An 18yr ‘boy’ who just left school decided to take a gap year before going to university. He decided to go overseas after much deliberation over financial constraints. He overcame this first hurdle by launching himself in a series of jobs working as hard as he could even doing night shifts to build up the required funds.
Once in Europe his first trip was to Lourdes in South West France at the foothills of the Pyrenees. He went on his own following the World Mountain Bike Cup Race of which he is a supporter and also a rider in his spare time. He knew no french and managed to arrange somewhere to stay and get around by himself. He described the experience as challenging as the area was quite remote as it was ‘out of season’ (for religious pilgrimages). Most of the time he was walking around on his own in picturesque villages with no one in sight once the races were over.
His next trip was Fort William in the Scottish Highlands where he camped out by himself for 2 weeks, he braved the elements and climbed Ben Nevis the highest mountain in the British Isles. He found the rough terrain and breath taking views exhilarating and serene.
This led to him becoming more adventurous as he decided to do the Mont Blanc Tour (solo) which involved wild camping in the Alps, whilst hiking and cycling his way through three countries starting and ending in France. Travelling through the Italian and Swiss Alps involved him navigating the extreme weather conditions, language barrier, maps and mountainous terrains of those countries. Mont Blanc is the highest mountain in the Alps and it took him just under a week. He described camping in random fields in the middle of no-where in the French Alps. On his first day he talked about being woken up in the middle of the night by soft ‘thudding’ noises outside his tent. In fear of drawing attention to himself he remained still until the ‘animal’ passed before going back to sleep.
He described pushing his mountain bike for 3/4 hours on numerous occasions up steep rugged inclines sometimes carrying it on his back where he encountered the bewilderment of a few tourists who thought he was either ‘mad’ or some sort of ‘elite’ athlete. He experienced extreme whether conditions biting wind and rain and in desperation sheltered behind bushes to keep warm. On the last leg of the trip he slept on a bench at a railway station and at 3am was promptly woken by a homeless person who was angry and irate in french by ‘his’ space being taken. The 18yr old was not perturbed by this and simply apologised in bad french and went back to sleep. His story continued and his experiences have been quite extraordinary including climbing the Italian Alps via ferrata style (using a climbing kit and cable) more wild camping in breath taking locations, looking for water source, getting lost, attempting to communicate with remote villagers, hitch hiking with sheep farmers and so forth.
At the end of his trip he was asked three questions?
1) What did you learn about yourself?
“There is nothing to be afraid of when you are with nature it’s just you and the wilderness. It’s ok to set goals about where you want to be and how long it will take you. But if you are tired & fatigue don’t push on – it’s ok to stop re-evaluate – eat, rest and start again you will get there in the end. I wouldn’t do it if it was easy and it felt good to push myself out of the box, people don’t do that and they miss out and sweat the small stuff which is not important. I have met so many people who are genuinely kind and helpful particularly when they know what you are trying to achieve.”
2) What would you do differently?
“I wouldn’t take my bike, I would hike instead and make sure that I’m not out of season when I travel so I could stock up at the next village or town and not be concerned about the shops being closed.”
3) How did you cope with being on your own? e.g. isolation, loneliness.
“It was kind of nice – peaceful you are responsible and answerable to yourself only, the scenery was breath taking you just felt privileged to be alive and there in that moment. A lot of time was spent planning the route, how you were going to stock up on food and water – just generally ‘survive’.”
Whilst it may appear to the reader that the 18yr old was perhaps reckless and too much of a risk taker. What I could tell you of his planning and research it was meticulous. What he couldn’t predict he went with the moment not letting ‘fear’ get in the way but drew upon his intuition, learnt knowledge and hope.
At the end of conversation he had a question for us. What did you guys (parents) learn about yourselves while I was away? my reply “how quickly grey hairs grow!”
As I write he is currently planning a 1000km bike ride from Canberra to Melbourne called the Hunt ride involving 30 or so riders!
Wish him well!
