This festival has been running now for 5 years, and I have been to 4 of them. The festival was started by a couple of lads who travelled around the world together on a motorbike and sidecar. They invite a variety of speakers who come and talk for an hour about their various adventures, to share their stories and inspire others to get out on their own adventure, large or small.
The festival is set in the glorious Mount Edgecombe estate, with views across the estuary to Plymouth and surrounding countryside. I take Harry, my dog, and enjoy taking him for walks in the gardens and wider deer park. This time I ventured further on the coast path as well
The talks themselves are fascinating, and cover a vast variety of adventures. They ranged from a man talking about kayaking around Greenland, learning to eat seals like the Inuit do (Mike Keen), to a lady who biked down through South America on a bike she had made out of bamboo (Kate Rawles). Another lady (Ann Whatmore) overcame complications to her asthma as a result of Covid to cycle around the Uk on a recumbent bike, whereas another lady (Geraldine McFaul) walked from her home in Scotland to Rome, and ended up having an audience with the Pope!
The two headline acts, on the Friday and Saturday evening, were particularly notable. On the Friday Chris Lewis talked about his walk over 6 years around the entire UK coastline, starting out with only £10 and some provisions that lasted less than 2 days. He ended up meeting his partner during the walk, and they finished together with their son born during this walk.
And then on the Saturday Mitch Hutchinson described his massive adventure, recently completed – from a young boy he had always wanted to climb Everest. In the event he decided to travel from the UK, swimming the English Channel before cycling 11,000 km across to the far eastern shores of India. He wanted to climb Everest from sea level, so had almost cycled past the mountain to reach the sea, before running back nearly 1000km to the base camp, before successfully climbing to the peak.
There were a couple of common themes which I took away from the talks:
- The kindness of strangers. Geraldine McFaul talked about Kindnappers, who offered food and accommodation throughout her trip. Every speaker referred to generous acts from people they didn’t know, varying from repairs to motorbikes and other vehicles at little or no cost, to free meals and beds for the night. Kate Rawles said she never felt in any danger at all, travelling down through South America on her own – in particular she mentioned Columbia which was one of the friendliest countries she had ever visited, despite its awful reputation. It is easy to think the world is populated by people likely to do you harm, but the truth is very much the opposite
- An adventure doesn’t have to be extreme – it is YOUR adventure, and that may just be getting out of the front door. Whilst it is fun to listen to someone talking about a seemingly impossible triathlon across the world, it doesn’t mean that a much smaller adventure isn’t worthy
- Sometimes you can plan too much. Whilst some adventures are years in the planning, getting visa and fundraising sorted for example, others aren’t planned at all and just develop. When Chris Lewis started walking the coastline he didn’t look further than the day ahead. Most speakers talked about dealing with one day at a time and not worrying about tomorrow until today’s food and accommodation is sorted. Even Mitch Hutchinson didn’t know whether he would actually be able to make Everest after losing 4 stone in weight whilst cycling so far beforehand. At the end of the day the planning shouldn’t stop anyone from just getting on with it
I found the talks that touched on loneliness particularly interesting. Marc Deri talked about motorbiking down through South America – he knew he was ‘living the dream’ but actually felt quite depressed, riding on his own. He enjoyed it when the bike had mechanical issues, as he had something to fix. Eventually he realised he had to start talking to fellow travellers and ended up riding with others. He also stopped social media, and found comfort in journalling and writing poems, which he didn’t expect as an ex serviceman (Navy). I found the talk very honest and struck a cord.
Other speakers talked about feeling comfortable travelling on their own, but then struggled once they were surrounded by other people. I could certainly relate to this, as I have mentioned in other posts (see my earlier blog in Perranporth). At the festival I felt I was surrounded by ‘my people’ but didn’t manage to relate to any in particular – I need to get better still at initiating conversations with others, even if they are in existing groups or couples
The festival finished on the Sunday. I first attended a talk with Stephen Marsh, who has a huge knowledge of different animals and birds. Whilst being employed by Viking Cruises giving talks he has a whole catalogue of amazing pictures from his trips from the Arctic to the Antarctica – I would be quite happy on his cruises listening to him talk about all the wildlife!
Finally Jayne and David stepped up to do a talk because the planned speaker had been unable to attend. Jayne was hilarious, with no sense of direction, but with David (who did as he was told!) they will have visited 100 countries soon in their ‘Lizzybus’
I am looking forward to my own adventure in Bali, New Zealand and Australia later this year, and will be back next year to the festival!
