Anyone looking at going to ‘Adventure Travel Live‘ at the end of the month…

Save £6 off the ticket price by booking in advance quote ”Tarka” / “Katie-Jane” / “Rachel” (£10 on the door) visit www.adventuretravellive.com

Adventure Travel Live is the must visit, one stop shop for anyone planning an off-the-beaten-track travel adventure. The show is packed with inspiration and travel advice that will help you to uncover the journey of a lifetime. From once-in-a lifetime-travel experiences, small group adventures, trekking, family adventures, career breaks, safaris, overland expeditions, volunteering, gap years and much more.

There are over 60 talks at Adventure Travel Live and our impressive line-up of travel experts includes the likes of Simon Yates (Touching the Void), Ben Fogle, Benedict Allen, co-founder of Lonely Planet Tony Wheeler, Doug Scott, Tom Avery, Simon Calder, Paul Rose and many more, oh and us of course!

We will be presenting ‘The Great Walk of China: Proof that anything is possible!’ Recounting my colossal life-change from the world of commercial fashion to adventurer: surviving blizzards, temperatures of -35°C, frost bite, starvation, exhaustion and dehydration? In 167 days and over 4500km we became the first to walk the entire length of the magical Great Wall of China from its westerly terminus to its most easterly. The equivalent to over 100 consecutive marathons with a third of our body weight on our backs. With the hope of inspiring one or two others, that we are all more capable than we think if we are just brave enough to take the first steps!

Show features include:

• 5 x theatres packed with inspiration and advice; from Simon Calder’s weekend of adventure travel, wildlife adventures, overland & expeditions to the planning the ultimate career break
• Nat Geo Adventure explorers workshop
• Royal Geographical Society Map Zone
• The Big Earth expedition planning feature
• Travel Africa safari planner
• Travel Photographer of the Year exhibition
• Nomad Travel Health & Essential Kit Guide
  

Venue & Getting there
Royal Horticultural Halls, Greycoat Street, Victoria, London SW1P 2QD.
Friday 29 January, 6pm-10pm
Saturday 30 January, 10am-6pm
Sunday 31 January, 10am-5pm

On door price
Friday / adults / £10
(£18 for the evening with Simon Calder + valid any one day)
Saturday / adults / £10
Sunday / adults / £10
Under 16s free


Advance ticket offer
I am pleased to confirm that we have teamed up with the organisers of Adventure Travel Live to offer you a discount to the show when you book in advance. You can save £6 off door price for adults (i.e. £4 valid any day), under 16s are free. Add £1.50 postage and packing per order.

Tickets for an Evening with Simon Calder are £15 and takes place from 6pm to 10pm on Friday 29 January only. Also valid any one day for Adventure Travel Live.

Order online at adventuretravellive.com or call 0871 230 7159 and quote  “Tarka” / “Katie-Jane” / “Caroline” / “Rachel”  (please use reference code where relevant J).

Also dont forget 2 days letter we will be speaking about the Rivers of Ice Expedition at the quirky ‘Night of Adventure’ in the style of Pecha Kucha, 15 speakers, 20 slides per speaker, 20 seconds per slide on February the 2nd at 7pm, at the Roxy Bar & Screen, London. This will be great fun and not to be missed, with all proceeds going to Hope and Homes for Children.

Katie-Jane

There’s an exciting, unusual speaking event happening on February 2nd 2010 in London for anyone interested in adventure. I hope you will come along. Rather than the normal format of one long lecture, this charity evening is a bit different.

FIFTEEN speakers from across the spectrum of expeditions, adventure and travel will talk about their experiences (Tarka and I speaking as a pair being one of them) .

The subjects range from rowing oceans, climbing Everest, walking and cycling across continents, crossing ice caps (I think this is us!), trekking to the North Pole (and South Pole) all the way to flying cars, climbing Kilimanjaro in a wheelchair and spending six months living in a tree house.

Each one is an amazing story. But the twist is that each speaker is allowed just 20 slides. And each slide scrolls on automatically after just 20 seconds!! Tarks and I have never spoken before in this style and i think its going to be quite a challeng but great fun for the audience to watch. This format, originally called “Pecha Kucha” in Japan, makes for a high-paced, varied, original evening.

The Roxy Bar is a really good venue for a night out. The setting is informal so you can sit on sofas with a beer or eat a light meal while watching the event. Friendly heckling will be encouraged!

This evening of adventure is being held to raise funds and awareness for Hope and Homes for Children. All the proceeds from the event will go to support the work of this charity. So please come along, bring a few friends, have dinner, and make an evening of it. Put it in your diary today and buy your tickets here!

February 2nd 2010, www.roxybarandscreen.com, London, 7pm
15 speakers
20 slides per speaker
20 seconds per slide
£15 minimum entry. Buy your ticket online here (or below) and just bring ID on the night. There will be a few tickets available on the door for cash only. All proceeds from the door go to charity
Dinner and drinks available at the venue

On a seperate note our Great Wall of China documenatry won the people’s choice award at Dundee Mountain Film Festival…yippie! the weekend before last and was well recieved at the Autrans Mountain Film Festival in France this weekend.

The journey home was very smooth and easy with the exception of 2 very surreal moments. The first was the check in at Resolute!!! The lady who was responsible for checking us in for our ‘First Air’ flight from Resolute to Iqaluit has managed to build herself quite an exceptional reputation. To say that she is a little on the slow side would just not do her justice. There are 4 flights a week out of Resolute with a maximum of 8 passengers per plane and she is single headedly responsible for delaying 97% of all the flights. Being fully aware of her exceptional talent we arrived 3 hours early for our flight and stood at the check in desk in a bid not to miss our connection in Ottawa. The situation was looking promising as there were only 5 of us on the flight. After 48mins the situation began to deteriorate as she was still trying to check the first person in. There was a long debate as she tried to justify why she was charging us for luggage and ticket alteration fees and a whole host of other penalties that she then promptly forgot to actually put through the system. I suspect the whole situation wasn’t helped when after 80 mins Charlie could no longer hold back the flood of irritation that had been building up inside and started asking what on earth she was doing and whether she thought she could work at MIT. Needless to say we just became another statistic and a mere 40 mins late we finally managed to take off with all our bags and passengers.

We were fully aware that we had some excess luggage when we started the journey however when we came to check it in to Air Canada in Ottawa we came very close to just leaving it in the airport. At first I laughed at the man because his accent was so strong that I thought he had simply made a mistake and the translation was lost in his deep French pronunciation. After some clarification we all stood in total silence as they wanted more for each bag than the original cost of the flights. Once again Charlie launched into a full frontal verbal assault at the man, this time however the conflict of the strong French and Scottish accents nullified each other and they both just displayed a look saying ‘I’m sorry, are you speaking to me? I’m afraid I didn’t understand’. At that point the credit cards came out and we swiftly moved on.

Home hasn’t exactly been relaxing yet and we took Easter Sunday off before getting back to work on Monday. We are off to France tomorrow to see my family and enjoy a few days training in the warm and the sun.