In my last blog, I recapped my struggles with depression and my fears for a generation of digitally distracted kids for whom the mobile phone has become an extension of themselves.
This week I want to talk adventure, the spirit of adventure and how I managed to find it.
It’s a story that starts with fears and anxieties. Nothing new for me there. My fears and anxieties had led me to a fairly comfortable lifestyle where, despite being active, I had a well defined comfort zone I’d rarely step out of.
I’d developed routines that created a set of boundaries. Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy them at the time: weekly football, weekly drinking, even religious routines (as I went to church for a long time) helped shape those boundaries and created anxieties around crossing them.
These boundaries were important because they helped me cope with a crippling fear of life. If you were looking closely, you’d see I adhered to them pretty rigidly.
However, in 2005, I would leave the North East and move to Dubai and whilst I acknowledge that this was an important step and an adventure in itself, I would construct the same boundaries that would hold me hostage to fear. I developed another set of routines designed to keep me safe, risk averse and unable to fully immerse myself in the experience.
I spent most of my time working (as a teacher), eating out, using the gym or spending my money. I spent endless hours in shopping malls indulging in a retail therapy that just numbed me to life. I had great clothes, a healthy body, plenty of money, watched world class sport, had great working conditions, lovely work colleagues, the list goes on. Yet, as time went on I withdrew and often felt desperately lonely.
Then in 2007, I was made aware of a charity called Gulf for Good. They set up challenges for UAE residents to support impoverished people in countries throughout the world.
I looked at what they had an offer and a trip to Borneo caught my eye. It involved sea kayaking, mountain biking and climbing the 4095 metre Mount Kinabalu. The money raised would be spent on a school bus for the children and motorbikes for the teachers.
I remember thinking that this felt within my comfort zone, I was nervous about the kayaking (justifiably so as it turned out) but I was sure I could manage the hiking and biking.
The build up to it went smoothly, I trained for it in the comfort of a hotel gym and I quickly found sponsorship from a friend and colleague who wanted to mark the passing of her parents and made a generous contribution which meant I could secure my place on the trip.
When the time came, I realised I would not know anyone doing the challenge. My outwardly sociable self masked a fear of the unknown. I felt a familiar sense of inadequacy next to the other members of the group who came from all walks of life.
There were financiers, engineers, a psychologist, a journalist, a model booker so it was a broad church of unnervingly confident people.
It seemed to me that the others had already bonded whilst I was on the outside looking in. But I met a friendly French journalist, Emmanuelle ,and an aussie engineer, Nabil who seemed fun and helped me to relax. Nabil’s quirky sense of humour (he told me he had six sons and I believed him) and his McGyver like ability to fix things fascinated me and slowly I began to let my guard down.
I would often judge people negatively to make myself feel better but here I was with people who appeared far more confident and able than myself. I felt myself shrinking away but I hung in. I didn’t want to endure the challenge, I wanted to experience it, live it.
We took a bus journey to the coast in readiness for the following day’s sea kayaking and prepared for it in true ex pat style with a night karaoke and heavy drinking. My drinking was certainly amongst the heaviest.
The next day, I would partner up the with genial Scott. I was horrendously hungover after a combination of local beer and shots. I was as green as the seaweed on the beach.
Scott was not in great shape either as we set off, and in the middle of the sea, his hips locked and our collective inexperience lead to us flipping the kayak. We managed to get back in but when the same thing happened shortly afterwards we were rescued and taken to the shore by which time dehydration and alcohol poisoning left me in a state of near collapse.
If I’d stayed true to form, things could have gone downhill from there. I suspect a few members of the group were less than impressed with the sea kayaking episode.
But then something changed.
I couldn’t put my finger on it at first, but then I figured it out.
I really liked the people I was with. I liked them because they had embraced the challenge with positivity, with encouragement for each other. They were living how I wanted to live.
And they accepted me. Emmanuelle, Nabil, Bev, Martin, Scott, and Yousef in particular but as I relaxed I found friendship with everyone.
I also found something else – my spirit of adventure. And from there on in, I embraced it. The cycle trek across the Sabah tea plantation felt fun, even when I broke a wheel and needed help to repair it. I never felt embarrassed, I just kept peddling. That night, I felt healthy and alive as we camped down under starry Malaysian skies.
Then we were hiking in the foothills of Mount Kinabalu, my first proper mountain. We walked around 25kms that day and had earned a good feed.
As we sat down to the evening meal the kitchen door suddenly swung open as the chef chased a rat out of the kitchen. Many more (rats not chefs) congregated around the chalets where we were based.
One couple on the trip, Steve and Michelle had them under their bed whilst Scott and I had to endure them scratching against the door and running along window ledges. But despite having very little sleep, the rats didn’t bother me in the way they otherwise might have done. They were part of the narrative, part of the adventure.
The next morning it was raining. We began our ascent up to base camp. A slow winding track that would take eight hours. The conditions were very changeable, some pictures I took showed rain, others bright sunshine. I marvelled at the flip flop wearing porters flying past us, often carrying corrugated iron and wood on their backs.
It got a bit harder the higher we got, the track was steep in places with a little bit of scrambling here but nothing we couldn’t handle. We talked as we walked, finding out things about each other and playing word games. Here I was making my way up a mountain in Borneo with people I hardly knew and I couldn’t have been happier.
When we got to base camp, we piled down the carbs then laid down for a few hours sleep before the night ascent to the summit. I remember it being very windy as we switched on our head torches and followed a fixed rope up the mountain.
I remember seeing Erlank, a dutch member of our party ahead of me but being totally unaware of anyone else. There was the light from my head torch, the rope in my hands and the darkness that enveloped us.
I’ve never forgotten that feeling. It may be the best I’ve ever felt. Not only because I was doing it but because I knew this was right for me and that I’d go on, wanting to do more. I didn’t have to be fearful, I could do these things and I would do them because they felt meaningful. Shared adventures, shared experiences help you make sense of the world and how you see it.
I would reach the summit with my friend Bev. We were both cold and tired. We took our photos and then began our descent. I felt great as we passed some of our team who were still ascending offering encouragement and slightly exaggerated estimations of how far they had to go.
Soon we were all back at base camp feeling that wonderful sense of achievement that comes from climbing a mountain. I didn’t want it to end.
But like all good things it did, but the bonds that were forged did not. I saw some of the team quite regularly up until I left Dubai and it definitely changed how I felt about my time there. I maintain a lifelong appreciation for having met them and shared in their Borneo adventure.
Too many of us live in fear. Fear extinguishes the sense of adventure that’s present within us all. Adventures enrich us, sustain us and give to us energy, positivity and power. Adventures can bring us closer to others, be they friends, loved ones or complete strangers.
So find your adventures, live them, enjoy them, remember them and share them.
