I wrote a letter, sitting on the bank of a stream, my back nestled in the buttress roots of a spiralling Bolivian rainforest tree. Enormous plate-sized, electric-blue, morpho-butterflies wafted over my hand. Beads of sweat formed rivulets down my back and tiny fish darted past my toes. The letter was to HRH Prince Charles about …
We’re back on our 80 yr old home (our boat) in Uruguay & remarkably she’s still floating! Before we left the UK I managed to get my hands on a copy of Roz Savage’s, “Stop Drifting, Start Rowing”. Amazing! A rare, up-close & personal glimpse of life at sea in the Pacific through the eyes …
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“Nothing has changed!” I tell the new head mistress, “but the ceilings seem a bit lower”, as we stroll these small, colourfully decorated corridors which looked so spacious thirty years ago! We may have finished the running part, but “Running South America” continues back on home shores as we visit our former schools (and others …
We’re heading down to Plymouth in a couple of minutes to sit on the sofa with a BBC Spotlight presenter to chat about our running expedition. If all goes to plan we should be on screen on BBC 1 between 1830-1900 tonight. Bicycles are at the ready to climb over the Devon ‘peaks’ and catch …
Fifteen months ago, just as the Olympic gun resonated through the streets of London, bracing ourselves against a blizzard at the southerly-most point of continental South America, we began our race to run the length of the continent. Ever since, we have been pulling our trailer, day-on-day, through ice, snow, hurricane-force winds, over 45°C heat, nearly 100 per cent …
Imagine how it would feel to run into the Caribbean Sea… Now imagine running into the Caribbean Sea after having run a marathon whilst pulling a trailer weighing up to 100kg… Now imagine running into the Caribbean Sea after having run a marathon almost every day with a trailer for 15 months! This is the …
A trickle of sweat runs down my chest. Distant rumbles of thunder trigger an Amazon orchestra. Crickets, cicadas and grasshoppers whine in desperate anticipation. A pair of white-throated toucans yelp in their lofty perches above the canopy. Three screaming piha birds join the crescendo from their skulking perches in the green latticework. The forest is …
Read more “The Independent Blog: A visit to the heart of the lungs of the world”
We were told not to run through the reserve, that the Indigenous people of the Waimiri Atroari Indian Reserve were hostile towards ‘white people’. That they had attacked people in the Reserve with bows and arrows. That they stole the passports and money of a party of people whom had walked into their forest and …
Every item in the running trailer (which we´ve pulled for over 5000 miles through snow, driving rain, clagging mud) is crucial. It could be no other way. Any superflous object means extra stess on our knees, joints, back. Especially scaling the Andes, or now in the Amazon basin running up and down, up and down, …
A chocolate-coloured, toe-shaped nut. The Brazil nut. One of the finest. Full of protein, calcium, iron, selenium and a whole host of other riches; one creamy crunch and you’re reaching for another. But hang on. Stop there. Your hand hovers over the bowl? It’s time to travel with that Brazil nut, to see life as …
Read more “The Independent Blog: A recipe for a healthy rainforest in a nutshell”