I’ve been secretly planning ‘One World’ for as long as I can remember, certainly for the past 7 years. However when I started having the idea I had neither the skill nor the understanding (not to mention the means) to even contemplate launching into such an adventure. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that every single trip I have done henceforth has been specifically as a training exercise for ‘One World’, but I would say that every trip has developed my knowledge and understanding to a level whereby I am now capable of organising and undertaking such a journey. Well actually let it be known that Katie is in fact the queen of research and organisation. She is the undisputed master of the white board, the sticky post-it note and the list!!! Over the past couple of years she has helped seal up the cracks in the project and we now have a fully watertight and floating vessel, a crew, a destination and all we need now is for someone to help pay for the fuel!

The project itself is pretty simple in its concept… to go from the North Pole (geographic) to the South Pole (again geographic) using exclusively human power. It’s a 30,000km, 3 year journey where Katie and I will man-haul (that’s walking/skiing across the Polar Regions pulling a sledge with all your kit in it), ocean row and cycle our way around the world. In fact this video will probably give you a better idea of what we are trying to accomplish.

Why go only from the North Pole to the South Pole and not right the way round? A question I have been asked almost as many times as: Why? Well the latter I’m not going to answer just now, not least because if you think about it and I mean really think about it and you still need to ask the question, the chances are you won’t understand the answer. On the other hand the answer to the first question is easy, money! Some people are either born with, or develop a gift for being able to raise sponsorship money. Unfortunate I’m not one of those people yet and as it stands we can’t find anybody willing to invest the funding for a 6 year expedition.

We know of a number of similar projects that people have either already completed or are in the midst of being organised but to our knowledge nobody has ever accomplished or even attempted this journey. If you know of any we would love to hear about them and by the same token if you want to know more about our project feel free to drop us a line.

Tarka

So in four weeks time we are off once again. No financial sponsorship involved, no world first to attempt, no intense logistical planning needed, just a pure adventure for the fun of it!

We are heading off to cycle 8000km, from the tiny African country of Djibouti, down the east cost of Africa to South Africa, in a little over 3 months. Why Djibouti? Well the fact that we had never heard of it was as good a reason as any.

In order to make the journey more of a challenge we have decided to leave our fancy bikes at home, wait until we arrive in Djibouti and buy a couple of old heavy steel bikes from the locals, which will more than likely have no gears AND no brakes!!!

We will be traveling through a total of 8 countries (Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa) and do our best to capture some of the incredible landscapes and cultures we’ll pass.

We will need to cycle 110km a day in order to cover the distance in the time we have, which on a good bike and on a good road is no distance at all. However the quality of roads and the quality of the bikes will play a healthy part in the daily mileage we actually achieve. We will be giving our saddle soars a 7 day rest from cycling when we cross into Tanzania in order to climb Africa’s highest mountain, Kilimanjaro (5895m).

Although this is more of a holiday than a ‘Primal Journey’, it does have its place in our training schedule. Its important to be accustomed to repetitive workloads, One World will be a colossal psychological battle above everything else.

We would like to thank our long-term sponsor Mountain Equipment for stepping in and providing much of our technical equipment for the journey.

Don’t panic… we will regularly updating the site, right here with stories, photos and videos of our adventure as it unfolds.

Katie-Jane

In our last post we talked about some of the training trips we have been on this year in preparation for One World. If you read that post you would be forgiven for thinking that all our training is carried out in exotic locations around the world. So I thought we would also mention the innumerable days of training that fill most of our schedule here in the Devonshire hills.

Training consists predominantly of tyre pulling in preparation for dragging our pulks across the Arctic and Antarctic. This is normally done with 3 large car tyres in tow. To better simulate the broken jumble of ice in the Arctic we drag the tyres through the forests with a 20kg pack attached to each tyre. Normally you only get about 5 feet before the tyres get jammed on a root or between two trees and you have to carry and manoeuvre the packs and tyres through the undergrowth. It’s exhausting work and not very conducive to covering any great distance. In contrast, to simulate the Antarctic we tend to go out onto the moors and just keep on going! Occasionally we also bring out the tractor tyre!!!

Circuits and weight training are also a regular part of our training days to help strengthen our backs and arms. Much to Katie’s hatred there is inevitably a healthy amount of running for general fitness. Now that One World has been delayed and we are still on the eternal uphill struggle of sponsorship and logistics, not to mention making a living! We are currently only able to dedicate approximately 2 hours a day to training; however this will gradually increase again in the build up to our departure to between 6 and 8 hours a day.

Tarka

We have been working hard on the Great Wall of China documentary, which is nearly finished!! But most predominantly we have been preparing for our next big adventure, One World powered by us. We plan to journey from one geographical pole to the other using exclusively human power, in the form of skiing, cycling and ocean rowing. We will cover a distance of 32,000km on a 3-year epic adventure.

Until a few weeks ago, we were planning to depart in February 2009, but unfortunately due to a difficult economic market we have had to delay departure until 2010. As well as the monumental task of organising the logistics and finance for a three year, never before attempted expedition, we have had a host of new skills to learn and develop, especially me. So in January I was out in the French Alps learning how to cross country ski, which I would like to add is brilliant, I now have no desire to Alpine ski ever again! Also, I had the unpleasant process of learning how to fall through the ice….with your skis on….and get out! In February we spent 2 weeks in the Arctic, on and around the Island of Svalbard. Tarka was teaching me the vital skills of learning how to live in a tent at -50°C for weeks on end, protect yourself from polar bears and avoid loosing parts of your body to frost bite. Last month we took to the sea and thought we would learn by trial and error how to ocean row, as neither of us had any previous experience, by rowing to the Isles of Scilly and back!

Read more about our training trips…

Although our training and preparations will continue with the One World expedition, we are currently putting our thinking caps on for another small adventure we can carry out this winter….so many ideas so little time! So any ideas or indeed projects that are already going ahead let us know.

Katie-Jane