Adventure means different things to different people, but it’s important for all of us to get some!

My adventures recently have been paddling trips close to home and taking part in a seakayak race on Anglesey. I’ve also dusted off my mountain bike as I prepare to play another small part in a very big adventure! I’ll be joining Sarah Outen in Kazakhstan to bike with her for a week and film part of her human-powered loop of the globe. She’ll have been biking for close to 3 months by the time I join her so I need to get a bit of training in (or secretly pack one of those bits of elastic that adventure racers use so she can tow me!).

In other watery adventures, Jon Turk & Eric Boomer have completed the first leg of their circumnavigation of Ellesmere island – they’re traveling north on skis, dragging a kayak behind them. As they reached ‘civilisation’ they were met by a pack of wolves. Read their blog here.

Tim Taylor is attempting the first continuous circumnavigation of New Zealand by kayak. He started on the east coast of the North island, headed south, has kayaked around the whole of the South island and is back near the top of the North coast. You can read his blog here.

Stuart Trueman is quietly making great progress on his paddle around Australia. He’s decided to paddle around the coastline of the Gulf of Carpenteria (like Paul Caffyn 30 years ago), rather than cross it (like Freya Hoffmeister a year ago). He hopes to complete the loop in August. Read his blog here.

Harry Wheelan and Jeff Allen succeeded in getting a speed record around Ireland, paddling around the Emerald isle in just 25 days, desite a lot of headwinds. Their trip blog made interesting reading. Local northern ireland paddler, Elaine ‘Shooter’ Alexander is currently taking a more sensible pace around Ireland. Visit her website.

Every day life can be an adventure if we want it to! If things go a bit wrong for me  (for example a 1TB hard drive containing all my footage from Tierra del Feugo and most of the filming I’ve done with Cheri & Turner dying – yes, that really did happen 2 weeks ago).. When these things are sent to try us, I get really annoyed and upset, and then eventually I start to see it like an adventure; another problem to overcome, another twist and turn in life. When I can view any challenge as ‘another adventure’ it becomes easier to deal with! I still have all the original video tapes from my watery adventures … but the way I’ve chosen to edit with HD footage, means it will be a lot of work to get it back onto another drive in the same format. … Such is life! Getting annoyed doesn’t make it any better!

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