Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Neale Bayly on overcoming adversity, surviving war zones, and the joys of giving back

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Neale Bayly on overcoming adversity, surviving war zones, and the joys of giving back · The Overland Journal Podcast

0:03
Speaker 1: Well, thank you all for showing up today for the
0:06
Speaker 1: Overland Durnl Podcast. We take advantage of the Overland Expo
0:10
Speaker 1: venue to connect with amazing travelers like Neil, and it
0:15
Speaker 1: gives us a chance to record the podcast here live,
0:19
Speaker 1: and sometimes we end up with folks that also stop
0:21
Speaker 1: by and visit along the way, So there'll be some
0:24
Speaker 1: questions that we'll open up for at the end. If
0:26
Speaker 1: you guys have any questions or insights that you'd like
0:28
Speaker 1: to gain from Neil and his travels, we'll go ahead
0:31
Speaker 1: and get started. Hello and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast.
0:34
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Scott Brady, and I'm here with renowned
0:37
Speaker 1: motorcycle adventure traveler Neil Bailey. You can find him at
0:41
Speaker 1: Neil Bailey Rides and we'll talk about other places where
0:43
Speaker 1: people can find out about your stories and adventures. But
0:46
Speaker 1: I want to thank you so much for taking the
0:48
Speaker 1: time today. I've followed your adventures for many years and
0:52
Speaker 1: I've always been so impressed with the thoughtfulness that you
0:57
Speaker 1: bring to the things that you do. And even before
1:00
Speaker 1: we hit record, you were telling me about how you
1:03
Speaker 1: navigated the changes that came to your life from COVID,
1:07
Speaker 1: So thank you again for.
1:08
Speaker 2: Being on the podcast. Oh no, thank you for having
1:10
Speaker 2: me this pleasure.
1:11
Speaker 1: And a quick break from our podcast to talk about
1:14
Speaker 1: what makes this podcast possible. That's because of the Overland
1:18
Speaker 1: Journal print publication, and the Expedition Portal dot com website,
1:23
Speaker 1: but also because of our YouTube channel. If you go
1:26
Speaker 1: onto YouTube and you search for Expedition Portal, you'll not
1:30
Speaker 1: only see these weekly podcast interviews, but you'll also be
1:34
Speaker 1: able to check out all the other content that we produce,
1:37
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1:42
Speaker 1: can also see us evaluate different vehicles for whel drives
1:45
Speaker 1: and motorcycles and campers and trailers. You can also see
1:50
Speaker 1: our equipment reviews as well on individual overland gear. So
1:55
Speaker 1: check out the Expedition Portal dot com YouTube channel. Thanks.
2:00
Speaker 1: Let's do the deed dive right into that, because I
2:02
Speaker 1: found that that's so interesting. We all kind of we
2:05
Speaker 1: were in all kinds of different places in the world.
2:08
Speaker 1: I was somewhere in Africa, I think I was in
2:10
Speaker 1: Swaziland when it was all shutting down, and you mentioned
2:14
Speaker 1: that you kind of woke up one day and everything
2:18
Speaker 1: had changed. So talk about how that felt for you
2:23
Speaker 1: as an adventurer who's used to being able to go
2:25
Speaker 1: off to any far flowing corner of the planet. How
2:29
Speaker 1: did that change feel for you?
2:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd been in Kenya, Tanzania sounds about what we did,
2:35
Speaker 2: a hiking trip to matt Kenya. I'd come back and
2:39
Speaker 2: was just head down us up, getting ready to head
2:42
Speaker 2: back to Peru. Not only was it getting ready to
2:44
Speaker 2: head back to Peru, but I had finally decided I
2:47
Speaker 2: was going to get a bit more professional about work.
2:50
Speaker 2: And I was working with a web editor and somebody
2:53
Speaker 2: who's actually laying at my tour itiner. He's other than
2:56
Speaker 2: this scratched on a piece of paper and hey, want
2:58
Speaker 2: to come with us, let's go. So I was im
3:01
Speaker 2: I was pouring money and resources into trying to make
3:04
Speaker 2: these trips a bit more professional, and buying ads and
3:07
Speaker 2: building websites and do amal stuff that's responsible people are
3:10
Speaker 2: supposed to do. And COVID hit and I was like, okay,
3:14
Speaker 2: that's it.
3:14
Speaker 1: So broke.
3:15
Speaker 2: No money, no tours, no speaking arrangements, no one wants
3:18
Speaker 2: to buy anything. So the first couple of weeks were
3:21
Speaker 2: just spent wandering around staring at the sky. It's pretty
3:26
Speaker 2: crazy when you like, no income, no way of earning
3:30
Speaker 2: a living. You know, yeah, it was crazy.
3:32
Speaker 1: You've spent so much of your life as a traveler,
3:35
Speaker 1: which means that you live as a minimalist to begin with.
3:38
Speaker 1: So there's not much that you can cut when you're
3:41
Speaker 1: already living as a minimalist. So how did you how
3:44
Speaker 1: did you adjust mentally? Like what was what was that
3:48
Speaker 1: transition for you from realizing things aren't going well too,
3:52
Speaker 1: I'm going to find a new path? What was that
3:54
Speaker 1: transition for you?
3:56
Speaker 2: I don't know, there's a conscious decision. I mean, like
3:57
Speaker 2: you said, when you're a traveler, you're always used to
4:00
Speaker 2: nothing ever goes the way it's supposed to see you
4:03
Speaker 2: always having to have another plan. So I had run
4:08
Speaker 2: out of skill on my racetrack bike at one point
4:11
Speaker 2: a couple of years earlier, and just wadded this thing
4:13
Speaker 2: up pretty badly and stuffed it in the corner. So
4:15
Speaker 2: I thought, well, you know, I could always pull it
4:18
Speaker 2: to bits and fix it and sell it. Right, it's
4:21
Speaker 2: got to be worth something. So really, for a couple
4:24
Speaker 2: of weeks, I sat in the garage with a bag
4:26
Speaker 2: of sandpaper and some bondo and some glue, just standing
4:30
Speaker 2: body panels and figuring if I could put this thing
4:32
Speaker 2: back together, at least it would it would I could
4:35
Speaker 2: earn some money and pay the bills. And then I
4:37
Speaker 2: cleaned all my other bikes up and started going through
4:39
Speaker 2: stuff I could sell. And then one thing led to
4:42
Speaker 2: the other and I had a couple of gigs, came in,
4:44
Speaker 2: photography stuff, you know, just scratching around as usual, and
4:48
Speaker 2: then the bike project turned into a bike project. Somebody
4:51
Speaker 2: I'll paint it, someone sell, do some graphics, someone sell
4:53
Speaker 2: by a story, and slowly I just started going. And
4:57
Speaker 2: then I set up a YouTube studio, tried to think,
5:00
Speaker 2: see what, let's do a YouTube channel. Then I decided
5:02
Speaker 2: to pull my whole vintage bike out and see if
5:04
Speaker 2: we could start making a project on that. And one
5:07
Speaker 2: of my magazine editors said, hey, I'll buy a couple
5:10
Speaker 2: of stories about that. So on we went and it
5:13
Speaker 2: was just, you know, it was just complete dumb luck.
5:15
Speaker 2: And the crazy part about the way my life works
5:17
Speaker 2: is the story for the vintage bike ended up going
5:23
Speaker 2: on the Revzila website. It ended up on a Facebook
5:26
Speaker 2: page in England, and somebody I hadn't seen in twenty
5:31
Speaker 2: five years found it send it to another buddy of
5:34
Speaker 2: mine who I hadn't seen in twenty six years, and
5:37
Speaker 2: the last time i'd seen him had been in Romania.
5:39
Speaker 2: I was on a moorcycle trip and he was running
5:42
Speaker 2: casinos for a Turkish gangster o of Istanbul as people
5:46
Speaker 2: do you know? And then all I really knew was
5:47
Speaker 2: he'd been kidnapped by the Russians and he was riding
5:50
Speaker 2: high power jacats in Italy and I didn't know very
5:52
Speaker 2: much about him at all, and he tracked me down
5:55
Speaker 2: and somehow he'd ended up becoming the royal photographer for
5:58
Speaker 2: the King of Shaja. As you do right now. This
6:01
Speaker 2: is a guy I used to drop acid and steals
6:03
Speaker 2: with when we were kids. And he used to ride
6:05
Speaker 2: on that mod site.
6:06
Speaker 1: The one that you were restoring.
6:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, he used to ride on the back of when
6:10
Speaker 2: we were kids. I mean it was fast, it was
6:13
Speaker 2: good for good for drug deals. You can get away, right.
6:16
Speaker 1: So he calls you.
6:17
Speaker 2: And goes, hey, do you want to come out to
6:18
Speaker 2: the Middle East and do some media for me? And
6:21
Speaker 2: you know, I was like, that's a paycheck, I'll go.
6:23
Speaker 2: So somehow you survive, right.
6:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, you kind of opened yourself up to all the
6:28
Speaker 1: possibilities and one of the ones that you mentioned was
6:32
Speaker 1: that you picked up riding a bicycle.
6:34
Speaker 2: Again, I was always riding bicycles because I really got
6:36
Speaker 2: into it.
6:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, so tell me how that experience was. Were you
6:40
Speaker 1: doing touring off the bike or you were just trying
6:42
Speaker 1: to get really fit or what was just a bit both. Yeah.
6:45
Speaker 2: I started riding with this guy and we started doing
6:47
Speaker 2: these things. And he turned around to me when he goes, yeah,
6:50
Speaker 2: we do this ride every year. We ride two hundred
6:51
Speaker 2: miles in a day. I'm like, miles and down a bicycle.
6:54
Speaker 2: You gotta be out your mind, right, And he said,
6:56
Speaker 2: so he is out of his mind. So I said, well,
6:58
Speaker 2: it seems like something to do. So that me months
7:00
Speaker 2: of training. I just you sitting on a bicycle every day,
7:03
Speaker 2: just beat myself. And then one day I got on
7:05
Speaker 2: a bike and I rode two hundred miles and fifteen hours.
7:08
Speaker 2: So it's okay, we've done that, so now we need
7:10
Speaker 2: to do something else. So something always happens.
7:13
Speaker 1: Right, And it would you say that that is that
7:17
Speaker 1: is what inspires you to do these things. Is it's
7:20
Speaker 1: it's difficult, it challenges you, and it exposes you to
7:23
Speaker 1: a new experience.
7:24
Speaker 2: You've if you're not. People think that cycling is a
7:27
Speaker 2: physical activity. It's a mental activity. It's understanding your mind
7:31
Speaker 2: when your mind wants to quit and you need to
7:33
Speaker 2: go or you're out somewhere. One of my best cycling
7:38
Speaker 2: experiences was I just completely imploded coming off a mountain
7:41
Speaker 2: one time, no cell signal, no water, no food, getting dark,
7:46
Speaker 2: miles from anywhere, completely cramping up and not able to move,
7:49
Speaker 2: and suddenly that joy comes where you just realize you're
7:52
Speaker 2: so right, and somehow you figure it out and you
7:56
Speaker 2: get on your bicycle and you get out of it.
7:58
Speaker 2: So I think it's always been like that for me.
8:00
Speaker 2: It's probably the same for you.
8:02
Speaker 1: You get it in many of those ways. I mean
8:04
Speaker 1: I did used to do triathlons, and I look back
8:06
Speaker 1: and I thought I was really quite the masochist I was.
8:09
Speaker 2: It's not physical.
8:11
Speaker 1: I enjoyed the challenge of overcoming life.
8:13
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, because it's always you against you. It's not
8:15
Speaker 2: the thing you do.
8:17
Speaker 1: And that's certainly the healthiest way to go about it,
8:19
Speaker 1: is challenging yourself against yourself. When you make it too
8:22
Speaker 1: competitive with others, I think you lose the script.
8:24
Speaker 2: We'll always lose what I.
8:28
Speaker 1: It was the same for me. So let's start earlier on.
8:31
Speaker 1: Let's start maybe right before using the motorcycles for getting
8:35
Speaker 1: away from the drug deals. Where did you grow up
8:38
Speaker 1: in the world.
8:39
Speaker 2: Griven Southern England, in Devonshire, and we were all products
8:44
Speaker 2: of Margaret Thatcher's England. So fifteen percent unemployment nationally, which
8:50
Speaker 2: if you think about it, doesn't blanket a country of
8:53
Speaker 2: fifteen percent unemployment. Fifty percent unemployment here you have ten
8:57
Speaker 2: over here's sixty over there, three over there. So our
9:00
Speaker 2: town was really depressed and there was no work and
9:03
Speaker 2: so you basically ended up with a lot of really
9:06
Speaker 2: energyetic young kids with bright minds with nothing to do.
9:10
Speaker 2: So because that's we did things.
9:12
Speaker 1: You found a way to be industrious.
9:14
Speaker 2: Yeah you had to, and you know, so yeah, we
9:17
Speaker 2: just we just did what we did to get by really,
9:21
Speaker 2: because I mean, I mean I came, I scratched together
9:23
Speaker 2: some money, got on my hand and went twenty five.
9:25
Speaker 2: Incided my friend and I were going to go around
9:27
Speaker 2: the world. So we got on all the one twenty
9:29
Speaker 2: five and we went to the Channel Islands because it
9:31
Speaker 2: was work there and I remember there was a copper
9:34
Speaker 2: on the thing goes if you've come here looking for work, lads,
9:36
Speaker 2: it goes you'll drink all your money in a week
9:38
Speaker 2: and go home. So thankfully we did it in a
9:40
Speaker 2: week and we were home hungover with no money. It
9:43
Speaker 2: didn't work, and I came back and thought I better
9:45
Speaker 2: get some game from employment, and I went for a
9:47
Speaker 2: job at a petrol station. It was part time job,
9:50
Speaker 2: twenty six hours a week, and there was a line
9:53
Speaker 2: around the corner and out of the door, and I
9:55
Speaker 2: just gave the lady and the thing a bit of
9:57
Speaker 2: lip service on the way, and she remembered me and
9:59
Speaker 2: gave the job, and I was able to get a
10:01
Speaker 2: part time job. It was that hard because people say, oh,
10:04
Speaker 2: you can always get a job. I mean you couldn't,
10:06
Speaker 2: so you know, we have to collect unemployment put roofs on.
10:09
Speaker 2: I mean, you're always just on the hustle to get
10:11
Speaker 2: something together. It was. It was a very hard time
10:14
Speaker 2: for this for my society.
10:16
Speaker 1: And what did you learn about yourself through that process
10:19
Speaker 1: of not being able, I mean, not being able to
10:21
Speaker 1: get a job would be much.
10:22
Speaker 2: I loved taking drugs.
10:23
Speaker 1: It was great. Yeah.
10:25
Speaker 2: It's funny how everybody's always in rehab and moaning and complaining.
10:28
Speaker 2: I mean, I haven't done drugs in decades, but you
10:30
Speaker 2: know what, it's such a good time. It was fantastic.
10:33
Speaker 1: You made the best of the situation exactly.
10:36
Speaker 2: I mean, it was going to work when you can
10:37
Speaker 2: get high all day, right, It all just seemed a
10:39
Speaker 2: bit crazy.
10:40
Speaker 1: So eventually that adventure led to you starting to travel,
10:44
Speaker 1: so you just yeah.
10:45
Speaker 2: So I finally scratched some money together and got to America, okay,
10:48
Speaker 2: and I hitchhiked around America, New York to Quebec, Quebec
10:52
Speaker 2: Rocky Mountains, bought a car, drove down the West coast,
10:56
Speaker 2: and sold the car and watts That was exciting. Hitchhiked
11:00
Speaker 2: ended up in all I'd say, who has on this podcast?
11:03
Speaker 2: But it was a place where ladies go to do things,
11:05
Speaker 2: so we went.
11:06
Speaker 1: You already said, whoor house.
11:09
Speaker 2: It was purely a cultural visit to see how it works, right,
11:11
Speaker 2: And from San Diego to Miami, then to Bradenton, and
11:15
Speaker 2: then I got a job working putting roofs on and
11:18
Speaker 2: I had a fairly ambitious roommate and his goal was
11:21
Speaker 2: to rob a bank. So a couple of days before
11:25
Speaker 2: the robbery, I thought it might be wise to leave
11:27
Speaker 2: the country. So I left the country, flew to Belize.
11:32
Speaker 2: Good choice, yeah, it was. It was sorry, and then
11:34
Speaker 2: got to sudden Belize and it was like, you know,
11:36
Speaker 2: let's move on here. Ended up in quit a mile
11:38
Speaker 2: And of course it was during the time period of
11:40
Speaker 2: Sundays the Contral. What was going on so Central America
11:43
Speaker 2: at that point was quite crazy.
11:45
Speaker 1: And it goes in and out of that. Still today
11:47
Speaker 1: it's still not sa place. Yeah, So that was my
11:50
Speaker 1: travel life really kicked off. No motorcycles at that point
11:53
Speaker 1: because I was too poor. We're backpacking or whatever, packing buses.
11:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, whatever, whatever method you could.
12:00
Speaker 1: Well, and what an interesting way to start your travels
12:02
Speaker 1: because it's set the stage for you being able to
12:06
Speaker 1: travel by any means. Well.
12:07
Speaker 2: I had already hitchhiked around Europe a couple of times
12:09
Speaker 2: as a teenager, you know, just got got on the boat,
12:13
Speaker 2: got to France and disappeared for a couple of months
12:15
Speaker 2: of the backpack, which when I think back in it now,
12:17
Speaker 2: you imagine how parents are always taking their kids on
12:20
Speaker 2: the phone.
12:20
Speaker 1: I oh, by mother, I'm leaving.
12:22
Speaker 2: You know that two three months, lady, you'd show up
12:25
Speaker 2: looking anemic.
12:25
Speaker 1: And maybe you sent a couple of postcards. Maybe if
12:29
Speaker 1: you were luckier, Yeah, for sure.
12:31
Speaker 2: So I'd already done the hitchhiking in Europe when I
12:33
Speaker 2: got to America.
12:34
Speaker 1: And then when did motorcycles begin to be a part
12:38
Speaker 1: of your travels?
12:40
Speaker 2: They had always been in it. So I'd sold a
12:42
Speaker 2: motorcycle to go to London to work. Really, it was
12:46
Speaker 2: quite interesting how it got my charity work going, because
12:49
Speaker 2: I had gone and volunteered in school for abandoned and
12:53
Speaker 2: emotions to children, and I worked for seven months. It
12:56
Speaker 2: was like a full time house parent gig, and I
12:59
Speaker 2: brought them cycle for that while I was there from
13:02
Speaker 2: doing gardening work and stuff. So I sold. So I
13:04
Speaker 2: sold the one most cycle to get to there, and
13:06
Speaker 2: then I sold that mocycle to go to Europe's always
13:08
Speaker 2: had bikes. I always had this dream of riding on
13:11
Speaker 2: a moorcycle. And of course we were not reading Ted
13:13
Speaker 2: Simon Jupiter's Trap, Surelia Pederson Tennis on two wheels, Sure
13:17
Speaker 2: run off the ends at the end of the Earth.
13:19
Speaker 2: We had all these travel books. So we were just
13:21
Speaker 2: so broke, you know, we had to hitchhiker was the
13:24
Speaker 2: only way of getting along. Yeah.
13:26
Speaker 1: Well, and those three gentlemen that you just mentioned are iconic.
13:30
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean started a whole Yeah, I mean
13:32
Speaker 2: half of this is here because of this.
13:35
Speaker 1: No question. Yeah, they certainly inspired me as well. I mean,
13:38
Speaker 1: and you think about how much easier travel is today.
13:42
Speaker 1: The motorcycles are so much better. We never really get
13:45
Speaker 1: we never really get lost. You can connect with other
13:48
Speaker 1: travelers so easily. It's a bit of a shame.
13:50
Speaker 2: We were in the Mibio once on a ride, and
13:52
Speaker 2: you know, you're sort of going across the corrugated dusty
13:56
Speaker 2: things and low mountains and the natives, and you know
13:59
Speaker 2: these feeling like, yeah, you're feeling a bit like surrounulf
14:02
Speaker 2: old to yourself.
14:04
Speaker 1: Right.
14:04
Speaker 2: You pull over and you can hear the bikes ticking
14:07
Speaker 2: with the heat. And then there's some guy, now, honey,
14:09
Speaker 2: the trash goes out on Wednesdays. You look around, some
14:13
Speaker 2: dude talking to his missus at home on the cell phone.
14:15
Speaker 2: It's like you just remind him ever experience.
14:17
Speaker 1: Thank you. And I think that that ship is so sailed,
14:20
Speaker 1: although there are still places that we can have those
14:24
Speaker 1: kinds of experiences. Which leads me to ask you about
14:28
Speaker 1: your recent experience in the Ukraine. I followed some of
14:32
Speaker 1: your travels and I thank you for sending the little
14:34
Speaker 1: updates that you did to me as well. It gave
14:36
Speaker 1: me a real insight to what you were looking to accomplish.
14:40
Speaker 1: So share with the listeners about what made you decide
14:43
Speaker 1: to go to the Ukraine during the war with Russia
14:48
Speaker 1: in Ukraine right now, and what were your goals while
14:51
Speaker 1: you were there, and what did you learn about yourself
14:54
Speaker 1: and that conflict.
14:55
Speaker 2: I mean, the bank story really is. I started my foundation,
14:58
Speaker 2: Wellspring International Letterach in two thousand and eight and it
15:02
Speaker 2: was with a goal to raise money for the Underserve
15:05
Speaker 2: thebanon Children around the world. So our main project was
15:07
Speaker 2: in Peru. We've done projects in Kenya and in South Africa,
15:11
Speaker 2: and it's really about raising money for kids. And then
15:13
Speaker 2: by twenty thirteen, when I did my big TV show
15:16
Speaker 2: Neil Bailey Rides, it was an idea of Malga mating
15:19
Speaker 2: adventure moorcycle traveling with philanthropy. So rather than just them
15:22
Speaker 2: being separate things, you did to put them together so
15:25
Speaker 2: you can ride around on your moorcycle and give something back.
15:28
Speaker 2: So that was the idea. So I had this backstory
15:31
Speaker 2: of raising money and of course during Code it was
15:33
Speaker 2: very difficult to raise money, and it was difficult to
15:36
Speaker 2: go to visit projects, and back to my knit with
15:39
Speaker 2: mate who ended up running the world's biggest photography exhibition
15:43
Speaker 2: in Shaja. He invited me out on two occasions to
15:47
Speaker 2: do the media. So suddenly I'm with Steve McCurry, who
15:51
Speaker 2: photographed Afghan Girl, James Knackaway, I mean, this is you know,
15:56
Speaker 2: Mahmed Mahost and two Temple of Surprise, when Chris Rhine Princeton,
16:01
Speaker 2: I mean Claire Thomas, who did this amazing work in Iraq,
16:04
Speaker 2: And I'm around a lot of conflict photographers, and it
16:07
Speaker 2: just starts to get your mind thinking in a different direction.
16:10
Speaker 2: And maybe I always looked at raising money for orphans
16:13
Speaker 2: and abandoned kids. I hadn't thought a lot about war.
16:15
Speaker 2: It had been decades since I'd been through a war.
16:18
Speaker 2: And Karen Ridley was one of the gentlemen that I
16:21
Speaker 2: met and interviewed at Exposure, and we got on really,
16:24
Speaker 2: really well. And of course this year, as we were
16:28
Speaker 2: leaving Exposure, the war was just getting ready to kick off.
16:32
Speaker 2: So a lot of the people I was at dinner with,
16:35
Speaker 2: James Knackaway, Paula Ronstein, Haidi, Levine, Jana and all of
16:39
Speaker 2: these people you've probably seen on CNN and Fox and
16:42
Speaker 2: different channels from inside the Graine. They were all getting
16:46
Speaker 2: ready to tool up to go to Ukraine. Some are
16:49
Speaker 2: going to Afghanistans. It was very much in my mind.
16:51
Speaker 2: And then a few days after the war broke out,
16:55
Speaker 2: Kieran called me from Leviv and he was writing old
16:59
Speaker 2: Chinese motorcycle. It was really unreliable and there was thirty
17:03
Speaker 2: kilometers along the lines of refugees trying to get out.
17:06
Speaker 2: So he figured out that with mocycle he could get
17:09
Speaker 2: past the lines and do some of the work that
17:13
Speaker 2: you've seen. And I'm really proud to announce he has
17:16
Speaker 2: actually just won a World award for his photography. It's
17:19
Speaker 2: Gala Pullock's Award for his pro democracy work in Hong Kong,
17:24
Speaker 2: some of the stuff that he's done in the Parish riots,
17:26
Speaker 2: but predominantly for Ukraine. So it's really really a big
17:30
Speaker 2: I don't know, feel really good about that the trip
17:33
Speaker 2: we took and abled him to get award winning work,
17:36
Speaker 2: which I think makes it more powerful for us. But
17:39
Speaker 2: back to Kieran, so he's you know, he's having bike
17:41
Speaker 2: trolls that he's getting hustled at the checkpoints because everybody's
17:45
Speaker 2: just on tender hooks, you know, Is he a spy?
17:48
Speaker 2: They're going through his memory cards. I mean, they're shaking
17:50
Speaker 2: him down. It's freezing cold, they're killing journalists. His wife's
17:54
Speaker 2: giving him in the ear. He's got six month old twins.
17:57
Speaker 2: And I just got off the phone with him, and
17:59
Speaker 2: I'm just like, you know, everybody has an opinion about
18:02
Speaker 2: the war, right, and their opinions are from their chair, right,
18:08
Speaker 2: what about the people actually they're doing it, you know?
18:10
Speaker 2: And I know these people. I'd met that, these people,
18:12
Speaker 2: and I was just like to go and I've got
18:15
Speaker 2: to go and see what they're doing and why are
18:17
Speaker 2: they doing it, you know, and just see what's actually happening.
18:21
Speaker 2: And that was just it was such a quick decision,
18:23
Speaker 2: and I said, hey, Kerin, I'll get some bikes, let's
18:25
Speaker 2: go back, let's tell these stories. And then that developed
18:29
Speaker 2: into a saying, well, look, there's a lot of lot
18:31
Speaker 2: of stories about the destruction and the violence and the
18:34
Speaker 2: bombing and death and destruction, But what else is going
18:38
Speaker 2: on side Ukraine? What can we find maybe that's a
18:41
Speaker 2: little different, So that as Western media gets bored and
18:45
Speaker 2: it can stale to keep watching people being blown up.
18:48
Speaker 2: We can just maybe keep things going.
18:50
Speaker 1: A bit well, and that's one of the biggest challenges
18:52
Speaker 1: is making sure that that fight that they're in for
18:55
Speaker 1: their lives and their country remains top of mind, so
18:59
Speaker 1: that continue to put pressure on politicians to support their efforts.
19:03
Speaker 1: The intention, of course, is not to be political in
19:05
Speaker 1: that statement. It's just the reality of the fact that
19:07
Speaker 1: there's a war in Ukraine that they didn't ask for
19:10
Speaker 1: and they need our help in everyone's help that can
19:13
Speaker 1: provide it.
19:13
Speaker 2: It is hard to understand why it could be when
19:16
Speaker 2: you've watched when you see what's happening there, like, how
19:19
Speaker 2: can you how can you look at this and have
19:22
Speaker 2: if my ideas placed on political opinion, this is humanity,
19:26
Speaker 2: this is humans. This is what's happening.
19:28
Speaker 1: And that I think it because it is a human issue.
19:31
Speaker 1: There's going to be humans with other intentions that are
19:33
Speaker 1: going to try to influence the opinions of others through
19:36
Speaker 1: all kinds of means that are effective and not effective.
19:39
Speaker 1: But we see it around social media, trying to shape
19:42
Speaker 1: people's views of this. But I appreciate you being there
19:45
Speaker 1: and I think that the reason why it's relevant to
19:47
Speaker 1: the podcast and it's relevant to travel is that we
19:51
Speaker 1: can end up in these areas we can and you
19:55
Speaker 1: may have some stories to share. I'll share one quickly.
19:59
Speaker 1: But I was trying to go from Tadjikistan into Kyrgyzstan
20:02
Speaker 1: and the border was closed, and I find out the
20:05
Speaker 1: borders closed because there's a conflict in the south of
20:07
Speaker 1: the country and it took me days to finally get
20:10
Speaker 1: in there and I and I spoke with folks in
20:13
Speaker 1: the US that had some good answers for me, but
20:16
Speaker 1: it was so isolated to this one area that we
20:20
Speaker 1: just went around it and the gas stations were still open,
20:23
Speaker 1: the restaurants, I mean, the country was running, but this
20:27
Speaker 1: at the end of the Fargana Valley, it was a
20:29
Speaker 1: it was a war going on. And oftentimes as travelers,
20:33
Speaker 1: we can get ourselves into these conflict zones or even
20:38
Speaker 1: war torn countries unintentionally or something kicks off when we're there.
20:42
Speaker 1: It's just a good idea to get as much information
20:45
Speaker 1: as you can and find out where it is safe,
20:47
Speaker 1: because the entire country doesn't doesn't happen all at once,
20:52
Speaker 1: and there are safe places to go and there are
20:55
Speaker 1: channels of communication that you can use to get out
20:57
Speaker 1: safely even with your vehicle. Where have you traveled, where
21:01
Speaker 1: you've encountered that kind of situation and how did you
21:04
Speaker 1: handle that yourself?
21:05
Speaker 2: Well, just Central and South America when I was a
21:08
Speaker 2: kidding the Sunnist Contral War, that was I just local
21:12
Speaker 2: knowledge gets you there. I mean there was times I
21:13
Speaker 2: was in the wrong place and just got lucky, and
21:16
Speaker 2: I think when you're young and dumb, you don't think
21:18
Speaker 2: about it. Sure, And then I got myself into a
21:20
Speaker 2: bit of trouble with the Turkish and the Kurds in
21:22
Speaker 2: eastern Turkey, and a few times just getting in over
21:26
Speaker 2: my head and being in the wrong places and maybe
21:27
Speaker 2: just dumb luck got me out of that. And then
21:30
Speaker 2: finally moved moved further west and go away from it.
21:33
Speaker 2: And then this was the first, I think intentional time
21:35
Speaker 2: that I went to cover something.
21:37
Speaker 1: And what did you Because you've you've put so much
21:40
Speaker 1: effort through well Spring to support these abandoned and ad
21:45
Speaker 1: need children, which I'm sure has changed you as a
21:48
Speaker 1: person in so many ways, and I'd love to hear
21:50
Speaker 1: you speak to that. But also I'd like to know
21:53
Speaker 1: how going to the war in Ukraine and experiencing it
21:56
Speaker 1: firsthand changed your view about yourself or other? What did
22:00
Speaker 1: you learn from that experience?
22:02
Speaker 2: And that's a good question.
22:02
Speaker 1: I don't know.
22:03
Speaker 2: It just I want to do more of the same.
22:05
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't you know, I don't have that
22:08
Speaker 2: long left on planet Earth. I've had a big chunk
22:10
Speaker 2: of the years and I've got to do something with them.
22:13
Speaker 2: And I've had everything. What do I need? I mean,
22:16
Speaker 2: I don't need anymore. But if I can use my
22:18
Speaker 2: time to help people that need something, then that will
22:20
Speaker 2: mean something to me and certainly to them. Yeah, And
22:24
Speaker 2: you know, the people are just so amazing and so incredible.
22:27
Speaker 2: I think that I think, you know, you get so
22:29
Speaker 2: much from that when you see what they're going through
22:32
Speaker 2: and you see how stoic they are and how hard
22:34
Speaker 2: they're working, and how much they appreciate. They're very, very
22:36
Speaker 2: appreciative of Western arms and munitions and aid. I mean,
22:40
Speaker 2: I really appreciative and thank you every day for what
22:43
Speaker 2: the American people are doing and what the British people
22:45
Speaker 2: in European people are doing. So yea, absolutely, Yeah. It
22:48
Speaker 2: was just I mean for me, it was just more
22:50
Speaker 2: of the same and really just I hate to say
22:52
Speaker 2: it's a fantastic experience. It was a fantastic experience just
22:55
Speaker 2: to to to see what people are doing and seeing
22:58
Speaker 2: how they survive. And then you just to be driving
23:02
Speaker 2: down the road and you're going past just destroy properties
23:08
Speaker 2: and buildings, and you know, you smell it. Obviously, I'm
23:11
Speaker 2: sure people have been in war zones would be able
23:14
Speaker 2: to relate the smell of everything, you know, and then
23:17
Speaker 2: suddenly there's a house and there's old lady putting flowers out,
23:20
Speaker 2: and there's a guy painting the stewpad side, and it's
23:23
Speaker 2: almost like the Ukrainians saying, nope, we're going forward to you.
23:27
Speaker 2: We're cleaning up, We're on it. And even when you
23:29
Speaker 2: would go in after a missile strike, within hours they're
23:33
Speaker 2: cleaning up. Everything's getting cleaned up. It's like we're not
23:35
Speaker 2: going to let this sit. We're going to get in
23:37
Speaker 2: here and do the best we can.
23:38
Speaker 1: So incredible to see their resolve. So let's talk a
23:42
Speaker 1: little bit about Wellspring, because I think it's really important
23:46
Speaker 1: to know how I can help, how Overland Journal and
23:50
Speaker 1: Expedition Portal can help, and then how our audience can
23:53
Speaker 1: help support what you're doing with these kids.
23:57
Speaker 2: We chose to support the children's hospital and Leviv because
24:02
Speaker 2: we've always done children and we had a good connection.
24:04
Speaker 2: Kieran had gone in there for I think it's the
24:06
Speaker 2: Daily Mail. He'd done a big story a little girl
24:09
Speaker 2: called Sophia, and yeah, she had the top of her
24:12
Speaker 2: head blown off with shrapnel and the shrapnel went through
24:15
Speaker 2: her head and down her brain and left it pretty
24:17
Speaker 2: messed up. And somehow and the most likely they got
24:19
Speaker 2: a right, they got a Liviv. The problem with the
24:21
Speaker 2: Huspital Leviv is they don't know how to deal with
24:25
Speaker 2: children who are victims of war, like they're not set
24:28
Speaker 2: up to do with amputations, bullet wounds, shrapnel wounds, burned,
24:33
Speaker 2: the things that maybe some places that were used to
24:35
Speaker 2: soldiers coming in like that, who trains pediatricians to work
24:39
Speaker 2: on those things in children. So they're suffering greatly with
24:42
Speaker 2: the inability to deal with the injuries that the children have.
24:46
Speaker 2: So they're bringing surgeons in from around the world to
24:49
Speaker 2: kind of audit and sit in and they watch them
24:51
Speaker 2: do surgeries. So we just figured that's got to be
24:53
Speaker 2: our place, you know, to put our limited amount of
24:57
Speaker 2: money we can raise. So if anyone wants to donate
24:59
Speaker 2: to us. It's all just going to go straight to them.
25:02
Speaker 1: So how do they how do our listeners or the
25:05
Speaker 1: people that.
25:05
Speaker 2: Arest well Spring Wellspring dash outreach dot org.
25:09
Speaker 1: Okay, Wellspring dash outreach dot org.
25:12
Speaker 2: Gee. Yeah, And we have a donate button. You can
25:14
Speaker 2: donate monthly or you can do a big, big donation.
25:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course. It's really it's really important that we
25:21
Speaker 1: all find a way to help. I'm really proud of
25:24
Speaker 1: the work that you're doing, and I think it's it's
25:26
Speaker 1: so important that as an industry, as an overland industry,
25:30
Speaker 1: that we continue to look for ways to use our
25:32
Speaker 1: skills and our talents, our audiences and our resources to
25:37
Speaker 1: make a difference for the people that we encounter along
25:40
Speaker 1: our travels.
25:41
Speaker 2: And I think that was for us. I mean it's
25:42
Speaker 2: like I'm a mecycle journalist. I mean I've done stories
25:45
Speaker 2: for Feam magazine and thank you for that. It's like,
25:48
Speaker 2: you know, I was able to get bikes. BMW gave
25:50
Speaker 2: us some bikes, which I thought, actually, on hindsight, that
25:53
Speaker 2: was pretty good to them. It's like, we get a
25:55
Speaker 2: couple of bikes, We're going to Ukraine. You got a
25:57
Speaker 2: problem here, you go you know, just please bring them back, right.
26:00
Speaker 2: I just imagine calling, Oh, really, you're never going to
26:05
Speaker 2: believe sorry to say I've got the handle bars, you know,
26:10
Speaker 2: and then you Revick gave us some gear and a ride,
26:12
Speaker 2: gave us some helmets, and that was a real help.
26:15
Speaker 2: And so I just thought, as a motorcycle journalist, you know,
26:17
Speaker 2: that's what we can do in our space. And you know,
26:20
Speaker 2: we met people are the medical people, you know, builders.
26:24
Speaker 2: I mean, I think we just have to do what
26:25
Speaker 2: we can do. Sure, so, and I figured that if
26:28
Speaker 2: we were able to this is exactly what I had
26:30
Speaker 2: envisaged going in, was that we would be able to
26:33
Speaker 2: talk to different audiences, like we're most cyclists and travelers,
26:37
Speaker 2: where maybe the news is very focused on sort of
26:40
Speaker 2: destruction and whatever. Not saying anything wrong with that, but
26:45
Speaker 2: it's like this gave us a more unique opportunity from
26:48
Speaker 2: one of us, so to speak, being in there giving
26:51
Speaker 2: a report what we found. And we did really really
26:54
Speaker 2: I thought it was fantastic. So we went into a
26:56
Speaker 2: seventies era coal mine and nothing changed since the seventies,
27:02
Speaker 2: and you know, writing little ledges and they give you
27:05
Speaker 2: this little container and they give you this quick safety
27:07
Speaker 2: brief if this gas apparently you can last fifty minutes
27:10
Speaker 2: if you're panicking, in two hours if you stay calm.
27:13
Speaker 1: Oh wow, you know that's true in most things of life,
27:16
Speaker 1: Like okay.
27:17
Speaker 2: We stick this in here, and they gave us a
27:18
Speaker 2: little light and off we went down the mine. But
27:20
Speaker 2: the thing is a really important story because with Russians
27:23
Speaker 2: taking up at on Mats, they've got most of the
27:25
Speaker 2: coal and the western Leviv region has a lot of
27:29
Speaker 2: coal mines, and so all of these miners and everybody,
27:32
Speaker 2: they really felt that they're on the energy front. They're
27:34
Speaker 2: fighting the war, and they have limited capacity because a
27:37
Speaker 2: lot of the miners are away at the front. They've
27:39
Speaker 2: lost a lot of miners. They have pictures for the
27:41
Speaker 2: ones that haven't made it. So that's their way of
27:44
Speaker 2: fighting the war. So I think it was a relevant
27:46
Speaker 2: story that you might not think about. And then we
27:48
Speaker 2: spend a data and they're coining therapy center with amputees,
27:52
Speaker 2: all young men that have just lost limbs, one on
27:55
Speaker 2: Daniel four weeks earlier, you know, So they're just off
27:58
Speaker 2: the front line. Es sasuredly runs her husband was actually
28:01
Speaker 2: on the front line. He suffers badly from PTSD, from
28:05
Speaker 2: other periods of time during the war. You know, she
28:07
Speaker 2: noticed how much the horses were helping Son't isn't that?
28:11
Speaker 1: Isn't it? Dogs and horses are the only two emotional
28:14
Speaker 1: support animals, I think so certainly not cats.
28:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's really fantastic. And the stories that we
28:22
Speaker 2: heard and you know, again I haven't been home long
28:24
Speaker 2: enough and sat long enough to really dig in like
28:26
Speaker 2: the story that you read and ride as more of it.
28:28
Speaker 2: Who we went here and went there and one of
28:29
Speaker 2: the young lads Anton he had been in Mariopold during
28:33
Speaker 2: the yeah, well the Azo steel thing, but he was
28:36
Speaker 2: on the other side. He had gone in on February
28:38
Speaker 2: the twenty fourth or twenty third, I think, and on
28:40
Speaker 2: May the eleventh he broke out with He was the
28:43
Speaker 2: commander of his group and he took a bullet in
28:45
Speaker 2: the arm because they slapped a tournique on it. Two
28:48
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty kilometers over eight days. They had to
28:51
Speaker 2: walk to get out because they were right into Donetsk,
28:54
Speaker 2: so they're in popular charity. They needed to get into
28:57
Speaker 2: Zaparizia to get back to the Ukrainian thing. And the
29:00
Speaker 2: whole time he's doing it, his arm is is dying,
29:03
Speaker 2: and so he's chained spoken because the smell is so disgusting.
29:07
Speaker 2: And then they get there and they've got to lop
29:08
Speaker 2: it off at the shoulder, and this guy led his
29:11
Speaker 2: people out. And we were just hearing stories like this
29:13
Speaker 2: every day, so these we want to tell greater length.
29:16
Speaker 2: We have photographs of them, so that these days were
29:20
Speaker 2: quite amazing. And the following day, one of the stories
29:22
Speaker 2: that was really really special to me, we went to
29:24
Speaker 2: a monastery's sixteenth century monastery. Well, the Soviets had whitewashed
29:28
Speaker 2: everything and made it a mental asylum until ninety one
29:31
Speaker 2: when they got their independence. Nineties when they got their independence.
29:34
Speaker 2: But during the Second World War they had hidden Jewish
29:37
Speaker 2: boys and there from the Holocaust. And our fixer that
29:41
Speaker 2: we were working with out Leviv had been making a
29:43
Speaker 2: recreated documentary about the lives of these three boys. And
29:47
Speaker 2: all each one of these three boys that he was
29:49
Speaker 2: working with in this recreation documentary had gone on to
29:53
Speaker 2: do something really special in the world. Members of finance
29:56
Speaker 2: of the Polish government, you know, big in banking, but
29:59
Speaker 2: all really had made a contribution in their life to
30:03
Speaker 2: the world in general. And he was right in the
30:05
Speaker 2: middle of creating this documentary about their lives when the
30:09
Speaker 2: war broke out and then we suddenly realized there was
30:11
Speaker 2: between fifty and one hundred refugees there. Yeah, and of
30:14
Speaker 2: course we couldn't say anything because we say something, they
30:16
Speaker 2: could be bombed, so we're not allowed to give out information. Which,
30:20
Speaker 2: by the way, that's the hardest thing. When you look
30:22
Speaker 2: at these little kids playing and think if you said
30:24
Speaker 2: the wrong thing, someone would bomb them. That's really you
30:28
Speaker 2: can see a lot of that does your head in. Hopefully,
30:31
Speaker 2: when the war is over and things are settled down,
30:33
Speaker 2: I think that could be this most incredible documentary to
30:36
Speaker 2: tie those two together. Eighty years apart. The monks are
30:39
Speaker 2: doing exactly the same thing as they did during the
30:41
Speaker 2: Second World War, and I think it's a story that
30:44
Speaker 2: to me, a story that could be inspiring out of
30:48
Speaker 2: a really bad situation. So we weren't just going to
30:51
Speaker 2: bomb that buildings and stuff like that.
30:53
Speaker 1: I appreciate you doing what you did. One of the
30:55
Speaker 1: things that I wanted to talk to you about. You
30:58
Speaker 1: have this to the resume as a traveler. You've been
31:02
Speaker 1: to over eighty countries. You've essentially a motorcycles around the world,
31:07
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about some things that you
31:09
Speaker 1: would you would share with a new writer that wanted
31:12
Speaker 1: to go around the world. What would you recommend them
31:15
Speaker 1: think about when they're getting ready to go out on
31:17
Speaker 1: their own journey like Neil Bailey and go around the world?
31:20
Speaker 2: Would just start small, you know, small bike yeah, small bike,
31:24
Speaker 2: small trip yeah, and go get if you wet, and
31:26
Speaker 2: come back and eat if you went, and come back
31:28
Speaker 2: and because if you don't like it, you can stop right.
31:31
Speaker 1: And you haven't invested too much money.
31:32
Speaker 2: Right, Because when my buddy and I decided to go
31:35
Speaker 2: around the world on our one twenty five and went
31:37
Speaker 2: to the Channel Islands, they put a big thing in
31:38
Speaker 2: the newspaper, you know, painting lads off to see the world,
31:42
Speaker 2: you know, home a week later with the hangovers. It's
31:46
Speaker 2: a bit embarrassing, amazing. Don't make a big fuss about it,
31:50
Speaker 2: you know.
31:51
Speaker 1: Well you eventually made that happen though, and you and you.
31:53
Speaker 2: Did, just see it took a few years, you know, yeah,
31:56
Speaker 2: and I think, don't I would turn the phone off
31:58
Speaker 2: and quit the social media and st looking for sponsorship
32:01
Speaker 2: and stops and get people to pay you to do it.
32:02
Speaker 2: I would go at get two jobs, work your ass off,
32:06
Speaker 2: save your money so you get your own money, your
32:08
Speaker 2: own bike, train yourself to stay at a restaurant, stay
32:11
Speaker 2: at a pub, is buyer secondhand, camp out and just go. Yeah,
32:15
Speaker 2: learn to sell a good story. People put you up
32:17
Speaker 2: in the house and they'll feed you and thank you
32:19
Speaker 2: for eating all the food and dirting the sheets. That's right,
32:22
Speaker 2: and just go, you know, don't make it. It doesn't
32:25
Speaker 2: have to be a TV show or an Instagram program.
32:28
Speaker 1: That's very true. And what's interesting is if you do
32:30
Speaker 1: your travels that way, when you come back, it can
32:34
Speaker 1: be much like you've made a career out of you
32:37
Speaker 1: come back now with a great story. You don't owe
32:39
Speaker 1: anybody anything, You don't have sponsorship, livery all over yourself
32:44
Speaker 1: and your motorcycle. And you can now sell these stories
32:47
Speaker 1: to magazines and to other outlets that help you recover
32:50
Speaker 1: that especially what people like with the magazine like yours.
32:52
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, subscribe to your magazine, look at
32:55
Speaker 2: the photographs and say that's the quality of work I
32:58
Speaker 2: want to do.
32:58
Speaker 1: It's the most difficult thing for us as a publication
33:01
Speaker 1: is to meet that level of quality.
33:03
Speaker 2: Fine, I mean said just all out that was something
33:06
Speaker 2: You're traveling with Kieren Kieran Ridley. You know, it's like
33:10
Speaker 2: it is insane to watch these photographers work. And I
33:12
Speaker 2: had such a fly on the wall thing, and you wonder,
33:16
Speaker 2: are they just like really lucky or do they make
33:17
Speaker 2: their live I don't know how they do it. He
33:20
Speaker 2: just seems to be able to put these ingredients together
33:23
Speaker 2: to make these award winning pictures. And we were in
33:26
Speaker 2: Urpen one day and really badly bombed out buildings, and
33:30
Speaker 2: suddenly there's a lady with a parasol breastfeeding a baby
33:33
Speaker 2: on the curb, you know, and he's in the middle
33:36
Speaker 2: of the road. So I quickly run out to stand
33:38
Speaker 2: next to him because the cars are going by. And
33:41
Speaker 2: you know, if you saw the backstore, you see the
33:43
Speaker 2: picture is so dramatic. It's this beautiful lady breastfeeding a
33:46
Speaker 2: baby with a parasol, with a completely destroyed building in
33:49
Speaker 2: the background. And I just think, to myself, how does he?
33:53
Speaker 2: I guess that's just twenty five years of finding the moment,
33:56
Speaker 2: you know, So for young kids, don't think you're going
33:58
Speaker 2: to make those pictures, but just keep shooting and set
34:02
Speaker 2: yourself a standard read National Geographic Read you on magazine
34:05
Speaker 2: follow these people and say what are they doing to
34:07
Speaker 2: make these great images?
34:08
Speaker 1: And it's the same thing for travelers. You can't expect
34:12
Speaker 1: to do your first trip and to travel in the
34:15
Speaker 1: way that you do with the open mind that you
34:17
Speaker 1: do in the experience. You know when to turn left
34:19
Speaker 1: and when to turn right, and when do you think
34:21
Speaker 1: so oftentimes oftentimes yeah, yeah, maybe you've slowed down a
34:25
Speaker 1: little bit, you know, after the accident on the racetrack.
34:29
Speaker 1: But I think that when I look at someone that's
34:31
Speaker 1: coming new to travel, it's it's just encouraging them to
34:36
Speaker 1: continue to experiment and continue to learn, because it will
34:39
Speaker 1: come with time and you'll feel a lot more confident
34:42
Speaker 1: and then you're going to be willing to have that
34:44
Speaker 1: conversation with the local on the street. You're going to
34:46
Speaker 1: be comfortable going on.
34:47
Speaker 2: That takes confidence to spokenos in. And what was really
34:50
Speaker 2: interesting with Kieran is like, I like face shots, and
34:53
Speaker 2: I do galleries and have done magazines where I really
34:56
Speaker 2: like but I tend to use a long lens when
34:58
Speaker 2: I'm doing people's face. He always shoots wide angle and
35:03
Speaker 2: fix Andre we were talking about him the other day,
35:07
Speaker 2: so he's always like absolutely up in people's face. He
35:11
Speaker 2: can't be back here for the stuff because he shoots
35:14
Speaker 2: shoots the sixteen to thirty five and seventy to twenty
35:17
Speaker 2: four to seventy longest lends he's got seventy. It doesn't
35:20
Speaker 2: carry anymore, right, And suddenly he gets up there. He's
35:24
Speaker 2: shooting away right because he shoots multiple frames and it's
35:27
Speaker 2: like they suddenly become hypnotized. I don't know what he
35:29
Speaker 2: does them, he just hypnotizes them and they just stand
35:32
Speaker 2: there and do everything he wants. And twenty minutes later,
35:34
Speaker 2: like is he going to stop here? But that's what
35:37
Speaker 2: he does. It's really and that I think is like
35:40
Speaker 2: that's decades of and how he moves and I don't know,
35:44
Speaker 2: like when he's walking through something, he's not pushing any air.
35:48
Speaker 2: He just has a way of moving through things that's
35:50
Speaker 2: not like most people walk through I don't know. It
35:53
Speaker 2: was really interesting to study him creating these images.
35:56
Speaker 1: And it probably helps him disarm people a little bit
35:59
Speaker 1: where they're not so concerned or they're not taking on
36:03
Speaker 1: a different explish.
36:04
Speaker 2: And even people that didn't want to be photographed, yeah sure,
36:07
Speaker 2: you know, I mean they didn't want to be photographed
36:09
Speaker 2: and now they do you know, because I think about
36:11
Speaker 2: having GM's, you've had your camera and someone's like throwing
36:13
Speaker 2: a rock at you telling you.
36:14
Speaker 1: To get at well, it is always a good idea
36:16
Speaker 1: to make sure that you're getting people's permissions, you know,
36:19
Speaker 1: just like we wouldn't want to be sitting in a
36:21
Speaker 1: restaurant and someone walk up and start taking photographs of
36:24
Speaker 1: us at a table. It's a good idea. In fact,
36:26
Speaker 1: it's critical as travelers that we that we do ask
36:29
Speaker 1: for permission. Maybe a journalist in that scenario it's a
36:32
Speaker 1: little different, but since where they're recreating. As travelers, we
36:35
Speaker 1: need to make sure that we're asking people for their
36:38
Speaker 1: permission to take a photograph. One of the things that
36:41
Speaker 1: we love to ask in the podcast is and this
36:44
Speaker 1: is a selfish question because I love to read so
36:46
Speaker 1: favorite books, and I know that you've been involved with
36:49
Speaker 1: books yourself, So what are some of your favorite volumes
36:52
Speaker 1: that you've read in your life, the most influential books
36:55
Speaker 1: that you've And it doesn't have to do anything with travel,
36:57
Speaker 1: but what are some of the ones that come to mind,
37:00
Speaker 1: books that you love.
37:00
Speaker 2: It's a bit typical, sadly, I mean Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels.
37:04
Speaker 2: I probably read that seven times so to the End
37:06
Speaker 2: of the Earth by Fiance, which I think is if
37:10
Speaker 2: any young person wanted to learn how to do anything
37:14
Speaker 2: in life to do with eventual travel. It's like everything
37:17
Speaker 2: in that book will prepare you for travel. Just the tenacity,
37:23
Speaker 2: you know, convincing people to volunteer, and the fact that
37:27
Speaker 2: his expedition grew to the point where there was a
37:30
Speaker 2: part where they needed a captain for an icebreaking ship
37:34
Speaker 2: and there's a handful of men in the world and
37:36
Speaker 2: drive pilot or whatever you do with an ice breaking ship,
37:38
Speaker 2: and they command phenomenal salaries, and they needed him for
37:41
Speaker 2: like two and a half years. Sure, so there was
37:43
Speaker 2: no budget. So our boy Ranulph talked to him into
37:46
Speaker 2: quitting his job and driving the boat for free. Well
37:49
Speaker 2: you've got to think about that. Why it meant. It
37:52
Speaker 2: meant more than a paycheck to be part of the
37:54
Speaker 2: transclobe expedition. And so I think that's why that book
37:57
Speaker 2: is so valuable to young travelers, to yourself above the
38:01
Speaker 2: going to work and making a paycheck and buying you know,
38:04
Speaker 2: you can being involved with something. So that was I've
38:07
Speaker 2: read that numerous times.
38:08
Speaker 1: And the trans Globe is an incredible expedition for those
38:12
Speaker 1: that haven't.
38:12
Speaker 2: There won't be another one like that. I don't think
38:14
Speaker 2: anyone could.
38:15
Speaker 1: Do very difficult with the changing conditions in the North.
38:18
Speaker 2: We'll hied out all of his books, Contigue and right, yeah.
38:22
Speaker 1: Kentiqi's great, there's a's a great book.
38:24
Speaker 2: There's a fantastic but the Brendan Voyage Tim Severn and
38:27
Speaker 2: I like these books where it was like he wanted
38:30
Speaker 2: to prove that the Irish monks were the first ones
38:32
Speaker 2: to get to the New Land. And if you actually
38:34
Speaker 2: go into cathedrals in Europe, I've seen it in Sweden
38:36
Speaker 2: and different places around. There's actually murals on the wall
38:39
Speaker 2: of Brendan's voyages and they look like fables, but he
38:42
Speaker 2: actually said that to prove that they were real, they
38:45
Speaker 2: built a leather holed coracle and they made it to
38:47
Speaker 2: the New World in it. So these are the sort
38:50
Speaker 2: of books that I've always been brilliant implumence.
38:52
Speaker 1: That's a that's a fantastic book. And if you want
38:55
Speaker 1: to dip your toes into surround al Fines and his
38:59
Speaker 1: life Mad, bad and dangerous to know is an I.
39:02
Speaker 2: Got to read that. Yeah, it's just don't cut your
39:05
Speaker 2: fingers off and.
39:05
Speaker 1: Ship right that. That whole story is in there and
39:08
Speaker 1: it's fantas it's fantastic. Yeah, when you don't want to
39:12
Speaker 1: go to the doctor and you have frostbitten fingers, you
39:14
Speaker 1: just hack it off, just go to.
39:15
Speaker 2: The ship with the hack. So I take the end.
39:17
Speaker 1: It's in that book so mad, bad and dangerous to know.
39:20
Speaker 1: It sounds like you are another mad, bad and dangerous
39:23
Speaker 1: to know guy.
39:24
Speaker 2: So it's just just a knit with stumbling around.
39:28
Speaker 1: It's been such a pleasure that one of the things
39:30
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask too, is there is there anything
39:33
Speaker 1: that you'd like to ask of our audience? Is there
39:36
Speaker 1: any way that we can support you and your efforts?
39:38
Speaker 1: And then how do people find out more about you?
39:41
Speaker 2: I think just you know, my my goal is for
39:44
Speaker 2: us to understand how much we have and what we
39:47
Speaker 2: can do to help and why it's important. And I
39:50
Speaker 2: think it's a really difficult question why should we help
39:52
Speaker 2: you creating? Why should we help anybody? But I think
39:55
Speaker 2: if we understood how good we could feel by doing
39:58
Speaker 2: something to help, and we don't have to do a lot,
40:00
Speaker 2: we can do a little to help. I think that
40:03
Speaker 2: would be my goal and then help educate young people
40:05
Speaker 2: think a little differently. My next big talk will be
40:08
Speaker 2: in a high school and the high school wants to
40:10
Speaker 2: they raise money for me, and I think if we
40:13
Speaker 2: could help educate these kids not to look at the
40:15
Speaker 2: children of Ukraine like these poor little Ukrainians that need help.
40:19
Speaker 2: These are our buddies and they need something. And if
40:21
Speaker 2: we're out with our mate and we were on a
40:23
Speaker 2: motorcycle and he got a flat tire or he didn't
40:25
Speaker 2: have something to eat, you'd give him. You'd give him
40:26
Speaker 2: a protein bar and your spare tube. Right, Yeah, you
40:29
Speaker 2: wouldn't look down on him and think he needed something.
40:31
Speaker 2: You would just do something to balance out and you'd
40:33
Speaker 2: feel good about it. And that's what If we could
40:35
Speaker 2: be more like that about charity because we have so
40:39
Speaker 2: much so anyway, that would be my hope. So yeah,
40:41
Speaker 2: any more money, any money we can make for them.
40:43
Speaker 1: You know.
40:43
Speaker 2: We went to see a little boy called Leo and
40:46
Speaker 2: he's at he was at the liver of Children's Hospital
40:49
Speaker 2: and he'd been in Khakiev and his mother had been
40:52
Speaker 2: away in Poland work in stinglemother so he was there
40:54
Speaker 2: with his grandmother and the shelling started, and about a
40:57
Speaker 2: week or ten days into it, they were hiding out
40:59
Speaker 2: in the school. The sad part about it is you
41:01
Speaker 2: talk to these refugees that have experienced that, they get
41:04
Speaker 2: to it. They can tell the sound of different missiles
41:07
Speaker 2: and different bombs. That's what they learn. They know what
41:11
Speaker 2: incoming is what it sounds. Oh, that's that type of missile,
41:14
Speaker 2: this type of missile. And amazingly his mother was able
41:17
Speaker 2: to get back in there, no solid reception, no phones
41:20
Speaker 2: and find him. She went to their apartment and got
41:24
Speaker 2: their legal documents and within an hour leaving her apartment
41:28
Speaker 2: was blown to bits. She found Leo. They got out.
41:32
Speaker 2: Getting out was harder than what they'd been through because
41:34
Speaker 2: it was shelling them all the way out and a
41:36
Speaker 2: lot of people with them didn't make it out. And
41:39
Speaker 2: they made it out. And the trauma has left him
41:42
Speaker 2: unable to walk. And he was a soccer captain, a
41:45
Speaker 2: tough little eleven year old kid. We've seen pictures of
41:48
Speaker 2: him leading his soccer team. And he's had to have
41:50
Speaker 2: some surgery in le Bit And we had this afternoon
41:53
Speaker 2: with him and as he was leaving and he's rolling
41:56
Speaker 2: back to his room, the airstrike warning goes up and
42:00
Speaker 2: you just look at this kid and you realize he's
42:02
Speaker 2: been through all of this and he's still not safe,
42:05
Speaker 2: like big just like that, we've all been gone, you know,
42:09
Speaker 2: and that's that's really hard. You know, that's tough, and
42:12
Speaker 2: that's why you the more money we can raise to
42:14
Speaker 2: that hospital to help these kids. Luckily, I think America's
42:17
Speaker 2: passed the law. These kids can come here now and
42:19
Speaker 2: get treatment, which is fantastic.
42:21
Speaker 1: You know, well, I appreciate so much what you've done.
42:24
Speaker 2: Well, thank you very much for having me and having
42:26
Speaker 2: a chance to share this with you.
42:28
Speaker 1: So people can follow you on Instagram.
42:30
Speaker 2: Yeah all right, yeah, nobody the rights. Yeah, my name
42:34
Speaker 2: is super easy finds n e A l E b
42:36
Speaker 2: A y l Y. I might take her. I'm the
42:38
Speaker 2: only one.
42:39
Speaker 1: You are.
42:40
Speaker 2: You are pretty easy to so it's quite easy to find.
42:43
Speaker 2: So his Instagram is Facebook, Twitter, and then Welspring obviously,
42:46
Speaker 2: and if you can't find it, you can just make
42:47
Speaker 2: and always message me or if someone's my phone number.
42:50
Speaker 2: I mean, it's all out there. I'm easily I'm easily findable.
42:53
Speaker 1: So thank you, Neil, and thank you for all the
42:55
Speaker 1: contributions that you've made Overland Journal as well through the years,
42:58
Speaker 1: and we look forward to you having you in the
42:59
Speaker 1: mag magazine. I love it, I love it. This content
43:04
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Speaker 1: it everyone for spending time here as well. Thank you
44:03
Speaker 1: for coming very much. Appreciate it, and Neil and I
44:06
Speaker 1: will be around for a few more minutes. If you've
44:07
Speaker 1: got any questions for for Neil or myself, we'd love
44:11
Speaker 1: to entertain them, and we thank you all. For being here,