It was a meeting of pure chance and impeccable timing that lead to our next culinary experience. I was lying, practically immobilised, in the cheapest of Turkish hotel rooms – damp, dark and thoroughly pungent – nursing a painful cramping stomach, knees pulled to my chest and muttering sorry expletives. The copious amount of black tea and strong Turkish cigarettes the previous day had clearly caught up with me. Our morning’s cycle had turned into a laborious and fractured affair, eventually r

By the time the New Zealand night catches me, less than halfway around the Heaphy Track, I’m already in serious trouble. But at least I don’t have a masked, axe-wielding psycho chasing me through the woods. Luke can’t tell me he’s being pursued by this vicious vision, because I’m too far behind him, dealing with demons of my own. He could mention it to Ben, who is running right beside him, but by this stage he’s beginning to doubt his own mind. Our bodies are in a state of mutiny – my knacke

And so began the problems of physical fragility. The cripplingly inadequate and injury-provoking cheap Chinese replacement part that we had finally resorted to fitting to my bicycle, Winston, in Amman had done its worst. The danger of putting too much pressure through an already weakened knee, combined with all of the weight we were carrying, had finally been realised. Three days after leaving the capital, and after some unbeatable wild camping in the spectacular Jordanian desert, we limped s

It had been a long, yet easy, journey to get to such an isolated site. It started with a short flight from Toronto to the Lake Superior harbour town of Thunder Bay, a historic city with links back to the Hudson Bay Trading Company and the notoriously arduous fur trade. From Thunder Bay we drove for an hour and a half through a forest of pine, birch and aspen, to the tiny railway settlement of Armstrong, where the road ends at the Trans Canadian railway line. There we waited for a seemingly

The town of Nome stands on the Northwest coast of Alaska; 180 miles from Russia and 1,100 miles from the state capital of Juneau. Cut off by sea ice during the winter, and with no road or rail connections to the rest of Alaska, it seems like an unlikely place to build a town. A gold rush, however, can drive people to extraordinary lengths. When “The Lucky Swedes” discovered gold near Nome in 1898, thousands of prospectors headed north with high hopes, and fortunes were won and lost. Nome grew

This is how Sarah Marquis describes her philosophy, and her approach, to her incredible journeys. It all began when, aged just eight, Marquis went exploring with her dog. She left the family home in Montsevelier, Switzerland, one afternoon, without telling anyone where she was going, and discovered a cave. Beguiled by the bats hanging above her, she decided to spend the night. She was 17 when she learned to ride a horse by crossing Central Anatolia in Turkey on horseback. As the new millen

In this new Challenge series Sophie Radcliffe tries her hand at a variety of outdoor pursuits to push herself mentally and physically and to reflect and share these new experiences. I prepare myself mentally for the physical endeavour that’s coming. It’s still dark as I start up the trail and settle into a rhythm with my feet and breath. Small footsteps, deep breaths and continuous effort. That’s my goal. ‘Keep moving’, I whisper to myself. There’s snow on the ground which saps my energy,

Afghanistan is a place that conjures a multitude of images – mujahideen warriors, the Silk Road, stone Buddhas and exquisitely blue tiled mosques, and maybe even pomegranates. Unfortunately now, the Taliban, poverty and violence are indelibly etched on our perceptions of the country too. It is a corner of the world I have been fortunate to visit many times over the last six years; exploring on foot and on snowshoes, by horseback, motorcycle, bicycle, and in the back of an endless array of ubi

Baffin Island is an area that defines extremes. Earth’s fifth biggest island lies well within the Arctic Circle, ensuring it experiences 24-hour daylight over the summer, but suffers complete darkness during the winter months. It’s not unusual for temperatures to drop to -30°C, and that frigid cold is exacerbated by gale force winds and the consequent wind chill. The largest sea cliffs on Earth rise up out of the North East fiords for nearly two kilometres. Scientists have found rock on Baff

Early last year, Will Copestake set out to circumnavigate the entire coastline of Scotland by sea kayak then – upon completion – changing tack and slogging his way up all 282 Scottish Munros, linked together by bicycle. His impressive adventure, which lasted well over a year, was a way for the 22-year-old to ask aloud that important topical question, of ‘what exactly does it mean to be Scottish?’ In part one of his story, Will tells us about the many highs and the occasional low of his coasta

Last week, we featured a piece on Will Copestake’s incredible journey circumnavigating the entire coastline of Scotland by sea kayak. After he’d dried out a wee bit, Will changed tack and began slogging his way up all 282 Munros – Scottish mountains over 3000ft – linking them together by bicycle. In Part Two of his story, we hear about the many high places of the young Scot’s native homeland, and his conclusion to the question that took him off for a year’s journeying in the first place: just

We gazed through the window of our rented minivan; past the dense green forest, and on towards the peaks surrounding the lonely Alaskan highway. Eventually, a tiny airport sign appeared and we knew – we were finally here. Chitina airstrip is a diminutive log cabin with a red tin roof which stands alone next to the dirt airstrip. The sign on the building reads “Ultima Thule Outfitters”. As the chill wind tugged at our jackets, we lined up our gear, trying to keep everything as tight as possibl

You don’t necessarily need to go to the ends of the Earth to be inspired by the great outdoors. It can just as easily be found in Ireland as it can in Nepal, and Jane and Myles Lamberth, authors of Surf Café Living, prove just that. From their newly renovated home on Ireland’s Atlantic coast, thirty-somethings Jane and Myles Lambert are living their dream – running a busy coastal café and their new funky shop, whilst making the most of the idyllic lifestyle the

Matthias Scherer and Tanja Schmitt are fully committed ice climbers who have been living in Cogne, Italy for the past ten years. The area is a place with a rare density of high quality ice routes: a perfect playground to forge their skills for their hard ice ascents all around the world. Velocity is a short film about the personal story of these two amazing athletes. Shot by German photographer and film maker Franz Walter it revolves around the matter of time. Like water time is fluid, expa

Cola Pulled Pork (serves 8 – 10)

I have visited the Shetland Isles many times. It was here, from the cliffs at Garths Ness, not far from Sumburgh Head, that I saw my first whales – the impossibly tall fins of three orcas that cut rapidly across the bay. Here too, lying on the cliff tops of Noss, I came close to the gannets for the first time and from the cliffs of Eshaness I first understood the awesome power of the Atlantic swells. On Ronas Hill I camped beside the dark pool of a peaty burn,

The Great Himalaya Trail (GHT) is a proposed route of over 4500 km of existing trails stretching the length of the Greater Himalaya range from Nanga Parbat (Jam-mu & Kashmir, Pakistan) to Namche Barwa (Tibet) thus passing through Kashmir, India, Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet. When completed, it will be the longest and highest alpine walking track in the world. As of July 2010, only the Nepal and Bhutan sections have been walked and documented thoroughly. The other countries are still being research

Wedged in between the giants of the Hindukush and the Pamir Mountains lies one of the world’s most remote adventure playgrounds. This is the Wakhan Corridor, a panhandle-shaped strip of land in the far Northeastern corner of Afghanistan. Safe access to this area from Tajikistan draws a handful of adventurers every year to explore this rugged, virgin mountain territory. It’s over 40 degrees celsius in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, and the start of the very long journey to the valley wh