Last week wasn’t some trek into the unknowns of a Jaguar infested rainforest, or into the depths of a live volcano crater with hungry crocodiles, but a gentle jaunt up in the Brecon Beacons and just for a single night. The difference was though, that this was the first time I was taking my little baby wild camping, alone. 

The reason why that made me nervous was that for the first time in my life I will be fully responsible for someone else’s life and wellbeing that had to capacity to do so for themselves and without the safety net of civilisation underneath me.

In the lead up to this trip, there was plenty that filled me with the utmost dread of making such a solo trip. So much so that I made a list of all that could go wrong:

• Trying to contain a stubborn not-quite-two-year-old from falling off things/ falling into lakes and rivers/ falling over things/ burning himself.

• Camp set up/packing up whilst trying to contain said stubborn-and-mobile-toddler from hurting/killing himself.

• Generally stopping a toddler from hurting/killing themselves.

• Carrying everything on a post-pandemic body: Food, water, tent, sleeping x2, clothes x2 and an 11kg toddler. 

• Sleep? Not a chance.

Bizarrely that list was actually what excited me about this trip. It really was a test of planning and logistics and all my skillsets in campcraft to minimise the chance of harm.

I did also question whether this trip was selfishly just for me. Was I putting my baby in harm’s way to scratch an itch that I had or prove a point? Truthfully there was a ‘yes but’ answer to that question. It is true that going on such a trip is infinitely more dangerous than sitting at home and also orders of magnitude more difficult/dangerous than if there were more adults going. But to do anything interesting there is always an element of danger and let’s be honest, whenever parents are deciding on where to go on holiday it always includes a few things the parents want to do too.

I have some daydreams about when he’s older we will go on long multi day trips and it’ll be totally awesome with every moment perfectly instagrammable. I have no illusions that every moment will be picture-perfect but to have any chance of getting there we have to build up to that, that applies to both of us. Parenting has taught me that no matter how good I at something it’s a whole different thing going as a parent. So my plan was as risk free as I could make it with it being an almost carbon replica of his first wild camp almost a year ago. 

One thing I was absolutely sure on from two decades of expeditioning - nothing ever quite goes to plan.

The first thing I got wrong was leaving too late for his afternoon nap and not having a sun shade meant that for the planned two and a half hour trip he was pummeled by the sun (I fashioned something after an hour and a half), not sleeping and generally not happy. Traffic meant that it took me over three hours to get to the Black Mountain leading to arriving at the car park with a very irritable little boy who hadn’t slept and had been in the sun far too long. 

Get one thing wrong with a toddler and that’ll lead to another. His irritability about that car journey meant that he decided (with reason) that I wasn’t someone he should listen to and would do his own thing - in this case, chasing sheep. 

I eventually wrestled him into the backpack and literally ran the entire way uphill to the lake and our end goal to gain as much ground before he decided that he wanted to come down and throw a million stones/tantrums and stop all progress.

Unbelievably, the rest of the evening went really smoothly. I made it to the lake within an hour and he was ecstatic to see such a large lake and a massive beach of stones that he forgave me for that horrendous car journey and settled in to throw stones to his heart’s content. After the thousandth stone that he threw and ten thousandth stone he had made me throw he was happy to eat his dinner as I quickly erected the tent. Being inside a tent was so exciting for him that he stayed inside and didn’t try to drown himself in the lake which was really helpful. 

The weirdest thing of all though, was that by 9pm and despite the sun still being high in the sky and as light as day, he fell asleep. I felt like a parenting god. This was going far better than I could ever have imagined. Then it went wrong.

The winds began. Completely unforecasted but gaining in strength to the point that they were pummelling the tent. After a couple of hours I snuck out of the tent to get more pegs down and tie the guideropes down. Yet still we were buffeted with gusts of wind that threatened to flatten the tent. The poles bent under the pressure and every few minutes I had a mouthful of fabric as the tent took on ever more grotesque shapes in the face of the wind. The noise though was the worst, like living inside a packet of crisps, it was so loud that I didn’t sleep a wink. The boy, though, somehow slept through like the metaphorical baby he never was, only shifting himself to the centre of the tent to stop himself being smacked by the walls of the tent as they buckled under the wind.

I watched the clock as the hours slowly ticked by willing myself to sleep amidst the wind and noise. Failing, I studied the weather forecast intently on my phone and by 5am I had had enough and got up. By 6am, bored, exhausted and expecting the winds to pick up strength I woke up my boy and instead of staying for a leisurely morning at this beautiful location as was the original plan I decided that we should pack up and go and at least try and get home as quickly as possible.

He was completely confused by the winds, the noise and the movement of the tent when he awoke. Despite this not being what I planned, seeing his reactions to these fundamental forces of nature was exactly the reason I wanted to be here. We were truly immersed in nature, separated by only a thin sheet of nylon. For one of the first times in his life he was experiencing nature in it’s true form, the pleasant and the unpleasant. 

These winds had a quite useful side effect: All night long I was rueing the moment I would have to take down the tent in the wind. I clearly pictured a scene with my arms stretched out holding onto a tent intent on blowing away whilst trying to contain a toddler intent on running away. The winds made him nervous about straying too far away from me and he clung to my legs for safety whilst I put away the tent.

Within an hour from getting him up we were on our way back. He happily sat in the carrier rather than trying to walk against gusts that were capable of blowing him over. We would be back home well before midday and although the trip would’ve been a lot shorter, it was the right call for the circumstances. But then our plans suddenly changed again - this time for the better. 

As soon as we descended into the valley we were suddenly shielded from the winds. It was as if these ferocious winds that were swirling around the bowl were barred from entering. Suddenly we could feel the heat of the rising sun and we could hear the gurgling of the stream that we were following downhill. That was reason enough for him and he kicked and squirmed until I got him down so that he could explore the stream as it twisted and turned its way downhill, over little waterfalls and rock pools. Stones were thrown in, getting increasingly bigger until I drew the line at boulders. We stopped a number of times, a half hour stone throwing session followed by a five to ten minutes moving downhill. Progress was slow but this was beautiful and this is why I came. It was just us two, a few sheep and a beautiful section of the Welsh countryside.

Epilogue: We spent much of the morning ambling our way down to the car and this time I got the car journey back spot on, with a good sun shade and planned stops to break up the monotony and the chance of long naps. Arriving home I found several straps of the tent had been torn off by the wind. It took me a few days to get over the lack of sleep but I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

It was a week after we had returned from our late autumn holiday: two glorious weeks of campervanning around the Scottish highlands. I claimed in Part 1 of this blog post that if you want to do something cool with your child, don’t expect to sleep. So two weeks in a campervan was two weeks of exactly that and now the transition back to home-life has equated to even less sleep whilst trying to seem vaguely interested in our respective jobs. Yet I stand by my assertion that it’s always worth it and even months later when I’ve finally found a slither of free time (compounded by back-to-back colds from nursery, a broken leg and more teething) and the mental capacity to get pen to paper I still maintain that position, here’s why:

We were buoyant after our teeny camping trip over the summer and were eager to do something bigger and more fun. Before the pandemic we had our eyes set on a point-to-point week long walking trip somewhere in the Scandinavian wilderness but the pandemic very nicely stopped us biting off more than we could chew (although we would’ve still been up for the challenge).

Our brainwave for Part Two wasn’t anything original. In fact if you didn’t know the whole of the United Kingdom had flocked to Scotland on campervan holidays you would have been equally unaware of this little virus going around. Like all those other folks that had turned their attention northwards, we had always wanted to tour Scotland and the pandemic made a perfect excuse to do so.  

We patiently waited until the schools went back before we planned our trip, when hopefully the wilds of Scotland would have returned to their desolate wilderness that we so wanted. This time we were going to be well planned - we found the most perfect and quirky campervan that was just right and booked it with over a month to spare. How’s that for planning?

One mantra that every expedition-hardened-explorer or parent recites before heading off into the unknown is that no matter how good your plans are, nothing ever goes to plan.

Three days before we were due to head off to Scotland, the owners of the campervan told us that the engine had broken down and will not be fixed in time for our holiday. My recitation of this mantra didn’t help the situation and instead I got a cold hard look from a stressed Libby. To summarise, the next three days went something like this: no campervans in the UK, none, nothing, we’re not going, postpone the trip, cancel the trip, we’ve found a van, we’re picking it up tomorrow.

24 hours later, we had packed from scratch and loaded the car to pick up the van from Leeds on our way to Scotland (via Manchester to pick up a suitable car seat that would fit in the van). We even found room for our stand up paddle board (minus the paddle). We were off.

Not doing much planning (or any at all in this case) is actually how I prefer to do most of my travelling trips. We so often overplan and research that we only see what we expect to see and stick rigidly to some itinerary that someone else has laid out. I’ve lost count the number of times I’ve overheard conversations between two acquaintances bumping into each other in some far flung corner of the planet and exclaiming how small the world is - whilst both clutching a copy of a Lonely Planet guidebook. However when you have a child in tow and only two weeks to go, this laissez-faire attitude won’t do us much good - so we opted for a loosely made itinerary made up on the fly with invaluable help from some well-travelled friends and a road map.

Not having a well defined itinerary meant that we could react to the infamous Scottish weather and more importantly to the infamous demands of a toddler out of routine. The trick to making it work with a toddler is to lower your expectations and adapt, adapt and adapt. 

Everything we did was based around his royal highness’ sleep routine. Moving from place to place either had to be very short or exactly a 2.5 hour journey made during his lunchtime nap. In the end our itinerary was only partly based on the beautiful sites of Scotland but more so based on places that were 2.5 hours drive apart. Bizarrely, these restrictions made us more creative with where we went and ended up in places that had far fewer visitors, making our trip more unique and memorable.

Mornings were an absolute source of wonder. As soon as he woke up, at the crack of dawn he wanted to be outside. We happily obliged as the van wasn’t big enough for all three of us to stay inside so whilst one of us arranged breakfast, the other saw the world anew through the eyes of a toddler. In the dawn light we went on hikes, climbs and wildlife spotting whilst the rest of the world slept.

Although lockdown brought us physically together pretty much 24/7, it’s no way the same level of intimacy as being in a little camper in the wilds of nature. Being in such close contact, experiencing such amazing things has brought us closer together and, as parents, as equals.

It was nigh on impossible getting his naps right. We split the naps so that we could go on long hikes with him sleeping in the carrier. But sometimes we got it completely wrong and he’d just conk out - such as on his scooter!

One thing that people forget to mention about Scotland is how fantastic the beaches are. Clear blue water, secluded coves and miles of soft sand - if you get days like we did, we wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else in the world.

Seeing the world through the eyes of a toddler really grounded us. There are only two things he cares about - having his Mama and Dada with him and being outside. No matter how the world changes, that much we can give him.

Thanks to my cousin Meeten and family for giving us a basecamp, my sis Kavs for the car seat, to Kev for the in depth knowledge of Scotland and to Toria for some hidden gems.

Just like every other parent in history our world was turned upside down, inside out and the wrong way round.

I’ve learnt that sleepless nights age you unlike anything else and the deepest conversations we now have is about how soiled nappies get. Yet, the cliche holds, life has never felt more exciting and this adventure has been unlike any other.

But let’s be honest. The feet still itch. I still yearn for the adventures of yesteryear, when I could head off into the wilderness with only the things on my back and not another care in the world. 

So what do you do when you crave two worlds at polar opposites?

Forge the middle ground. 

There is a space where adventure can exist whilst safeguarding the most important part of your being. There really wasn’t a choice: Stronger than the yearning of adventure is the desire to raise our baby with our values, to let him experience what we cherish most in the world and the only way to do that is letting him grow up (semi-) wild.

FIRST WILD CAMPING

I had this romantic idea that our baby’s first camping trip would be completely wild, just like camping should be - away from people, civilisation and somewhere exquisitely beautiful. It would be this picture perfect moment, where our baby gets to explore a world so beautiful like it was a completely normal occurrence. He will fall asleep under the stars and sleep soundly to the dawn light to explore his beautiful surroundings once more. It would be incredible.

There are so many parallels between this and my most extreme expeditions and very quickly I learned that I’ll have to draw upon my most hard-learned lessons to make this a success:

Lesson Number One: With romantic notions alone expect a big helping of reality to slam you in the face.

No matter how experienced you were before being a parent, there is a whole new world of logistics to figure out when camping with a baby. Take your grand plans, enjoy them in your mind then throw them out with the bath water for something far simpler.

Our grand plans boiled down to a simple overnight trip. Leave Saturday midday and back on Sunday. We trawled over the maps and picked a spot in the Brecon Beacons exactly 2.5 hours away from here (that coinciding perfectly with his afternoon nap), any shorter or longer was not an option. We planned on camping by a lake 2-3 hours walk away from the car. Then climb a small hill on the Sunday on the way back down. What could go wrong?

Well...pretty much everything and we parked up late with a crying, tired baby that didn’t want to sit another 3 hours in a backpack in 30 degrees heat.

We were never going to make it to our intended spot before we would have to stop for his dinner and sleep time, which leads me onto tip number two, honed again from extreme adventures: Always have a back up plan. Fortunately for us, we had one. Halfway to our intended lake was another larger lake and as we arrived at this lake it was clear that we would have to stop.

For our baby it was still magical. He had his own private lake to throw stones into, he toddled around on the undulating terrain marveling at the clouds wisp around below him and watched the sheep all around him.

Did he sleep? God, no. a) It was his first time in a tent which is too exciting. b) It wasn’t dark (the sun didn’t even set until after 9pm.) c) we messed up his clothing. 

Tip number 3 - want to do something cool with your baby? Say goodbye to sleep.

Still, he woke up with the biggest grin on his face, in the arms of his mummy and daddy and a twinkle of utmost happiness in his eyes and for that it was all worth it a million times over. 

It’s only when we look back do we construct a narrative to our lives. That is the narrative of my professional life. There is another narrative that I could construct though that is equally as important. This one starts even before I was born: My parents came to the UK from Kenya whose own parents (my grandparents) came from India.  Three generations, born in three different continents, the route of the British empire. My identity split between these continents I felt like a citizen of the world. So it is unsurprising that I’ve found myself curious about the world and dedicated so much of my time and energy exploring it. I have spent cumulatively over three years travelling or on expedition. In doing so I have learnt to climb, mountaineer and became an expedition guide. I encountered polar bears and dived in some of the most pristine waters on the planet. I have been to some of the coldest places on Earth and the hottest. I have seen desolate landscapes and the most populous. Overall, over the two decades that I have been travelling to these distant environments I have seen first hand how the world is warming, how habitats are shrinking and life, both human and animal, are suffering. That is another narrative of my life.

But I still remain a romantic. I still look at the stars and wonder what’s out there and wonder where we have come from and to answer those questions we need to push to the stars. To be part of that journey, to contribute to that endeavour however small is still fulfilling - Imagine designing the first human spacecraft to land on Mars, or even being on that spacecraft yourself. Imagine taking the first Mars-walk, stepping foot onto that red dusty land and feel the distant heat of our sun tinted through red skies. And imagine how incredible it would be to find a fossilised plant, a flower possibly, upending all our strongest held beliefs. My heart still skips a beat in that thought.

But the more I learn about the structures and the fully sustainable systems we will have to create in order to survive off of this planet the more I realise what an amazing life support system planet Earth is. On Mars, no matter what technologies we create, we will never feel the wind through our hair or breathe the Martian air, nor will we do that on the Moon or any other planets within our solar system. It is crazy to think that habitats created on these cruel rocks could replicate anything like we have on Earth or that life would be equally rewarding. The more I learn about Space, the more in awe I am of our planet. I still want to go to Space, but not for the same reasons as my teenage self, where I wanted to go to look out at the stars and stare at the universe unfiltered. If I were to go now I would go to peer back at the Earth, at the most spectacular place in the known universe, and you know what would be the best part? Returning to Earth.

But we’re destroying it. We’re corrupting this perfect life support system to the point that it may no longer even be able to support us. In doing so, we’re destroying entire ecosystems and countless species, many before they even have been discovered. How can we possibly get excited by a long dead fossil on a distant, lifeless planet, when we have so much abundance of life on this planet that we are taking for granted? Why travel a quarter of a billion kilometres to look for fossils that might not exist when you can discover new life in the depths of pristine rainforest right here on Earth? Now imagine if instead of finding the fossilized remains of life on Mars we find a live functioning ecosystem - life outside of our planet. We would do everything we could to protect it, to not interfere, and study it in awe, no matter how simple it might be. Here on Earth we choose to destroy it. What’s even crazier is that we know that our climate projections are showing a world that will push our societies and technologies to the limit and not even in some distant future, but in only a few short years.

I still want those big questions answered - who we are? Where have we come from? And to answer those we need to continue sending missions further into Space. For that to continue to happen we need to maintain a highly technological society that has surplus effort to spare on these curiosities - and not one locked in a death spiral of its own making. In short the greatest threat to the continuation of our explorations of Space (and everything we care about) is the survival of our societies here on Earth and that means tackling the climate emergency and sixth mass extinction in earnest. 

That is why as an aerospace engineer/rocket scientist the number one priority is tackling climate change.

Last week I had the honour of presenting the Gold Duke of Edinburgh awards at Buckingham Palace.  I talked to the awardees about my own journey of development, about the importance of pushing boundaries and always trying new things.  After the ceremony was over, and while we were soaking up the atmosphere in the Palace gardens a young man approached me and asked me a question that caused me to stop and think.  He asked me ‘after all that I’ve experienced through my travels and expeditions what is the greatest lesson I have learnt?’

That question stumped me, I didn’t have a readily available answer to that and it’s not something I have thought about directly.  Each experience I’ve had has been incredibly diverse and I’ve taken different lessons away from each trip. But was there a thread in common about all of these experiences, of lessons learnt?  The reason why the question stumped me was that I knew there was something at the back of my mind, I just couldn’t place my finger on it. Then it came to me and it was so obvious.

Responsibility.

‘Responsibility’ is a broad word.  When on expedition the responsibility we have is obvious, we are responsible for our own safety and that of our team, sometimes we are responsible for their lives.  We are also responsible for not putting any rescue services in unnecessary risk by the decisions we make. But our responsibility is more than just for ourselves, we are also responsible for the environment we are travelling through, about not causing unnecessary damage or pollution.  We are responsible for the wildlife in these environments; in the Arctic and despite carrying a weapon to defend ourselves against polar bears we are still responsible for their lives, whereby the weapon is always used as a last resort of self defence.

When traveling (which invariably sometimes class as expeditions in their own right) the responsibility we have extends to the cultures and countries we are visiting.  We are responsible to not cause upset to local customs yet responsible to stay true to our own ethics and morals, which sometimes conflict. We are responsible not to engage in any exploitative practices for our own gain or pleasure.  That responsibility can only be exercised with the right knowledge and so we have the responsibility of gaining the knowledge to make informed decisions - and not claim or feign ignorance. Because it is when we are not responsible that others suffer and in the interwoven networks within which all our lives exist, in the end we all suffer.

The question though, that this young man was asking, was how the lessons I’ve learnt have benefited me in life in the UK.  My experiences have taught me and shown me that the most successful and happy societies are the ones that everyone participates in in creating the society that they want to live in.  To do that we must take a responsibility in our interactions with our neighbours and how we contribute to society. The most important aspect of this is the information that is used to shape societies and make decisions.  So we have a responsibility in the information we believe and which we then distribute - through our real world interactions but also through social media channels, or forwards on messaging services. For the spread of misinformation purposely or through ignorance is a form of irresponsibility.  We have a responsibility for understanding whether the information we receive is genuine and factual, or, and we must all have been guilty of this at some point, do we believe it, not for it’s veracity, but just because it agrees with our world view? And so with responsibility comes greater honesty and openness, who can argue against that?

So responsibility is the greatest lesson I’ve learnt from my experiences.  If we all take a little more responsibility I’m sure our lives will be that much more fulfilled.  

Since my coming of age as a teenager, standing on the foothills of my future, I decided that the collective pursuit of knowledge has got to be what I dedicate my career towards.  So I flitted between studying astrophysics, which would catapult me to the forefront of our understanding of the universe where our past and future interchange in a greyish soup of confusion waiting to be deciphered, and aerospace engineering where I could directly and immediately contribute to the human exploration of outer space.  In the end I chose aeronautical engineering, just like the Apollo astronauts, influenced by own desire to experience outer space and which aided my selection to be a candidate on BBC Astronauts.

In parallel with these academic and career decisions I found myself quite accidentally being thrust into a world of exploration.  That journey over the last fifteen years has accumulated in over three years on expedition and travels in over thirty countries and has taken me to do things I never thought possible.  I have explored new routes in the arctic, in temperatures down to -60C, solo climbed several high altitude mountains and experienced the largest gathering of people that has ever occurred.  Those trips have brought me up close to the most extraordinarily beautiful places on Earth, to close encounters with some of the iconic wildlife both on land, and as a qualified rescue diver, underwater.

I’ve seen the world change tremendously over that time.  Some of these changes have been to the benefit to the remote communities I cherish so much.  Who could argue against medical clinics opening up offering cheap medicines that have markedly reduced the death rates from the simplest of diseases?  But the march of progress has lead to higher levels of consumption that does not necessarily mean happiness, to cars where there otherwise were bicycles, to hour-long traffic jams where before there was peace.  This happening the world over, using the same dirty technologies as we have been, has lead to the acceleration of greenhouse gas outputs that now threaten our very future.

I have known about human created climate change since being taught about it at school and the science has always been clear: “it is dangerous to the point of an existential threat and that we must do something soon”.  That was years ago in the final throes of the last millennium, yet in the interim period whilst I have been pursuing advances in aviation and space technologies I have become increasingly shocked at the global community’s inaction.  From the perspectives of an explorer (for want of a better word) I have given keynote speeches on the topic and created a short film in 2010 exploring the topic of climate change whilst in the arctic.

All that is well and good yet here we are, standing on the precipice.  When we are we should ask ourselves, what should we do? Do we continue our blinkered approach, hoping that someone else will sort it out or do we take personal responsibility for it as citizens of the world.  That is the dilemma that I have been facing and struggling with the last couple of years and one of the foremost skills that I gained from having spent 10 days in silent meditation in the himalayas is to always be honest with myself.  With the remarkable awareness work that heroes such as Greta Thunberg, the Extinction Rebellion, George Monbiot and Chris Packham to name a few it has made me think more personally about the problem.

Then finally I found myself at a crossroads, much like globally we find ourselves now.  Having finished a project that proves some of the technologies for high efficiency, low cost spaceflight I have decided I would dedicate the engineering skills that I’ve developed over the last decade to greening up our technologies to protect our planet, our future.  I have recently joined Dyson Ltd. helping design their electric car. Whilst we generally have to reduce our car use and the journeys we make, we still need to have the ability to get around and the transportation of the future has to be electric.

That is not to say my passion for space exploration has diminished or the pursuit of exploration is pointless, we musn’t forget that it was our ability to launch earth observation satellites into space that has allowed us to understand the earth’s climate like never before.  We should absolutely continue with the advances in these fields but between the existential threat that we are now facing on earth I believe our best minds are better placed dedicated to trying to find a better way. We owe it not only to ourselves but to our children.

I’ve taken a good look at myself and seen where my skill sets can contribute.  I hope we all have the courage to do the same.

Just outside Cape Town in South Africa lies a huge colony of cape fur seals. They are not called dogs of the sea just for their doglike snouts and whiskers but for their inquisitive and playful nature. They’re more than happy for you to swim with them and that is exactly what we did. One sunny morning we headed out on a small boat to Duiker Island and donning a mask, snorkel and a wetsuit we jumped into the sea. As they heard our boat approaching, their heads darted out of the water like little periscopes and started jumping around anticipating our arrival. Indeed when I entered the water I had three seals immediately around me, circling me, checking me out and showing off their immense speed. Just trying to maintain eye contact with them was impossible as they whizzed around me like excited puppies. They came at me from underneath and from behind and I circled frantically trying to see where they were. Even with my fins I was no match for them. When I did manage to make eye contact they would whip into a playful frenzy going even faster, jumping out of the water, somersaulting and leaving a cloud of bubbles in their wake. It was so exciting to be accepted into their world, not as an intruder but something to be amused by, completely welcome. That is the only way I want to experience wildlife.

…I’ve spent a lot of time pondering what lies out there in the vastness of our universe. Ironically, the more I have found out about the universe the more extraordinary our little piece of rock seems. Let’s keep it that way…

Video to follow…

(trip provided by Animal Ocean )

ps. If South Africa is too far away, there is always Cornwall.

But they’re so tiny as well which just adds to their cuteness.  The African penguin is less than a metre tall and weighs no more than 4kg.  They are the classic black and white but with a pink stripe above their eyes which is pretty awesome as it changes colour depending on the penguin’s body temperature.  But the most bizarre thing of all is that they sound exactly like a donkey which has given them the nickname ‘Jack-ass’ penguin and more than once made me turn around in fright expecting to see a donkey.

Sadly though, despite being a friggin’ awesome bird it is another animal on the endangered list.  The reason for this is once again solely due to us humans. According to wikipedia, roughly 4 million penguins existed at the beginning of the 19th century. Of the 1.5-million population of African penguins estimated in 1910, only some 10% remained at the end of the 20th century. African penguin populations, which breed in Namibia and South Africa, have declined by 95 percent since pre-industrial times and the total population fell to 200,000 in 2000. In 2010, the number was estimated to be only at 55,000. At this rate of decline, the African penguin is expected to be extinct in the wild by 2026.

I find that absolutely crazy to believe, such an iconic bird disappearing in a few short years.  The reasons for the massive decline in population was mainly from habitat destruction where people ransacked the colonies digging up the valuable and solidified penguin poo, guano, to use as fertiliser and stole millions of eggs for consumption as delicacies.  Penguin eggs were still being served in the South African parliament as late as the 1970s! Both of those practices are illegal now but the damage is already done.

What can we do to help?  For the African penguin support charities such as https://sanccob.co.za/ who are doing amazing conservation work.  But with the general destruction of our biosphere the African penguin is certainly not alone in this demise.  We need to think more holistically about all of our actions and our diet and question whether it is sustainable. We have to take a personal responsibility to the destruction of our biosphere and be outspoken when things aren’t right - we all have a voice and we all count.

There are a number of ways up to the top of table mountain but the most popular route is the Platteklip gorge route that is a purely hiking route  (No hands required). The reason though that I had the mountain to myself was that I was on the India Venster trail, a more vertical route up the mountain with a handful of scrambling sections that are, as I was due to find out, reasonably exposed.

Where the two trails separate a sign warns of the danger of the india venster trail and suitable only for experienced people and the necessity of climbing in a group of four. This is all good sense as people have fallen and died on this trail.  I was, on the other hand, by myself and I was okay with that - for anyone going off on routes by themselves, myself included, has already weighed up the consequences of something going wrong against the charms of solitude and self reliance.

Not knowing the mountain itself wasn't an issue as the route was well marked with intermittently placed yellow painted footprints (if you haven't seen a footprint for awhile you're probably going the wrong way) and a well trodden path (on the more horizontal sections).  Half way up, though, things get a little more vertical. A smattering of easy and protected scrambling leads to a ten metre section that is requiring a head for heights, some upper body strength and previous scrambling experience. A couple of ladder rungs and chain are intermittently placed intending to supplement the rock.  Exposure here is reasonably high. By the time I got to this section I caught up with the only other group on this route which happened to be a guided group of three. As it happened it was quite handy to see the most efficient way up this section and I would highly recommend the less experienced to get a guide, who are all reasonably priced.  Within a couple of minutes this section is over and then simple scrambling and hiking takes you all the way to the top apart from one small additional section that requires a little care.

Apart from that one group I didn’t come across anyone else on the route which is crazy considering that this beautiful mountain is right on the doorstep of a major city.  But I wasn’t complaining and being alone on the route is why I love the outdoors and mountains. I had birds flying around me, so close, and dassies, those fat, funny rodents, munching away until I was almost on top of them.  It was lovely to think that this is their world and I was an unlikely visitor. I had private views of the coastline, seeing the white topped waves crashing onto the white sand beaches and of course a birds eye view of the city.

It took me three and a half hours to reach the top, which I would put to a pretty average pace.  As the route topped out onto table mountain, however, the meditative hike was broken by the sheer number of people on the top - come up either from the cable car or the more popular hiking routes.  Walking around the top of table mountain is still pretty cool with views from both sides of the mountain but it was the quiet solitude of the journey up that was the real destination.

Ps.  Don’t try and climb down the India Venster trail as it’s always harder to go down a route than go up.  Take plenty of water and a few snacks and if in doubt take a guide.

The first I saw of him, from afar, I could see a long gun-metal grey body, four metres in length, and laying there on the beach he looked quite like a merman.  Approaching closer I saw large flippers, about the length of my forearm and as wide as my hips. To power these through the water you would need powerful muscles and as my eyes followed the lines of his flippers up, his girth ballooned confidently.  I could now appreciate his immense power. At his widest, he is probably the ‘thickness’ of two of me (a man of distinctly average proportions) and at the point of his shoulders his two fore flippers emerge: Massive paddles, each one equal to my width, featuring five anthropomorphous fingers complete with fingernails (ideal for scratching).  

His shoulders then narrow down to his thick muscular neck that supports his huge head, so large it would dwarf that of any land predator.  His large puppy eyes and snout complete with whiskers remind me of a friendly, familiar dog... but of epic proportions. His mouth features canines as large my thumb and just thinking about the crushing power of his jaws is enough to make anyone shudder… all in all I was standing not one metre away from this four metre, three tonne beast of tremendous power.  

But it was okay to be that close, southern elephant seals with their size and power sit at the top of the food chain and they live of a diet of squid, fish and other types of seal - not so much human.  They have been known to dive upto depths of up to 2,000m, holding their breath for over two hours at a time. To them we appear as colourful noisy penguins, a slight annoyance but not a threat (or a snack).  

It is peculiar to come across an elephant seal on a popular beach on the heavily populated Cape peninsula in South Africa, especially when considering the closest colony is almost 2,000km away on Marion island.  It has been considered that he is lost but is actually no stranger to the Cape having been spotted a number of times across the years. This time he has decided that this is where he will moult and will be staying put for 4 to 6 weeks - making him a star attraction for the residents of Fish Hoek.

Every year elephant seals shed their fur and skin, moult, and during this time they will beach themselves and not eat for the duration.  He is happy enough just lying there and will return to the seas once his new skin is waterproof enough. Buffel is estimated to be 9 years old and not quite a fully grown adult.  I certainly wouldn’t want to come across him in the water, but to see him from a safe running distance was incredible!

Note:  At the time of writing, Buffel has finished moulting and has returned to the seas.

That's when we got hold of an inflatable boat.  That’s when we discovered the rivers. 

The waterways of England are the arteries of life. They are where wildlife roams freely and in much more abundance than from the perspective of landlubbers.  I can't believe we wasted over six months living by the side of a river without a boat.

THE THAMES

Our first trip was a three-day 36 mile voyage from Abingdon-on-Thames to Henley-on-Thames.  The benefit of an inflatable canoe is that it all packs down and so driving down to Henley on the Friday evening with two cars we left one car in Henley to await our arrival three days later.  Early Saturday morning we launched our canoe into Abingdon marina and were on our way.

An inflatable canoe has many advantages but two reasons stand out amongst the rest.  Firstly they are a lot, lot cheaper than a rigid canoe/kayak and secondly they pack down and can easily be stored in a storage closet and transported without a roof rack or trailer.  With advantages though come disadvantages.  They aren't as comfortable as a 'normal' canoe or kayak, or as efficient or as spacious.  So when you're trying to pack in camping gear and three days worth of equipment you must remember to leave room for yourself too.

The Thames is a peculiar river in that it is pretty much locked the whole way down.  That means that there is almost no current which makes navigating easy but does mean you have to do all the paddling yourself.  If we were passing through the locks without much in our canoe we'd happily portage our canoe around the locks which proves to be faster at any rate.  However with a canoe laden with kit we awaited our turn to pass through the locks.  Typically there is always room for a canoe at the back of all the gin-palaces which means you can bypass a long summer queue and it is a bizarre experience to be hemmed in next to those towering boats.

Our first camp was just outside of Wallingford, we had wasted too much time hanging out that we arrived in Wallingford as the sun was setting.  Pushing a little further onwards we found a little spot out tucked out of the way that we moored up for the night.

Pushing of the next day at first light we had the river to ourselves, with the stillness and wildlife in abundance.

August bank holiday weekend when we completed this trip had record breaking temperatures and after a few hours canoeing in the intense heat it was only right to cool off in the waters - so long as you don't take massive gulps of river water, it is fine to swim in outside of the towns.

The second day proved to have some of the most striking scenery.  The forested hills around Goring and Streatley feigned a giant unending forest.  And, for those interested in how the other half live, plenty of enormous gardens and houses backing onto the river.

As the day disappeared on the second day we found a beautiful spot among the trees just before entering Mapledurham.

The final day was a very different experience.  The river was much wider and much more built up.  We paddled through the centre of Reading with giant buildings either side.  The water was more choppy as the river increased in size.  With more people came more boats and the traffic which was previously just a gentle trickle of boats was now something to be cautious of. 

The further we got towards London the greater the traffic on the water and it was quite amusing to see such a concentration of people on the water when just a little further up it was pretty much empty.

We arrived in Henley in the late afternoon as the sun started to turn a little golden and shadows a longer.  We moored up, deflated our canoe, shoved everything on backs and headed off to our car.  40 minutes later we were back in Abingdon. 

36 miles, 12 locks, 12 herons, 3 days and one otter.  Job done.

RIVER WYE

Near the border of Wales lies the gorgeous river Wye.  We had previously canoed the upper section near Hay-on-Wye on proper rigid canoes but now with our new found freedom and having woken up on a Saturday morning with no plans and guaranteed good weather we decided to do another multi-day trip.

Ross-on-Wye to Monmouth is a short section of river, easily navigable in a day if leaving early enough but we split it into two half days.

We arrived in Ross at Saturday midday and launched from the Hope and Anchor pub on the river.  The Wye isn't locked and there is a slow but steady current downstream to carry you onwards.

What makes the Wye such an awesome river to canoe is that it is generally too shallow to be navigable by motorboats meaning that between you and the other paddlers you have the whole river to yourselves.  I haven't experienced this sort of solitude on the rivers apart from in canoeing in Sweden. 

The 2018 summer has been incredibly dry and the Wye was very low, so much so that a few times we were grounded and I had to jump out of the canoe to get us back into deep enough water.  Even the farmers had diesel generators running pumping water out of the Wye for irrigation.

Wild camping is a little more tricky on this portion of the river as unfortunately a lot of the land on both sides of the river is privately owned and until August the gravel beaches are fish nurseries and are not advised to being used.  But pretty much half way along between Ross and Monmouth there is a YHA perched on the river with easy access to the water where we put up our tent for the night.

The second day took us through more spectacular scenery and the whitewater grade 2 of Simmonds Yat.  We were expecting something quite exciting and interesting for our heavily ladened inflatable canoe and we ensure everything was secured down before approaching it but it was a very simple bit of rapids (albeit with very little water at the time).

In mid-afternoon we rocked up in Monmouth and packed down our gear.  All our gear fitted easily on our backs and we hitch-hiked the 20 minutes back to Ross-on-Wye to fetch our car.  Having left our home at 11am on Saturday we were back home by 7pm Sunday.  A great (and cheap) way of spending the weekend!

That moment is more poignant than just a quaint memory, for what was happening outside of the cottage was phenomenal and so fitting.  We were in the midst of one of the wettest winters the North of England had faced in a century.  The flooding that had ensued destroyed thousands of homes and livelihoods.  Bridges and roads had been swept away isolating communities and lives were lost.

With so much devastation it appeared that the UK was finally waking up the tremendous impact that climate change will be having on all our lives.  This along with the recent Paris Climate Accord being signed on the 12th December 2015 to limit the warming of the planet to within 2 degrees Celsius I felt, despite the devastation afflicted, warmly optimistic about the future and that was central to the talk I gave in Saudi Arabia to a 700 packed audience.

But two years is a long time... since then, the floods of 2015 are a distant memory for all but the worst affected, and for the rest of us, we've had BREXIT and we have Donald Trump dominating our airwaves and every waking thought.  Climate change has been relegated to pages 3-4 in our news feeds and broadsheets, so you'd be forgiven for thinking it was being 'solved', but unfortunately no one told that to 'Climate Change'. 

In the background, the Paris Climate Accord has fallen short of unanimous agreement with the biggest contributor, the USA, pulling out.  But even so, the super human efforts required by all the countries of the world to achieve the 2 deg. C target agreed upon has barely even started.  Whilst we deliberate and procrastinate, the climate continues to warm at an alarming pace making it even harder to enact a real change: The Arctic sea ice continues to disappear in a death spiral, the ocean's are acidifying and the polar bear is still on track for extinction.

I agree, this is pretty depressing stuff.  But it need not be entirely so:  As I collated the latest research on climate change for the key note lecture I realised that the biggest contributor to climate change second to power generation is animal agriculture (14.5% of green house gases).  I was shocked to discover there is a greater portion of the world's surface designated as livestock farming as to what is designated as 'wild'.  It became clear to me that the Earth cannot support the world's population on a Western meat and dairy centric diet.  Overnight I became vegan as the single biggest change I could make. 

Two years later and despite all the aforementioned headaches I'm still vegan,  The point I'm trying to make is that it is the responsibility of each and every one of us to make a change.  Real change doesn't come from the top.  It is grass root movements that make changes, a mass shift in public opinion and perception.  To make that happen all it requires is for each one of us to question what we are doing and why we are doing it.  Food consumption is more than a personal choice and has extreme implications.  Of course there are other contributing factors to climate change that we must all reduce our contribution to, including transportation and general consumption but if we are to start somewhere - start with the food on your plate.

This is not to diminish the massive national and international responsibilities that are needed but with all grass root movements, the saying holds 'look after the pennies and pounds will look after themselves'.