#145 - London to Marrakech and New York Spare Seat with Richard Harpham

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Welcome to Paddling the Blue. With each episode, we talk with guests from the

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Great Lakes and around the globe who are doing cool things related to sea kayaking.

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I'm your host, my name is John Chase, and let's get started paddling the blue.

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Welcome to today's episode of the Paddling the Blue podcast.

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Richard Harpam has over 14,000 miles of human-powered adventures under his belt,

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and he's not slowing down.

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Today we talk about two of those adventures, London to Marrakesh by kayak and

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bike, and a unique twist on a trip that he called the New York Spare Seat Kayak Expedition.

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Before we get to today's conversation with Richard, James Stevenson and Simon

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Speaking of Explorer, enjoy today's interview with Richard Harbam.

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Hello, Richard. How are you today?

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I'm in fine fettle. Excellent. That's great to hear.

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So you have quite the resume, more than 14,000 miles of human-powered adventures under your belt.

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I would love to hear about a couple of those adventures in particular,

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but first tell us a little bit about you as an adventurer and what got you started. Yeah.

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What got me started, that's always one of those difficult questions and it feels

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a little bit chicken and egg.

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But I guess when I was much younger than I am now, I was very fortunate that

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I joined our local scout troop.

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I joined our local rugby club and I joined our local kayak club.

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And the blend of those things meant, coupled with family holidays,

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it was nearly always outdoors, climbing mountains, camping in the rain,

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and doing lots of paddling.

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So after school, every day was paddling and scouts led into doing different kind of expeditions.

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And I think for a long time, that was how I saw life until I guess I started

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to do some bigger challenges and then felt a bit more liberated and thought, well, you know what?

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Actually, if you dream it, you can plan it. And if you plan it,

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you can do it. And then suddenly you end up doing thousands of miles.

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So those are three pretty distinct areas, scouts, rugby, and paddling.

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Joined all those at the same time?

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Pretty much. I was a late diagnosis of ADHD,

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but I think that I often say to people that if I hadn't joined those particular groups, those clubs,

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then maybe I'd have done something more silly and got myself in more trouble.

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Whereas being part of a club, being part of really an extended community of

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people meant, you know, there were people to sort of, I guess,

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give you boundaries and give you guidance and help you learn.

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So you've got quite a varied resume, as I mentioned, not only such a varied

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resume from an adventure standpoint, but quite a business resume.

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And then one that really caught my eye, manager of the Ghana ski team to the

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Vancouver Winter Olympics.

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Yeah, where to start with that?

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People usually associate that with the sort of cool runnings type scenario.

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You know, we're from Jamaica, we're from a country with no snow.

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What are we doing here with a bobsleigh. And of course that was epitomized by the film.

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So I try and avoid the John Candy reference, but my job was manager, not coach.

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And as such, my friend Kwame Nkrumah at Chimpong, people really struggled to say that.

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So he was dubbed the Snow Leopard by the

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media and he started working in

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an indoor slope near us in a

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place called Milton Keynes and from there he

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six years later qualified for the Vancouver Winter Olympics and all Olympics

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have this you know they search for the underdog story and I think he was very

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much that with no funding from a country with no snow competing against some

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of the best in the world on the day and of course,

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almost impossible to imagine achieving that, and definitely impossible to imagine

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skiing for a medal, but that wasn't really his aim.

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His aim was to set a pathway that perhaps other African nations and aspiring

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athletes could follow in the future.

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And how did you get connected with that?

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How did you get connected with that? well an

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interesting way of telling that story is that

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i the way i

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tell it if i was in the pub or if i was in a hostelry would

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be i had the same idea as facebook and after

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i left a very respectable job and that was safely behind me i went for a hundred

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mile walk on my own and decided that i didn't really want to be in that environment

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in the big corporate world and had the same idea that Facebook had before Facebook was known.

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And the idea was you'd have this community of sport and leisure,

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and you would share a love of sport and leisure in that community and celebrate

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birthdays and upload images and all the things you can do on Facebook.

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But we would also have an online store with equipment from paddling kit, Jackson kayaks to...

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Opium paddles to all this sort of different kit

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and you could earn a commission for your

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sports club or charity if you

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made any purchases and the third thing

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we had was sort of celebrating events and athletes

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and places you could book your

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online sport or your activity and if

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you go back to 2001 no one really had a website and

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well in fact 30% of the activity providers

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had websites so we started from

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nothing and we worked with all these Olympians and athletes

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and adventurers and that was part

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of my genesis of being involved in

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the Ghana ski team but it was also an awakening

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as I was writing about other people doing incredibly

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cool adventures thinking well I've got the

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skills why don't I give this a go it didn't quite work

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that's the thing I should tell you about the the Facebook

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thing was going really well all up until the credit crunch hit and the bank

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withdrew our funding and then at that point suddenly you lose a lot of money

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and realize that it didn't quite work which is something you have to dust yourself

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off from and I decided at this point in my life.

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Having had no job at that point and just having lost a business I'd worked on

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for six years, that I would do five challenges that were called the big five

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kayak challenge at the time.

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And that got me into doing these bigger adventures.

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So what were those big five kayak challenges?

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Good question. The big five kayak challenges, I had four.

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So I would kayak the channel, the English channel, kayak to France.

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And I would kayak around a small island off our south coast called the Isle

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of Wight. So that was about 85 miles.

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And I would kayak Land's End to the Isles of Scilly, which was 36 nautical miles.

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So a nine and a half hour crossing.

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And I would do the length of our River Thames in, well, it turned out I would

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do it in 33 hours during the blizzards with a team.

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And so I had four and I just thought, well, big five, the big five sounds better.

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And then someone told me about the inside passage that runs off the Canadian coast up to Alaska.

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And I thought, yeah, that would be it to sea kayak the inside passage.

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So we did from Vancouver Island up to Glacier Bay in Alaska.

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That's quite a mix. I mean, you've got four in your home area and then one out in Alaska. Yeah.

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I remember as we got closer to it thinking, I mean, to take a couple of steps back.

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By this stage, I guess I was heading into my early 40s and I didn't own a sea kayak.

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Okay. I'd always played in the sea and I loved surf kayaking and messing in

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the sea, but I didn't own a sea kayak.

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And so to embark on these trips that were crossing the channel 21 nautical miles

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or the 36 across to the Isles of Scilly, that was some undertaking.

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And by the time I got out to Canada to Vancouver Island, I remember thinking,

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you know, what have we done here?

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And when we loaded our sea kayaks, Port Hardy on the north tip of Vancouver

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Island, I remember thinking, crumbs.

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This is the first time i've really paddled a

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sea kayak fully laden and we were

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aiming for a thousand miles in around 30

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days so it was 35 miles

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a day average come wind rain or shine that's a that's an aggressive schedule

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for sure it was and some of my friends have subsequently said you should not

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be the one doing the planning because you played rugby for years and you quite like pain.

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So how many days did that one take we spent

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27 days and covered just around a thousand miles i think we were just shy of

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the thousand mile mark wow like by a few miles so you beat the expectation yeah

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i think we grew into a new space and i remember sitting on admiralty island just south of Juno.

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And I had one little bar left on, in those days, an iPod.

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Obviously, you'd probably use a phone now, but with an iPod.

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And I had one bar of music left and I had a fire.

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And narrative was there's one bear per square kilometre on Aberdeen Island.

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I just watched the Orcas patrol up and down the channel there.

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And I thought, this is amazing.

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I've arrived at a place under my own steam.

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And I've achieved things that not I necessarily didn't think were possible,

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but we've achieved something worthwhile and meaningful.

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And I just decided at that point, well, why wouldn't you do more of this?

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Because I felt like it was my awakening and my calling had sort of been satisfied.

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So was that the first one that you did in the big five?

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That was the last one of the of that year's big

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five and we raised i can't remember about

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eight or nine thousand pounds for different charities and

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then of course i got to the end of that year having spent

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almost five months of like

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you said aggressive paddling a lot of training trips

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a lot of being ready to paddle the

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length of the thames for example 183 miles

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in 33 hours is a tough schedule before you

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add in it was the blizzards of 2009 and we

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were just super fit super you know i don't know goal focused probably raising

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money for charity doing something we love doing why wouldn't you absolutely

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some of the things you mentioned in there just those are the truly the beauties of human powered travel.

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I think so. There's quite a lot of references and a friend and associate wrote

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a book called Life in the Slow Lane.

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And I often feel I've just come back from running a sea kayak trip on the South Coast.

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It's a UNESCO World Heritage destination called the Jurassic Coast.

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And it's incredible arches, geos, caves on our sort of South Coast.

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And I've said to people, you know, watch people go by

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in a fast boat in a speedboat on a jet ski whatever it

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is but they're not seeing they're not immersed

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in that same landscape that we are as

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sea kayakers or paddlers where you're up close and you're seeing a cormorant

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dive off a cliff or i mean we didn't see any seals but on trips where i've seen

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seals or sea lions or orcas or you you're just not in that place if you're in

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a big boat or moving fast.

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Whereas as soon as your life in the slow lane, you get these magic moments that

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I think begin to define how you see the world.

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Certainly. So a couple of those trips, I'd love to hear about a couple of them.

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And so one of those, London to Marrakesh by Bike and Kayak. So how did you dream this one up?

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London to Marrakesh, I'm not quite sure how we arrived at that,

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but it was this search for London to a destination.

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And it was almost before the budget airlines, people like EasyJet had started flying there.

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And it was one of those places you weren't quite sure where it was.

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Anyway, with a little bit of research, I concluded that it was in North Africa.

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And it's one of those things you probably knew, but then confirmed. And when you.

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I started very simply by using Google Maps as a, okay, that's roughly the distance,

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2,400 miles of kayaking and cycling.

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And then I worked out that if I had a support vehicle, I could switch between bike and kayak.

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And that had pros and cons, probably more

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on the cons from my perspective of

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freedom and adventures in that that meant

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you needed a support crew and drivers and different

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people were going to join me for the trip but no one

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was going to be with me the whole way other than

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the driver so i remember setting

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out at tower bridge the bridge

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that i think the americans thought they were buying years ago and um we we sold

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them the other one and we started from there and paddled off down the thames

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and it was a strange feeling knowing that you were going to be, you know, over a month,

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nearly two months on the road and away doing this exped.

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And I remember getting down towards Dover, where we were going to be sea kayaking

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across the channel, which would be my second time of kayaking the channel.

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And the heavens just opened. It was absolutely biblical to the extent that your

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tires felt like they were floating on the road.

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You probably could have got a kayak onto the drain kind of gullies.

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It was that sort of level of water.

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And then arriving down in Dover and looking across thinking we're going back to France.

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And what I had done when I did the sort of route planning was look at,

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well, where would be amazing to kayak?

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Obviously the channel again, where were these bodies of water?

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And so when you look at the South Coast, the Mediterranean, that meant places

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like Marmonore and some of the beautiful kind of, I guess, rocky atolls and

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outcrops along that Southern Mediterranean.

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And then halfway up France

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you've got Fort Boyard which was where

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Napoleon I think was imprisoned and that's you

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know you leave and paddle around in you're quite

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far out at sea really and that was

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a really stormy day it was a full six and

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I think somewhere online there's a bit of video of us with

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one of my French friends who just came to join me for the day and

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we paddled like we'd never you know never been

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apart and then of course we arrive

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at the strait of gibraltar another really busy

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shipping lane and although it's shorter than the

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channel it's only 12 nautical miles and you can see africa that was such a symbolic

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bit of kayaking because it was paddling to another continent and that really

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meant something to me yeah how does so how was paddling what may be the busiest

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shipping lane in the world like?

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Sorry, can you just repeat that? Sure. How was paddling what may be the busiest

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shipping lane in the world like?

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Well, I think paddling these big crossings, it always feels to me like there

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was that old computer game called Frogger where you'd be going across,

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I think in that case it was a road and then a bit of water and there were crocodiles

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and there were cars and the little frog had to dodge all of these things.

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And it does feel a bit like that. And one of the things I don't think I'll ever

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get used to is you're there in your little kayak and you might be on the VHF radio.

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Kayak one, kayak one, two, you know, big boat.

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You're receiving me over nothing and radio silence.

00:17:59.482 --> 00:18:04.042
And I experienced that quite a bit on the inside passage in Alaska and Canada.

00:18:04.302 --> 00:18:10.242
And maybe people are making a cup of tea or I don't know, but rarely do you get an answer.

00:18:10.442 --> 00:18:13.782
And then as you're crossing in front of them,

00:18:14.022 --> 00:18:18.962
there's this moment of relief where you see the other side of the hull of this

00:18:18.962 --> 00:18:27.842
big ship and think, I'm out of the firing line as it were, and I'm going to be safe.

00:18:28.142 --> 00:18:30.402
So I think that's part of it.

00:18:30.722 --> 00:18:36.462
There are some tide races off the end of the Gibraltar, the rock.

00:18:36.662 --> 00:18:38.282
So that was a bit interesting.

00:18:38.662 --> 00:18:43.962
And then, you know, arriving into Morocco, you're arriving into North Africa

00:18:43.962 --> 00:18:49.262
and a new continent, and then I guess adapting to a different environment.

00:18:49.862 --> 00:18:54.062
What was the order of events? You mentioned you did both kayak and bike.

00:18:54.162 --> 00:18:56.422
So how did that, how did that work? Where'd you switch off?

00:18:57.162 --> 00:19:01.482
I think we just sort of looked at the route and thought, well,

00:19:01.782 --> 00:19:07.402
this looks an interesting place to kayak or something along those lines.

00:19:07.602 --> 00:19:13.322
I mean, clearly on a bike, you are substantially faster than a kayak.

00:19:13.602 --> 00:19:20.402
And so in that sense, it was quite exciting to switch as well.

00:19:20.562 --> 00:19:25.142
You know, some days I remember getting to the Pyrenees on the bike and thinking, what have I done?

00:19:25.362 --> 00:19:31.942
This is seriously steep and demanding cycling over a mountain range but equally

00:19:31.942 --> 00:19:41.082
for example being or sea kayaking off casablanca in four meter surf was probably

00:19:41.082 --> 00:19:44.502
one of the most challenging things i've ever done it sounds like it.

00:19:45.862 --> 00:19:52.482
So you uh you started on the kayak paddled across the channel at what point did you pick up the bike,

00:19:53.748 --> 00:20:00.928
Well, pretty much when I got to France, we jumped on the bike because I suppose

00:20:00.928 --> 00:20:05.948
there was an option to do the inland waterways and maybe paddle some of the canals.

00:20:06.128 --> 00:20:11.508
And I know other people have done other challenges with, let's say,

00:20:11.728 --> 00:20:18.008
slower meandering water or even, I suppose, slow moving. it. I wanted to be on the sea.

00:20:18.168 --> 00:20:24.528
I wanted to test myself and, you know, anyone who was joining me at a particular

00:20:24.528 --> 00:20:31.028
point in that 3D land of, you know, it's a continual dance floor of motion.

00:20:32.368 --> 00:20:37.188
And that's the thing I fell in love with is about sea kayaking is infinite variables.

00:20:37.728 --> 00:20:42.228
So when I looked at the map, I looked at, you know, knowing there was big tide

00:20:42.228 --> 00:20:45.888
ranges in the Bay of Biscay, knowing that there was Fort Boyard,

00:20:46.448 --> 00:20:50.128
you know, that seemed a landmark worthy of a, of a sea kayak.

00:20:50.968 --> 00:20:56.648
And then the other thing I was very conscious of was if I didn't mix in the

00:20:56.648 --> 00:21:01.468
bike, I was going to be six months and I, I just didn't have six months available.

00:21:02.068 --> 00:21:05.388
All right. Yeah. I was wondering why, uh, why you didn't just paddle around,

00:21:05.548 --> 00:21:09.288
around Spain and Portugal and make your way to the straight of Gibraltar.

00:21:09.288 --> 00:21:12.488
Yeah i think the other thing is if

00:21:12.488 --> 00:21:15.608
you look at sort of good days bad

00:21:15.608 --> 00:21:19.968
days in terms of weather i would imagine there

00:21:19.968 --> 00:21:24.788
are probably i think i there would have been more days that i would have made

00:21:24.788 --> 00:21:31.228
less distance headwinds tides or just absolutely getting nailed by the weather

00:21:31.228 --> 00:21:34.028
that would have slowed my progress

00:21:34.028 --> 00:21:38.148
more if i tried to do it all in a kayak versus some of it on a bike.

00:21:38.688 --> 00:21:41.788
So with the volume of ships coming through the Strait of Gibraltar,

00:21:42.068 --> 00:21:43.528
how did you have to time that?

00:21:44.566 --> 00:21:48.986
If you look at the channel, sea kayaking Scotland to Ireland,

00:21:49.666 --> 00:21:54.586
sea kayaking the Pentland Firth off John O'Groats in the north of Scotland,

00:21:55.006 --> 00:22:00.806
and the Strait of Gibraltar, all of them, these bigger open water crossings

00:22:00.806 --> 00:22:02.386
have different challenges.

00:22:02.906 --> 00:22:06.146
And some of that's the nature of the water.

00:22:06.346 --> 00:22:11.586
So is it that there are three main flows coming through that gap?

00:22:11.586 --> 00:22:14.386
Is it that there's a tide race in one

00:22:14.386 --> 00:22:19.906
place two places is it that there's a north and a south channel like in the

00:22:19.906 --> 00:22:25.386
english channel where the shipping lanes are in the case of the straight gibraltar

00:22:25.386 --> 00:22:33.366
i don't remember it as being any better or any worse than any of the others i think you

00:22:33.486 --> 00:22:35.666
feel like, I guess,

00:22:36.066 --> 00:22:45.306
it's constant alert, really, of wondering or making sure that you're in a good paddling pace.

00:22:45.486 --> 00:22:51.066
We are quite quick in sea kayaks. We're doing those crossings at five to six

00:22:51.066 --> 00:22:55.106
miles an hour, probably about four knots, cruising speed.

00:22:55.406 --> 00:22:58.626
So I think with that in mind you're you're

00:22:58.626 --> 00:23:02.866
just making sure you've got the gaps but to i

00:23:02.866 --> 00:23:05.986
suppose flag up on the strait of gibraltar

00:23:05.986 --> 00:23:12.266
and the channel then under the regulations you need a support boat whereas when

00:23:12.266 --> 00:23:17.646
i've done the pentland firth off the north of scotland or kayak to ireland i

00:23:17.646 --> 00:23:22.946
haven't had a support boat and it's us versus the elements but on those two

00:23:22.946 --> 00:23:24.926
because of border crossing type.

00:23:26.146 --> 00:23:29.746
Restrictions then if you don't have a support boat

00:23:29.746 --> 00:23:32.586
the the advice is that they didn't pound

00:23:32.586 --> 00:23:35.486
your kayaks and i didn't want that so you had a

00:23:35.486 --> 00:23:39.986
support either a boat or a vehicle with you the entire time so on the strait

00:23:39.986 --> 00:23:44.986
of gibraltar in the channel on both of those we had a support boat on the strait

00:23:44.986 --> 00:23:50.086
of gibraltar it was more interesting because we were just going for it And then

00:23:50.086 --> 00:23:53.186
the sort of border guards were like, no, you can't.

00:23:53.646 --> 00:23:59.786
And we luckily persuaded a local yacht to kind of act as our pilot,

00:24:00.106 --> 00:24:02.866
which I guess takes some stress out of it.

00:24:03.026 --> 00:24:05.986
But for us, that wasn't the point, really.

00:24:06.106 --> 00:24:10.066
It was just, I don't want to lose my kayaks, you know, get them impounded or

00:24:10.066 --> 00:24:11.426
confiscated or something.

00:24:11.426 --> 00:24:14.246
Right but i think if you

00:24:14.246 --> 00:24:18.026
look at that journey of london to marrakesh the more the

00:24:18.026 --> 00:24:22.306
more challenging or the one where i guess i would describe it as my everest

00:24:22.306 --> 00:24:26.986
was the sea kayaking off casablanca and four meter waves on a reef break yeah

00:24:26.986 --> 00:24:34.586
and for most people that that idea of being in such big powerful surf.

00:24:35.699 --> 00:24:40.859
Is both terrifying and impossible. For us, it was terrifying and we thought we could do it.

00:24:41.019 --> 00:24:47.579
But we spent over an hour observing the surf patterns and there were no surfers out.

00:24:47.699 --> 00:24:51.819
It was just too big and monstrous on that day for them, maybe, I don't know.

00:24:52.119 --> 00:24:56.639
But no one was out and we made this decision that we would go for it.

00:24:57.139 --> 00:25:03.839
And that was one of those times in my life where I've definitely put myself in harm's way.

00:25:04.039 --> 00:25:06.939
I'm way beyond the comfort zone. I'm in harm's way.

00:25:07.259 --> 00:25:13.099
I've gone into the discomfort zone and now I'm risking things for this bigger

00:25:13.099 --> 00:25:17.219
challenge that, you know, we were trying to achieve.

00:25:18.019 --> 00:25:22.779
So that one's interesting. So why did you choose to go that day as opposed to

00:25:22.779 --> 00:25:24.759
wait, wait for the next day when it might look better?

00:25:25.439 --> 00:25:28.539
The go don't go question is something that

00:25:28.539 --> 00:25:31.299
we often get asked about when we're doing

00:25:31.299 --> 00:25:34.599
talks for companies or in schools and

00:25:34.599 --> 00:25:37.839
and the the very much the media portrait

00:25:37.839 --> 00:25:46.279
is of adrenaline and risk takers and so forth and most people that are good

00:25:46.279 --> 00:25:50.659
at what they do are probably the other end of that funnel where they are risk

00:25:50.659 --> 00:25:55.679
managers and observing thinking you know i don't want to die.

00:25:55.879 --> 00:26:02.559
I want to achieve something that is gritty or tough, but I want to have my wits about me.

00:26:02.679 --> 00:26:05.479
And so we were definitely in that category.

00:26:06.599 --> 00:26:11.159
We'd done a lot of sea kayaking by that point. We were very honed.

00:26:11.279 --> 00:26:15.339
We were in this sort of skill zone and then looked at it and thought,

00:26:15.459 --> 00:26:16.659
well, we think we can do this.

00:26:16.919 --> 00:26:22.899
But to give you an example, the time period between each of those Atlantic breakers

00:26:22.899 --> 00:26:26.799
from the storm that had been in the US was about 13 seconds.

00:26:27.539 --> 00:26:32.239
So when the surf was breaking and hitting the reef and the beach,

00:26:32.399 --> 00:26:34.419
it was like listening to thunder.

00:26:34.839 --> 00:26:39.179
And as we paddled through it, which was an absolute battle, you know,

00:26:39.299 --> 00:26:43.539
it felt like there were bits coming off your kayak and deck bags getting sort

00:26:43.539 --> 00:26:45.259
of ripped and everything else.

00:26:46.376 --> 00:26:51.716
As you were going through it, it was this exhilarating yet terrifying, what am I doing?

00:26:52.136 --> 00:26:57.696
And one of the things we'd done as part of the risk management was to recce

00:26:57.696 --> 00:27:01.296
where we might land and how we would land.

00:27:01.436 --> 00:27:06.316
Because coming in through four meter surf, breaking surf, if you were going

00:27:06.316 --> 00:27:11.596
to hit a reef break or something is probably as close to death as you're going to get.

00:27:12.176 --> 00:27:18.576
So we'd recceed a place where there was effectively a natural harbor that we

00:27:18.576 --> 00:27:22.676
could use so that the waves weren't quite breaking in the same way.

00:27:22.796 --> 00:27:26.936
And we would surf a bit, but it wasn't four meter breaking surf.

00:27:27.276 --> 00:27:32.956
And that was where we exited thinking, Crumbs, you know, that felt like the

00:27:32.956 --> 00:27:35.596
edge of, we were on the edge of where we'd want to be.

00:27:36.076 --> 00:27:38.016
And how did you identify that point?

00:27:38.636 --> 00:27:42.316
What, the get out? yeah yes identifying the

00:27:42.316 --> 00:27:46.156
get out was we spent about an hour watching the

00:27:46.156 --> 00:27:49.276
breakers and there is a video on our

00:27:49.276 --> 00:27:52.816
on our youtube channel somewhere that you

00:27:52.816 --> 00:27:55.876
can kind of look at the surf and go what because even.

00:27:55.876 --> 00:27:58.596
I watch it and go what we spent an hour

00:27:58.596 --> 00:28:02.456
watching the surf at the get-in and it was really interesting that

00:28:02.456 --> 00:28:06.356
the surf patterns were very

00:28:06.356 --> 00:28:09.456
confused waters and it would refract and

00:28:09.456 --> 00:28:12.196
you know from the reef action and you would get

00:28:12.196 --> 00:28:14.976
double waves to half so it would flatten out and

00:28:14.976 --> 00:28:17.796
then just go monstrously big but within a

00:28:17.796 --> 00:28:21.116
short space of time so that was the get in and i

00:28:21.116 --> 00:28:24.036
would say you know for most people that are

00:28:24.036 --> 00:28:27.236
sea kayaking we know in surf the fifth and sixth wave

00:28:27.236 --> 00:28:30.576
are likely to be bigger and you'll get some road waves this

00:28:30.576 --> 00:28:33.436
felt like a pattern we'd never seen and then

00:28:33.436 --> 00:28:36.536
the get out we we simply wrecked

00:28:36.536 --> 00:28:39.676
all the way down the coast and I think we paddled off

00:28:39.676 --> 00:28:43.136
the top of my head for about an hour and a half down the

00:28:43.136 --> 00:28:46.456
coast outside of the breakers just listening

00:28:46.456 --> 00:28:50.636
to this pounding surf hit the beach feeling on

00:28:50.636 --> 00:28:53.616
edge feeling like have we done the right thing

00:28:53.616 --> 00:28:56.396
here have we got ourselves into a pickle are

00:28:56.396 --> 00:28:59.696
we going to be landing upside down you know front looping

00:28:59.696 --> 00:29:02.976
back looping we just weren't sure but you know

00:29:02.976 --> 00:29:05.976
our our investigation and our wrecking were sound

00:29:05.976 --> 00:29:12.996
and actually the getting out of the kind of sea was much easier good glad it

00:29:12.996 --> 00:29:20.516
worked for you yeah so how uh once you cross the uh the Strait of Gibraltar

00:29:20.516 --> 00:29:23.776
how did things change or did Could they change once you reach Africa?

00:29:24.924 --> 00:29:30.084
Once we reached Africa, then we were much more back on the bike other than sort

00:29:30.084 --> 00:29:32.544
of doing this sea kayaking around Casablanca.

00:29:33.064 --> 00:29:36.224
It was interesting landing.

00:29:37.064 --> 00:29:44.224
Effectively, as you're doing these day to day adventures, you get to these decision points.

00:29:44.464 --> 00:29:51.424
And what I think I was unaware of in my planning was that we were actually landing in a Spanish enclave.

00:29:51.864 --> 00:29:57.864
So Suta on the North African coast is actually under Spain's sovereignty.

00:29:58.204 --> 00:30:01.924
And so we would land there and then we would go into Morocco,

00:30:02.184 --> 00:30:04.304
albeit it was all on the same continent.

00:30:04.804 --> 00:30:08.864
And then we were back on the bike. And like I said, we got to Casablanca and

00:30:08.864 --> 00:30:12.464
really that was the end of our sea kayaking exploits.

00:30:13.004 --> 00:30:18.624
And they say, or I've been told in Alaska, they often say it's the schedule

00:30:18.624 --> 00:30:20.584
or the airline tickets that kill people.

00:30:20.924 --> 00:30:25.704
You know, you're chasing a schedule or you're chasing times or you're available

00:30:25.704 --> 00:30:27.864
time and people rush and make mistakes.

00:30:28.384 --> 00:30:32.584
And so we were very conscious of this is the schedule, you know,

00:30:32.704 --> 00:30:35.624
we're going to see kayak here and then we're on the bike.

00:30:35.824 --> 00:30:40.464
And when I say they, mostly me, but joined by some friends who had,

00:30:40.604 --> 00:30:44.984
you know, agreed to come out and do certain stints with me, certain legs of the challenge.

00:30:45.524 --> 00:30:50.784
So you did the full challenge and then you had people cycle in and out along the way. Yeah.

00:30:51.164 --> 00:30:55.624
So I had some friends join me for some of the sea kayaking. I had some friends

00:30:55.624 --> 00:30:56.904
join me for some of the cycling.

00:30:57.204 --> 00:31:04.024
I think I did 2,400 miles of sea kayaking and cycling.

00:31:04.284 --> 00:31:09.284
I think the next person did about 300, but different people did,

00:31:09.504 --> 00:31:13.224
you know, some people did 200, some people did a hundred and some of it was

00:31:13.224 --> 00:31:15.344
on my own and that was okay too.

00:31:15.764 --> 00:31:18.084
What would you do different if you did it again? Yeah.

00:31:18.929 --> 00:31:24.449
Think I really want to avoid trying to have a support vehicle or support people.

00:31:25.349 --> 00:31:30.669
I believe that it changes the dynamic. There's a real freedom to being on the

00:31:30.669 --> 00:31:36.089
road, on the water, on a trail, following a path or a journey.

00:31:36.309 --> 00:31:40.749
And I think that's interrupted when you have to switch and do other things.

00:31:40.909 --> 00:31:46.489
And I get it. It was, I didn't have the available time to do it all in a sea kayak.

00:31:46.709 --> 00:31:51.909
I'm glad I did it the way I did it. But I think as I look at other adventures I want to achieve,

00:31:52.269 --> 00:31:58.849
I'd rather break it down into different chunks in a different way and try and

00:31:58.849 --> 00:32:03.109
make that freedom one of the key objectives in following that trail.

00:32:03.649 --> 00:32:10.349
The other thing I guess is in that life in the slow lane is allowing time for

00:32:10.349 --> 00:32:13.349
the serendipity and the kindness of strangers.

00:32:13.349 --> 00:32:16.189
And if you if your schedules are

00:32:16.189 --> 00:32:19.049
full and i've i've done long distance races i've done

00:32:19.049 --> 00:32:22.549
the yukon river quest which was amazing and

00:32:22.549 --> 00:32:26.529
i've done the muskoka river x which is the friendliest race and i've done the

00:32:26.529 --> 00:32:31.389
ones in britain the divisors to westminster when you're racing you don't have

00:32:31.389 --> 00:32:37.389
that available bandwidth and space to i suppose have communion with people or

00:32:37.389 --> 00:32:42.169
have communion with nature that you miss through the racing activity.

00:32:42.729 --> 00:32:47.929
And to give you an example, when I was sea kayaking on the Mediterranean coast,

00:32:47.969 --> 00:32:53.029
I saw a sort of dinghy on the horizon and they sort of waved and I waved and

00:32:53.029 --> 00:32:55.289
they waved again. So I waved again.

00:32:55.449 --> 00:33:01.069
And this pattern continued till I realized that perhaps they weren't waving in the way I thought.

00:33:01.649 --> 00:33:08.169
And I sea kayaked out to sea, you know, further in that coastal corridor and

00:33:08.169 --> 00:33:11.829
eventually caught up with this dinghy that was taking on water and had lost

00:33:11.829 --> 00:33:16.049
one of its hatches and so the hull was filling with water and.

00:33:17.694 --> 00:33:23.834
The kind of situation changed and I had a deck pump and I had tow lines and

00:33:23.834 --> 00:33:27.854
eventually with their hatch missing, we pumped out and then,

00:33:27.994 --> 00:33:29.834
you know, I towed them and we,

00:33:30.094 --> 00:33:35.514
between us, we kind of got them back to land and then they became friends and they, hospitality,

00:33:35.954 --> 00:33:39.474
hospitality of strangers, they put us up for the night for a couple of nights.

00:33:39.694 --> 00:33:44.354
And, you know, I guess these things are part of why we do adventures too.

00:33:44.914 --> 00:33:48.014
Yeah. It's always the people that make a difference. Yeah, definitely.

00:33:48.414 --> 00:33:52.034
Yeah. So speaking of experiences with people you don't know,

00:33:52.194 --> 00:33:56.454
so I'm going to go to a different adventure here. New York spare seat.

00:33:57.174 --> 00:34:00.634
How did that work? How did the spare seat work?

00:34:00.834 --> 00:34:06.254
Well, the New York spare seat, again, how I would often recount that story if

00:34:06.254 --> 00:34:10.934
I was giving a talk somewhere, you know, like a motivational talk is,

00:34:11.074 --> 00:34:15.114
so I rang up New York and of course that usually gets a laugh.

00:34:15.114 --> 00:34:18.514
And I rang them up and I said, hey, you know, you're New York,

00:34:18.714 --> 00:34:22.594
you've got Niagara Falls, you've got the Statue of Liberty, you've got the Erie

00:34:22.594 --> 00:34:26.074
Canal, wouldn't it be good to do an adventure in your backyard?

00:34:26.794 --> 00:34:30.714
And how I describe that story is, you know, they went, yeah,

00:34:30.714 --> 00:34:33.154
I was expecting them to say no.

00:34:33.594 --> 00:34:35.794
But they went, you know, what's your pitch, Rich?

00:34:36.997 --> 00:34:40.017
I literally on the spot thought well what's this

00:34:40.017 --> 00:34:42.817
going to be and so we called it the

00:34:42.817 --> 00:34:51.897
spare seat kayak expedition and my vision was that we i would be in a a double

00:34:51.897 --> 00:34:57.357
kayak and every day someone i didn't know would join me in the in the spare

00:34:57.357 --> 00:35:02.477
seat and through that we would connect with

00:35:02.557 --> 00:35:04.257
the landscape,

00:35:04.557 --> 00:35:08.277
the waterways, and the people, the communities that we were paddling through.

00:35:09.697 --> 00:35:16.117
And that was, in that sense, an unwritten ending to a beautiful story.

00:35:16.417 --> 00:35:20.717
And that was really what the essence of the spare seat was about.

00:35:21.857 --> 00:35:25.997
So you had a different person every day in the other seat in your boat.

00:35:26.757 --> 00:35:30.577
Yeah. So as I said, it was an unwritten story really.

00:35:30.817 --> 00:35:37.877
But to give you an example, Paul, the oldest was 83, I think, dressed as a pirate.

00:35:38.137 --> 00:35:43.517
And the youngest that came out to join us because it did have the Forrest Gump

00:35:43.517 --> 00:35:45.837
effect, the youngest was six months.

00:35:46.117 --> 00:35:51.657
And so every day someone would join in the spare seat and there were two of us,

00:35:51.757 --> 00:35:54.957
myself and another American adventurer called glenn charles

00:35:54.957 --> 00:35:58.617
and they would join us and

00:35:58.617 --> 00:36:01.657
as they joined us we would we would

00:36:01.657 --> 00:36:04.977
chat and we would become friends and but what

00:36:04.977 --> 00:36:07.857
happened through the media exposure of this

00:36:07.857 --> 00:36:10.677
story was people just came to join us

00:36:10.677 --> 00:36:15.877
in that forest gump effect you know i just kept on running but in this sense

00:36:15.877 --> 00:36:21.257
it was i just kept on paddling and you would turn around and people would have

00:36:21.257 --> 00:36:28.497
joined you for that leg of kayaking from wherever it was on the route.

00:36:29.017 --> 00:36:34.897
So Albany, Finger Lakes, Poughkeepsie, all these different places,

00:36:35.657 --> 00:36:39.517
Stony Point, West Point, and all these different bits.

00:36:40.497 --> 00:36:50.137
So what was your route? When I first created the concept of the New York spare seat,

00:36:50.357 --> 00:36:56.677
it was brilliant in the sense that I got to work with the local communities

00:36:56.677 --> 00:37:02.477
all the way along the Erie Canal and then the Hudson Riverway, the waterway.

00:37:02.737 --> 00:37:07.697
And so if you think of the Hudson River, very famous, ends in New York.

00:37:08.721 --> 00:37:13.521
That's quite well known. And there was quite a lot for things like the Clearwater

00:37:13.521 --> 00:37:18.021
movement about challenging how you might clean up a waterway.

00:37:18.201 --> 00:37:24.001
And the Erie Canal I knew very little about, but the Erie Canal was the brainchild of DeWitt Clinton.

00:37:24.921 --> 00:37:33.301
And it was finished in 1825, I think, but connected the interior of the states of,

00:37:33.501 --> 00:37:42.101
you know, back from Lake Ontario back to Albany and then down to New York.

00:37:42.261 --> 00:37:49.041
And by having that connection, it was very much a trade route and an opportunity

00:37:49.041 --> 00:37:56.741
to make sure that the United States was more thriving, that you could trade better and so on.

00:37:57.421 --> 00:38:02.301
And there was a thing that they did called the Wedding of the Waters,

00:38:02.321 --> 00:38:08.181
where they poured water from, if you like, the headwaters back into the Atlantic in 1825.

00:38:08.621 --> 00:38:13.621
And DeWitt Clinton was under immense pressure. People called it DeWitt's Folly.

00:38:13.921 --> 00:38:18.521
You know, why are you building this thing? Why are you spending seven years building this canal?

00:38:18.761 --> 00:38:22.401
And he'd been across to Britain to look at our canal systems.

00:38:22.601 --> 00:38:24.201
And that's what he modeled it on.

00:38:24.401 --> 00:38:31.721
So to arrive at Buffalo and to be thinking about Silo City and starting on the

00:38:31.721 --> 00:38:34.021
Niagara River and then turning down the Erie Canal,

00:38:34.021 --> 00:38:40.281
it just entered us into this world of iconic history and world's firsts.

00:38:40.441 --> 00:38:44.921
You know, the world's first women's rights movement at Seneca Falls,

00:38:45.281 --> 00:38:50.261
the world's first challenging of a government around environmental performance

00:38:50.261 --> 00:38:53.141
to do with the Clearwater and the Clearwater Sloop.

00:38:53.961 --> 00:38:56.741
Stony Point, where the British were defeated by the Americans,

00:38:57.021 --> 00:39:02.521
you know, all these different things, West Point, you know, Military Academy, were along the route.

00:39:02.741 --> 00:39:09.301
And as we got into it, we just got this exposure to these incredible communities.

00:39:10.361 --> 00:39:15.261
Kodak, you know, their HQ had been along the Erie Canal, all these different

00:39:15.261 --> 00:39:16.341
things that had happened.

00:39:16.861 --> 00:39:22.881
And then we got to be a mirror back to those communities talking about our adventure

00:39:22.881 --> 00:39:28.681
and the Erie Canal. And I think it gave this real sense of optimism about what

00:39:28.681 --> 00:39:30.761
the canal represented in the modern era.

00:39:31.081 --> 00:39:36.921
And we were totally, you know, received in such a, it was almost like being

00:39:36.921 --> 00:39:38.521
royalty, paddling royalty.

00:39:39.021 --> 00:39:42.901
That's pretty cool. You did talks along the way in the different communities. Thank you.

00:39:43.398 --> 00:39:50.178
Yeah. So I don't think we had, when we came up with the idea with a guy from New York state.

00:39:50.778 --> 00:39:55.778
The green heart, you know, this upstate New York and I knew upstate New York

00:39:55.778 --> 00:40:00.978
through, I'd played rugby in Long Island for five years. So I thought I knew it.

00:40:01.058 --> 00:40:04.478
And then I found all these other hidden gems.

00:40:04.758 --> 00:40:08.638
And so many people will visit the city that never sleeps,

00:40:08.838 --> 00:40:11.858
you know, the way we're in new york we're gonna see all these things

00:40:11.858 --> 00:40:15.118
and they don't realize that just in that

00:40:15.118 --> 00:40:18.358
whole state is this incredible green belt

00:40:18.358 --> 00:40:24.658
of and waterways that are just stunning and i would say if anyone's listening

00:40:24.658 --> 00:40:29.958
to it i would say go and explore new york state go and see what it's about and

00:40:29.958 --> 00:40:35.058
i worked with the the director of i think he was i don't know his title but

00:40:35.058 --> 00:40:37.818
he was responsible for destination marketing,

00:40:38.118 --> 00:40:39.818
a chap called Mark Lee Wilson.

00:40:40.218 --> 00:40:45.938
And he just connected us with all of these different communities along the way.

00:40:45.998 --> 00:40:53.758
And we would finish sea kayaking or kayaking on a day, get out and something would happen.

00:40:53.918 --> 00:40:57.918
There'd be a community event and we would meet the local mayor and we would

00:40:57.918 --> 00:41:00.738
talk about our trip. And it was just incredible.

00:41:01.138 --> 00:41:04.718
Sounds like a cool adventure. How did you find the spare seaters?

00:41:05.538 --> 00:41:07.498
So there was such a.

00:41:10.333 --> 00:41:13.313
I don't know if you call them victims or volunteers, but you decide.

00:41:14.153 --> 00:41:22.193
And as I said, they went from an 83-year-old pirate or dressed as a pirate to museum curators.

00:41:22.613 --> 00:41:27.453
We had serving senators come out and welcome us.

00:41:27.773 --> 00:41:34.453
When we got to Albany, the mayor, Mayor Jennings, had had Obama with him the day before.

00:41:35.213 --> 00:41:40.953
And, you know, so on one sense, you've got Barack Obama serving president in

00:41:40.953 --> 00:41:45.073
Albany. The next day he's welcoming two smelly kayakers with gusto.

00:41:46.213 --> 00:41:53.213
And you couldn't have written this. There were six TV crews and newspapers and everything else.

00:41:53.633 --> 00:41:58.653
And the British press were following it too. So sometimes in the spare seat,

00:41:58.793 --> 00:42:00.313
we had a journalist from the UK.

00:42:00.893 --> 00:42:06.453
And so we had the Sun newspaper and we had Rosie Fuller from Adventure Travel magazine.

00:42:06.453 --> 00:42:10.253
And we had different people and when

00:42:10.253 --> 00:42:13.813
we got out in albany the mayor mayor jennings read

00:42:13.813 --> 00:42:16.673
this proclamation and it was like by the power vested in me

00:42:16.673 --> 00:42:22.853
henceforth from this day forward we will call this day glenn and richard you

00:42:22.853 --> 00:42:27.253
know new york spare seat kayaking day or something and somewhere in a drawer

00:42:27.253 --> 00:42:32.713
i have this proclamation that was decreed and of course we felt like rock It

00:42:32.713 --> 00:42:34.153
was quite funny, really.

00:42:34.713 --> 00:42:37.413
Well, hold on, we're just two smelly kayakers doing what we love doing.

00:42:37.713 --> 00:42:41.773
And actually, we were getting to touch lives.

00:42:42.033 --> 00:42:48.353
And for a very long time, we've talked about doing a sort of return and maybe...

00:42:49.745 --> 00:42:55.085
Taking bikes or maybe some paddle boards and a mixture and going,

00:42:55.505 --> 00:43:00.685
say, up to the Adirondacks or, you know, following through a different part,

00:43:00.965 --> 00:43:06.645
but also reconnecting with some of these beautiful communities on the Erie Canal and on the Hudson.

00:43:07.705 --> 00:43:11.285
So did people compete for that spare seat or how were they awarded?

00:43:11.925 --> 00:43:15.765
That's a really good question. How did people get selected?

00:43:16.085 --> 00:43:20.665
I think a lot of that was done with people volunteering through the local,

00:43:20.985 --> 00:43:25.165
if you like, the community, the town mayor, that sort of agency.

00:43:25.525 --> 00:43:31.625
But then we ran a competition that was come and join an adventure with real

00:43:31.625 --> 00:43:34.105
life adventurer type of competition.

00:43:34.165 --> 00:43:38.985
And we flew two people over from the UK who won their competition.

00:43:39.565 --> 00:43:46.045
And Mike and Katia came and joined and they were already paddlers,

00:43:46.225 --> 00:43:50.965
but they spent, I think they spent two days with us. I can't quite remember.

00:43:51.465 --> 00:43:56.825
Two days kayaking with us, and then they had a city break in New York City.

00:43:57.105 --> 00:44:01.385
So for them, I guess it was like win the trip of a lifetime,

00:44:01.605 --> 00:44:05.345
join an adventure, and then go to New York and have a good time.

00:44:05.765 --> 00:44:10.885
It doesn't sound like a difficult sell to me. No, no, not at all. Did you fancy it?

00:44:12.185 --> 00:44:15.285
And where did you start and where did you end? so we

00:44:15.285 --> 00:44:18.125
started at silo city in buffalo and we

00:44:18.125 --> 00:44:21.545
finished by the statue of liberty doing this

00:44:21.545 --> 00:44:24.325
wedding of the waters this symbolic act that was

00:44:24.325 --> 00:44:27.525
done in 1825 to pour the water from

00:44:27.525 --> 00:44:35.165
the headwaters back into the atlantic and it's hard to say exactly but if you

00:44:35.165 --> 00:44:39.545
were to look into the erie canal and the building of it effectively they were

00:44:39.545 --> 00:44:43.045
building a canal through swampland and marshes and all sorts of other things

00:44:43.045 --> 00:44:46.145
and it's been expanded over the years but.

00:44:47.135 --> 00:44:51.275
Definitely sacrificed their lives to make this canal.

00:44:52.035 --> 00:44:56.735
And communities have grown up along that canal and that waterway.

00:44:57.355 --> 00:45:02.355
So to be part of that, you know, I remember one of the guys we met,

00:45:02.455 --> 00:45:07.455
Len Cross, ran Fort Rickey Discovery Zoo on Oneida Lake.

00:45:07.615 --> 00:45:13.375
And we were just, you know, we got to walk and dance with wolves because this guy runs the zoo.

00:45:13.555 --> 00:45:18.015
You know, we were hosted in a castle at Amsterdam.

00:45:18.475 --> 00:45:23.335
We got to sleep at Stony Point in the reenactment camp. I mean,

00:45:23.435 --> 00:45:25.655
these are things that you just can't imagine, really.

00:45:26.215 --> 00:45:31.535
And you mentioned everything from an 83-year-old dressed as a pirate to a six-month-old.

00:45:31.715 --> 00:45:36.855
Who gives you their six-month-old child and puts that child in the spare seat and says, have at it?

00:45:37.615 --> 00:45:40.995
Well, the six-month-old child was

00:45:40.995 --> 00:45:43.995
a family that had traveled for like

00:45:43.995 --> 00:45:47.035
eight or nine hours to come and join the spare seat

00:45:47.035 --> 00:45:50.315
entourage let's say and so the baby

00:45:50.315 --> 00:45:53.455
was sat in a double kayak with them okay but

00:45:53.455 --> 00:45:56.135
that was part of this forrest gump thing yeah and there

00:45:56.135 --> 00:45:59.115
was a guy i remember it'd be amazing if he reached out

00:45:59.115 --> 00:46:02.415
to your show but he was called casey and

00:46:02.415 --> 00:46:05.235
casey had traveled from memory two days to

00:46:05.235 --> 00:46:08.255
come and paddle with us and i'm like what an honor what

00:46:08.255 --> 00:46:11.475
a what a cool bit of serendipity and Casey

00:46:11.475 --> 00:46:14.235
was something like four months out of open heart

00:46:14.235 --> 00:46:17.015
surgery and Casey came kayaking with

00:46:17.015 --> 00:46:22.695
us and one of the things I remember about Casey was he had a he had a signed

00:46:22.695 --> 00:46:29.815
guitar from Johnny Cash wow and I was like yeah yeah you know when you've arrived

00:46:29.815 --> 00:46:35.195
when you've got a Johnny Cash signed guitar right that's pretty cool do you bring it with him?

00:46:36.075 --> 00:46:41.255
No, I wish he had. All right. I'll be like, come on, dude, play some tunes around the campfire.

00:46:43.215 --> 00:46:48.935
So what's next for you? So life has evolved quite a bit since I first started

00:46:48.935 --> 00:46:53.615
all these challenges 15 years ago, 15,000 miles, so about a thousand miles a

00:46:53.615 --> 00:46:56.755
year that I register on my tally.

00:46:57.435 --> 00:47:02.735
And since then I've got married. That's been good. and that's been excellent,

00:47:02.935 --> 00:47:04.455
I should say. Congratulations.

00:47:05.215 --> 00:47:10.675
Thank you. And my wife has done a lot of adventures in Canada and the Yukon

00:47:10.675 --> 00:47:14.695
with me and Manitoba, the North Seal River. So she's a paddler too.

00:47:14.895 --> 00:47:20.975
And we run a company. So that's a blessing, but it also means time is...

00:47:22.153 --> 00:47:27.713
More difficult to go, yeah, I'm taking 46 days to kayak and cycle London to Marrakesh.

00:47:28.413 --> 00:47:35.353
So quite a bit of our time is on running our own trips for customers.

00:47:35.533 --> 00:47:41.233
So we did a Yukon trip earlier this year, and that was amazing to be back in

00:47:41.233 --> 00:47:44.693
the Yukon and paddling on the Yukon River following the gold rush.

00:47:44.853 --> 00:47:47.613
And in three weeks, we come out to

00:47:47.613 --> 00:47:50.573
Canada again to spend time with my brother

00:47:50.573 --> 00:47:53.833
and other friends where we're going to paddle in

00:47:53.833 --> 00:47:57.053
algonquin park and paddle some of the whitewater rivers

00:47:57.053 --> 00:48:01.273
there and then later on in the year we'll be in scotland paddling the river

00:48:01.273 --> 00:48:07.113
spay and i've got a my sort of grander plan i guess besides all these trips

00:48:07.113 --> 00:48:13.833
where i get to paddle anyway is london to the top of norway okay and that's

00:48:13.833 --> 00:48:16.773
three and a half thousand miles by bike, kayak,

00:48:17.033 --> 00:48:20.273
ski, and probably a bit of paddleboarding.

00:48:20.673 --> 00:48:24.013
Well, you've got a lot of great adventures planned between now and then,

00:48:24.153 --> 00:48:27.513
it sounds like, through your company. How can people connect with you through that?

00:48:28.213 --> 00:48:32.773
Our company is called Canoe Trail, and you can visit canoe-trail.co.uk.

00:48:33.673 --> 00:48:38.293
And on there, you'll see we run 12 to 14 expeditions a year.

00:48:38.433 --> 00:48:43.113
We do a lot of whitewater of coaching in canoes, a lot of sea kayak trips.

00:48:43.793 --> 00:48:48.693
And we're this year more than ever, I'm not sure why, but we've seen a lot of

00:48:48.693 --> 00:48:53.413
private trips where people have said, my family, my group, we want to go and

00:48:53.413 --> 00:48:58.153
do this on our terms with some guides as our handrail, we can be safe.

00:48:58.753 --> 00:49:04.513
And that's also brilliant. And this year I've run some trips.

00:49:04.813 --> 00:49:10.133
I ran one on the Scottish borders on the River Tweed And my oldest person on

00:49:10.133 --> 00:49:14.953
that trip was 86 and he was a vicar, a retired vicar.

00:49:15.951 --> 00:49:19.071
Then i ran a different trip i've literally just

00:49:19.071 --> 00:49:22.511
come back last week from the south coast the jurassic coast and

00:49:22.511 --> 00:49:26.291
there was a family and the youngest on that trip was 17

00:49:26.291 --> 00:49:29.211
so what i love about the

00:49:29.211 --> 00:49:36.171
outdoors and paddling and you know it's just this gateway to get people outdoors

00:49:36.171 --> 00:49:42.971
active better mental health good for your well-being it's just an easy sell

00:49:42.971 --> 00:49:46.911
really and you've written recently written a book to help people get out and

00:49:46.911 --> 00:49:47.811
find their own adventures.

00:49:48.471 --> 00:49:52.431
That's a great segue, isn't it? I just read a book. I've got to tell you,

00:49:52.631 --> 00:49:56.191
I don't know if your listeners will ever find a copy of it, but my first book

00:49:56.191 --> 00:49:59.111
was about industrial effluent treatment.

00:49:59.971 --> 00:50:04.211
Fascinating. It wasn't that exciting. But my second book is so much better,

00:50:04.391 --> 00:50:07.631
and that's called Great British Paddling Adventures.

00:50:08.311 --> 00:50:11.931
And I've tried to, with my wife, we jointly wrote it,

00:50:12.171 --> 00:50:15.191
and it started during lockdown so can

00:50:15.191 --> 00:50:19.351
you imagine you know as the different lockdowns became

00:50:19.351 --> 00:50:22.171
eased we were allowed to travel

00:50:22.171 --> 00:50:25.591
more and so we would visit different places but on

00:50:25.591 --> 00:50:28.331
some of them we ended up camping in our van in a

00:50:28.331 --> 00:50:31.031
you know a covid test place and all the rest of

00:50:31.031 --> 00:50:34.331
it and we got to paddle we paddled about 70

00:50:34.331 --> 00:50:37.251
different destinations and it was

00:50:37.251 --> 00:50:40.031
a real labor of love to think how would

00:50:40.031 --> 00:50:44.091
a paddler or a novice want

00:50:44.091 --> 00:50:47.191
you know read about and be inspired to

00:50:47.191 --> 00:50:50.071
go and paddle this route and what would they need to

00:50:50.071 --> 00:50:53.311
know and so for example with the

00:50:53.311 --> 00:50:57.791
updates in navigation it includes what three words grid references postcodes

00:50:57.791 --> 00:51:04.131
like your zip codes and but it also includes things like a little tube map like

00:51:04.131 --> 00:51:09.851
our london underground so you can see start two kilometers we are four kilometers

00:51:09.851 --> 00:51:12.731
portage eight kilometers lake.

00:51:13.755 --> 00:51:18.995
And so you've got these landmarks as well as a map, which I think really helps

00:51:18.995 --> 00:51:21.835
you navigate and say, well, where are we?

00:51:22.035 --> 00:51:25.635
Do I know where the hazards are? Do I know where the points of interest are?

00:51:26.015 --> 00:51:29.695
And of course, it's full of vibrant pictures to get people inspired.

00:51:29.955 --> 00:51:33.135
That's what we hope people will see from it. Super.

00:51:33.735 --> 00:51:37.095
Well, they're helping people find their own adventures. We will include links

00:51:37.095 --> 00:51:40.855
in the show notes to that book as well as your other adventures.

00:51:40.855 --> 00:51:44.015
You mentioned some videos and things along the way. So I'll make sure we include

00:51:44.015 --> 00:51:46.415
all that information for folks to check out.

00:51:46.655 --> 00:51:48.415
So one final question for you.

00:51:48.575 --> 00:51:52.075
Who else would you like to hear as a future guest on Paddling the Blue?

00:51:52.875 --> 00:51:55.795
Well, I can think of quite a few people, actually.

00:51:56.015 --> 00:52:01.875
As you asked that question, my brain just opened up into a little radar screen of people.

00:52:02.275 --> 00:52:07.415
But there's definitely, there's a guy I did my sea kayak leader training with

00:52:07.415 --> 00:52:11.055
called Nick Cunliffe, who is very extraordinary.

00:52:11.055 --> 00:52:14.075
And there's an adventurer who i've

00:52:14.075 --> 00:52:17.195
interviewed called steve backshaw who's both raced

00:52:17.195 --> 00:52:21.215
and done some pretty extreme white water paddling

00:52:21.215 --> 00:52:24.175
and i i was aware that i

00:52:24.175 --> 00:52:27.055
didn't want it to lack gender balance so a

00:52:27.055 --> 00:52:30.095
really good friend of mine is a lady

00:52:30.095 --> 00:52:34.495
called helen reeves who's now married helen darby downman and she's an olympic

00:52:34.495 --> 00:52:39.975
medalist and she has a great story which i'm not going to spoil by telling you

00:52:39.975 --> 00:52:44.735
all right well i will connect with you and uh we'll have the opportunity to

00:52:44.735 --> 00:52:49.775
connect with nick steve and and helen as well and see if we can have them share their stories.

00:52:51.529 --> 00:52:54.669
Richard, thank you very much for the opportunity. It's been great to hear from

00:52:54.669 --> 00:52:55.649
you. Great to talk to you.

00:52:56.029 --> 00:52:59.129
Loved hearing about London, AmeriCash, New York, Spare Seat,

00:52:59.209 --> 00:53:00.929
and your other adventures along the way.

00:53:01.049 --> 00:53:05.269
And like I said, we'll include links in the show notes so folks can check them

00:53:05.269 --> 00:53:06.709
out and find their own adventure.

00:53:07.509 --> 00:53:11.129
Excellent. I think the best adventure is the one you take. There we go.

00:53:11.309 --> 00:53:13.089
Thank you. Thanks very much.

00:53:13.829 --> 00:53:17.109
If you want to be a stronger and more efficient paddler power

00:53:17.109 --> 00:53:20.329
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00:53:20.329 --> 00:53:23.469
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00:53:23.469 --> 00:53:26.689
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00:53:26.689 --> 00:53:30.389
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00:53:34.049 --> 00:53:37.929
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00:53:44.429 --> 00:53:47.969
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00:53:47.969 --> 00:53:51.369
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00:53:51.529 --> 00:53:53.829
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00:53:53.989 --> 00:53:59.129
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00:53:59.809 --> 00:54:02.689
The spare seat adventure particularly captivated me.

00:54:03.069 --> 00:54:08.289
The trip itself, well, really isn't all that epic, but the way that it was done truly brings it to life.

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Quite an interesting way to meet and interact with so many unique people and

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make great connections with the local communities.

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Thanks to Richard for joining me and for sharing his adventures.

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You can read more about both of the adventures we talked about today,

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as well as Richard's other globe-trotting exploits at his personal website and

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more at his business website.

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You'll find links in the show notes to the sites, along with a link to get a copy of his book.

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Thanks again for listening, and I look forward to bringing you the next episode of Paddling the Blue.

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Thank you for listening to Paddling the You can subscribe to Paddling the Blue

00:54:40.109 --> 00:54:45.089
on Apple Music, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

00:54:45.309 --> 00:54:48.229
Please take the time to leave us a five-star review on Apple Music.

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We truly appreciate the support. And you can find the show notes for this episode

00:54:52.509 --> 00:54:56.789
and other episodes, along with replays of past episodes, contact information,

00:54:56.789 --> 00:54:59.289
and more at paddlingtheblue.com.

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Until next time, I hope you get out and paddle the blue.