Nephews - just what will they get up to next!!
They nearly froze to death in Greenland and almost drowned in Antarctic seas but two young British adventurers successfully completed a 22,000 mile journey between the earth’s magnetic poles when they arrived in Australia today.
James Hooper, 21, and Rob Gauntlett, who turns 21on Saturday, became the first people ever to travel from the North Magnetic Pole to the South Magnetic Pole and onto Australia under their own steam.
They arrived in Sydney Harbour shortly after dawn at the end of an epic voyage in which they skied across the Arctic ice cap, cycled the length of the Americas and sailed from Chile to Australia.The record-breaking journey took them a year, a month and a day.
They relied on wind and muscle power for the entire route in a bid to highlight the threat of global warming and the harm done to the environment by carbon emissions.
Beneath a cloudless blue sky, the pair sailed into Sydney Harbour on board the Blizzard, a metal-hulled yacht which nearly capsized in the middle of the Southern Ocean two weeks ago when it was hit by a giant wave.
The wall of water smashed the boat onto its side so that the mast was forced beneath the surface. The two Britons and the rest of their small crew feared they would be swept overboard.
“That was a bit of a scary moment,” said Mr Hooper at a press conference at the Australian National Maritime Museum.
“Blinding spray was being whipped up by 70 knot winds. A 70ft-high swell came up behind the boat with a huge breaking tip. I could see what was about to happen so I just grabbed a pole and hung on for dear life.”
Mr Gauntlett said: “The mast went underneath the water. The whole world was turned upside down. To be here is a huge relief.”
An even more dangerous moment came at the very start of the odyssey, when Mr Gauntlett fell through ice as the pair skied across Greenland.
“I was in the water for four minutes and then I was unconscious for four hours. I realised I could easily have lost my life,” he said. “That was a low point for me.”
As they docked in Sydney’s Darling Harbour, an Aboriginal elder performed a traditional cleansing ceremony with smoking eucalyptus leaves.
The Britons, who met at Christ’s Hospital School in Horsham, West Sussex, were greeted by dozens of friends, family and well-wishers, including the New South Wales minister for tourism, Matt Brown.
“There’s got to be a much bloodier easier way to get to Australia,” the minister joked. “You’re doing terrible things for our tourism campaign — we’re trying to tell people how easy it is to get here.”
The pair established their expedition credentials in 2006 when they became, at the age of 19, the youngest Westerners to climb Mount Everest.
They then featured in an Adidas campaign, Impossible is Nothing, alongside David Beckham.
Just reaching the start of their journey in April last year took eight days. A blizzard meant they were unable to be dropped by helicopter at the Magnetic North Pole, so instead they traveled by dog sled led by Inuit guides.
From Greenland they sailed to New York, and from there cycled 11,000 miles through the United States, Central America and South America to Punta Arenas in the far south of Chile.
One of the toughest stretches was through the Atacama Desert, where for 1,000 miles they saw barely a bird, animal or plant.
With the help of a professional skipper and crew, they sailed the Blizzard, an Australian expedition yacht, to the Falkland Islands and then 9,000 miles across the Southern Ocean, stopping briefly at the remote French sub-Antarctic territory of the Kerguelen Islands.
They reached the Magnetic South Pole before pressing on to Hobart, Tasmania, and finally Sydney.
Entering the harbour and receiving such a large reception was “overwhelming”, they said.
“Completing the expedition seemed like such an impossible, distant feat when we set out,” said Mr Gauntlett, of Petworth, Sussex. “We had huge problems along the way, both financial and physical.” Apart from nearly capsizing, the most sobering part of the journey was seeing the impact of global warming in the Arctic.
“The sea ice has thinned by 50 per cent over the last 20 years,” said Mr Hooper, of Wellington, Somerset. “There are huge changes going on up there which mean we all need to start making changes to our lifestyle to reduce our carbon emissions.” The watch system on board the boat meant that neither Briton slept for more than three hours at a time. “Sleep is the most precious thing so it will be nice to have a full night,” said Mr Hooper. They were also looking forward to a beer and being on dry land.
The friends intend to write a book and produce a documentary about their journey before planning another adventure.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/1941575/British-adventurers-complete-epic-journey.html
