, with mountaineering,
01:25:03
Speaker
They say Kilimanjaro is a good starting point. yeah sorry now i would imagine is there' not there's not really like I guess there's different ways you can attack that mountain. The the simple route, which I think they call the Coca-Cola route. We did one up from that, but most routes there aren't particularly technical. There's certainly technical routes you can do, um but they they called it a good starting point because it really gets you um um, sort of used to altitude and some, I'll choose nothing to do with fitness. Some people do well with it. Some people don't. And actually sometimes the least fit people do better at altitude because they take their time. It's all about taking your time. yes yeah Um, sorry so that you're saying it's not so much fitness as time in, in, in altitude, 100%. And then some people just can't deal with it. Um, so I've got a friend who was a very high level athlete and him and his girlfriends did a trip around the Himalayas and.
01:25:55
Speaker
This girlfriend was a particularly active. She was fine. And aluch should he couldn't talk. He just couldn't. and sure He tried. He tried. And then, you know, without shooting, he can come back down, rest a bit, go back up and a couple of days later, for whatever reason, his body just does not like it. So with, uh, but he wasn't suffering something extreme, like pulmonary demons. He was just, just exhausted. Yeah. I mean, so, uh, you have, to you have headaches, you have nausea, um, you can have dizziness. Um, they're all signs that. how you need to slow things down, or maybe just drop a bit of altitude, but they're not like everyone, or most people go through moderates and mild, or sometimes severe signs of those things. Hays and Hape is a next step, a next level. and and that's if yeah It's about recognising
01:26:41
Speaker
ah the mild signs and seeing a pattern and forgetting worse than doing something about it because you will then develop a sort of hypo support. Before it gets worse, would that be like now go back down? Yeah. Yeah. Let your body like heal up or like, yeah. Or slow it down or make sure you're taking on a ton of water because you already, you might be a bit dehydrated as well. So you don't, you don't want to, you know, it mimics, you know, headaches mimic dehydration as well. And sorry, dehydration mimics outshoe sickness as well. So like you don't,
01:27:13
Speaker
You just don't want, you want to rule that one out. So drink as much water as you can, eat as much food as you can. Try and sleep. I can't sleep a wink at altitude. Um, for whatever reason. Interesting. So what about like with, um, when you're at altitude, uh, and, and you're tired and exhausted, it must be hard to focus on eating and, and, um, You know, and drinking to stay hydrated, to stay on top of it. Your daughter would tell you, I'm sure. i' be yeah an oldertra athlete like you' You've got to be getting so many calories down, you but it's the last thing you want to do. By the point of, you mentioned she's just done a hundred K or probably 70 K. She probably doesn't want to eat a thing, yeah but you notice it, like yeah she has to. she Yeah. she She, like that ability to like stay on top of it. and
01:28:01
Speaker
She did a really great job. So she just did the van 100, which is like, you know, through the North shore of Vancouver, the mountains. And she had all her bags packed, so like the packing that she did was incredible. So we would just as crew, we would give her a bag and she'd be really, really good. But I would think. add on that like altitude, like sickness and weakness, it must just make it amplify it. Yeah. Yeah. yeah I think, um, altitude is something you have to respect. It's not, it's not something you can push through. I mean, yeah, you certainly can, but you could do yourself a lot of harm. So it's, uh, what we did, uh, I can calculate a few years ago, which goes just shy of 7,000 meters. And it's sort of like.
01:28:39
Speaker
The next one up from Kili as it were, you know, ah in terms of um when you're getting into sort of the bigger mountains, yeah yeah it's like the next. It's no joke. asking kind in acainagua I don't don't know much about it other than like the reading I've done and like the, you know, the YouTube videos I've watched on it. but it sounds like it's the highest peak in the North and South America. Is that correct? Yeah. At 22,000 feet roughly or something? Yeah, feet. I'm not sure when feet, but yeah, just shy of 7,000 meters. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the serious. Now you're, now you're getting into some serious altitude. when When you did, when going back to Kilimanjaro, was it pretty straightforward for you then or? Yeah. I mean, we had a group of 32 and it was, I went to a sports university. These are athletic ah people and, um,
01:29:20
Speaker
say Half the group didn't make it. So again, I'll show you something that affects. One guy was really sick and had to get a couple of cups off the mountain and stuff. So it just shows that really fitness is secondary. You want to be as fit as you can so that you're not getting tired. You're not struggling from that. It's really about going slowly, taking your time, and really acclimatizing and just respecting what you have to do. to Did you have a guiding company with you? With that one, we did, yeah. Yeah, yeah but not with Okinawa. Not just me and a buddy. You have to go through a company, because it's a lot it's a lot more of a serious mountain. they they
01:30:01
Speaker
regulate ah their the mountaineers who are up there. So there's a few checkpoints you have to go through. They will check your vitals on those checkpoints and you have to get signed off by doctors along the way. say that you're So they call it Death Mountain because it it has and um it has a very high death rate it does it compared to a lot of more serious peaks. Even it compared to Everest? or um well Probably. Everest has got more serious climbers and and more can go wrong with Everest. You probably get Uh, yeah, maybe higher fatality rates just about at every split with. I can Kaggle what it is, is you got more far more amateurs doing it because it isn't particularly technical. Interesting. Um, so a lot of people doing it really shouldn't, who haven't, uh, put the training and haven't put the time in. Right. They're trying to get that training. Maybe they've done it a bit prematurely. Exactly. Well, it's just not taking it seriously because you can pay or, you know, through, through the nose and someone will literally drag you, drag but it doesn't mean you shouldn't, you should be there. Right. Um, so.
01:30:59
Speaker
Every day the helicopter every day was taking people off. Is that right? Yeah, a few people were blind as well when they had a hay skin caused blindness. Oh, wow. Hopefully that reverses when they get back down. Hopefully. yeah But um ah some people were super serious and and they were having to get carried off the mountain. We actually, when we summited, we had to carry a guy down. Really? um Yeah, it took us a good few hours. and he was wow he was He was close to the top and he was by himself. and yeah And we submitted, came back down. He was still there and he was suffering from haste. So we, we had to carry him down and we were pretty tired at the time, but we have to. And when, uh, uh, do you remember the, uh, what he stands for? Like could fly out for just for the, uh, cerebral edema. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So my understanding is when you're coming back down from a summit, that's probably the most dangerous time is that so wait, now you're bringing someone down that has haste and
01:31:55
Speaker
Was that pretty sketchy? Yeah, it was pretty steep at that point. And he was a big guy. So we're doing our best to hold him up. But he fell a few times. We're really trying to carry him down. But we also have to have our footing. So we gave him my poles. My buddy and I were just sort of grabbing each arm. But you're on 45 degree. slopes, you're really struggling yourself to hold yourself up. So there was a couple of times where he he had a slide and yeah and because we couldn't hold on to him and and yeah just just have to help him. Do they have it all roped like they do on Everest? There's a couple of rope sections. um
01:32:31
Speaker
Yeah, a couple of rep sections up to the last camp. But after the summit, now you're just, you're, you're by yourself. And are you doing, um, like steep, like straight up wall climbing to you, like ice climbing or? So there are routes that you can do on that. Um, no ice climbing on the main route. Um, definitely like you're traveling in crampons the whole time. You have your ice sacks out and there's, times when you have to be diligent about falling because there's no fall areas. But notice, there is quite a serious route you can certainly take to top of Aconcagua where you're traversing glaciers and also then having to go straight up. Straight up. Are you, and forgive me because I don't always know, I don't know all the details, but are you running ropes for yourself and your partner at all or no? On Aconcagua? No, we didn't have to. Well, there was one section where we roped up but you didn't have to.
01:33:22
Speaker
yeah it's not As a mountain, it's it's like as's the next step up from Kilimanjaro. yeah And if you if you plan to do 8,000-meter peaks, it's one I think that people start with. consciity yeah yeah Now, you've also done quite a few local mountains that are pretty big. um And like like you said, like the 14,000-foot kind of mountains or 14,000 mountains. Uh, our summits, um, so you've done like Baker, um, I think you did Mount Hood, yeah Robson, um, right yeah Rainier. Um, how did those like stand out to you? Were they pretty challenging or? Yeah, certainly. Yeah. Yeah. So it's challenging in them. and
01:34:00
Speaker
And again, like the, sorry, Humboldt and BC, the locals just do this for fun all the while. yeah yeah And we've got world-class skiing, world-class mountain biking, world-class climbing, you know, world-class, you know, you know, it just goes on and on.
Exploring British Columbia and Nepal
01:34:13
Speaker
It's incredible. And the athletes who are there. Fishing. Yeah. What a spearhead, for example, is like the traverse around Whistler. It's quite an iconic yeah it's traverse. its yeah You travel across the glaciers around there, but three days is like a typical amount of time, but there are people who do it in, I think, four hours is the record or something. It just stops. Same thing with like the West Coast Trail, which you did. Did you do that in like a really quick amount of time? I think it was 11 hours. hours or something. we front up People do that over five days. Well, that was we we worked all summer for that. That was a project. That's awesome. ah we i ah And that was actually our chief who inspired me with that. because there Yeah, he did that. That's right. He did that too. Yeah, really quick. He did that on a bed. I think he did. Yeah. yeah That's awesome. That's so good. With Baker, I think you went out with a crew or one of our our crews, right? How was that?
01:35:04
Speaker
uh you know climb and because I haven't been up there is it is it you know I see the mountain every day it's absolutely spectacular uh is there enormous ice crevasses that you have to cross on there um huge yeah yeah um yeah you have to so we went at uh we went at the end of September which it is normally um climbing season then but it was the hottest summer I think BC had had it was like a 40 degree year yeah so the melt cycle was was weeks ahead So the route was actually, yeah, it was, it was fairly and technical, very technical. Yeah. yeah You really, we had to pick a, pick a very safe route through or try'll try our best to pick a safe route through. yeahp But yeah, certainly it was ah it was a, it was a, it was a thinker. You had to, you had to plan. as i to imagine Is it, is it like the melting that's become dangerous? Yeah, the glaciers shift. They shifted a while. So like, um, and then also at that time,
01:35:57
Speaker
The stuff that was covered isn't necessarily covered anymore, but you might ah you might not see that. So you're really having to probe ahead and make sure that like where you're going is actually secure for things. Is solid in it. Did it require ice climbing? or i'm So they have the last phase, which, and no, you're not ice climbing. but I mean, you have your axe out the whole time because it it is- You're getting that grip. Yeah, you're getting that grip. And it's just, if you fall again, you we're all roped up at that point. You're roped up the whole time on on Baker. Did they run ropes up there? or No, they don't. You you um yeah had to run ropes. um It's called a rad line that you to take with you and um and it's ah it's a six mil line and it's a lot more lightweight. So the idea of there's been, it's a lot lighter for your travel. Right. Yeah. Easier to get up there. Are you carrying like a Hannah Sender on that as well? or yeah No, not Hannah Sender. Your glacier kit, you'll have a belay device, um you'll have ah various prussic sizes, sling, a few other things.
01:36:57
Speaker
It's just designed, you just want to be able to build a system to, um if someone goes into a glacier to be able to pull them out. Right. And also potentially have to pull yourself up if you're in that glacier as well. It sounds like it's um fairly lightweight, kind of minimalist, but you have to have the skills to be able to put it together. Yeah, that makes sense. I understand it certainly would be a useful thing, but it's an extra piece of gear to take when you could use your presser because you have with you. Yeah, you can use your presser con and you're good to go. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, yeah that's that's where like, I think, you know, you're not relying on a device, not to say it's wrong to rely on a device. I mean, that's, that has its place, but like, it's nice when you know how to build things out of rope and, and, and, or tool. That's why ski patrol is great because yeah i bet you're in that environment and no they teach you, you know, T-sliding, because no, that sort of stuff, but you really have to just work on the fly. And then your gear is the less gear you can take with you the better because you're having to ski with it. Yeah, um yeah that's, that's amazing.
01:37:49
Speaker
So we've covered a lot of ground. We're at about an hour before. I just want to make sure your time is okay. Oh, yeah, no problem. You're okay with time? Yeah, okay. I was going to ask you a few questions about like, um just things like maybe that ah other people might be, you know, interested in. So I guess just kind of, you've been to lots of destinations. Do you have a favorite destination you've been to? or Sounds a bit cliche, um because every outdoor person will say it, but Nepal, of course. Yeah, right. Nepal is just, um It's breathtaking, and it' i mean I'm not a religious person at all, but like i I do find a spirituality in the mountains. you know i like you yeah They have the highest monastery and and in the world there. I think it's about three and a half thousand meters up, and they these monks live up there with nothing really. And you just see them praying, they're surrounded by... Just awesome. And at that point, if you can't get spiritual or something... Yeah, yeah and I can only imagine how breathtaking and how like in the moment that must make you feel, right? yeah
01:38:47
Speaker
In terms of like cultural experiences or interactions, is there anything that stands out that like kind of really stands out for you? like in terms of like Obviously, one theme that we've been chatting about is how friendly people have been from different cultures. Islamic culture is goes such a bad press. you know and and and which Which is such tragedy. literallyly yeah It's terrible. because the people are next-level friendly. like it is that's awesome and yeah Crime is so low in ah in a lot of Islamic countries as well. It's so safe. and yeah
01:39:18
Speaker
this this so people you know it is just to to To have that as part of your culture, it's just to be hospitable is is something which is you can you can you can just see. ah I was in Kashmir in in February, and that is predominantly Islamic. and I was going through a bit of a tough time, just had a break up and all that. So yeah i an interesting place to be, but you've you've got a culture there, the local Kashmiris don't have an awful lot of money, but because they're um so educated in the religious studies, they're so wise, you know? So like you get to enter the taxi driver, and you know as I wear my heart on my sleeve, so he just wants to ask you what's going on and stuff, and I was telling him about what's just, you know,
01:40:02
Speaker
I was a bit sad, a bit down and stuff, but just the wisdom that you get from the taxi driver. It's awesome. Yeah. It's something I couldn't give anyone.
Sharing Expertise and Learning from Peers
01:40:09
Speaker
It's like a kind of an ah awesome nugget or like a thing that just magically appears sometimes with people, right? And i'm so you were there you were doing skiing. Is that correct? Yeah. You're like, how was that? I was in the Himalayan mountains. stuff done it. And you know, there really isn't many Westerners there at all. But again, you with travel, you realize the world is small. Yeah. So I am I custodian at a few of the huts in BC, the ACC own. So there's a couple and there's one in Whistler and one on this on the Duffy Lake. And I've met this couple two months previously.
01:40:42
Speaker
And so I'm by myself in the Himalayas and I'd hired a couple of local guides but they because I wanted to respect the fact that I was in the Himalayas. right um But they weren't very good. When I got chatting to them, they I didn't feel safe with them. oh zi No, they they killed a couple of guys the week before. Oh, geez. Like skiing? Skiing, yeah. Like avalanche? Avalanche is, yeah. Oh, wow. And he just didn't, just chatting away, so they just didn't have Unfortunately, the technical expertise that you needed. Exactly. You can't go by yourself, but just by chance, there's a couple that I've met a couple of months ago in Canada and BC, and there's really very few Westerners in this area. They happen to be in any ways as well. What a chance. I had two people to go with who are very educated, have done all their advantage courses over the years, and they get after it in the back country. So I had the best time ever. That's incredible. Just when you needed a bit of a pick me up. Yeah, for sure. And again, going back to, you know, the incredible people that we have in BC that do incredible things. There's a couple that just, you probably never even hear about that are highly experienced. Highly expert. They're geotech. So they spend all their time in the mountains working for mining companies.
01:41:53
Speaker
but Yeah, that life is just one big adventure. it's It's so funny because when I get in the outdoors and I do my, you know, I've done a little bit of filming because I'm doing my coffee thing and that I just feel like such a, like, you know, so so amateur in terms of it, which I am, you know, and that's part of the fun of it is learning and and and trying to get, you know, these experiences and trying to. draw upon, you know, other people's like knowledge and whatnot, right? Obviously, really, it's such a playground that you're just surrounded by very impressive people. And then, you know, the job we do, some of the guys on the job, you just chat away to them. It's incredible. You get cumbled pretty quickly about it. I say that one of the biggest things, one of the biggest pluses on awe being in the fire service, and i I would say it's probably anywhere in the world, whatever fire department, is the people and their expertise and the with their willingness to share that information. like
01:42:37
Speaker
You know, you want to become a mountain biker, we've got mountain bikers that'll teach you how to mount. You want to become a hunter, we've got hunters. You want to learn how to climb, you've got climbers. You know, it's just, it's incredible. It's like, it's been, it's something that I'll dearly miss as being around the guys because it's just like, you can't, I don't think you can replicate that anywhere in any other job. It's just, it's awesome, right? So sorry myified facebook it's definitely enriched my life and incredibly just having all that, right? So it's like, um so Now, a couple other things, so challenges on the road for cycling, we talked a little bit about it, but like just overall in travel, what is there anything that stood out in your mind that was a real difficulty over the over the course of traveling? A language is a big one and there's something that... um
01:43:22
Speaker
as a Brit and I suppose as a Canadian, but I used to speak from a British point of view. We're very ignorant in terms of learning languages because everyone speaks English. You go to Europe and everyone speaks three or four different languages. It's so impressive and I feel so poor for my- When I did my bike ride, I got into Mexico and didn't speak a lick of Spanish. So I'd sort of learn how much something is. I'd request if I hadn't learned the numbers. So I just sort of have to hope they're honest and I'd slide them some money that way and be like, please, please don't rip me off. Somebody calls $5 and you're paying $300 for it or something. Exactly. When we were in Tunisia, I had a real, I really felt that because I think the first
01:44:09
Speaker
ah language was Islamic if I'm not mistaken, or Arabic, I'm not 100% sure, so forgive me. Next language was like German, and then the next language like French, and then English was there thereafter. So I such as such a dis disadvantage, right? Yeah, I feel one thing I've learned in my time traveling is it's locals really appreciate it. um So, you know, I learned a fair bit of Spanish when I was traveling, discuss just because just so um because you'd be in the middle of nowhere, and you'd get chatting away, and and and When I lived in Korea, I tried to do um i went to university there and sort of learned there as much Korean as I could. write yeah and If I'm in Islamic countries, I try and like trying to say little phrases because they really appreciate it. like yeah that They can speak four languages, so they'll speak English to you. There's no problem, but they really appreciate the hello or the goodbye or the thank you. You're making an aming effort. Making an effort. Yeah, for sure. I think that's quite prevalent in France as well. like one we We were only there for a couple of days. um
01:45:07
Speaker
And I noticed that as as long as you're trying, they seem to be pretty receptive to yeah like to you, but if you weren't trying, maybe not so much. Yes, it really helped. Okay, so ah did you have any sort of unexpected adventures along the way or any things that kind of like threw you for a curve ball?
Bicycle Travel and Personal Growth
01:45:25
Speaker
Always, yeah. And and that's the great thing about... um I would always recommend if anyone if anyone was interested is is is grabbing a bicycle. and I personally feel a bicycle is the best way to see a place because yeah it's always unexpected. Every day is a different event. You don't have a hotel booked. You don't have yeah a destination per se. You have a target, but something might come along. you know and Because you're on a bike and you're in the middle of nowhere,
01:45:51
Speaker
People want to chat to you, especially if you're by yourself, and they really want to chat to you. yeah um And they want to find out what's going on. And then all of a sudden, you're meeting their family, and you're having dinner with their family. yeah yeah it's just you're You're smelling every smell. You're seeing every sight. And it annoys me in a car with the most beautiful drives in the world here. But you're driving to see the sky, and he says which never gets boring. But you see this beautiful view that you want to take a picture of. But you can't stop you're driving a car. yeah But on a bicycle, you can just stop stop. I found the same thing. So when I was doing a little bit of training for triathlon, again, very recreational. I was doing a big ride in the Okanagan and it was, it's one of the most memorable rides I've ever had because I could stop and then I left really early in the morning, I think about 5am because it was going to be about you know six or seven hours or maybe eight hours. And I remember coming up to this one part and just watching two deer 10 feet away from me eating and they didn't care about me. you it's just
01:46:46
Speaker
Just you and the deer. Just you and the deer and then carry on and you just stop and just, you know, take a take in the view where like you say, you're in a car, it's not the same at all. It's awesome. You can see so much more. The flip side of, you know, be in a backpack or whatever. It's a great experience as well. But if you're just doing, if you're just on the tourist bus doing a tourist thing as well, yeah you're only going to see those things. But if you can somehow drag yourself away, just doing a trail run or or having a or hiking or or whatever it is that you can sort of like, just be you and the locals. Yeah, seems to be the best way of really getting to know them and get a feel for things and and experience more. Right. whens so Even when you're like on a trail, like you're ah you know, I find like when I'm hiking, you'll you'll see your you'll see your signs of animals more. um You'll see like, you know, just just you taking in the environment, you know, the different, you know, flora or whatever, like different plants and whatnot. just It's just everything is like more um more like you're experiencing it deeper, right? So, overall, like, you know, one of the things I was going to ask you about is,
01:47:52
Speaker
you know especially with your big trip from Alaska to South America, did you find your growth as a person, like personal growth was huge? 100%. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you really get to know yourself. Again, they all cliche. ah But you really get to know yourself very well. So ah what makes you tick? What makes you doesn't? What doesn't make you tick? And your capabilities, like yeah you you realize it. Because and and I don't mean is to to be humble or anything. I am absolutely nothing athletically and in terms really, you know, really, but you just you just know what you're capable of, you know, and and and and really, like you were mentioning earlier, the human body is insane what you can do. Yeah, what you can come up with. And imagine your confidence must also soar because now, you you know, you slept outside in a tent. It's like, oh, it's not a big deal any longer. It's like, I can do this if I need to. And I don't need a lot of personal items or material things. Yeah.
01:48:48
Speaker
Uh, so if you're too going into like, so say someone wants to get into traveling, kind of, you know, cycling, going to foreign countries like this, is there tips that you would give them or a few tips you'd give them? Uh, respect locals. So whatever, whatever the locals do two you do? Um, because you do see it. Unfortunately a little bit too often that, um, just with tourism in general, that, um, We can stand out like a sore thumb sometimes, and it's not where you want to be. Not the positive way. Not the positive way. 100%. I respect that. like Yeah, people are super, super friendly. um And they are already good for few you. But I would say ah toexx don't expect to don't expect help. You'll get it 100%. Just be prepared to deal with everything yourself.
01:49:33
Speaker
um and respect the fact that so like wild camping for example like yeah people are super friendly and and and people will invite you in to stay around and and and embrace it take advantage of that but don't pitch your tent on the side of a road in the middle of a town because you're just inviting unwanted attention and because there are a small a so very small minority of people who will see opportunities there so still respect the fact that you are you are vulnerable you know you are ah you have um everything you you have in life is on that bicycle with you. So yeah yeah still try and make smart decisions with that in mind and go with the flow. Incredibly wise. like I'm thinking, you know like how would I respond to that question? I would be like, okay, you know pack this gear this way. isn and But but you know you've experienced it and you're going right to like respect the people that are out there, respect where you're sitting. Be aware of your whole you know situation that you're in. It makes so much sense because that's probably number one overall.
01:50:30
Speaker
Yeah, and I would say also, like be prepared to make mistakes. like Mistakes are, as long as you do all those things, you hopefully your mistake won't be so bad. Yeah, yeah, big but yeah. you' just yeah have to You have to learn the hard way sometimes. That's right. I had a ah really bad, I won't say that the brand of Tyro, but I had a really bad tire on my tires I was using. And I was every day doing fixing flats, and it drove me Crazy. That's what I realized. Well, maybe I was just wish the fire. Yeah. Sometimes it'd be like a little thorn in it or something that just still causing a puncture or whatever. They can't always feel it. Right. But, uh, do you have something that you pack that's like absolute, like a couple of things or a few items that you pack that are essential, uh, or I guess, I mean, everything becomes essential or really like, you know, 10, everything else. But is there some certain things that you, you really like look forward to have on your trips or? Hard to say.
01:51:22
Speaker
Yeah, hard to say. I would say this. So my gear has just gone less and less and less. That's experience experience, right? Yeah, it's at a point when we when we did the Pamir Highway, because that's sort of like a cycling, an adventure cycle is sort of paradise, you actually, you actually will see a couple of cycles because like, yeah, and they usually done some, you know, a couple, a couple who just come across, they've done around and sort of tech menistan and sort of like through that area. And and another chap who's gone through Russia and yeah they're all on their own like the venture and that's, and the family is sort of like the pinnacle of that. is um right So you really, you meet some, some interesting people, but then they would, they would look at what we were carrying him, like you guys are carrying far too little and it's like, actually, no, even with what we were carrying, we were still carrying far too much. right yeah So unfortunately there are things that is not,
01:52:12
Speaker
things that I really want to bring with me, but things I have to bring with me, like your, again, to do your duties and to respect your surroundings, yeah your ah your GPS device, your, your first aid kit, um those sort of things, which you never use. Right. Ever. Yeah. Yeah. But you just have to have them with you.
Essential Gear and Learning from Others
01:52:28
Speaker
Because if you're not, yeah and you're in that environment, and something goes wrong. And then someone says, Well, why don't you have this? And you don't want to be that person who says, Well, I didn't prepare. do Do you carry like an in-reach or? I carry an in-reach. Yeah. That's what I have as well. Actually, Madison, my older daughter carries it all the time when she's doing her ultras and whatnot. i'm i'm I'm hopeful that something like Starlink will come along and be like quite useful for people and affordable because I mean, maybe there'll be another option, ah but having that ability to communicate in remote locations is will be fantastic. Right. You know, the, um,
01:53:04
Speaker
Sorry, when you're when you're you're out there and you've got minimal equipment, I know for me, I was kind of chuckling because I am the opposite. I am ridiculous at how much stuff I bring and then people make fun of me all the time, which is rightfully so. but But I do like packing my kit and just bringing stuff and trying to see what works and what doesn't work and like streamlining. um i ah I do carry too much. I think with experience, like that's where you you can start streamlining things. Yeah. Well, I think also because you're on your hunting trip, so you have the ability to. So I mean, I actually, why not? You know, if you have a vehicle. You got, you can it can carry it up there for you. And and and it's funny because I've packed things away.
01:53:41
Speaker
ah Or, you know, when are you people say when are you ever going to use that or guys are easier or even I'll think when am I going to reuse it, but then I needed it. And it's like when you have that one tool, you're like, I only need it for five minutes. But man, it's made life so much easier, whatever. um I would say we get like one thing I've realized over the years is just learning from other people as well. Because there is that sort of when you meet someone who's doing a similar sort of thing, you sort of look at what they have. Yeah. And when I see each other's stuff up because you're you're just trying to see who's got a better setup. Yeah. but so Some people really, especially when you go s ski touring, everyone has a different pattern, everyone. yeah So like some things you take, some things you don't, that's fine. Like some things you like, some things other people don't. yeah But you really learn a lot from growing with as many people as as possible. Absolutely. i did a um I did a job on a sunken ship and I was just doing a rescue standby.
01:54:32
Speaker
And I was like the least qualified guy there. These guys were like epic ah rope guys. One of the guys that submitted Denali like 18 times and did it once solo. And he, you know, he worked for National Geographic and just in a really fascinating individual. And just being around them and seeing how they use equipment and the type of equipment and how fast they use equipment and how how good it's like a carpenter that's wicked with his, you know, building things. It's just they're so efficient. And I was so far behind. if It was really humbling actually to be around these guys, but but on the same token, it was awesome. Cause I was learning rapidly, right? Cause like you say, being around people like that just makes such a, such a difference. It's the same thing with anything in life. You know, I've done a little bit of jujitsu and when you're in jujitsu world, when you're around people that know jujitsu, you'll learn more and you, and you refine your skills and whatnot. Right. So one question that I'm asking everybody is, uh,
01:55:24
Speaker
if you're to have a cup of coffee or in your case tea or you drink with choice with anyone ever alive or dead historical, ah is there someone and that you would ah want to have that with and where?
Adventure Bucket List and Everest Reflections
01:55:38
Speaker
Ralph Fiennes, probably. He's a British explorer. Oh, well. Tremendously an interesting, interesting fella. So I probably would love to have a drink with him in Antarctica, of course, because that's why one of his famous expeditions. So has he passed in or? No, still alive. very I mean, as far as I know, I should probably do. He's getting on a bit, but um yeah. That'd be amazing. And and so has he done as he like done expeditions all his whole life? His whole life, yeah. Wow. yeah Tremendously interesting person. It's incredible because, you know, in living in like sort of in the city or suburbs,
01:56:14
Speaker
You just don't meet people like that very often, yeah you know but they're out there. The more research I do, the more I come across people like similar to that, and you're just like, man, what an incredible life they live. I would say as well, maybe being biased for this, but so in Canada, you expect to have all these just insanely impressive people. Britain's a bit odd because we we're a very comfortable country. yeah and We don't have anything anything dangerous. Nothing's going to kill you. shouldn' You don't have skiing there, do you? that In Scotland, we do. Oh, in Scotland, okay. And some like hills in England. but Sorry, I know it seems like a ridiculous question to ask, but I just try to understand the lay of the land a little bit. yeah so um i mean Even even a skiing in Scotland is is hit or miss, depends if the winter's there or not. But you do get these random explorers in the UK who just
01:56:58
Speaker
do epic and it's just odd for a country which doesn't really have, there's no reason for you to be interested in this stuff. Everything's so comfortable and you just have the environment for it. But you, England and Scotland, I mean, England, you know, the adventures over the course of history are epic, like the tall ship. You know, like legendary, right? Like the the things that they would have done. I mean, I'm sure it's all like, it's in your blood, right? Like it's for a lot of people. just a with That's awesome. That's good. I was saying to Stefan that when he was on that, the person I'd want to have it with at this particular juncture is Napoleon. Somewhere like before, like a pre-battle kind of like in a tent with him, like around his maps and like, just like have a, you know, a cup of coffee and just like,
01:57:45
Speaker
you know is just to spend 15 minutes would be just such an iconic kind of ah kind of a thing. Tremendous and interesting fellow. Yeah, yeah just just fantastic. so You have a bit of a bucket list. What are some of the things you wanted to do next or in the future? so i mean um I want to do this as a a polar marathon in Greenland. and That's actually coming up this year that I i want to do. is that Is that in accounts or is that in across the ice? Across the ice. That's cool. That'd be a fun trip. It's a little bit more um
01:58:19
Speaker
One thing I kind of like in my travels is trying to just get away by myself, but that one's definitely something it is an organized event. Right. Yeah. And lots of people around. It will be lots of people around, but it's something that I just want to green on the bucket list for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I know that Stefan Kesting, he said that. I think he wants to ski across Greenland or something like that. Yeah, yeah he's he's got that on as a bucket list. I'm going to have to chat stuff and that'd be a cool guy to go with. That'd be awesome. um One thing we didn't talk about is you've been to, just a backtrack a minute, is you've been to Basecamp Everest. How was that? That was fantastic. Yeah. um
01:58:55
Speaker
Right. It's a big it's a big camp. It's not huge. It's not like a you know, you if you don't know, I would have thought it's small. But when you see ah photography of it or like video of it, it goes on for what seems like forever. It's huge. And you can't actually get into the camp. it's like It will get you to you get to a line that you know, they've put across and and that's it. Because to get past that line is $100,000 like 100 grand to go is is it like Like, how do they regulate that? I mean, you could get past, you can certainly get past. But the authorities might not be, because you need a permit, don't you? You need a permit, yeah, to climb it. um And, but it's a pretty, I mean, it's just a beautiful trek up there anyway, like it's stunning. And they've got like lots of key houses in the local communities and whatnot. They just, it sounds amazing. yeah That's definitely like a bucket list thing for me. Love to go there one day and then check it out. But, um
01:59:44
Speaker
Again, you're pretty ah humbled by this the local, not the sherpas, the guys who are supplying them because they get paid per kilo. So you we get this tiny old man who is carrying the cinder blocks up the whole way because he just wants his money, which probably- So he's carrying it to base camp and dropping off the equipment? Yeah, um base camp or like the tea houses along the way or anything. But just what they're carrying and what they're carrying with is yeah these like old like wooden framed so of like bags. Wow. Yes. I think I've seen some video of that and they're huge too. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, yeah, cause the Sherpas are obviously incredible, but you don't hear about that so much, right? They all start off like that as well. So they start off like that and then that's how they get ahead and then learn English is helpful because, um, with the mountaineering world and then they go from Sherpas, sorry, from, um, forces to then assistant to tail guys and to guides and then she how long, how long ago were you there?
02:00:42
Speaker
Oh, that would have been 2012. I think they've done a pretty big cleanup program. Is that true? Like, was that after you were there or? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah yeah Interesting. We went during the monsoon season as well. So I try, seems a bit bizarre, but I always try and time my trips in in the, almost the worst time to go because then you you truly get like less people. I mean, it was just me and my partner at the time. It was just two of us the whole trip, which was great. Oh man. That's definitely, that's definitely a bucket list thing for me. How about um yourself? Would you ever think of doing Everest? It's honestly one that hasn't ah appealed hugely because i would I would love to do it. If I had $100,000 and I had expendable cash, yeah, certainly would do it. But A, the expense is is just prohibitive. yeah And B, I certainly would take nothing away from climbing Everest. It is a huge, huge, huge achievement. But the way that
02:01:33
Speaker
it's being marketed now and the way it's, it's um, yeah, uh, people who really perhaps don't have any rights to do it, uh, sort of getting out there. Yeah. I've heard that. I've heard that quite a bit from different, various different adventures. Like they, they talk, they've, they've kind of talked about that quite a bit. So I really, it's, it's, it's just one, it's just an industry almost. I don't really want to support right yeah as much as I'd love to be out there. right and Everyone has their own kind of the Uh, journey they want to take, right. And some things, some things are going to be more appealing than others. Right. So it's also like, I mean, it's a pretty, also slightly ignorant thing for me to say, because.
02:02:08
Speaker
There are a lot of people who rely on that support. you know like That financial hits to the economy and everything. sorry yeah isn' it's just It's just it's become too much now. There's too many people there. and it's not It's not an appealing thing. I think that you're not alone in like a lot of climbers and a lot of you know mountaineers feel the same way. But of course, i mean obviously, if it presented itself, it might be something you know to do. You're still with the highest mountain in the world. Yeah, it's still cool. The cool factor is pretty high there for sure. on an episode And then what else? so On the bucket list, a couple of other things. you re count And so it's because ah big on the list as well. i I really want to climb.
02:02:44
Speaker
um I wouldn't want to do some s ski touring in Antarctica. That'd be cool. And then Elbrus would be my next sort of like summit, because that's like the next one. Where is that one? Is that Europe? Russia. Russia, Georgia border. And you can ski mountain near that as well, so that's quite nice. You can ski down. That'd be great. And then Denali would be, because it is on the doorstep, yeah again, for expense. or it's um Is Denali pretty expensive? Yeah. Is it? Oh, I don't know that. Very expensive. OK. Do you probably have to have a guide for that? I wouldn't mind. Yeah, 6,000 last time I checked US. so Yeah, like but awesome. Yeah, that'd be a great experience. um But yeah, so they're on the bucket list, but financial chef might be. yeah Yeah, I hear you. Yeah, yeah. One thing at a time. um I was thinking when ah when we were when I was doing the research for all this,
02:03:27
Speaker
for our podcast today. I think you need to write a book. It'd be awesome. I definitely would would be interested in reading that. And Stefan's writing, I just wrote in a book. It's going to be coming out next year and I'm reading that. It's awesome. It's really, really good. I i i i got a chapter in a book right now. no there yeah yeah so a fellow who was just putting together stories from... Oh, is that right? Yeah, he was an interested interesting guy. I met him along ah ah one of the bike rides and yeah he sort of pieced into those stories that he's had along. Is that right, eh?
02:03:59
Speaker
for me and i ah I just want to do my thing.
02:04:06
Speaker
That's awesome, man. Thank you so much for coming on. I think that's been great chatting with you. Hopefully we can get you back after you've been on some more adventures. It's been great. I really appreciate you taking the time, buddy. Is there anything else that you wanted to add or cover before we kind of... That's great. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah. Thanks, brother. That's been great. It's been good. It's awesome.