Adventure She
Adventure She magazine, Issue 17, July 2022
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Empower Educate Entertain
Featuring World Female Ranger Week Tribute to Dervla Murphy Hiking in the Sahara Climbing in Alaska Nellie Bly
Plus Expedition Planning Navajo Nation & Lots more
Issue 17, July 2022 www.adventureshe.com
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Price £5.00 for 1 issue or £12 for all 4 of 2022’s issues
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Welcome From Our Editor Welcome to the 17th issue of Adventure She magazine which is a bumper issue and the theme for which is ‘the importance of attitude’.
and she was the first woman to skydive over Mount Everest. Holly isn’t all about adventure though. Holly is the founder of How Many Elephants. Her passion for protecting elephants from poachers is real, whether on the front line with the women rangers, when sharing her work and experiences on social media, or when giving a talk. When I attended a talk she gave, her passion was so effervescent, it illuminated the room. Her attitude had the audience not only on the edge of their seats, but also eager to help Holly to spread the word about the travesty of poachers killing elephants for their ivory tusks. Few people have the time and money to help every good cause. I believe Holly’s enthusiastic attitude is key to the success of How Many Elephants.
Whenever I have the honour of reading a contribution, I’m usually amazed at what the author has achieved and often in tough circumstances. Sometimes I want to know more. I want to know how the author succeeded against the odds, and what physical or mental obstacles they faced. I’ve even been known to Zoom with some authors, quizzing them at length. Why do this? Because the whole point of Adventure She isn’t just to share entertaining stories, it’s also to educate each other, so each one of us can feel as empowered as possible to go forth and live our best life.
In our ‘Self Belief v Self Doubt’ (June 2019) issue, Gilly Nickols shared her inspiring story, as to how she refused to give in to the menopause and instead embraced life. Shortly afterwards Gilly suffered a debilitating knee injury. Some people might have let that injury to derail their plans, saying, ‘oh perhaps challenges weren’t meant to be for me after all’. Not so Gilly who’s positive and constructive attitude is one I hugely admire. Here she writes about hiking in the Sahara after knee surgery.
Of course, not every day, week, or month is a ‘best’. We all face challenges, some greater than others. There’s also no rule as to when a challenging time may hit us. What’s become apparent to me, from reading all those contributions and talking to authors, is the importance of the author’s attitude in striving for their goals. Hence this issue’s theme. Holly Budge might appear to live a dream life – she’s summited both the world’s tallest mountain - Mount Everest and the world’s sixth highest mountain – Cho You, she’s raced across New Zealand’s South Island in the legendary Coast to Coast race,
When COVID 19 hit, many of us lived in countries with strict lockdown rules. We couldn’t go anywhere, let alone travel afar. Now with travel having opened up again, many of us are once again enjoying travels 2
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far from home. I think Julia Goodfellow – Smith’s article highlights an important point. We don’t have to travel far from home to have an adventure. I really If you are one of those still stuck at home, whatever the reason, please do not despair. Now might be the most challenging time of your life. You might feel like screaming each time you see another photograph of a friend travelling on Facebook or Instagram. But will screaming help? Would a microadventure be better? Be it a different walk / run / bike ride, or a trip to a local museum, or something totally different, why not make it your mission to seek out something new?
positive of people can encounter moments of despair, the question is, how do we deal with those moments. One of the reasons I set up Adventure She, is because I felt women are underrepresented in the history books. I’m glad to say there’s other women out there who feel exactly the same and instead of complaining about the past, are instead focused on readdressing the imbalance. One of those women is Rosemary J Brown. Rosemary epitomises the Adventure She spirit. In this issue she appears twice, once for her work as author of the book Following Nellie Bly and most importantly, for her obituary of the traveller, travel author and legend, Dervla Murphy.
Emma Hickey found her attitude was challenged when she went mountaineering in Alaska. With massive blisters on her heels, would she crumble, despair and endlessly complain because of the physical pain she was enduring, or would she do her utmost to help her teammates and make the most from her experience?
Another woman determined to share the stories of more women who have passed on, is Anne Fletcher, who’s book Widows of the Ice appears in our book review section. Our other book review is equally important for whilst they say a positive attitude helps us, at times such as when we grieve, being positive can for many if not most, be impossible. Enter Sophie Cairns, who ultimately chose to turn grief and despair into action.
Many of us will have heard stories of sports teams with a good attitude who win games others had expected them to lose, and of supposedly unbeatable teams who lose to seemingly lesser opponents. When Jessica Mullins put together a team of novices to row the Atlantic Ocean, compared to many other team they had little chance of success. But Jessica and the rest of the team had something in their favour, namely their positive attitude. In part 2 of her story on how she and team IN DEEP SHIP rowed the Atlantic Ocean and, in the process, set a new world record, Jessica discusses the challenges she and the team faced in respect of finance, food and fitness. Her story is an important one for it also shows that even the most
Despair is something many a nation may have felt when invaded by others. To some land inhabited by only a few people might seem empty, land up for grabs. To others, that land is their home. Lucja Leonard who is currently based in the USA, has set out to understand more about the history and culture of the land where she now lives. Lucja’s attitude to learn and understand more, is surely one to be admired. After all, if we learn and understand more about the past, hopefully
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we can also become more understanding and better human beings.
sharing stories and imparting information. Enter Jill Yesko, yet another woman determined to bring us stories of women before those women are forgotten. Jill’s preferred mode is documentary film making. I was lucky enough to speak with Jill. Her attitude to her portfolio career, a career built step by step, is revelatory. Sometimes it may seem as if we are rambling along, but sometimes those rambles are actually a journey we need to, take in order to achieve our real destination. But what really makes me admire Jill Yesko is something she told me “This is part of being a woman, we got to share resources and knowledge, you know, there's no sense in keeping it to yourself. That's just being a horrible cold person”.
a testament to overcoming adversity with a smile. Whilst Sarah Gigante has been an expert cyclist for most of her life, some of us come into adventure a tad later in life. I’m one of those. Last time around I shared some mistakes I made during my first ‘big’ hikes. Those mistakes could have stopped me. But, rather than letting those mistakes stop me, I chose to learn from my mistakes and to keep exploring. Of course, I’ve made loads more hiking mistakes since then. In this issue I share some of those additional mistakes. Hopefully by sharing my mistakes, you’ll either have a laugh and be entertained, or perhaps, if you are new to adventure, you might pick up some useful tips.
I really hope you will agree that this issue of Adventure She and in fact every issue of Adventure She, does as much as it possibly can for a tiny magazine, to help inspire and motivate others, through sharing stories that are empowering, educating and entertaining.
Once again with another packed issue, some articles have been held back to next time. In particular, the adventures of the Merthyr Mermaid, aka Cath Pendleton. As her article discusses cold water swimming and the weather is currently baking hot, I figured this was probably the most appropriate article to hold back until a future issue. I really hope Adventure She can bring you the article in its September issue.
As always, if you have a story to share, definitely please do get in touch, for I really want Adventure She magazine to share as many of your stories as possible.
Jane
Books aren’t the only way to share stories, films done well can be a brilliant way of
Adventure She is published by TNA Consulting Services Ltd, the address of the registered of which can be obtained from Companies House. The entire contents are protected by copyright and all rights are reserved. Reproduction without prior permission is forbidden. Every care is taken in compiling the contents of the magazine, but the publishers assume no responsibility in the effect arising therefrom, Readers are advised to seek professional advice before acting on any information which is contained in the magazine. Neither TNA Consulting Services Ltd nor Adventure She magazine accept any liability for views expressed, pictures used, or claims made. Copyright © 2022 TNA Consulting Services Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
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Front cover Holly Budge on the summit of one of her epic climbs, the 8,188 metres or 26,864 foot Cho You in Tibet. Holly has also summited Mount Everest and sky dived over Mount Everest, being the first woman to do the later. Image courtesy of Holly Budge. Photographs accompanying the editorial – The Sahara Desert in Morocco, courtesy of Jane Harries, Back cover - Gilly Nickols. Image courtesy of Gilly Nickols All other photos courtesy of the unless article’s author / interviewee, otherwise stated
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Adventure She magazine, Issue 17, July 2022
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Topics In This Issue Of Adventure She Magazine Page 22: Charity Hiking In The Sahara Desert
Page 8: World Female Rangers Week
Page 52: Cycling King Alfred’s Way
Page 58: UNESCO
Page 114: Climbing In Alaska
Page 70: Nelly Bly 6
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Page 102: Expedition Finance, Food and Fitness
Page 78: Navajo Nation
Page 34: Women of the Tour De France
Page 76: Book Reviews
Page 86: How To Become A Professional Cyclist- Sarah Gigante
Page 50: Obituary - Dervla Murphy
Page 122: More Hiking Mistakes
Page 134: Coming Up 7
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World Female Ranger Week By Holly Budge Photographs courtesy of Holly Budge
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A few years ago, Holly Budge gave a talk in the upstairs room of a pub in central London. The venue was basic, but her enthusiasm, her spirit and her talk were electric. She hadn’t just climbed Mount Everest. She hadn’t just set up a charity aiming to save elephants, she hadn’t just become the first person ever to skydive from above Mount Everest, Holly Budge had done them all. On top of that, she was a super friendly speaker, answering question after question. She’s kindly offered to write for us before, but we procrastinated. Why? Because well, she’s so super-duper, we somehow felt rather intimidated, scared, like, why would she want to do something for us? We know, we’d suggested it, she’d offered and then we were too scared to follow up. We kept following her on Instagram, amazed at how one woman could do so much and embarrassed that we hadn’t got back to her. Then she posted about the first ever World Female Ranger Week. Regular readers might recall that at Adventure She, we have a think for elephants. So was it serendipity or what that we saw Holly’s Instagram post? We got back in touch and well, practically hours later Holly sent us this article. We may have had an attitude of procrastination, of fear and of doubt. Not so Holly, her attitude is is clearly one of following through promptly, of living life to the maximum and of giving back to the natural world. Holly is most definitely a woman who inspires people to think big and dream bigger.
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’m no stranger to adventure, summiting Everest and becoming the first woman to skydive Everest, but patrolling with multiple all-female anti-poaching teams in Africa has been a whole different beast.
women meant business. My mind started racing... What have they spotted? What’s going to happen next? To my delight, they had spotted an elephant cow with her calf, heavily camouflaged in the trees about 50 metres away. One ranger whispered to me, “a cow with her calf can be very aggressive. We must move back slowly”. I loved seeing the excitement on the rangers’ faces from the elephant sighting. Their passion for the wildlife shone through in that moment. No words were needed.
It’s 5.45am, it’s still dark as I stand in line with four armed Akashinga rangers in Zimbabwe, ready to go out on foot patrol. “You may not see any wildlife Holly, this is not a safari trip” says Nyaradzo, my go-to ranger. I pinched myself as the realisation of where I was becoming very real. These women are fighting a war on poaching and the poachers are not the only threat out there. The rangers load their AK47’s. The front ranger clicked her fingers as a signal to go. I took a deep breath as we moved into the darkness.
You may be wandering how I got the rare privilege of patrolling on the frontline with these women? It all started back in 1999 when I threw myself out of a perfectly good aeroplane for the first time. That 60 seconds of sheer adrenaline (and terror!) changed the course
We stopped abruptly and knelt down. I sensed a change in their energy, these
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of my life forever. I made a decision right there and then to learn to skydive and get employed as a freefall camera woman. A pretty far-fetched goal given that I knew nothing about filming or skydiving. But none of that mattered because I knew I could give it my best shot.
recently, patrolling with female anti-poaching rangers on the front line in Africa. In 2013, I studied for a Masters in Sustainable Design and the idea for ‘How Many Elephants’, now a UK registered charity, was born. As I began researching the African Elephant crisis, I was shocked by the poaching statistics and set about creating a fresh design-led awareness campaign. I was specific in my goal to create a 100% non-gory and non-political campaign. I designed and built a necklace displaying 96 elephants - the daily poaching rate in Africa - cut in vegetable ivory, a sustainable plant material from South America. I then designed a hard-hitting exhibition displaying 35,000 elephant silhouettes to represent the annual poaching rate. For people to see and connect with this
Eventually I landed my ‘dream job’ and was getting paid to jump out of aeroplanes up to 12 times a day, every day, with cameras strapped to various parts of my body. Achieving this huge goal gave me immense self-belief that I could succeed in whatever I put my mind to. This adventurous spirit and resilient mindset has led me on some incredible adventures including bagging a world record for racing 1000km across Mongolia on semi wild horses and more 12
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data in a purely visual and factual way has proved to be highly successful in terms of engagement and impact. In essence, I’m using design as a powerful communication tool to bridge the gap between scientific data and human connection.
within their communities, easing local tension and investing their earned income into their families. I’ve spent several weeks immersed on the front line with all female and mixed ranger teams across Africa, including The Black Mambas in South Africa, Akashinga in Zimbabwe and Mara Elephant Project in Kenya, all of whom are direct action initiatives I support through How Many Elephants. The Black Mambas are armed with pepper spray and handcuffs, the Akashinga rangers with AK47’s but all of these teams are making huge strides forward for wildlife conservation and female empowerment. These women are transforming attitudes towards the role of women in Africa, and beyond.
How Many Elephants quickly gained momentum as the exhibition has travelled to international audiences, receiving global recognition. My next focus was on supporting female rangers. Why female rangers specifically? I have found the more specific I am about my goals, the greater the motivation, clarity and impact I have. The female ranger movement in Africa, and beyond, has shown great success and is building as women are natural communicators, strengthening relationships 13
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This was the inspiration behind the recent launch of World Female Ranger Week, taking place annually on June 23-30th, to raise awareness and funds for female rangers. So far I have identified over 4500 female rangers in 18 African countries and 5500 female
rangers worldwide. It is the first week-long awareness campaign to celebrate and support female wildlife rangers around the world and provide a platform to share their stories, access peer support and share best practice
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About Holly Budge As well as being an adventurer, an Everest summiteer and the first woman to skydive Everest, Holly the founder and leader of the international non-profit, How Many Elephants. She has been celebrated by Sir David Attenborough and as a keynote speaker, has been described as “down-to-earth, funny and incredibly inspiring” by HRH Prince Edward. On top of all that, Holly’s fundraising has raised GBP 400,000 for environmental projects. Holly recently launched World Female Ranger Week to support female rangers on the front line of wildlife conservation. How to follow Holly Budge and her work on social media Websites: www.hollybudge.com http://www.worldfemalerangerweek.org/ www.howmanyelephants.org Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hollybudge/ https://www.instagram.com/worldfemalerangerweek/ https://www.instagram.com/howmanyelephants/ You can also see an incredibly powerful trailer to a film about the Akashinga women rangers here https://films.nationalgeographic.com/akashinga
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Hiking in the Sahara
By Gilly Nickols 19
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In our June 2019 issue Gilly Nickos wrote “As middle age and the ghastly menopause struck, my confidence plummeted and my waistline expanded. With hot flushes, lack of sleep and a general sense of discontent my glass half full approach to life was in danger of being spoilt.” Gilly Nickols’ attitude wasn’t one of withering away thought, her’s is an attitude of making the most of her life. So she took the bull by the horns. She decided to embrace all she had and embarked upon a series of challenges. You can read about some of her earliest challenges in that June 2019 issue which is still available on our website. Hear Gilly Nickols shares her experience of another challenge, that of hiking in the Sahara, a hike that had extra meaning for her, as her son Tom has a special connection with the Sahara.
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n 2017 my son Tom (then a Captain in the British Army) took part in what is known as the toughest foot race on earth, the Marathon des Sables. It’s said to involve running six marathons in six days across the Sahara Desert. That though is an approximation as the course tends to change and each day’s distance differs. Tom though seriously fit, wasn’t a professional runner. He wasn’t even on anyone’s radar. Amazingly he came third, the highest ever placing by a British man! Tom told me about his time in the Sahara and later that year I attended a Marathon des Sables evening. Together with Tom, Elisabet Barnes (the Swedish born athlete then based 20
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in the UK and who was twice winner of the women’s race) and the well-known (in running circles) Susie Chan, Jane (now Adventure She’s editor) was one of the speakers. Jane had been one of the ‘also participated’ people. She’d walked the entire MDS, keeping going even after putting her back out. Inspired by (and somewhat jealous) of Tom’s adventures in the Sahara, a place I now longed to visit, I decided I needed some adventures in my life!! Jane tried to persuade me to walk the MDS for she thought me more than capable of doing so. But I wanted to find my own adventures and, in the process, to raise money for charity. Tom had raised money for a wonderful charity, Walking With The Wounded (WWTW), which does extraordinarily valuable work with vulnerable veterans helping to reintegrate them back into society and sustain their independence, and I decided that as well as challenging myself, I wanted to raise money for WWTW too. I quickly signed up for two events being organised by
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WWTW – a 50 mile bike ride around the (rather hilly) Kent lanes and close to home, came first, followed by a fantastic team hike in Cumbria with three friends which pushed us extremely hard on one of the hottest days of summer 2018! Keen to do more I somehow managed to give the impression that, like Tom, I could run, and found myself being offered a place to run for WWTW in the 2019 London Marathon. That was an incredible challenge. The training was probably
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harder than race day itself where I found I was carried along (all be it very slowly) by the emotion and excitement of the day. I didn’t “hit the wall” but I did feel rather deflated afterwards. Fast forward to August 2019 and I was on holiday in Scotland with Tom when my knee went. Instead of hiking in the Highlands I found myself in front of a specialist. The consultant explained I had a complex tear of my meniscus. He gave me three weeks to see how my knee felt mechanically, before
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deciding whether he needed to perform a knee arthroscopy. My sports physiotherapist warned me though that if I didn’t have an operation, there was no way I would be able to do what I want - run, hike, climb a mountain!! I was a week or so post my operation to repair a badly torn meniscus and busy with physiotherapy when I received an email from WWTW - as part of their 10th anniversary celebrations they were organising a Sahara Trek, billed as hiking 100km in the Sahara, following some
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of the Marathon des Sables route and camping under the stars. Here was my chance for my own Sahara adventure. It sounded great and I signed up immediately. It certainly helped me focus on doing my knee rehabilitation exercises. Fast forward to February 2020 and I found myself waiting rather apprehensively at Gatwick Airport with 11 other intrepid fund-raisers to fly to Morocco and trek in the desert! I had packed light, just taking the essentials of walking boots and poles, sun cap and sunglasses, a three-season sleeping bag, water bottles, shorts, leggings, t shirts and a warm jacket. Toiletries were sparse – soap, moisturiser, toothpaste and a toothbrush and the essential sun protection plus an industrial sized box of Compeed plasters! Finally, a headtorch and my iPhone which would be used as a camera plus power pack. I purchased a scarf in Morocco in case of sandstorms and my one “luxury item” was the game Bananagram. We were lucky and would only have to walk with a daypack – all our other luggage would be carried by camel.
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The knee rehab had gone well and I was confident that I was walking fit. I hadn’t been so sure about the camping side of things so to build up my confidence I had spent a few nights under canvas in the garden as preparation! What I didn’t prepare for was a horrible chest infection which struck ten days before departure and only really went the day we flew home. Given it was February 2020 with hindsight I wonder if I had COVID? Whatever it was, whilst annoying, mercifully it wasn’t bad enough to stop me from doing the trek. It was also a time when lots of us could and still did stuff whilst ill, a time when a cough didn’t ground us for fear of spreading COVID. Day 1 My first impression of Morocco once we had escaped the traffic chaos of Marrakesh was just how different it was to Europe. How red the earth was. How sparse the population was. The minibus drove southeast, across the plains and up towards the Atlas Mountains. There we headed up the winding Tiza n’ Tichka pass which some describe as the ‘gateway’ to the Sahara Desert. 22
Onward we drove to Ouarzazate, a city that film buffs may well have heard of, for numerous films have been filmed here, including Lawrence of Arabia, Gladiator, The Living Daylights, Queen of the Desert and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, to name but a few. We’d already driven over the ‘gateway’ to the Sahara Desert, now we were at what’s locally called the ‘door’ to the Sahara Desert. At this ‘door’ we enjoyed our last night in proper beds for a while. Day 2 Getting to the Sahara Desert isn’t easy. We still had more driving to do. Finally though we reached Fajia, on the edge of the desert. There we met the rest of the team who would be looking after us, including the incredibly important five camels. My chest infection was still with me, so with what felt like a small elephant sitting on my chest, I found the first hour and a half climb over rocky terrain to be hard work, but I kept going and at the top was rewarded with an incredible view over the plain below.
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This day was billed as the tough one. Almost 30km to trek initially along a dry riverbed as we headed to Chegaga, the largest and still untouched dunes in the Sahara Desert. En route we visited a small nomad encampment and I will never again complain that I don’t have enough. One family, three huts, a door made of a pair of trousers hung from a pole and the most beautiful little girl who gave me her goat to hold while her mother made mint tea for us all. Such generosity from those who had so little made a deep impression on all of us.
Luckily for me given my chest, from there we dropped down onto a plain. We weren’t alone though in the desert, for as we walked we passed small flocks of sheep and their nomad herders. It made me think about their life out here. How do people survive in such an environment some may see as so dry as to be hostile.
We camped on the edge of a dried-up riverbed, with small dunes and trees around us. After a 12km walk I slept well that night, despite some tuneful snoring from several tents. Only too soon I was woken with the cheerful and unforgettable reveille “Wakey wakey! Hands off snakey!”. There were of course some ex-military amongst us! Day 3 24
As the day grew longer, we became noticeably quieter, all our energies going into putting one foot in front of the other. Our chief guide Mohamed spotted gazelles running in the distance. This was a rare sight for the Sahara and one which gave me a much needed boost. By now rocks had given way to sand. Despite all the sand, the desert though wasn’t totally bare, there was however still bits of vegetation. Alas the name of some of this extraordinary vegetation did not survive translation but looked and smelt rather like chicory!
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After ten hours of walking and probably almost that number of blisters later we reached camp, tired but elated. Day 4 If I could go back to the desert again this is where I would go, these 24 km were special. Starting off before dawn under a full moon the sun rose quickly, casting amazing long almost comical shadows of us and the camels stretching across the sand. We walked in and over simply stunning dunes: mountains made of the finest grains of almost pink sand, shifting almost imperceptibly with the wind. Seeing such wonderful natural creations again made me feel very fortunate as well as aware of just how small I was! I found crossing the ridge of a dune to be hard, as for every step forward I seemed to slide back two. There is a definite knack – step, hop, thrust with your poles, jump, step, run and jump again. After a couple of hours, the enormous dunes of Chegaga gave way to much smaller dunes and salt flats (with the sun shining back from the white ground with an increased intensity) and here, (if you looked
carefully), there were shells and even a piece of fossilised coral. That got us all talking about how the world was formed! Day 5 Day five was so different. A 22k trek initially over the dunes again and then across the wide, wide desert plateau with nothing but small rocks, gravel and sand for miles in every direction. Out of nowhere a camel train appeared, 25
accompanied by the roar of two motorbikes which carried the camel herders. In the distance a herd of donkeys seemed almost a mirage. One of my concerns pre trek had been my bladder and the frequency I would need to empty it! I’m pretty good at wild wees but, on this day, there was absolutely nowhere to hide! There was nothing for it but to dash off 50 metres
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“Challenge yourself. Have an adventure. Do something amazing. Life is for Living!” Gilly Nickols
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to the side of the group and get on with things as quickly as possible! We arrived in camp early, ate pancakes with chocolate and nut spread and played Bananagram. How incongruous does that sound? 28
That evening at dinner Mohamed asked us how we felt the trip had gone and we were unanimous in our praise and enthusiasm. The crew, the camels, the food, the camps, the scenery were all variously described as brilliant, fabulous and outstanding. The camaraderie was for me a little unexpected and a real delight and we all agreed that it had been a proper challenge. Thinking further in my tent that night I realised I had felt safe and how important that had
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been for my enjoyment of the trek. Day 6 Day six and it was all over too soon. A seemingly quick 14k walk over small dunes and on flatter ground with more huge desert scenery, lots of talking and laughing and suddenly, behind the final dune, we spotted a Walking With The Wounded banner. We had reached the end. Hundreds of photographs, a final delicious desert lunch and a few celebratory beers later
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we piled into minibuses and left the desert behind as we headed for Ait Ben Haadun and the amazing luxury of a beautiful hotel with deep stone baths, what felt like a feather mattress and even a swimming pool. Our dinner that evening was a celebration of what we had achieved and the sponsorship money we had raised between us as well as friendships and discovery of a beautiful country. 29
“Attitude is the difference between an ordeal and an adventure” Bob Bitchin
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Day 7 Day seven and the heady feeling of achievement was tinged with sadness as we drove back to Marrakech and “civilisation”. The souk was crazy. So busy. So big. So loud. I learned that I am utterly hopeless at bartering, on one occasion even paying more than the seller had originally asked. But I was happy! As with all journeys home, it seemed to take for ever but saying goodbye to the people I had trekked with was genuinely a sad few minutes. We had shared something very special while we walked 100k across the Sahara Desert and had some fantastic memories to take home with us. Home well after midnight, a hot shower, a Valentine’s card and my bed. Bliss. Morocco seemed a whole world (rather than a three and a half hour flight) away. But as I went to sleep that night and, I think, every day since then, I have reflected on what an amazing adventure I had. I saw more stars in an inky sky than I knew existed. I looked out of my tent and saw camels. I walked up and over dunes that were truly spectacular. The desert was amazing: vast,
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varied, beautiful. The terrain underfoot of steep rocky hills, dried -up river beds with boulders, vast gravel plains and stunning sand dunes was challenging. We’d set off walking each morning by moonlight and camped under the stars each evening. Our Moroccan crew were brilliant and there was no better way to celebrate climbing a ridge or reaching the end of a salt flat than by joining in with their joyous rendition, in French, of “She’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes”!! I am proud to have trekked 100km across the Sahara. It was the best adventure and challenge I could have hoped for. I had wanted my own personal challenge and adventure, and I’d had one. Plus, I had the absolute bonus of having brought home wonderful memories and strong friendships. Equally importantly and with thanks to the generosity of my friends and family I raised over double my goal of £1,000 and between all of us, we raised over £15,000 for Walking With the Wounded. Huge thanks to everyone who supported me before the trek, who sponsored 30
me and to my fellow trekkers Dave, Chris, Jonny, Alverne, Lucy, Ella, Kate, Jill, Amy, Emily and Jess. Thanks also go to Charlie Richards at Tribal Treks who organised the whole trip and to Andy and Viveca at Walking With The Wounded who once again have allowed me to have an adventure and raise money for an incredible charity. Challenge yourself. Have an adventure. Do something amazing. Life is for Living!
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About Gilly Nickols Gilly Nickols is one of the original supporters of Adventure She magazine. The behind the scenes support she has given our editor from time to time, particularly when our editor has been attacked on social media when trying to explain the importance of protecting our environment, has been invaluable and very much appreciated. You can follow Gilly on Instagram. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gillynickols2146/
About Walking with the Wounded WWTW was established in 2010 to help vulnerable veterans, many suffering with physical injuries or mental illness such as PTSD, reintegrate back into society and sustain their independence, particularly through employment. The work the charity does supports those who have served in the Armed Forces and their families, empowering them to regain their pride and self-worth in order to thrive and contribute to the community they live in. You can learn more about Walking with the Wounded on their website https://walkingwiththewounded.org.uk/ 31
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Cycling King Alfred’s Way By Julia Goodfellow - Smith
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Almost 200 years before William the Conqueror of Normandy defeated the Anglo-Saxons at the Battle of Hastings, the AngloSaxons were ruled over by King Alfred the Great. Alfred the Great clearly had an impact, for in 893AD a Welsh monk from St David’s wrote a biography about him! The biography was in Latin. King Alfred’s Way is a circular 350 km off road route which officially starts and finishes at King Alfred’s statue in Winchester. Whilst Alfred the Great was originally buried at Hyde Abbey outside Winchester, the abbey was ransacked during the reign of Henry VIII and the location of his remains are now unknown. The route was officially opened on 28 August 2020, took three years to develop and is a brainchild of the national cycling charity Cycling UK. In this article Julia Goodfellow – Smith shares some of her experiences from cycling the route. red’s Way. Here she shares some of her experiences.
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ing Alfred’s Way. The name is beguiling in itself, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. The route does not just pass Alfred The Great’s birthplace (Wantage) and final resting place (Winchester), but sites from throughout England’s history. As you cycle King Alfred’s Way, you skirt the mystical stones of Stonehenge and Avebury, numerous Iron Age hill forts and two cathedral cities. You cross sparkling chalk streams flanked by flint and thatch cottages. You mount the hulking mass of
Salisbury Plain and pick your way along the northern edge of the Berkshire Downs. You descend the gentle Thames Valley and crunch through the gravelly woodlands of Berkshire before sinking onto the sandy soils of the Surrey Hills. And finally, you climb onto the unyielding chalk of the South Downs with spectacular views over the English Channel.
route. It’s 200 miles long and mainly off-road. Shall we ride it together?’ ‘OK, let’s do it!’ I am active but rarely ride a bike. I am not even remotely cycle-fit. Alison, on the other hand, is a keen mountain biker. She is incredibly fit and cycles a lot. This is going to be more of a challenge for me than for her.
As soon as I heard about King Alfred’s Way, I was hooked.
I borrow Bob’s old bike and we set off
‘Look, Ali. Have you seen this? It’s a new cycling
through the trees onto the heath.
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As soon as we pick up a bit of speed, my heart thumps and my hands instinctively squeeze the brakes. The tyres slip on the loose ground, but I manage to stay balanced. ‘Stop braking! Drop the seat, relax and enjoy the speed!’ Ali might be right, but the voice in my head urging caution is stronger as I watch her disappear around a bend, my ears ringing with the squealing of my brakes. I follow her down a narrow track winding through the trees. Roots are protruding from the ground and occasionally branches lay across the path. I frown as I concentrate hard. How tight is that turn ahead? Can I get over that log, or will I need to go around it? Will my tyres slip on the mud? Do I need to adjust my body weight over that patch of sand? Do I need to change gears now or wait until later? I’m loving the adrenaline rush, the thrill of pushing myself, but my face is drawn into grim lines of determination. Alison looks back at just that moment and sees my expression. ‘Do you actually like cycling?’ ‘Oh yes, I’m loving it — just concentrating!’
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At the end of the ride, I feel a glow of pride for managing all the twists and turns without falling off. I can do this! The following day, I feel a sharp pain deep inside my shoulder. I recognise an old injury that caused many sleepless nights in my thirties. I’ve not felt it in years. My heart sinks. Not again! I expected to get saddle-sore when cycling, but not to hurt my shoulder. The day after that, my other shoulder is stiff too. I feel weak and my legs ache. I can’t quite believe that I am this tired and in so much pain after just an hour on a bike. I am going to have to do some serious training to be able to complete King Alfred’s Way. The doubts start to creep in — will I be able to do it? After a few more weeks of training, whether I will be able to cycle the whole of King Alfred’s Way is still up for debate, but the time has come to find out. On the first day of the ride, I wake with butterflies flitting around in my stomach. Today is the day that I will find out whether my training has worked. Today is the day that the real adventure starts.
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The route out of Winchester is generally surfaced, so I don’t have to concentrate on the riding too much. We pass through picture-postcard English villages. We see black and white houses with thatched roofs, flint houses and pretty village churches. We cross sparkling clear chalk streams, with vivid green plants waving in the flow, fish treading water and swans gliding serenely above it all. The breeze is rustling leaves in the trees above us. I think I might have found heaven! Alison is not so keen. She loves the challenge of cycling across difficult terrain, so is finding these sections of road-riding rather boring. And boy, does she let me know it! ‘What a slog!’ ‘80% off-road, my foot!’ ‘Are we nearly there yet?’ OK, so I made that last one up, but you get the gist. As the light starts to fail, we pass a sign to the Lavingtons. I am completely exhausted, digging deep into my reserves of physical energy and mental resolve with every rotation of the pedals. It is another mile before we reach West Lavington. The village seems to just go on and on, but that is nothing compared to
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Market Lavington, where we are staying. We reach the village sign running on fumes and desperate to get off our bikes. ‘Julia, you’ve got this.’ I repeat my mantra, again and again. ‘How long is this village?’ I ask Alison. Not that she knows the answer; it was just my turn to whinge. ‘It must be the longest village in the country!’ When we finally reach the pub, relief floods through me. Today’s torture is over! A couple of days later, I’m cycling in the lead. The ground is flat, and the path is wide enough not to have to concentrate too hard. Although there is a background roar of traffic, I am admiring my surroundings — the spiky heather contrasting with the soft silver birches, set off by warm sunshine in a clear blue sky. Oh look, I think. There’s a twig across the path. That’s OK. My bike can handle that. I cycle on. Then my brain wakes up. That’s not a twig, it’s a slow worm. I wouldn’t want to hurt a slow worm. How can I avoid it? Oh no, it’s not a slow worm, it’s an adder! If I hurt it, it’ll bite Ali! What 35
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can I do? No space to cycle around it. I know! I’ll bunny-hop over it. I have no idea where that last thought came from. I have never bunny-hopped a bike in my life. But I am milliseconds away from hitting the snake. There is no time to hatch another plan. So, I lift the front wheel and jump. ‘Yes! I’m in the air! I missed it!’ CRASH! I somersault through the air. My back smashes into the ground. My legs twist awkwardly under the bike frame. I do a quick limb-check. Nothing bent at an unhealthy angle, no blood and no significant pain — good! I look up to see Ali on the path behind me, chortling. To be fair, I would have done exactly the same in her position. ‘It was a snake,’ I blurt. ‘I didn’t want to hurt it, and I didn’t want it to bite you!’ Ali controls her laughter for long enough to reassure me that I missed the snake. It was as shocked as I was to find my bike in mid-air above it and rapidly slithered off into the undergrowth, unhurt. There is no obvious damage to the bike either. I pick myself and the bike up, rearrange both into the correct order, and continue along the track, chuckling at myself. I hope that crashing isn’t going to be my new normal. I am determined that my last day will not be marred by more falls. We will be cycling on hard rocky ground, so falling off will hurt. I know to expect some challenging climbs today, so I also picture myself cycling up hills without stopping. This is definitely a 38
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matter of optimism over experience, but I figure it is worth a try. After weeks of pushing my bike uphill, then stopping for rests but not having to push, will this be the day that I finally get the hang of hills? I will certainly have plenty of practice as we climb onto the South Downs. As Ali and I rest and talk about hill-climbing tactics, we let two men pass us. We watch as they soon stop and push up the hill ahead of us. I am not going to push just because they did. ‘You can do this, Julia!’ ‘Ali, I did it in a oner!’ Alison chuckles. ‘Well done! I told you you could. You just have to believe in yourself.’ Proclaiming my success gives me a boost, so poor Ali has to suffer the same announcement at the top of every hill for the rest of the day. Navigation is easy once we reach the South Downs Way national trail, as there are waymarkers at every junction. The track is mainly wide and undemanding, so I relax and admire the view. And what a view it is! The
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English Channel shimmers off to our left and the Sussex Downs roll away to our right, with the ridge of the South Downs marching ahead, all under a clear blue sky. It is England at its most magnificent. Once we reach Winchester, it is only a short distance to the city centre and King Alfred’s statue. As we approach, I take a video and my voice cracks with emotion. We have made it! When I walked the South West Coast Path, there was never a time when I doubted my ability to complete it. 200 miles on a bike appears to be less challenging than 600 on foot, but there have been a couple of days when not only did I think that maybe we wouldn’t finish, but also had no interest in finishing. Ultimately, it is only because I was with Alison that I completed the circuit. She would not have contemplated defeat, despite not particularly enjoying the ride. As usual with any challenge, after the initial elation of completing it, there is an air of anti-climax. After all, all we have to do now is wash dog poo off our tyres and drink tea while we wait for our lift home. No more challenges and no more triumphs. For now
How to learn more about Julia Goodfellow-Smith’s adventures This article has been created from several excerpts from the first section of Julia’s book Cycling King Alfred’s Way: A Piece of Cake which is available on Amazon. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cycling-King-Alfreds-Way-Bucketebook/dp/B09WN5W8MD The second section of the book is designed to help you organise your own bikepacking trip. It’s available in paperback, ebook and audio from all the usual retailers. Julia Goodfellow-Smith is also active on the following social media channels: YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/user/JuliaGoodfellowSmith
https://www.instagram.com/juliagsadventure/ 39
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UNESCO Feature The stone circles of Stonehenge and Avebury referred to by Julia Goodfellow – Smith in her article Cycling King Alfred’s Way, and other associated sites, were granted joint UNESCO listing in 1986. Given Stonehenge alone is amongst the world’s most famous prehistoric monuments, its listing as an UNESCO site comes as no surprise. According to UNESCO (https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/373/Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites) “Stonehenge and Avebury, in Wiltshire, are among the most famous groups of megaliths in the world. The two sanctuaries consist of circles of menhirs arranged in a pattern whose astronomical significance is still being explored. These holy
Photo courtesy of Pixabay
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places and the nearby Neolithic sites are an incomparable testimony to prehistoric times.” It’s said that the bluestones of Stonehenge were transported there from Pembrokeshire’s Preseli Hills. Given the stones weigh between 2 and 5 tons, how the stones were transported has long been a mystery. In 2000, an attempt to recreate the journey using a combination of land and sea failed when a stone sank. So, were the stones transported purely over land? Given the terrain between Pembrokeshire and Wiltshire, where Stonehenge is situated, if a land journey were carried out today that avoided the huge bridges over the massive tidal flows of the River Severn, then the stones would have had to be transported over terrain such as the steep sided South Wales valleys or the Brecon Beacons to their north. But, given the coastline then extended further out to sea than it does now, could an easier land route have been possible, a route which travelled further south than the current coastline of Wales? Whether it’s Stonehenge or the Pyramids of Egypt, what is certain is that our predecessors had techniques for moving large stones using basic tools, that those of us alive today can’t really fathom. Perhaps it is time that geologists, glaciologists, archaeologists and cultural historians all pulled their resources, in an attempt to try and solve this mystery once and for all?
Photo courtesy of Pixabay
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Climbing in Alaska
By Emma Hickey 42
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In our December 2021 issue our theme was goal setting. Our April 2022 issue had a theme of working towards our goals step by step. This time around our theme is the importance of attitude. We think Emma Hickey is a woman who embodies all three, as demonstrated by her last pre Covid climb overseas and her first overseas post Covid climb.
“Dream Big, work hard and live like Giants”
up the mountain. This style is normally reserved for the highest peaks where the altitude and thin air dictates how you climb the mountain.
I love this quote, I heard it years ago while out mountain biking in the Wicklow Mountains of Ireland and I try to live up to it with every adventure or challenge I take on. Dreaming big is a huge part of it for me, and then the challenge to make it a reality, I love every part of putting together an adventure. Of course, achieving this takes hard work also and drive, commitment and lots of passion. I may have been late to the outdoors adventure life, but I’ve never been afraid of hard work and from my very first hike I’ve never lacked passion.
I had already climbed the 6,160m Island Peak in the Himalayas using the expedition style of climbing, so I was familiar with it. Denali however would be different, as with no porters or extra support, we would have to be totally self-sufficient. With the expedition lasting at least two weeks, to carry enough gear, food and regular supplies, we would need to pull sleds as well as carry a fully loaded backpack. All told I would be carrying and dragging north of 50kg, more than my own bodyweight. This is what makes Denali such a brute to climb. No allowance would be made for my being a five foot tall woman (it turned out the rest were all six foot plus guys). This was a commercial trip and each one of us including 5 foot nothing me, had to be equally capable at gear carrying and quite literally pulling their own weight.
Dreaming of Denali In mid-2019 I dreamed up my biggest challenge to date, I dreamed of climbing Denali in Alaska. At 6,190 metres or 20,310 feet above sea level, it is the highest peak on the North American continent. Climbing Denali requires a true expedition style of climbing, unlike an Alpine style of climbing where you travel light and climb fast. Denali’s expedition style is almost like laying siege to the mountain. You and your army of climbers, guides and porters make a basecamp and slowly move the whole team
Training For Denali I was confident with my mountaineering technical ability - roping up, using crampons, 44
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etc - so I mostly focused on the fitness and nutrition aspects of training. Six months before heading off, I adapted my existing training so my body was prepared for the specific rigors involved with climbing Denali. I knew I needed this amount of time to do it right, to build my core strength and endurance, so my whole body was used to carrying the extra weight which I would constantly have during the climb.
weight, I trained very hard for this, every free moment I had was consumed by my training programme in one way or another. Training around my work life wasn’t always easy. Working as a Senior Recruitment & Business Manager for Osborne (an Irish recruitment consultancy), I am always busy and I travel overseas quite a lot too, however my CEO was extremely supportive and we made it work. Many a time while working abroad, after a long day of work, I could be found running up and down the stairs of the hotel where I was staying.
I purchased a kids sled and every chance I got I was on the local hills dragging this thing loaded with weights. I got quite a few funny looks that’s for sure. Everything else I did involved me wearing a weighted vest, every opportunity I could I had the vest on, in the gym, on the Stairmaster, even in the mountains, just getting my body used to carrying and pulling extra weight. Every week that passed I got stronger so I increased the
I worked very hard and by the time I flew to Anchorage via Seattle, I hadn’t an ounce of doubt, I belonged on the expedition. Denali In Anchorage I met the rest of the team, two guides and three other clients. After a
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rigorous kit check we boarded a plane for the Kahiltna Glacier. Then with snowshoes on and our sleds hooked up, off we trudged across the wide open spaces into this abyss of white. The views on the glacier were mind blowing, white fields as far as the eyes could see, with summit peaks off in the distance in every direction. It certainly wasn't easy going, but I was prepared for that. What none of us was prepared for was the heat. We were being hit with unusually hot temperatures during the day which made the trekking incredibly difficult.
itself the conditions became more ‘normal’, with Denali living up to its wild reputation. The very next evening we noticed a huge drop in temperature, with it hitting minus ten - once you factored in the wind chill. Now we were on the mountain proper, we began the cache climbs, hauling supplies and gear up to higher camps. Hauling and setting up camps was the big difference for me between Denali and the Himalayas, for here on Denali, we had to do everything ourselves, we had no porters to help us. Stopping to make camp we had to get all our own gear out, get the area prepped, get the tents up etc. Sometimes we had to dig out our area before we began anything. There was also the toilet area, pee bottles and shared poop cans, not for the delicate, trust me. It was all a huge eye opener for me. Once we had secured supplies at the higher camp we turned around and descended to sleep in a lower camp. This allowed us to set up the higher camps as we gradually climbed the mountain and was also the perfect way to
Because of this our guides decided we should trek at night, which really didn’t make much of a difference visually as it was 24 hour sunlight, though as the sun was lower in the sky than during the ‘daytime, it was cooler. The challenging part was how it messed with sleep patterns - my system was already out of sync after all the flight changes, as I’d flown Dublin, Seattle, Anchorage, Kahiltna Glacier. After the extremely warm weather of the Kahiltna Glacier, once we hit the mountain 46
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acclimatise to the altitude, ‘climb high, sleep low’ as the adage goes.
never became an issue. What did however develop was blisters on my feet.
As we inched our way up the mountain during this cache phase, I really felt like I was on a big mountain, it made for relentless, exhausting, full on, but also exhilarating days, climbing for 7 to 8 hours a day carrying and pulling loads, then setting up each camp as went along. The plan was, that from camp four we would tackle the summit, but everything was step by step, camp by camp.
Serious blisters on my feet was a new experience for me. I had never previously suffered from blisters, or any other kind of foot damage. I had spent a long time selecting my footwear and breaking them in without any issues. Yet here I was having to administer first aid to what morphed into an open wound on my heels. I treated it every day and though it was a real concern, it didn’t prevent me from continuing to climb or doing my share of camp duties.
Again Denali’s wild weather hit us. At one point the wind was so strong and the snowfall so much, that for a few days we were stuck in our main camp. We took this time to rest and recover, to check on our gear for any issues and of course to treat our ailments. Frostbite and general foot and hand care are always a concern on expeditions and this climb was no different. In fact, every evening after we had all settled back in the little sanctuary of our tents, I would check my gear and then give myself the once over for any cuts, bruises and of course any sign of frostbite. Thankfully that
But as the days went on, my blisters refused to heal. By day eight, it was clear that despite cleaning my wounds and rewrapping my damaged heels, I was fighting a losing battle. I had a decision to make. With two open wound holes in my heels, I had pushed my feet as far as I could, asking any more of them was dangerous, particularly as I would still need to make the return journey back down the mountain and across the glacier. So just shy of camp four I pulled the plug and decided to leave, there would be no summit
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for me. Yes, it was a tough decision and I was so disappointed at that moment, but I was physically and mentally drained from the injury and the eleven-hour trek back to Base Camp proved that to me. I was completely spent when we got back. I knew I’d made the right decision.
good team and I had helped move the team up the mountain and prepare it for a successful summit attempt. If this trip taught me anything, it was that I felt well and truly at home in this big mountain environment where you only have yourself and your team to rely on. I decided my feet not behaving as on previous climbs, was something for me to learn from and figure out.
Tent Time Reflections No matter how well you prepare for an expedition there can be pre-expedition doubts and fears of the unknown. Stranded for a few days at base camp due to bad weather which meant no flights were getting in, as well as resting and recovering, I went over everything in my head to see if I could have done anything different, if I could have summited.
I also started planning further training trips to Scotland and made notes of gear adjustments, including of course reflecting on what had caused so much damage to my feet. I was eager to learn more and to improve too. Woman On A Mission Once home I developed a plan to hone and further develop my technical and endurance climbing. I sourced more training programs in Scotland and I reached out to friends to help me test new gear, including different boots. I was a woman on a mission, I was doing everything that was within my power to further improve my climbing. Then COVID 19 hit.
Despite not summiting I felt the trip had been a huge achievement and success for me. It was all a learning experience and one I felt I had embraced and enjoyed. I was more than happy with how I had performed on the mountain. Everything from the planning to the training and all my preparation, had all worked. I had overcome my doubts and fears of the unknown and reacted well to all the different circumstances, I was part of a
Like everyone else I'm sure, it took me a while to accept our new reality and then 48
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adapt to it. I invested in a home gym and developed a hitherto unknown passion for gardening, particularly growing my own fruit and vegetables - a blessing amongst the negativity that seemed to engulf the world during this time and a passion that is now part of my daily life. As for the mountains, as the months passed plans made got cancelled and dreams stayed exactly that, dreams.
cobwebs, but that she would push me out of my comfort zone. Climbing In Scotland Finally after all those COVID 19 related delays, in March 2022 my climbing friend Suzanne and I headed off to Scotland for a weekend course with Adele. I love climbing in Scotland, the mountains there may not be the highest, but they are so beautiful and can present numerous challenges. It really is such a wonderful place to climb, improve skills and have some fun
But post Denali and with all the time away from climbing because of COVID, I was unsure how I would get on, what to expect from myself. But this is where making good decisions and being prepared come in. I had climbed with Adele Pennington Mountaineering before and I am a big fan of her, as every time I’ve climbed with her, I come out of it feeling I’ve learned something new. I knew Adele wouldn’t just dust off any
After climbing with Adele for a couple days it was time for the big one. A few hours of rock climbing took us up the steep sides of a mountain that’s often called the Three Sisters, though its real name is Bidean nam Bian. Part way up that mountain
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I pulled the crampons out of my bag and readied myself for the summit push. Between us and the summit lay a snowy ridge. It was a technical level of climbing that previously we would have roped up for, but after assessing our progress over the last couple of days, Adele told us to focus and continue up without the ropes. We had previously climbed similar routes roped together however now that safety net was gone, this was another level up, another skillset. When I climb the fear is always with me, I’m not one for bravado, the fear is very real, it's just never been something to stop me, I use it to sharpen the senses and hopefully make good decisions. The ridge was exposed and I felt the fear, so I focused, concentrated on my footing and took one step at a time over rock and snow. Sure enough, before long I was on the summit and admiring the view. Like many others I have previously stopped at the viewing point along the road to Fort William and looked up at Bidean nam Bian. Now I was stood atop it, looking at the same landscape from the top rather than from down below. As I looked down at the viewing point, I wondered whether there was anyone there right now looking up at me and were they too dreaming big dreams of climbing these beautiful mountains.
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Helen Clark enjoying time out in the backcountry www.adventureshe.com
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Photo courtesy of Helen Clark
About Emma Hickey Emma Hickey is an extremely enthusiastic amateur climber and mountaineer who hails from Ireland and currently lives in Dublin.
Emma is the first to admit that whilst some people, experienced people, can climb many mountains with ease, others may struggle with a route. Emma is serious about her own skill development and is attempting to constantly improve her own skill level.
She plans on returning to Scotland for more climbing and has already booked her next training session with Adele, so she can tune up her skills before heading into the Alps later this year. She’s also contemplating aiming at Denali again in the very near future. You can follow Emma on the following social media channel: Instagram: emma_outdoors_1
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Adventure She Magazine’s July 2022 What A Woman Award
Nellie Bly As regular readers will know, for a while now in each issue of Adventure She we present a ‘What A Woman’ award. To date, it’s been awarded to a living person. This time though, it’s being awarded posthumously, for we thought it high time we acknowledge one of the most pioneering journalists, not just travel journalists, but journalists. 52
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That’s right, before she became famous for circumnavigating the world in less than 80 days, the target set by the fictitious Phileas Fogg, Nellie Bly was a trailblazer in the field of investigative journalism. So why hadn’t we heard about Nellie Bly decades ago? Why is it that so many pioneering women don’t get the recognition they deserve? How many women are there, who in their lifetime have achieved so much, but after their passing are barely remembered? Thankfully there is a growing band of women out there, who are determined to bring us the stories of inspirational women from the past and that band includes Rosemary J Brown, who recently published a fascinating book Following Nellie Bly. Reading Rosemary’s book really made us understand what a fascinating and inspiring woman Nellie Bly was, not just to her contemporaries, but also to those of us alive today and hopefully those that will come after us, when we are long gone. As Rosemary discussed in her book, Nellie Bly practically invented investigative journalism after ‘talking’ her way into a lunatic asylum by pretending to be a patient, in order to write an expose about the inhuman treatment of the patients. She subsequently persuaded her male editor to let her show that it was possible to travel around the world in less time than it took the fictious Phileas Fogg from Jules Vernes’ book Around the World in 80 Days. Upon her successful return in January 1890 after travelling for 72 days, 6 hours and 11 minutes, Nellie Bly was greeting to great acclaim. We asked Rosemary J Brown why did she write the book? 53
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Why I Wrote The Book by Rosemary J Brown
“I have always loved Victorian female adventurers and how they defied convention despite society’s determination to shrink their horizons through second-rate roles and their waists through body-distorting garments. Women like intrepid explorer Isabella Bird (1831–1904), queen of the desert Gertrude Bell (1868–1926) who mapped out Iraq, and wayfaring biologist Mary Kingsley (1862–1900). They all left their inhibitions at home and journeyed into the unknown alone across Asia, Africa, Arabia and America. It took grit, especially in a man’s world. Inspired by their stories, I decided I wanted to put female explorers ‘back on the map’ as role models for all of us. I also wanted to rekindle a sense of adventure in myself and others, particularly my daughter Acadia and her 54
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co-millennials. The idea was to revive an invincible woman from the past who defied the status quo, walked on the wild side and explored the world without fear, eye liner or social media accounts. There are many. I couldn’t wait to compile a shortlist. That’s exactly what I was doing when I first met Nellie Bly. As I scrolled and sifted through the lives of female adventurers, she jumped off the screen at me. The more I got to know Nellie Bly, the more I was taken with this fearless woman who would not take no for an answer despite living at a time – the end of the nineteenth century – when women ‘knew their place’. Nellie knew her place all right, smack dab on the front pages of the world’s newspapers. She sent all the other contenders scurrying. She pushed herself front and forward. I let her. We clicked.
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I couldn’t resist Nellie’s ‘nothing is impossible’ attitude that impelled her to conquer male-dominated newsrooms, feign madness to reveal brutality inside a women’s insane asylum, and whiz solo around the world faster than anyone, with only a Gladstone bag. Most of all, I was in awe of her humanitarianism. Nellie’s newspaper campaigns for rights, justice and dignity gave voices to vulnerable people and reformed corrupt institutions: asylums, prisons, sweat shops, orphanages. Unlike Nellie’s journey, my expedition was not a race around the globe. It was a journey of discovery; an adventure where I walked in her footsteps and witnessed her
world. About Rosemary J Brown Rosemary J Brown is a London-based journalist and author. An avid traveller, she is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Churchill Fellow. In her quest to put female adventurers ‘back on the map’ she speaks at the Globetrotters Club, Women of the World festivals, Women's Institutes and schools. She helped to organise the first Heritage of Women in Exploration conference at the Royal Geographical Society. You can follow Rosemary J Brown on these social media channels: Twitter:
@Rosemary_Nellie
Instagram:
@rosemaryjbrown
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Photo above: Nellie Bly, courtesy of New York Public Library archives
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Expedition Planning – Finance, Food and Fitness By Jessica Mullins Jessica Mullins
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In January 2022 Jessica Mullins and her three teammates arrived in Antigua and Barbuda, after spending 42 days, 4 hours, and 54 minutes rowing across the Atlantic Ocean. Successfully rowing an ocean involves much more than rowing a boat for weeks on end. For one thing it’s an expensive venture. So how does one find the money unless one’s personally very rich or has a very rich network that’s willing to finance your adventures? With money being so critical to making adventures happen, in this article Jessica Mullins openly discusses the money side of adventure and how she and the rest of the team managed to pay for their Atlantic Ocean row, which they did as part of the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Rowing Challenge. If you are planning your own big expedition, one that costs a serious amount of money, we hope this article will help you with planning your fundraising. Remember, if you need help with developing your pitches, for the company of which Adventure She is a part, runs workshops for individuals and small groups, on how to deliver great pitches. 59
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Financing The Expedition Fundraising
the event. Broaching the money issue with each potential teammate was of course hard, but it was necessary. I felt that each of us needed to be committed enough to the campaign, to sink in our own money, without any guarantee of seeing a financial return. As you can imagine it was an uncomfortable feeling, but I felt this personal investment would fuel us to work even harder to raise funds for the campaign.
To complete the race as a team of four, you need approximately £100,000, and as an international team during a global pandemic, you need more... much more. Initially I worried about the money, how could we finance our campaign given we weren’t a team with deep personal pockets, or a team supported from the outset by the corporate world, or a team linked to the military with its financial backing? How the hell were we going to raise such a large amount of money? And, how much more are we going to need to get us through all the extra costs associated with the pandemic like hotel quarantines?
The first step in raising funds meant raising awareness. That meant we had to choose a name, get a logo and build our social media profiles. Choosing a name Over Zoom we spitball ideas for names. When I was in the flow of sounding off ideas,
Like a handful of other teams, we had to get creative… and fast. First each of us put in our own savings, so regardless of what happened, we could do
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I’d thrown out a bit of a jokey option, IN DEEP SHIP. As we chatted over Zoom and narrowed down our choices IN DEEP SHIP made the cut, until it was that or one other option. IN DEEP SHIP it was, as in the end we figured since the name was a little naughty, people would remember it, plus it reminded us as to what we were signing up for. On reflection, we didn’t really think as far as how media outlets would handle the name. It was always a right giggle watching news anchors get twitchy as they attempted to say our team name without saying S@!t live on air! Creating a logo With our name confirmed, we needed a logo. I purchased Adobe Illustrator and sieved through the free illustrator tutorials on YouTube whilst attempting to pull a logo design together. I am a creative and quite computer savvy, but I found it to be like learning a foreign language. Then again, I’m a healthcare worker who’d never previously been a project manager and I was the team’s project manager, so I already had a lot of jobs
I was responsible for. We needed to stick to our strengths. Logo design wasn’t one of my strengths. Luckily team IN DEEP SHIP ended up with an architect as one of its members, and later when our fourth member Godd’s joined, we also had a colour designer. So, my rubbish attempts at Adobe Illustrator were taken over by Lauren and Godd’s. Raising awareness The question now became how to get our story out into the public arena, as we needed awareness in order to raise funds. Fortunately, my best friend Anna Verdon, used to work as a national news journalist and features writer. She wrote a press release then submitted it to a bunch of UK networks. Getting featured in a handful of local newspapers and having an interview with ITV (a TV station in the UK), was definitely a great start. Though I’m from the UK, I live in Canada, so I wanted to create some traction in Canada as well as in the UK. I jumped on LinkedIn and found the names of the producers and press
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office workers of every major news channel that I could find. Then I rang them all up!
confirm your email address again? Do you want me to send it to Peter directly?”
I put on my ‘assured confidence’ voice and basically pretended to be a PR person. I did my best to give them the impression that I knew what I was talking about (which I didn’t) “Hi there, I have a press release that I need to forward to you and just need to
Bingo! I followed up by sending a bunch of press releases off and before long I had secured interviews with Global News, Vancouver is Awesome and a bunch of radio channels. Actually, I found that during the peak of the COVID 19 pandemic, news
“Lack of money can in fact stop many an adventure from taking place. The hardest and most time-consuming part was tackling fundraising. In all honesty, it is a total nightmare and, and for some, the core reason to end the dream dead in its tracks.” Jessica Mullins
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outlets were dying for any positive news story they could get their hands on.
The truth is we found the raffles required a lot of time and effort to put together, and I question if the financial reward was worth it, as it was hard to get traction and people interested. Nevertheless, it kept us moving forward and every five quid was another dehydrated meal for the crossing.
Media was in fact a double-edged sword, we needed the media to help to create interest, spread news of our campaign and to entice corporate sponsors, but we also needed the media to ‘advertise’ our sponsors. That meant the interviews came with stress, for each interview had the potential to be ‘the one’ that helped us land a lot of money. I think we all felt pre-interview anxieties, initially I really had to psych myself up for those interviews. Over time though I became more relaxed and when going to media interviews used to tell myself ‘what’s the worse that can happen?’ I also used to channel my high school drama class skills, in an attempt to sound confident on camera!
One of our favorite fundraisers was at Tesco in my hometown of Penarth, South Wales. I walked into the store one day and spoke to Jill Payne, the Store Manager who gave us permission to display our boat Crusader in the carpark. We arrived at 6am to set up and spent the entire day promoting our campaign and encouraging every passer-by to chuck us their spare change to help us achieve our dream. I personally loved every moment of it, because I felt a true sense of community and interest in what we were doing. It began to get our story our there in a more concrete way and people really started rooting for us. It also gave my own family and friends an opportunity to come and see with their own eyes what we were trying to achieve. We let kids scramble on our boat and tested them to see how many watts they could pull on our rowing machine. We had a real laugh and Jill even chucked in a trolley of snacks for our crossing – legend!
Fundraising drivers I’d never ran a business. I began to feel that running the campaign was like running a business. This was new territory for all of us. We didn’t really know how to raise money. Like many other fundraisers we created different raffles for Vancouver and the UK. The raffle prizes were quite frankly anything we could get our calloused hands on! That sounds harsh, we actually got some fabulous prizes for generous people, like a personal training sessions from Athletic Endeavors, a beautiful Moroccan blanket from The Coast Goods, food hampers from Penylan Pantry, wine from Majestic, saltwater soap from Driftwood Shaper, a private wine tasting session from Paradis Wine and Spirits, a card bundle from Eli the Goat, and the list goes on. A big thank you to all those who donated prizes, who sold tickets and who of course bought the tickets, especially all those people in various UK Pubs who bought tickets, as they appeared to be the prime place to flog!
On the more formal side, we sold marketing packages to corporate companies and smaller businesses. This is common for previous ocean rowing campaigns and of course you have a giant boat which acts like an on-water billboard that’s up for grabs. Teammate Lauren spent hours creating a 23 page ‘Partnership Pack’ that gave potential partners information on our backstory, our goals and our values. We offered tiered packages with tailored benefits such as social media endorsements, media mentions, prime logo real-estate on our boat, and postcrossing presentations to their organisations. 63
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The importance of vision
We spent months scrolling through LinkedIn to identify the decision makers at potential sponsors. During this time with our team spread across so many countries, Godd’s, (who was in Germany) and I (Canada) often motivated each other by doing a ‘power hour’ over Facetime. During those power hours we’d target a specific industry and plough through the contacts, with the hope someone would bite.
One of our biggest challenges was getting potential sponsors to see our vision and truly believe in us. All the way up to the start line we were faced with so many day-to-day doubters, who just couldn’t see ‘IT’. Our vision was threefold: • • •
To become the first team consisting of 3 women and 1 man to row any ocean. To smash the existing world record for mixed teams. Most importantly, to get the public to relate to our team as four ‘ordinary’ people trying to achieve the ‘extraordinary’. This was key to us, for we really wanted to inspire others to not just ask themselves ‘what is my dream’, but to go out there and pursue their dream.
Between the four of us and using a combination of phone calls, emails and letters, we approached literally thousands of companies that we believed had values which would be aligned with the challenge, our brand and our vision. To keep track of everything I kept a colour coded spread sheet (I’m a Type A - ok!). This was at times the most exciting and satisfying part of building a campaign. 64
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Interest in sponsoring us was rare though, for every say 100 emails sent, we might receive 4 responses of decline and one positive donation. But even the emails declining our invitation felt like a win, because at least they had responded and we were after all a novice team with no military background and no real corporate connections in this world - so why would a company invest their money in us?
one needs to land perfectly, if an offer of sponsorship is forthcoming. One big factor is when you pitch, as most large companies forecast their investments and charity donations a year or two in advance. That meant some companies could only offer us products instead of cash. At one point we were so inundated with offers of free menstrual cups and organic tampons that we had to start declining them! After all, there’s were only so many sanitary products we would need for our Atlantic crossing!
Rather than let ourselves fall into a spiralling pit of disappointment, we encouraged each other to ignore the negativity, unless it was constructive, and instead tried to focus on our commitment to the campaign. No one can say we didn’t put our sweat, blood and tears into our efforts!
Eventually through our ‘cold emailing’, we were lucky enough though to pitch to some very large companies in the clothing and sports equipment world. We tried to focus on what we obtained from a pitch and told ourselves ‘every little helps!’. But the truth is we often felt a little disappointed if we didn’t
We discovered that gaining sponsorship isn’t however all about approaching the right company or delivering a good pitch. We learnt multiple facets are in play and each
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get a
financial donation, particularly when we had put a lot of time into preparing the pitch and our little hearts were convinced that this was going to be the pitch that landed us our lead sponsor.
Sourcing sponsors was most certainly a yoyo of emotions. All four of us agreed the kindness we received from those wanting to help us, was something deeply impactful. It genuinely opened my eyes to the power of the community. From Tesco in Penarth supporting us with our meet and greet fundraising, Jim from Pura-Vida Boardriders who spent hours making our custom footplate and seat cushions and mentoring me through barriers we faced. Gareth Reynolds at Dale Sailing aka Atlantic Dragon (TWAC 2020 solo finisher), Llandaff Rowing Club and the guys at Penarth Marina, who allowed us to store our boat between training sessions in South Wales. The list of thanks is endless. Our communities have welcomed us with open arms, and we have felt a deep sense of pride to represent them. Thank you to everyone to helped us to get one step closer to that start line.
By the time we got towards the end of the campaign, we realised the key to obtaining our sponsors to date, had been through our personal contacts, tapping into our own local communities and targeting small companies within the water sport or maritime world. So if you are planning an expedition for which you need to raise money, definitely don’t forget to target organisations that can be reached through your contacts and your communities. In the end we signed up 44 Sponsors including Adidas Terrex, BU, Velux, SurfForecast, Cleaner Sea’s Group, Caffeine Bullet, Runderwear, Signs Express, SCSC, Harre & Beau, Aquapac, Earth Hero and many others.
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Food And The Expedition
Jessica: 3600 calories spread over 3 meals per day plus snacks
Nutrition
Lauren: 3720 calories spread over 3 meals per day plus snacks
Food is key to a successful row. It would be key that we fuelled our bodies sufficiently in order to sustain the 12 hours of rowing all of us would need to do each day. But have you ever tried eating 5000 calories a day for 42 days?
Godd’s: 4140 calories spread over 3 or 4 meals per day plus snacks Joe: a gigantic 5400 calories spread over 5 meals per day plus snacks Our calorie intake was spread across high calorie freeze dried meals with some meals reaching 1500 calories, plus snack packs that offered up-to 2000 calories per day with much of it vacuum packed to reduce the risk of fouling. Snacks included trail mix variations, chocolate, Haribo sweets, biltong, dried fruits, cheese and ultra fuel
Rather than take a potluck approach, we worked with Laura, a nutritionist from My Menu Coach who specialises in personalised nutrition for endurance athletes. Given our different sizes, Laura came up with a different plan for each of us. Here’s the team’s daily calorie consumption for the crossing:
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replacement drinks, with my favorite being the creamy hot chocolate!
is. To be stood there on your boat ready to hit the ocean feels like a total privilege, but it comes with a lot of sacrifices and our year faced running campaigns during a global pandemic – not an ideal scenario for an International Team needing to train for the toughest rowing race in the world!
Shopping, sorting and packing all the food took a lot of time. In fact, we absolutely underestimated the amount of time our food preparation would require. Packing food until 3am become the norm for one dark week in October! At the end of the week’s packing, we looked at the endless boxes and wondered how on earth could we fit it all into the boat! In the end we even had food in our sleeping cabins for much of the first week of the crossing!
One of the main problems was thanks to the pandemic, accessing a gym consistently was near impossible, so like much of the world, we had to adapt, and our homes became our gyms. To ensure we were all as ocean rowing fit as possible, we worked with some extremely experienced professionals within the ocean rowing and endurance industries. Gus Barton from Ocean Ready (UK), set us up with individual training programs to build up strength and mobility, which we initiated one year our from our start date. This was all
Fitness and the Expedition Building Fitness It’s common to hear ‘the hardest part is getting to the start line’, and in many ways, it 69
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done remotely and to this day I still haven’t met Gus in person – which is wild! We did group training sessions which involved us all sweating it out on our own rowing machines whilst Gus motivationally shouted at us down the screen “COME ON GUYS! FEEL THE BURN! KEEP IT UP!”
hugs to all these guys for being a pillar of support! Impact of the pandemic on fitness training Training alone in our homes wasn’t enough though. We also needed to train as a team on the water and attend training courses on things like safety and navigation. That meant international travel. Because of the pandemic, managing our international travel was a real headache, as the pandemic brought a litany of border restrictions from four different countries that we had to juggle. At times it felt like every country changed the goal posts every other day and it was hard to keep up. Joe ended up moving back to Wales. Meanwhile because of all the quarantining Godd’s and I had to do, we
I struggle with accountability and motivation and so I also took on my own endurance coach, Andrew Tuovinen from Athletic Endeavours. He reinforced my training while I was based in Vancouver and was a huge part of my journey. We also worked with our sponsor Stuart Clarke from Stuart Clarke Sport Centre (Penarth, UK) who educated us on the importance of recovery methods and donated us a bunch of recovery tape. Big 70
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adapted our training programs to accommodate travel gym equipment.
begging them to end the ordeal and put me in a hotel to quarantine – hence the tears.
The expense of the PCR tests we had to do was an additional stress and an added expense we didn’t need. On one trip back and forth between Canada and the UK I had to take seven PCR tests! But what was the alternative, give up on our dream and lose the life savings we had already invested? Not a chance.
Sometimes, in a moment of doubt while I was once again undergoing another quarantine, I wondered what on earth I was thinking recruiting teammates from separate countries? Staying in those quarantine hotels was fun, if you can sense my sarcasm. The one joy I had was the one hour of ‘fresh air’ I could get a day. So, I would rummage around my suitcase looking for my skipping rope and resistance bands to take with me for my outside workout.
Another time I remember sitting in a quarantine hotel in Toronto, on the phone to Joe, irrationally weeping about my 8-hour airport interrogation at Immigration, where they were deciding if I in fact classified as quarantine exempt as an athlete. They scrolled through the Talisker website, our website and social medias, read my rowing association letters and even attempted to contact my employer. I had walked into that immigration room feeling confident about my case, but by the end I was practically
Even at the best of times travelling internationally can make it harder to watch one’s nutrition and to do proper workouts. It I know I felt the weight of, with constant concerns about whether I was doing enough. The reality is, I think all ocean rowers and all team ask themselves that question – what is enough and is each one of us doing enough? Eventually by September 2021, I had reached a point where my traveling back and forth
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between the UK and Canada had become unsustainable. It felt like I had spent more time in quarantine than I had out of it, and that wasn’t far off the reality. The travel and lack of freedom made work hard to manage as an Occupational Therapist and with the shipping of Crusader (whilst we were team IN DEEP SHIP, we didn’t rename our boat thanks to the superstition about renaming boats bringing bad luck) to the Canaries fast approaching, I knew in order to be fully prepared for the race, I needed to be where the boat was.
arrived back the following year! Before long I was back on a final flight to the UK just in time for our next on water training. Technical Fitness The first time we met as a full team was in March 2021 when we attended our first classroom based course in Teignmouth, UK. Meeting each other was a big moment for us all, and we had a right ball! It was our opportunity to bond over a beer (or three) and establish our team dynamics. I have great memories of making the team packed lunches each day and cooking up a storm in the communal kitchen.
I made the tough decision to pack up my things and move back to the Motherland – Wales. I hunted for someone to sub-let my apartment and allocated myself two days to pack everything up. Luckily, I had a small den room in my Vancouver apartment so I just shoved all my things in there, padlocked it and hoped it would still be there when I
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We had to complete a series of mandatory RYA courses including Navigation, First Aide at Sea and Sea Survival with Tim and Sue from SeaSports SouthWest. Can I just say that Sue makes the best homemade cakes in town! We also squeezed in an Ocean Rowing Course with the cool, calm and collected Head Safety Officer for the race, Ian Couch. A man we quickly came to truly admire and respect.
into the raft. Initially we were optimistic, but internally I did think ‘how the hell am I going to manage this!’ With a countdown 3, 2, 1, we bounced a dead weighted Joe out of the water and somehow scrambled him in upon our first attempt! It gave us so much confidence knowing that so long as we worked together as a team, we were capable of saving each other’s lives. That was important to me as the Skipper and I think for anyone who voluntarily chooses to put themselves in a high-risk environment like this ocean row… you need to trust and believe that you can save each other.
During the Sea Survival training, we had to prove our ability to save one another by reenacting a life raft scenario, where each of us were casualties. Frankly it was a real giggle, but there was obviously a serious undertone to it all. Being the smallest members of the team, Lauren and I were asked to drag our biggest teammate Joe out of the water and 73
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On water fitness
motor or sail assistance, and so if you need to make a quick getaway, you have to really put your back into it!
We stored our boat Crusader all around the country depending on our next training plans. Joe was quite the sport and towed her up and down the country, which let me tell you, is no easy walk in the park.
Our biggest learning curves were in these waters. We meticulously planned our route and forecasted the weather, but we still experienced our first lesson in adapting to our environment and in the need of ensuring we know all our equipment inside out.
Our first chunk of on-water training with Crusader was in Dale, Wales in May 2021. We had been given an offer from fellow Welshman Gareth Reynolds aka Atlantic Dragon (Solo Ocean Rower from TWAC 2020) to store our boat at his boat yard. The waters in Dale can be rough filtering from the Irish sea and there’s frequent marine traffic that well, can leave you on edge. Quite frankly, there was a fear whether the next ferry or ship might be the one that mowed us down – in all honestly, it nearly did once or twice! The fear hung on the realisation that in a heavy ocean rowing boat, you are at the mercy of your own strength combined with the tide. Unlike other vessels there is no
First, we experienced un-forecasted fog, which had us quite perplexed, as it had not been anticipated. But soon the sun started piercing through and we even managed to spot a pod of dolphins. Looking back, that gave us a false sense of security. Soon enough, we began experiencing an early deterioration in the weather, causing a predicted 20-minute row back into the channel to become an impossible challenge. Before we knew it, we were battling against 18 knots of head wind and darkness was falling upon us. We could see a nearby sailing
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boat on motor called ‘Mr Fox’ also struggling as it motored itself back safely into the channel, which made me realised that our strength wouldn’t cut it.
oars to taking over the navigation, I could see from our GPS that we were in trouble – S@!t I thought internally, but always remaining calm to the team. We had not prepared for a night at sea and with a quick check on a weather app Windy, I could see that the deteriorating weather would last through the night. There was only one thing for it – a call to the RNLI for a tow!
Our progress was poor, and the tide began to turn. Before long, we were progressively getting pushed out to sea and into a shipping channel, and at times we found ourselves veering off towards an edge of rocky headland.
“LIFEJACKETS ON” I directed the team as I called on the VHF to the coastguard. Very quickly they analysed our position and agreed that we were in need of a tow.
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Ready waiting for us on the Dock was Mr. Fox and a few other sailors who had been listening to the drama unfold on the VHF radio. They came and greeted us at the dock with such a typical British welcome “would anyone like a cup of tea?”.
Amidst the dark storm brewing around us, it didn’t take long before he rescue boat arrived for a drill that we had not prepared for. They rushed to our location and chucked us a V Line. What the heck is a V line, I guess you might be wondering? We didn’t know ourselves! In all my years of water sports, I had never been towed before. It turns out, a V line is a split rope that we had to tie onto the port and stern cleats of our boat, so we could be towed away.
I sat there sipping my hot mug of green tea in near total silence. I’m an introverted extrovert, with a brain that needs to analyse and critique these sorts of events… I had to understand what we could have done to improve the outcome for next time. Was there anything I could have done? Yes, because there always is.
“DEPLOY YOUR DRONES!” we heard them yell at us! Before we knew it, we were attaching for the very first time our two drones (small parachutes that you drag behind your vessel to slow and steady your speed). We later learnt that one ripped off from the sheer force of the drag – not ideal!
I have sailed since my teens, but the reality is that I know what a single scull rowing boat can handle and what a 50ft sailing yacht can handle, but I didn’t know what an Ocean Rowing boat could do, and more importantly what we as the manual power of the boat could expel. We needed more time on the water to figure it all out.
I self-steered ‘Crusader’ using our rudder lines back into the dock, trying my best to ride the rising waves and against the wake of the lifeboat. My hands at the end of that were cut to bits, but alas - at 1am - we had made it back to land safe and sound, and that’s all I cared about.
The next day we decided to take an easier route down the calm local Cleddau Ddu river. Sounds relaxing right? Wrong. As we were 78
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rowing down the river, we came across a big pirate boat that we had met a few days before. It was owned by a lovely couple and their two young children. They invited us for tea and so we secured Crusader onto their boat and hopped aboard. Unbeknown to us we experienced a misfire of one of our Personal Locator Beacon’s, which is a device we wore on our waist harness’ and which we could use used in an emergency. When activated it automatically notifies the coastguard that someone needs assistance. Our misfire activated a full search and rescue involving the Lifeboat, Marine Enforcement, and wait for it… a helicopter! – Now that was absolutely and utterly humiliating, particularly as at the time of the ‘rescue mission’ we were dunking biscuits into our tea, whilst listening to the children play sweet tunes on their guitar. I would say that that was a lesson in not dying of sheer shame and embarrassment. There was a slight feeling of redemption when the beacon misfired again when they were inspected, proving we weren’t totally incompetent. It’s safe to say that the Milford Haven RNLI may have felt a deep sigh of relief once we left the area! A big thank you to Milford Haven RNLI for being the calm and understanding legends that you are.
How To Follow Jessica Mullins On Social Media Instagram:
www.instagram.com/indeepship2021
Website:
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Navajo Nation A nation within a nation By Lucja Leonard
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Navajo pronunciation ’Na-vuh-how’. A nation within a nation? How does that exist and how is it possible? A question perhaps we should all think about, not just in respect to the Navajo, but with respect to other nations too. Having now spent the last few years living in various parts of the United States, it is indeed a question regular contributor, fitness guru and ultra-runner Lucja Leonard, who is originally from the Netherlands but who has lived in multiple countries around the world including New Zealand, France and the United States, has recently started pondering about.
he Navajo, who have for centuries called themselves the “Diné”, are a self-governing nation with their own sets of laws and traditions; however, the tribe allows non-members to enter the territory so that the mystery and beauty of their world-famous landmarks can be experienced by all.
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It is the largest Indian Reservation in the United States, comprising of about 16 million acres and extends into the states of southeast Utah, northeast Arizona and northwest New Mexico. The Navajo Nation is managed via agreements with the United States Congress as a sovereign Native-American Nation,
This photo courtesy of Pixabay. All other photos courtesy of Lucja and Dion Leonard
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with the Navajo Indian Reservation, being established according to the Treaty of Bosque Redondo 1868. Unaware of any of the Navajo traditions and culture, I was excited to head to Page in Arizona for a few nights in the fall of 2021 whilst I was staying in Moab, Utah, only a 4-hour drive away. Instagram
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photos of Horseshoe Bend and Antelope Canyon were beckoning me, and who can resist a drive through Monument Valley and run in Forrest Gump’s shoes! Little did I know that I would be not only amazed by the magnificent beauty of this nation but also the rich tribal history and the amazing people. Imagine being forcibly removed from your tribal lands by the Government. This is what happened to 10,000 Navajo people between 1863-66 by the US Government. They were made to travel in groups between 250 and 450 miles on foot from modern day Arizona to the Bosque Redondo Reservation in eastern New Mexico, with nearly no food or water and in the blazing heat. At least 200 died during these forced marches and a multitude of others
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suffered debilitating health repercussions. After the 1868 treaty, the Navajo were permitted to return home, though during the interim period, white settlers had occupied much of their land. To the Navajo Nation culture is deeply embedded in ancient tradition. They take a huge amount of pride in their sacred ceremonies which teach invaluable lessons about living responsibly and celebrating life achievements. One clause in the 1868 treaty required the Navajo to send their children to a school, with the government providing a teacher. However, whilst some missionary schools had originally taught in Navajo and English, the emphasis now was on an English only education. This resulted in many
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children having their mouth washed out with soap if they spoke their own native Navajo. When some of those children had their own children, they chose not to teach them Navajo, as they didn’t want their children to be punished for speaking Navajo in school. Unsurprisingly, there was a drop in the number of Navajo speakers. Navajo is considered one of the most difficult languages to learn. I for one could not get my tongue around any of the pronunciations of the simplest words of hello (Yá'át'ééh) and thank-you (Tʼáá íiyisíí ahéheeʼ). It’s difficulty and ‘rarity’ lead to Navajo words being used as code words during World War II. A new danger has recently hit the Navajo, with the Navajo Nation being hard hit by the pandemic. At one point their Covid-19 infection rate was the
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highest per capita in the USA, compounded by their situation of an estimated 30% of residents not having access to running water, obviously making hand
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washing guidelines difficult to follow. They also had a lack of resources, information, access to face masks and medical care on top of poor infrastructure 84
and insufficient housing conditions. A high number of Navajo elders passed away during the pandemic. In addition
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to the huge personal loss to families and friends from losing so many of the elders, the loss of these elders was also a hit to the Navajo as a whole, as the elders are the ones who pass on traditions, ceremonies, language and their way of life. Due to this, the Navajo Nation introduced some of the strictest lockdown measures in the country. This upended the economy, which over the years has built up around tourism, a sector that stopped during the pandemic. The region didn’t open back up to visitors until July 8,
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2021. Even when I visited in October 2021 numbers were limited and face masks were mandatory. Driving from Moab, Utah to Page, Arizona, you have the option to go via Monument Valley, which most people will recognize from western films, but absolutely from the scene in Forrest Gump. The ancient, rugged landscape is dotted with isolated red mesas and buttes surrounded by empty sandy desert. You could spend days here just exploring the different sandstone rock sculptures or just sit and stare out to
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the massive expanse of land. Just a couple of miles out of Page is Horseshoe bend, which is more than just a section of the mighty Colorado River; the raging water has carved the surrounding canyon into a near perfect circle. There’s a $10 vehicle fee to enter and walk to the rather dramatic canyon edge (stay well back if heights aren’t your thing) or you can book kayak tours through the
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“…schools should be established which children should be required to attend; their barbarous dialects should be blotted out and the English language substituted.” Report To The President By The Indian Peace Commission, January 7, 1868. Extracted on 10 March 2022 from Furman: Indian Peace Commission Report (1868) (afsc.org)
river itself and see it from below or take a helicopter flight and see a bird’s eye view. It has to be seen to be believed, it truly takes your breath away.
My major reason to visit was to walk through Antelope Canyon which is actually part of the Navajo Reservation which visitors are not allowed to freely
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enter; you are only allowed to enter as part of an organized tour. I’m not normally one to book on a tour, I prefer to plan my own adventures but there was no other choice. I was comforted by the fact that all the tour companies are Navajo owned and run, so my money was going straight back into the community. I booked a tour of Lower Antelope Canyon. There are 2 options to book the lower and the upper, the lower being predominantly underground, famous for its light beams, narrow passageways, wave like textured canyon walls and ladders.
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Our guide took us in a group of 10 into the lower canyon via 5 flights of stairs, the excitement building as we descended deep into the canyon, I was excited to see if the canyon looked as good as it did in the pictures. As soon as my feet hit the canyon floor, I was amazed. Tall walls of textured sandstone rock surrounded me, slowly sculpted over millions of years by water and wind. Walking through the canyon I was mesmerized by the gentle curving lines in the rock which created the illusion of waves, swirling around me, their color changing in the light;
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red, purple, orange, black, brown, blue all dancing in the light and the shadows. The further we walked our guide pointed out faces that appear in the walls, carved out by the wind and water. It felt like walking through a dreamland and although there were other tours taking place, the way the canyon is formed I always felt like we were on our own. Our guide was awesome and suggesting, teaching and physically taking photos that truly belong in a travel magazine. He also told his own stories of growing up in the Navajo Reservation
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and a small insight into his life and the life of his people. It was so interesting I could have stayed there for hours listening to him, so many questions still to ask. All too soon we resurfaced though a thin crack in the earth, all smiling ear to ear about our underground adventure. As I walked away, I looked back to the thin crack in the earth we had just come out of and it really looked non-descript, nothing special at all, which just goes to show that beauty is not skin deep and sometimes you need to
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look a little deeper to discover the beauty within. There’s still so much more to experience in this beautiful nation, so I hope to go back one day to see more. Experiencing any new culture is a time to be present. The Navajo strive to live in harmony with Mother Earth, Father Sky and the many other elements such as man, animals, plants, and insects. We could all learn a lot from their beliefs and their way of life.
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About Lucja Leonard Lucja Leonard is a semi regular writer in Adventure She magazine. We believe she truly embodies the spirit of being an Adventure She woman. She most certainly lives a life that empowers, educates and entertains the miniscule team behind Adventure She magazine. She has transformed herself from being happy with her life when she was an obese couch potato, to a person who is happy with her life as an ultra-runner and who has a level 3 certificate in both personal training and sports massage. In October 2021 Lucja ran the Moab 240, a 240 mile race with 29,467 feet of elevation change. She was 28 th out of 168 people and 5th out of the 35 female finishers. She’s also performed brilliantly at numerous other races. We think you’ll agree that’s quite a transformation from her former couch potato self. Lucja is currently based in the USA having lived in the Netherlands, New Zealand, UK and France. She is one of Gobi’s parents, as in Gobi the dog who decided to adopt Dion (Lucja’s husband) during an ultra marathon in China. With Sony Pictures and Tencent purchasing the rights to make a film, hopefully we will soon be able to learn more about Gobi’s adventures. Or, why not read the book Finding Gobi. You can follow Lucja Leonard on the following social media channels: Instagram: www.instagram.com/runningdutchie Website:
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When Adventure She was founded, one of our founding principles was to ‘educate’ hence the inclusion of the word ‘educate’ in our mission and mantra ‘empower, educate and entertain’. Educating of course includes sharing stories of women from the past, be that an ancient past or a more recent past, as well as sharing stories of today’s women. After all, how can we ensure there’s more stories about women in the history books of tomorrow, unless those stories are uncovered, revealed and shared today? Jill Yesko has the same thinking. Jill Yesko is a documentary film maker. A film maker whose name many of us may not know. A film maker whose name we should however know. For Jill Yesko’s films matter. Earlier this year our editor had the pleasure of interviewing Jill.
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Jill Yesko’s first film, Tainted Blood: The Untold Story of the 1984 Olympic Blood Doping Scandal, tells the story of a blood doping scandal, a scandal in which certain 1984 Olympians from the USA’s cycling team, are alleged to have participated. At the time blood doping wasn’t apparently banned. But was it ethical? Was it in accordance with the Olympics’ values, for at the time the Olympics was only open to amateurs? Yes, there may have been “ways around” what an amateur comprised, but it was a very different era to the Olympics of today, which in many ways take their commercial style from the razzamatazz of the Los Angeles Olympics, a razzamatazz that showed sport can be a huge TV spectacle. If you haven’t seen it, Tainted Blood is available on Amazon Prime in some countries. Jill’s second film Broken Trust is an incredibly important film, for it investigates the abuse numerous US Gymnasts also suffered. Two versions of the film have been cut, with one version being suitable for minors and available to schools (at least in the
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USA). Surely Jill deserves to be applauded for the additional work involved in cutting two versions of the film. After all, too many minors have been groomed and abused by coaches and other adults. Hopefully films like Jill’s will help stop the grooming process in its track before grooming can turn worse. Contact Jill if you’d like either the minor, or the adult version of this film. It's the film Jill is currently making Uphill Climb: The Women Who Conquered the Tour de France that brought her to our attention. It’s a film about the women who cycled the first women’s version of the Tour de France in 1984. The women’s race comprised 18 stages. Whilst each stage was considerably shorter than the men’s (the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), which is the world governing body of cycling, had different rules as to how far women were allowed to cycle each day), the 1080km the women did ride, was mostly the same as the last miles of the men’s races, with both men and women finishing each stage at
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the same finish line. That way the women got to savour the same atmosphere as the men, not just at the finish, but for almost of the race, plus, the women got to do the same epic climbs that the men had to conquer. The subject matter of Jill’s first two films – blood doping in cycling and the abuse of athletes, are so big, they could warrant an entire book. So Jill and I focused on chatting about Jill herself, how she became a film maker, what it’s like to be a documentary film maker and the women’s 1984 Tour de France. How come had I never heard of this race? I’d known of a shorter race in the 2000s, I’d known of the more recent La Course, I’d known of the years when the women had nothing. But why hadn’t I, or any of my circle of friends and acquaintances who are really into their cycling, never heard of the time when women cyclists shared the podium with male cyclists, even though their paycheque was far lower than the men?
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That is the whole point of the film Jill is currently making. She doesn’t want the memory of those women to be forgotten. Instead, she wants us to know about them and their stories. Jill’s passion for their story goes deeper than a
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superficial desire to make a film about an almost forgotten period of history. For Jill has a personal interest in sharing the story of the women who rode the 1984 tour, as she was also a bike racer who competed during the 1980’s, which she
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describes as “a really golden time” for bike racing in the United States. Now in her 60’s the highlights of Jill’s cycling career were representing the USA at the World University Games in Edmonton in 1983 and
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competing in the USA’s Olympic Trials. Jill compared her experience at the Olympic trials (for which she had to qualify) to playing tennis at Wimbledon, with Jill as a low ranked qualifier drawn to play the top seed. In the trials, the first round saw Jill drawn against world champion. Though Jill rode for a team, like many other women cycle racers of the 1980’s, cycling did not provide her with a living. As well as studying, travelling extensively in South America in the 1980’s, when the backpacker routes weren’t even in their infancy and when Jill often found herself as the lone female backpacker when in northern Chile, and being an academic geographer, Jill also worked in a bike shop, which enabled her to get gear at cost. Another cyclist worked at a 7-11 store as a means of financing her cycling.
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Eventually Jill left geography and became a journalist. As a journalist she recalls “following the women's Tour de France and wishing I could have raced in it, but it wasn't meant to be.” She continued “I mean, I'm very sanguine about my abilities. I was good, but I wasn't that good. I always felt like they were there and I was here and that gap was never going to really get closed.” As life in journalism became harder like many others Jill moved into public relations (PR). When in her 50’s Jill’s boss taught them “how to shoot and edit video. My colleagues weren't into it, but I was like, oh, give me all that work. This is just a wonderful way of storytelling.” That is how Jill transitioned onto possibly her most important path, that of documentary film making. According to Jill “it came at just the right time” and “now I'm in this small
sisterhood of women who make documentaries, particularly sports stories. There aren't that many of us, were not well represented and I'm very proud to maybe be in the forefront of that.” With her career going from an academic geographer who also raced bikes and worked in a bike shop, to a journalist, a public relations specialist and now a documentary film maker, some people might think of Jill as a ‘Jill of all trades, mistress of none’. Jill however sees her career pattern very differently, seeing it as an evolution that’s given her the skills to make documentary films, for her time in academia led to her developing excellent research skills, and as she puts it “being a cultural geographer, primed me for being interested in other places and people's stories.” She also thinks that the many years she worked as a journalist made “the
We understand there was a race in 1955 for women, organised by a different organisation to the men’s race. However, it stayed in Normandy and lasted 5 stages. So whilst a race in France for women, it doesn’t appear to have been a Tour de France. We applaud the fact this race was held. It is a shame it was only held that one year. Subsequent female races labelled as the Women’s Tour de France have been organised by a variety of organisations. The 1984 to 1989 races, were run by same organisers as the men’s race.
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best training ground” for a documentary filmmaker. Jill’s attitude to her career trajectory is inspiring. So many people struggle when change is forced upon them. Indeed, Jill could, like her colleagues, have turned down the opportunity to be actively involved in filming and editing. Instead, she chose a different path, that of growth and constant evolution which has meant that whilst now in her mid-60’s, she is still relevant.
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Whilst Jill didn’t manage to ride in the Tour de France herself, in researching for the film she’s found a real connection, a camaraderie with the women who did ride it and who are now in their 50’s and 60’s. Like Jill they too want to protect the legacy, so that they aren’t forgotten. Whilst there is a new stage race for women being launched this year that will be held in France, and whilst like the 1984 to 1989 editions it has the same organisers as the men’s race, this year
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the race will be held after the men’s tour. The women will not get to climb those mountains amongst the legions of fans which line the roads, waving flags, setting off coloured smoke flares and sometimes dangerously interfering with the cyclists. How many women have succeeded at amazing feats only to have their legacy written out of history? If Jill Yesko has her way, “the women of the Tour de France will never be forgotten”.
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Jill Yesko on Film Finance This is like the ultimate question. I would say to anybody going into filmmaking, forget about learning the technical aspects, learn about how
that's really, honestly, what it is about. If you don't have the money, it’s really hard to make a film.
I started with Tainted Blood. I was working full time when I was making that film and I was absolutely just working to finance that film. That was mostly self-financed, I had a really good job that I did not like, but I kept at it because it was paying for that film. And I did some crowdfunding and raised a portion. With the second film. I was really fortunate. I got wiser with social media and I attracted two people who were very instrumental in helping to get that film financed. They approached me and they were like “how can we get involved?” And I was really frank, I'm like, “you can help me raise money”. They did, they were wonderful and that was really great. I went to fundraisers, but they did all the heavy lifting for me and I'm super, super grateful for that. I also learned how to get a fiscal sponsor, which means people could give to the film and it was tax
to raise money, because
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deductible and the having that fiscal sponsor also took care of a lot of the paperwork and that was a good learning experience too. I got a distributor for the second film so I actually did make some money. But believe me, nobody goes into this thinking ‘I make going to make a million dollars’, it's just not gonna happen. I will be brutally honest, for this current film, I really thought well, this is gonna be a slam dunk, I have a good track record of two films, I got a
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network, it's going to be great. I had come back actually from Sundance in January of 2020, right before a pandemic, and I'm like, I made all these connections, whoa, I got this. And then pandemic hit. All of that momentum slammed into a brick wall and I went into a freefall along with everybody else, I didn't even know if this project could get restarted. Then when I restarted it, the world was a very different place.
I have raised some money, but I'm still trying. I've also realized this project is on a much bigger scale than the others and I really need a dedicated person who was just going to help me go out and fundraise and get sponsorship, because I cannot wear every single hat for this film, just being director and producer is really enough.
About Jill Yesko Jill Yesko is a fellow at the Center for Sports Communication & Media, Moody College of Communication at The University of Texas at Austin. According to Jill, Global Cycling Network have said it will broadcast Uphill Climb, the Women Who Conquered The Tour De France, so don’t forget to watch it, once it’s been finished and released. In case you’re wondering, Jill still cycles. You can follow Jill Yesko and learn more about her film making, including how to donate to her current project, Uphill Climb – The Women Who Conquered the Tour de France, on the following social media channels Website:
uphillclimbfilm.com
Promo reel:
https://vimeo.com/714637002
Twitter:
@uphillclimbfilm
Instagram:
@uphillclimb.film
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Book Reviews
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Climbing the Seven Summits By Sophie Cairns What possesses a severe asthmatic with no prior history of extreme adventures, to seek a world record by climbing the seven volcanoes, so the highest volcano on each continent, in the fastest ever time?
Record chasing world, it also deals with grief in a very accessible way. Who knows, this book might even help you through your own grief, or, if you are in the fortunate possible to have not yet encountered grief, it might help you understand and thereby better support family, friends or colleagues that are currently grieving.
That is what journalist Sophie Cairns set out to achieve. So what drove her to that point? The answer is grief, for Sophie simultaneously found herself jobless, in a new country, mourning the loss of her father, whilst also attempting to help her mother through her own grief and much changed circumstances. Grief can destroy us. Grief can also be a catapult to drive us on. In this book Sophie deals with the issue of grief, an issue that probably all of us will face at some point in our life. Grief is an important issue. But until recently and possibly even still now, the grief one endures post funeral, or post those first few weeks, months or year, is pretty much a taboo subject. As such, this book is an important one, for it not only deals with Sophie’s journey into the mountaineering and Guinness World
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Widows of the Ice By Anne Fletcher
Is Captain Robert Falcon Scott who led the second expedition to reach the South Pole, the most famous explorer to have died in action?
This is a fascinating book which explorers the life of the women, from where they grew up, to their demise, via of course the tragedy. The tragedy and the expedition of course take up much of the book and rightly so in our opinion, for that is what impacted them most of all. The tragedy didn’t make them, they already had to be strong to deal with the life they chose to lead when marrying their exploration thirsty husbands.
Scott of course wasn’t alone? Two others, Dr Ted Wilson and Henry Bowers lay there next to him. Edgar Evans and Titus Oates had already died. Scott, Wilson and Evans all left widows. So what happened to those women when news broke of the tragedy that had befallen Scott’s Polar team? In fact, what did they do and how did they cope during all the years their betrothed, or spouse, was away exploring, for all three widows had a spouse who had ‘gone south’ before. At a time when rank in society mattered, did the rank of their respective spouses’ impact upon their widowhood?
The book also shares a fascinating insight into society at large during that time. The author appears to have been extremely diligent and thorough in her research. Well done to the author Anne Fletcher for this important work, for it’s time we share and remember the stories of more women from the past.
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Obituary Dervla Murphy 1931 - 2022 By Rosemary J Brown Photos courtesy Rosemary J Brown and Eland Publishing and the estate of the late Dervla Murphy
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Dervla Murphy’s final journey 28 November 1931 - 22 May 2022 Travel legend and writer Dervla Murphy blazed her own trails -- often alone and mostly on a bicycle -- for more than five decades. She opened the world, especially far-flung and challenging places, to generations of readers.
Israel and Palestine '(2015), she inspired others to abandon convention and truly discover the planet, its’ peoples, its’ cultures, its’ geography. Dervla sought out places whose political history is as captivating as their topography – Afghanistan, Cuba, Uganda, Siberia, Rwanda -- and weaved them into travel narratives that reveal, inform and inspire. She travelled with the bare minimum and described
She is Ireland’s most prolific travel writer with 26 titles to her name. From her first book Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle (1965) to her most recent 'Between River and Sea: Encounters in 105
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.
“Dervla will have faced death with the same fearlessness with which she embraced all new experiences.” Hilary Bradt, founder of Bradt Guides.
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herself as naturally fearless and ‘immune to severe discomfort.’ Her journeys brought her close to death on occasions, but Dervla always came out on top and went back for more.
Passionate about politics, conservation, bicycling, beer and writing, Dervla knew by the age of four that she was going to be a writer. “Writing was not a career, it was a necessity,” she said.
“I was never prone to be made uneasy by the unconventional,” Dervla told us in Wheels Within Wheels, the honest and witty account of her first 30 years. The key to travel, she said, is to embrace the unpredictable, the unexpected, and the unforeseen.
She was a traveller who wrote, rather than a writer who travelled, said her friend and fellow travel icon Hilary Bradt, founder of Bradt Guides. “She had a genuine fascination for other cultures, and her equally genuine enjoyment of inevitable discomfort enabled her to happily share the lives of local people, however different.”
Her advice: “Choose your country, use guidebooks to identify the areas most frequented by foreigners – and then go in the opposite direction.”
When asked about her legacy, Dervla told The Irish Examiner: “If I am to be remembered, I’d like to be remembered
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as someone who was interested in the ordinary people of whatever country I was in.” Personally, I am deeply proud to say that I enjoyed a beer (or two) with Dervla in November 2019 in her book-laden study in Lismore, County Waterford. Rose Baring, Dervla’s friend and editor at Eland Books rightly says, “I think everyone who met Dervla carried something of her within them for ever after.” Dervla Murphy is survived by her daughter Rachel and granddaughters Rose, Clodagh and Zea.
The author and Adventure She magazine would like to thanks Eland Publishing
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Road to the Olympic Games Q&A with Australian Pro Cyclist Sarah Gigante
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How to become a professional cyclist Q&A with Sarah Gigante 111
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In 2019 our editor received a Facebook message from one of her Australian friends. The message read “Hey Jane, have you heard about Sarah Gigante, Kerry's little girl?” Our editor feared the daughter of a friend’s friend had met some tragic accident. But no. She’d won the 2019 Australia national road race title age 18!!!!!! In 2020 she won the national time trial race and repeated that feat in 2021. Sarah’s long distance cycling rides go back to her early childhood, when she rode the Great Victorian Bike Ride (a legendary, family friendly, multiday cycling event, held annually in the Australian state of Victoria). Since then, Sarah has represented Australia at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics (eventually held in 2021) and has signed a 3 year deal with Movistar, one of the few organisations that as well as having an elite men’s cycling team, also has an elite women’s team. So thank you so much Movistar, for backing women’s professional cycling in this way. Alas Sarah has also suffered her share of setbacks, from serious bike accidents – yes plural – resulting in multiple broken bones and concussion, to a heart scare and the dreaded COVID. Rather than chat to Sarah over Zoom, she suggested it might be easier to send her some questions and she’d write back. Wow. That was really kind of her, for it meant more work for her and lots less work for us. So thank you very much Sarah. We really hope that despite the interrupted seasons you’ve so far encountered, once you’re back racing again after the concussion, it will be an injury free, crash free Sarah, a Sarah who’s pro cycling career will be from now on, be a healthy, enjoyable and successful one.
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What’s your first memory of cycling? I've been riding for as long as I can remember - I think my earliest memories are probably of racing around our wrap-around deck, having fun while doing countless laps with my siblings! When did you first do the Great Victorian Bike Ride and what are your memories of it? I first did the Great Vic in 2005. Each time, it was one of my favourite weeks of the whole year - a great camping adventure with my family and whole days of riding, meeting great new people and being entertained by musicians and clowns once we arrived at the campsites. One specific memory I have is being on the trailer bike with my mum when I was about 5 years old and doing 'zooms' (pedalling faster!) every so often, when she asked me to - I guess that I'd normally just freewheel or soft pedal along, not helping much, but I loved doing these 'zooms' when mum needed my help to either get up a hard hill or to get into the draft of an overtaking school group!
How many times did you do it on tandem? Was it a tandem? Please correct me here. I did it on a trailer bike in 2005 and 2007, a tandem in 2008 and my own bike in 2010. What made you want to do it by yourself? I've always loved a challenge, so I guess that's why I was keen to try stepping up and doing it on my own bike, but the specific reason I apparently told my mum was that I was sick of looking at her backside! You joined Brunswick cycling club age 8. 113
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Why did you decide to join a cycling club and did anyone else in your family join? The Great Vic is a long way for a young kid, so when I told my mum that I wanted to try it on my own bike, we googled 'cycling clubs for kids' together and Brunswick came up as the best family-friendly club. It wasn't the closest club, but my mum packed my bike in the car and took me along one Sunday morning, and we never looked back! Even by that afternoon, the organiser Dave told my mum that they would need a crowbar to get me off my bike, as the races had finished but I was still going round and around and around the velodrome! With quite some convincing from my part, my brother Scott joined a few years later and even my Mum has joined the club and does some racing now :) When did you do your first Great Victorian Bike Ride solo and what was that like? Any regrets at the time, or were you proud of yourself for riding solo? I had recently turned 10. No regrets at all! I can't remember being particularly proud of myself - I was not really focused on the event being a big challenge to overcome as much as it just being something I loved, so I just enjoyed every day like I always did. When did you start to get serious about your cycling? As soon as I joined Brunswick, I wanted to be as involved in as much as I could, and I am very fortunate that the club and my mum were wonderfully supportive. You had an accident before finishing school. How did the accident happen? 114
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What did you injure? How did you handle schoolwork and training so neither your schoolwork nor training suffered too much? How did you feel when you got top marks for school? Also, how did you manage your time so you could excel at school and cycling – any tips for teenagers on that?
had a chance of winning outright, as well as the under 23? No, not at all - I was excited to line up with the seniors for the first time, but I was just hoping to finish the road race and perhaps snag a bronze in the U23s. How did you find media coverage and interest in you after that? Did it change your planned life track, e.g., university?
I was descending in a peloton in a race near Bendigo and hit a pothole I didn't see. I broke my left shoulder and elbow (needing surgery) and my right wrist. I had amazing support from my mum, who had to scribe for me during Year 12, which was pretty tricky. She also had to look after me like a baby, feeding and showering me and everything! That was during Term 2 of Year 12, and I also missed the whole of Term 3 that year because I was away in Europe racing the Junior Track and Road World Championships.
It didn't affect university at all - I'd already accepted a Chancellor's Scholarship to the University of Melbourne and decided that I wanted to start a Bachelor of Science that year, and that didn't change - but I did notice that I was getting a few more interview requests from then on. I liked being called up to the front in races so that I could start at the front with the other national champions from different countries at the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race!
It was hard juggling everything, but my school was supportive too, and the sacrifices were worth it to me because I wanted to do my best in both cycling and school - I didn't want to jeopardise one for the other, so I used cycling as my recovery time from schoolwork and schoolwork as my recovery time from cycling.
What was the pressure like when you won your second national Australian title? How did that impact you? I still felt no pressure in 2020, and winning that time trial was also a complete surprise because I was only 19 and had never beaten many of the riders I was racing there in a time trial before, until that day.
It was not the most sustainable lifestyle but I was proud of myself for managing that year, especially with the broken arms I'd had, and very grateful to my mum and school. Tips I have for VCE students include trying to finish a subject or two in Year 11 if possible (I did [some] early and then only did 4 in Year 12) and to remember that it's okay if you don't have the most time in the world to study, but that when you do study, try to work hard and use your time very well.
What can you share about being part of the Movistar team? It's definitely a great way to learn a language! The team meetings and dinner table conversations, and often the radio communications during the race, are all in Spanish, so I'm learning quickly. The team is extremely professional and I am blown away by all the support from the staff
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and sponsors we have - I felt like I was in fairyland during the January team camp!
I was racing for Tibco-Silicon Valley Bank, a USA-based continental team.
My teammates are all very nice as well and extremely experienced, so I feel like I learn a lot each time I go away to a race and spend time with them.
Being selected to go to the Olympics was amazing because it was a childhood dream and also completely unexpected. I had recently broken my leg, collarbone and elbow when I had the phone call to say that I was selected, so to think that the selection panel still believed in me despite my injuries was a special feeling.
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The Olympics felt surreal and super fun being part of such a global event was a really cool feeling, especially knowing that so many of my family and friends were watching at home. Even old school classmates from primary school messaged me and asked if it was me they were seeing on TV!
aren’t yet used to the names of races in the Women’s Tour, what men’s race would you compare it to? It's a very hilly one-day classic in northern Spain - one of the hilliest of the whole season!
You won a race this year, the Emakumeen Nafarroako Women’s Elite Classics. What can you tell the readers about that race? How big is it? As most readers probably
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without getting caught? How did you feel approaching the finish line of that race?
half of the season, making a return to racing in Scandinavia in August.
I didn't expect to be able to hold on until the end, but my teammate was climbing well and my attack made the most sense for the team, so that she could sit in the group and not have to work, keeping herself fresh, while the other riders wore themselves out chasing me.
You’re clearly an extremely talented cyclist and very intelligent. What are your longer term goals? My goals are always to enjoy the process and have fun, learn as much as I can, be a good teammate and of course continue to always try my best.
But then I started to realise that the riders were not closing the gap, and Paula [Patiño] was doing a great job blocking moves from behind, so I felt more and more hope until I finally turned the final corner and realised I was going to win after all. I felt so much emotion - shock and happiness that I'd won my first race in Europe, and also absolute relief to be back feeling like myself again after all the events of the past year [Sarah unfortunately developed a heart issue myopericarditis, which didn’t just derail her season, but which saw her hospitalised and then needing to rest, recover and rebuilt].
Where are you currently and what’s it like moving around so much? I live in Girona and I will be here for at least another month and a half, which is a very long time to be in one place for a professional cyclist, so I feel very lucky in that regard - normally we are on the road far more than we are home, always changing countries and not often unpacking our suitcases! Finally, what would you like to say to your family, friends and other supporters?
What’s next in terms of cycling?
Thanks so much for all the support along the way - I could not have done any of this alone!
I am building my way back now [Sarah had an accident in which she suffered concussion just after her win] and will focus on the latter
How to follow Sarah Gigante on social media: Instagram:
www.instagram.com/slipstreamsarah
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/SarahGigante
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More Hiking Mistakes – New Zealand’s Abel Tasman By Jane Harries
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This is the second in a new series of articles on mistakes made when adventuring, a series inspired by the results of a poll in our Facebook group. If you have a story you’d like to share, whether on hiking mistakes or some other topics, please do get in touch, for we love publishing your stories. The events in this article started exactly one month to the day, after the author did her first big hike and which was the subject of the article ‘Hiking Mistakes’ in our April 2022 issue. So if you haven’t read that article already, you may like to check it out.
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I
searched the supermarket’s aisles with a confused look on my face. What on earth should I buy for my first ever overnight hike? What food to take and how to cook it?
storing surplus gear. Used to giving directions to the supermarket. It was exactly one month less one day, since I’d done my first big hike. That had been to Black Lake near Estes Park in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park. I was so clueless, the only food I’d taken was a packet of crips bought from a vending machine. One small carton of orange juice and a can of diet coke didn’t exactly add much to my sustenance. That and a failed hike up a mountain a few days later had taught me a few lessons. I know knew that hiking meant taking proper food. Hence this trip to the supermarket, no more doing my shopping for hikes out of a vending machine that languished at whatever youth hostel I was staying. As I examined food labels and read the cooking instructions on dehydrated pasta packets that read along
In the morning I was heading off on a 60km hike along New Zealand’s Abel Tasman Coast Track. 60 km of supposedly idyllic golden beaches, where calm turquoise, aquamarine and sapphire coloured waters lapped the stunning shore. It sounded like Utopia and according to legions of backpackers it practically was, for backpacker after backpacker had proclaimed to me “oh you’ve got to hike the Abel Tasman”. The youth hostel in Nelson New Zealand was used to us backpackers staying a night before heading off on the Abel Tasman. Used to sharing information. Used to
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the lines of ‘add milk and butter, stir, heat, eat’ the confused look on my face turned worried. How was I meant to carry milk and butter? Cooking meant I’d need a pot. Besides hadn’t the warden at the youth hostel said there wasn’t any cookers, so I’d need to take my own. What sort of cooker should I buy? How big and heavy would it be, what about fuel, how much of that would I need and what type of fuel? This was all adding up, a cooker, an unknown quantity of fuel, a pot, plus plate, and cutlery. The backpack I was using on my travels around New Zealand was already bursting at the seams. I didn’t have the space for all this extra paraphernalia and I certainly wasn’t going to buy it and ditch it. Clearly dehydrated pasta packets was off the menu.
I kept trawling the supermarket’s shelves looking for something I wouldn’t need to cook and which was suitable for a pescatarian (actually, for something a fish eating vegetarian could eat, as I don’t think the word pescatarian had been invented in the 1980’s and this was 1989). That’s when I came upon the tinned food section. Now please don’t laugh. Remember I was clueless, literally starting out. I hadn’t factored in that tins weigh a ton, or that tins still weigh a ton even after you’ve eaten their contents and still have to carry the empty and now superfluous tin. To me, all I could see was tins of tuna and a glorious family size tin of creamed rice pudding. They would do nicely, especially since they wouldn’t need cooking, I already had a Swiss Army Knife with a can opener on it, and best of all, I knew
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exactly how many calories each tin contained.
Whariwharangi Bay. There stood a basic, quaint, ancient hut, which according to New Zealand’s Department of Conservation (DOC) website is a ‘former homestead built around 1896’. It was dark inside, so dark when a candle was lit, I couldn’t help but wonder what lurked in the furthest corners. Would I have felt homely there had I been alone? I don’t think so. I suspect life would have been hard for those that had lived here in its homestead days. How on earth did people built solid huts like this with mere axes, saws and human toil?
Yes, I’m one of those women. At least I was then, for at that time I knew the calories in practically everything. It was a legacy of over 5 years of bad diets, compulsive eating and bulimia (please don’t – the acid from regurgitation destroyed the enamel on my teeth necessitating some very expensive dental work). Finally, the previous year I’d embraced sensible eating and exercise, which had led to sensible weight reduction. Now though, with a new habit of eating whatever food I could get hold of at bus stations, whilst waiting for my next bus, I’d noticed my jeans were getting tighter.
A few of us were chatting around the table when another hiker, or tramper as they’re called in New Zealand, raced in yelling “porpoises”. We legged it down onto the picture postcard golden beach which was all of a few yards away. There swam a school of porpoises a mere 10 feet from shore. None of us could believe it. I’d never seen anything like that before. It was so magnificent. Nowadays I guess I’d have had my mobile phone glued to me, and I’d have uploaded photos or videos of those porpoises within minutes of my having decent wifi. But then film was precious and cameras weren’t glued to our side. I have no photos of those porpoises and barely any memories, though at least I have my diary.
I didn’t want to return to the old me. I wanted to be the new me. Yet kicking my sugar habit was hard and somehow, I’d also developed a serious ice cream habit, the fattier, the creamer, the better. I resolved this 3-night hike along the Abel Tasman Coast track, where I’d have no chance of restocking supplies (at least then there wasn’t even an an ice cream van, let alone a shop en route), would be the perfect way for me to kick start a new diet. Back at the hostel I prepared my bag, essential clothes only, the absolute bare minimum, my camera, spare film, toothbrush and toothpaste, hairbrush, insect repellent, sunscreen, sunglasses, fork, spoon, Swiss Army Knife, sleeping bag, water bottle, and 1000 calories a day. I know, what was I thinking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Day 1 may only have been 5.7 kms, but day 2 was going to be a big one to Awaroa What’s more I needed to time my journey as I’d have to cross Awaroa Inlet, for the hut was on the far side of the inlet, an inlet only crossable in daylight and at or near low tide. [See DOC’s website for up to date advice on crossing the inlet. Depending on tidal times, it might be
The next morning a few of us backpackers got dropped off at Wainui Car Park. An easy 5.7 km later I came to
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necessary to do the hike in the opposite direction].
not all nature is a wonderful to us humans as the early morning chirping of birds.
As I walked alone along the path, I marvelled at the bird song emanating from the emerald green trees that stood all around me. That’s the great thing about being the first one up, no one else has had a chance to disturb nature. But
Yuck, what was that? My face, my neck, my hair, double yuck. I’d walked straight into a giant spider web. I’d barely freed myself from the yuck of its sticky silky web, when I saw another. These things were huge and stretched right across the
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path. Those poor spiders, each day weaving a web only to have the first of us trampers barge right through and destroy all their effort. I made sure I dived and ducked underneath the second and subsequent webs. One entanglement was quite enough for me thank you very much. It was that night at Awaroa the hunger truly set in. I don’t need to look in my diary to recall that hunger. After that day’s 16.9km hike (ok I checked the distance)
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I’d burned quite a few calories. One family sized tin of rice pudding was most definitely not enough to satiate my appetite. A few other hikers foraged for and cooked up fresh mussels from the bay, but something told me to abstain (I’ve since discovered shellfish and I do not mix, so that was probably a good call). They had so many mussles, they didn’t even need to dig into their supplies - true living off the land though it most certain wasn’t a ‘leave no impact’ hike (something I aim for). As they ate their mussles, I stared at what was left of my food. How I longed to eat my dinner from the next night. But I knew I couldn’t, for if I ate it now, what would I have then but fresh air? I forwent ‘seconds’ and so, on night three in Anchorage Hut, I had some dinner. Not much, just tuna and pita bread, but at least it was something.
Was the shop in Marahau at the exact end of the track, I can’t remember and my diary doesn’t say. But I vividly remember diving into a tiny shop and going “food”. I pounced on what I could eat. Outside I used my Swiss Army Knife’s can opener and then practically poured a family sized tin of apricots down my throat. I’d come a long way from the 22 year old young woman of a month earlier, who on arriving at the youth hostel outside of Estes Park Colorado, was too scared and unsure to go on a proper hike, until she was empowered to do so by the person who ran the hostel. Now I hadn’t just done a day hike, I’d done an overnight hike, one that had taken three nights. I still may have been wearing tennis shoes rather than off road runners, trail shoes or hiking boots, but at least I’d carried a bit or food and more nutritious food too, than I had done in Colorado I’d also learned to stick to trails within my ability. Plus, I’d checked both the tide timetables and the weather forecast before setting off. Clearly I’d started the learning process, though I still had a very long way to go, as multiple more mistakes in the future would show, but at least I was on the right track, trail or path
On the last morning I was again first on the trail. I didn’t even eat breakfast before setting off, preferring instead to save it for a snack along the way. With all my other food eaten and non-essential stored in the gateway town of Nelson, my pack felt almost as light as a feather. I stormed those miles, as I hiked on with a purpose, for I had an appointment and that appointment was with food.
About Jane Harries Jane Harries is our founder, editor and general dogsbody. You can follow her on Instagram. You can also message her via the ‘Contact Us’ page on our website. Instagram: @adventurebyjane
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Coming Up We hope you’ve enjoyed this issue and have found it to be empowering, educating, and entertaining. Here are some ideas we have for future articles, but please do let us know what you’d like to read about and please do keep sending us your stories. We love publishing them.
Getting Into Sea Kayaking
Drinking Tea With The Uyghurs
Exploring Sri Lanka
Getting Your Film Into A Film Festival
Bog Snorkling
Swimming To France
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Adventures In The Simpson Desert
Australia’s Kakadu National Park
Getting Into Adventure Racing
New Zealand’s Coast To Coast Race Cycling Victoria’s Rail Trails
Nepal After Swimming in Antarctica
Hiking in Romania
Interview With Explorer Lucy Shepherd
Rowing the Atlantic – Part 3
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