Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / EP322 | Ant Austin: From Japan to AI

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EP322 | Ant Austin: From Japan to AI · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I am
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: your host, Scott Brady, and I'm here with Ant Austin
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: from We Will Roam. Ant and I have become good
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: buddies over the last few years, working together and talking
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: about travels around the world. And I've always wanted to
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: have you on the podcast. So thanks for spending the
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: time with me today. No, thanks, man.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I'm stoked.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Stoked to be here. And where are we? I mean,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: in the world. I mean, you could be anywhere in
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: the world. I guess I could be too. So the
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: fact that we're, where are we at?
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: We're at the big thing. Yeah. At the ranch in Montana.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: And it's hot. It is.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's surprisingly hot. I mean, it's much hotter than
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: where I live in Prescott, Arizona today. No way. Like
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: by four or five degrees.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: It's spicy outside, so I'm happy to take a minute
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: to be inside.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: For over 100 years, General Tire has delivered tires for
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: your lifestyle, your adventure, your anywhere. From the aggressive all-terrain
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: performance of the Grabber ATX to the ultra-high performance Grabber APT,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: General Tires balance excellent on-road performance with off-road capabilities designed
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: for all weather conditions. General Tire delivers for whatever you do. Now,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: where do you live in Australia when you're living there?
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: We live in Northern Rivers area, so far north New
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: South Wales.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, does that get this hot?
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: No, not really, because we always get the ocean breeze,
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: which sort of like puffs it out a bit, but...
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: We're about two hours south of Brisbane, so it can
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: get humid, but it doesn't get this.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't get this hot. I do remember it
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: being pretty hot up in Cape York when I was
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: doing the telegraph track. That's why everybody's got... And I
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: learned the hard way about the difference between a single
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: and a double plugger. So maybe we make that be
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: the first piece of information that we share with our audience.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: If you go to Australia, why should they have a
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: double plugger, and what is a double plugger?
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Double pluggers is basically required footwear. Some people call them flip-flops.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Some people call them thongs. Double pluggers, there is nothing
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: worse than having a plugger blow out on you. So
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: if a flip-flop breaks, and then it's just flapping around
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: in your bare foot, you don't know what you're going
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: to tread on. It's just bad.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Times all around. And I did. I had a single
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: plugger blowout on the Telegraph track. Oh, wow. It was, yeah,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: it was a bit of mud and my foot went
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: in the mud and my foot tried to extract the
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: single plugger and all that came out was the strap.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: The, yeah. So the double plugger actually has two, you know,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: plugs that go, you know, the, the strap goes through
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: the rubber and then comes back up the other side.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: It's like, it's like, it's like, uh, what do you
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: call it? Like a, uh, you could air down your tire.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: You've got redundancy.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: You get double redundancy.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Actually, one of them is.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Run flats. Run flats. That's what I'm thinking of. Yeah,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: that's it.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: And if you're in a real pinch, you can actually
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: get like an 8mm wood screw or something. And if
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: only one of the plugs blows out, you can actually
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: screw it back together just to get you home.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Ah, okay.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: A little bit like plugging a.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Tire, you know? See, yeah. Leave it up to the Australians.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: They're always thinking of stuff. They're always thinking of stuff. Well,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: one of the first things I wanted to chat with
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: you about is I really like the fact that you
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: guys have figured out a way to stay connected with
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: the bleeding edge of technology. You've kept yourself as a technologist. Uh,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: you've been at the highest levels of several organizations working
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: on really interesting technology problems, but you've, you have found
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: a way to also be able to travel. So let's
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: kind of walk the audience through, how are you doing that?
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Are you doing it as a consultant or people giving you,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: you know, some sabbaticals? How are you making that work?
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, good question. Um, A little bit of all
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: the above, really. You know, for a long time, the
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: two were actually very, very separate in life and within
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: myself and within like Emma and I as a couple.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: You know, the travel was almost like a little secret
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: side quest, a little secret side project. And, you know,
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: the full-time career as it was, was, you know, priority
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: number one. As you often feel compelled to make it
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: that way. Post-COVID... I think remote work opened up a
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: few possibilities around being able to either position yourself in
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: certain spots for eight to 12 weeks, which we did
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: for a little while. And then to be able to
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: go further afield and spend a little bit of time there.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: After that, yeah, a little bit of contract work every
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: now and then, have some gaps in the middle. And then,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: you know, for our biggest trips, both Emma and I actually,
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: you know, sort of resigned early. from full-time work altogether
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: to just have the space to go full send into
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: travel full-time. So I've sort of run the whole gamut,
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  Speaker 2: a little bit of full-time, a little bit of both,
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: and then a little bit of trying to make both
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: work at the same time, which sounds idyllic but comes
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: with its own challenges.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've definitely had challenges around that. And on my
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: next trip, I'm going to try to set aside three
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: full days at an Airbnb, like run three 12s, So
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: that way I can get into a routine, get laundry
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: done and stuff and then start moving again after that.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: We'll see if that works. I hope it does work
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: because that would be pretty ideal. But based on all
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: of those different ways that you have tried to combine
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: your professional life and travel, which one do you find
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: has worked the best so far for you?
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: I'm still looking, mate. I'm honest. It's all about balance.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: And I used to be of the headspace that there
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: was one solution to this. And when you find it,
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: everything will be sweet. But I have found that's just
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: not the case. It's a slider. Sometimes it's further up
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: the adventure end. Sometimes it's a little more of a
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: home base type of attitude. And so where we're at
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: now is, you know, really focusing on home, focusing on friends, family,
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: community at home. So we're building out a nice anchor
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: that we can always come back to. And I think
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: the next chapter for us, and certainly for me, is
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: it might be a week or two here. It might
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: be a four-week adventure. I selfishly would love to have
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: a truck on this continent and come over here for
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: eight weeks and be able to work from the road.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: So it's constantly moving the slider up and down and
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: trying to find what balance fits where you're at at
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: that specific point in time.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: I also found it, in the conversations that we've had
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: around your technology career, I found that it was interesting
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: because you have been involved with these very bleeding, leading
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: edge solutions that probably feels a lot like adventure in
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: and of itself. So how are you, I guess, in
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: negotiations with yourself of like, I'm going to dive into,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: like right now, you're going to dive into AI, which is,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: it's an adventure. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's like crossing
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: a continent. You're at the very, you know, you're like
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Lewis and Clark. I mean, this is the new thing.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: It's the new disruptor. And you're at the very edge
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: of that. How are you finding that compares to your
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: love of travel?
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: Storytelling is the common thread. I wish I'd learned that
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: way sooner. And then I think that would have helped
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  Speaker 2: me bridge the two selves that I had that I
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: referred to earlier on, my adventure self and my career self.
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  Speaker 2: Storytelling is what weaves Everything together. It's how we understand
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  Speaker 2: the world around us. It's how AI understands data that's
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: being fed to it. It's all about the story you
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: tell yourself, the story you tell the world, and the
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  Speaker 2: story you tell an enterprise customer to buy your product.
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  Speaker 2: It's what brings it all together. And I am finding
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  Speaker 2: that being the grounding anchor that helps me sort of
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: bring my whole self all the time now. Yeah. whether
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  Speaker 2: it's in the workplace or it's on the road, whether
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: it's with Emma or whether it's by myself. Like I said,
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: it's a sliding scale again, but it's an exciting thing
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: to have learned about myself.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say so. And given the fact that
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: you're in the AI space, what are you most excited
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  Speaker 1: about that technology? What are you seeing for yourself personally?
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  Speaker 1: And where are you seeing the big levers turning as
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: far as solutions for people, for professionals? And I mean,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: I want to share a couple of things that I've
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  Speaker 1: learned using AI for travel that have been very effective,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: but I thought it would be because you're, you do
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: work in that space and we haven't really talked about
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  Speaker 1: it on the podcast. I think it would be interesting
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  Speaker 1: to give some people some insights on what you see
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  Speaker 1: is coming down the pipe and how you're using AI personally.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah. There's two sides to this. Um, The space that
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  Speaker 2: I work in is in the developer space, so with code.
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  Speaker 2: And a huge emphasis is on reducing developer toil. The
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: stuff that nobody wants to do, that just takes forever.
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  Speaker 2: That same premise can apply in the creative world. There's
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: a lot of noise out there. There's a lot of,
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: whether it's social media or whether it's just keeping up
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: with newsletters, whether it's keeping up with you know, even
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  Speaker 2: your own curated list of inspiration, keeping up with what's
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: going on there. I feel like there's a ton of
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  Speaker 2: repeatable processes and tools that AI can help consolidate and
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  Speaker 2: curate that for you. As long as you're self-aware and
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: not building a little echo chamber around yourself. But I
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: think that's, I think that's one way, you know, um,
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  Speaker 2: ease the burden of modern existence. Uh, and then the
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: second way is i have been dabbling i mean as
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: a musician i also i have conflicting opinions about ai
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: which we can get into at a whole other conversation
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  Speaker 2: but like i have been dabbling with it to try
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: and almost prompt myself into a creative headspace You know,
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: like how do, how can I leverage it to help
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  Speaker 2: me get my thoughts down, help me construct them in
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: a way that keeps an idea moving forward and then
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: challenge it. Like say poke holes in this, you know,
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: it's almost like a writing partner. So yeah, there's like
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: the tasks and the admin of daily life. And then
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: there's the leveraging it as a writing partner, as an editor,
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: you know, a creative tool. I would never rely on
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: it to actually make anything for me. But using it
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: in those two ways is in a creative capacity is
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: funnily enough, like exactly the way it's used in a
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: professional capacity in the development space too.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: And it's a powerful tool for that. I mean, I think,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: you know, at least as far as regulations go, the
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: only thing we all need to be advocating for is
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: just clarity around where the content is generated. Totally. and
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: we need to hold meta and the other outlets accountable to,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: if it's AI-generated content, it just needs to be flagged
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: that way. One of my favorite music platforms that I
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: listen to is called Tidal, and they just released their
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: policies around AI-generated music. I have definitely been duped. There
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: was a song I was listening to, and I'm like, man,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: this guy's got a great voice, like this raspy, awesome voice,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: and And I was really enjoying the song, and then
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: I found I did some research on the artist because
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: I wanted to get some more of their music, and
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: it was all AI-generated. So that didn't feel good to me.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: It didn't mean that the song wasn't great or that
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: the person who even put it together didn't have creative
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: input because, of course, they did. I'm sure that painters
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: were super pissed about photography. Think about if you were
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: a portrait artist in the early 1800s, And you are
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: coming into the height of your career. Now this new
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: thing called photography takes what would require a week or
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: more of work on your part. It can be done
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: in a couple minutes. So these are very disruptive things.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: But I think people want to be, they want disclosure
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: around it. They just want to know that what I'm
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: consuming was AI generated. So at least you have the
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: option to say, this isn't what I want today or whatever.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: I think that that's really important.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: And I think, just, just to expand on that a
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: little bit, uh, the artist side of me is also like,
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: it helps you ask yourself the question, like, why am
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: I engaging with this in the first place? Like, what
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: is it that speaks to me from this thing that
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: I've just listened to, whether it was made by a
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: machine or a human, clearly something registered within me. So
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: what is that? And then you can follow that wormhole
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: and again, curate yourself back towards maybe more of a
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: human led experience. But, Yeah, it's an interesting time to
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: be alive, hey?
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: And it's happening whether we want it to or not.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: So the worst thing that someone can do is just
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: sit there and be upset that these disruptive things are happening.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: You have to take initiative.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: You figure if you were part of the Pony Express
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: team and here's the railroad coming down, you could be like,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: I'm going to blow up the railroad. Well, the railroad's
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: going to get built whether you blow it up or not.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: And eventually they're not going to need guys on horseback
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: riding 24 miles at a time, they're going to handle
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: it with a railroad. And so these huge disruptors have
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: occurred throughout human history. I'm sure that the wheel was
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: equally disruptive in its own way. But for me, I
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: find as a creative, what it helps me do, because
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: I am a creative person. And as a result, I've
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: got the ADD and the distraction and everything else that
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: comes with that. I mean, not every creative is that way,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: but I am. and I find that AI is an
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: incredibly powerful organizing tool for me. I've used Evernote and
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: other things like that for many, many years to help
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: me collect ideas and gather ideas into organized fashions, and
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: I now use a tool called Little Bird, which integrates
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: across all of the Apple platforms, and it connects to
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: my Gmail, and it connects to my calendar, and it
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: what it does is it helps me stay on track.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: It helps remind me of the important things that I
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: might be missing. It helps me to consolidate what is
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: a huge volume of input, communication, email, slacks, Asana, all
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: the things that you know about what we do as
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: a business. And it helps me to parse that out
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: into priorities. So that in and of itself is worth
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's $ 100 a month, but it would be
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: worth $ 1, 000 a month to me because it saves me
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: so much time. So that's hugely powerful. But what I
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: have learned recently as I'm planning this motorcycle trip around
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: the world is it is a very powerful planning tool.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: So I'll feed it in what my planned route is.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: And to your point, poke holes in that. What am
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: I missing? Is there something really cool along the way?
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: And here's the thing is that these LLMs begin... These
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: learning models begin to learn about who we are and
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: our interests. It's got all of this information. It's got
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: all of my emails. It's got everything. So it knows
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: what I'm into. And it's like, hey, actually, what about
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: if you went over here to this new museum in
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: North Dakota? And I was like, what? Uh-huh. So it's
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: super powerful. I think it will be very, very helpful
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: for overlanders, especially people who are doing larger, more complex trips.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: You can ask it about the visa requirements. What's the
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: latest on temporary vehicle importation? Are there any regulations on
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: the vehicles that I need to be aware of? And
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: these are the modifications to my car. Do I fall
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: outside of scope on that? So I believe that AI
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: will be incredibly powerful. And someone's going to come up
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: with a great LLM that has a lot of that
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: information in it that's going to allow for travelers to
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: make good choices.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. I've got one more example for you.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, please do.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: From a creative context. I use voice notes all the time.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: I could be, I use Shazam all the time. Like
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: I might pick up a piano thing or whatever. Or
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: it might be a live band, particularly when I'm in
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: a foreign country. It's like, I don't understand music. this
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: sound or this music so i'll just record it uh
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: i make voice notes to myself all the time of
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: like ideas i may have had again throw all of
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: that into a tool of your choice chachi bt claude.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Is there one that you prefer or do you use
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: them all to kind of validate against.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: Each other i found myself orienting around claude at the
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: moment because of how much you can tinker with it
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: okay you know and um I essentially have like a
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: sonic pipeline. I'm currently writing the score for our next series,
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: the Japan series. And, you know, week on week, it
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: can help me focus on these are the sounds, these
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: are the themes, this is the feel that you've been
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: tapping into recently based on what you're taking notes on.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: So follow that rabbit hole.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, cool.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: It's cool. It's cool to just like have an accountability
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: buddy in some ways. Yeah, it's a machine, but it's
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: at least curated enough to allow me to hold space
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: to just dive down whatever creative wormhole it is that
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: I've clearly been tapping into recently.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: And the pace at which it's changing. I mean, in
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: recent weeks, it's become funny.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: And I'm like... I mean, I found myself laughing, and
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, you just laughed at the machine, but
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: it was funny. Yeah. It was funny. It gave me
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: a little bit of grief. It was like, dude, what
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: about all this other stuff? Yeah. It was really funny.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: And so... The reality is that it's here. We can
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: use it to help us be better travelers. We can
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: use it to help us reduce the mistakes that we
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: make as travelers or the routes that may be closed
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: or that one incredible library or campsite or whatever that
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: we may have missed. So I do think that it's
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: going to be an interesting opportunity. And I'm excited for you,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: for you to be connected in with what is the
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: next great disruptor could give you that chance to really
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: be traveling full time.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks, man. With a bit of luck and some talent.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: You never know. You never know. You never know. So
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: that's obviously that's a really big deal. Well, let's pivot
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: away from that. I did want to chat about that
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: with you because it is something that you're living and
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: breathing every day. And I don't want people to feel
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: afraid of AI. I want them to consider how it
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: can help them solve problems. And one other thing I
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: wanted to say around AI is that the Overland Collective
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: has a policy against creating any editorial, any opinion piece,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: any new content, editorial content using AI. We don't allow it.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: We don't allow any of our contributors to do that.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: We do some copy edit using AI tools like Grammarly,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: but we do not allow our contributors to produce any
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: original content using AI tools because it's really important that
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: the content reflects the opinion of the individual editor.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: I think that's the critical thing. There's so much noise
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: and inertia out there about how AI is a solution
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: to everything. And it isn't.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: It's a tool.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: It's a tool. It needs context. It needs instructions. And
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: so having a healthy relationship with that, think critically, have
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: a measured approach to it and use it for what
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: it is. I think that's key.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: And we have to remind ourselves it's coming whether we
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: want it to or not. So you've got to begin
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: to understand the technology. And also there's downsides where we
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: need to be protecting our elderly parents sometimes against AI
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: generated content. There's a lot of very advanced scams that
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: are coming out around that. So we need to be
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: really careful and we need to protect those that are
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: at risk from people that are bad actors in the
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: AI space, which anytime there's a new technology, there's going
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: to be bad actors that are going to use it
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: for bad things. So, well, I'd love to talk next
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: about one of your more recent trips because I find
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Japan so fascinating to me How long were you there?
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Talk about how you lived and engaged with the culture.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: What were your takeaways about traveling to Japan?
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Japan is incredible. We were there
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: for three months because as Australians, we get 90 day
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: visas and then you have to leave and you can
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: come back and do another 90 days. The car was
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: on a carnet, so it can be there for up
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: to a year. Wow. And, you know, we had the
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: grand ambition of going from the furthest south to the
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: furthest north. But it turns out Japan's massive.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: It runs a lot of latitude.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: So, you know, with the help of some ferries, we
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: did make some distance and did manage to go, you know,
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: from the most southerly point all the way up to
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: the most northerly point. But.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: What is the most southerly point that you can access
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: by ferries? Is that Okinawa?
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: Yes, by ferry. Okinawa is the furthest you can get a.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Car, I believe. Yeah, I think so. And then Hokkaido
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: in the north?
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: Hokkaido in the north, yeah. So we got as far
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: as Kagoshima in the south, which is the furthest south
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: of the home islands. And then I think it's Wakanae
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: on the most northerly part of Hokkaido. And it's a
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: cool space, man. Like you start seeing Russian on the signs,
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: on the road signs. There's a little temple that opens
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: for an hour on New Year's Eve, you know, New
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: Year's Day, where they celebrate and bring in the new year.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: And there's actually a guy that we met in Nagoya
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: just camping who gave us like a little, I can't
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: remember what it's called, but it's like a good luck charm.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: from that specific temple because he knew we were going
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: all the way back. So he's like, take this with you.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: It'll ward off the evil spirits all the way up
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: to that temple.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: You'll be right. How cool is that?
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: It's pretty special. It's a very cool place.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: As you look into Japan or as I've researched the culture,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, to me, it's very first world, very advanced,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: incredible creators and manufacturing and everything else like that. But
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: it's its own unique culture. Yeah. And that is what
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: I find very unique about Japan. There's lots of first
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: world countries that seem very similar.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: We all wear the same Lululemon or whatever. But like
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: in Japan, it's very different. And I also loved, you know,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: if you look into their history, you know, someone would
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: be a samurai, but the samurai would also, they were
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: very much about balance, yin and yang, where they would
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: sit down and they would create art or write poetry. Yeah.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: And that still seems to exist. So what were some,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: as a creative and as a musician, what were some
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: of the things that you really found that you loved
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: about the art scene and the music scene in Japan?
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: So it was almost overwhelming. The amount of, in the cities,
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: the lights, the sounds, the crosswalks have different bird sounds,
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: whether you're going north, south, or east, west. Each konbini,
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: like little convenience store, has its own jingle. Every single
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: train station in the whole of Japan has its own
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: unique jingle of a different train approaching. There's actually a
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: guy whose job it is to write those things. Wow.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: So like the sonic palette as a musician is nuts.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: It's insane.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: That's cool. As well as instrumentation that is unique to Japan.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: And the colors, the neon lights, the classic sort of,
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: neo-retroism or future retroism of Tokyo.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: And Kyoto is... The Blade Runner vibe. It's immense.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: It's such a thing to look at. It's a really
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: fun thing to then try and capture. So we had
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: a lot of fun with that.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: What was a moment in the Japan trip that you
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: found as most defining, like where you really felt like
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: you had experienced something very novel or entirely new?
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: We... bumped into a guy in Nagoya who happened to
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: work in the materials section of the Land Cruiser factory.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Oh, sweet. Yeah, right there in Nagoya.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: Right there in Nagoya. Didn't speak a word of English.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: Our Japanese is rudimentary at best. Long story short, he
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: invited us round to what I thought was a barbecue
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: at his house. And it turns out what he had
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: done is he'd put the word out. And he got
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: a bunch of Land Cruiser enthusiasts together, took us to
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: someone had like a plot of land an hour and
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: a half out of town. And we'd all crammed into
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: this plot of land and put on a barbecue. And again,
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: no one spoke any English. There was no signal. So
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: Google Translate or any Translate tools wouldn't work. And yet
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: we were still able to share stories about where we'd been,
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: what we loved about our travel so far. There was
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: one guy, Namba-san, who did photography for Toyota. And he'd
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: been to Australia a number of times. In fact, he
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: had an Australia and HJ-47 Troopy. Oh, wow. And so
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: that's the Japanese culture. So welcoming, so lovely. And there's
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: just a way of doing things. And the way of
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: doing this barbecue thing was, you know, bring everybody together.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Everyone brings something. You stick it on communally. And I
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: think I had cow intestines and a bunch.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Of other stuff. You just didn't ask.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just don't ask. Just say, thank you very much.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. In fact, that's the only place that I've
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: been to in Japan was Nagoya when we took delivery
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: of the Expedition 7 Land Cruisers. But what an incredible
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: factory because you'd see– Here comes a 78 Troupie that's
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: being sent off to an NGO in Africa, and the
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: very next car at the time was a 200 Series
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Land Cruiser with all the leather and all the fancy
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: stuff that's going to Dubai. So it's a very cool factory.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: And the thing that was shocking to me when we
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: did the factory tour, and this is why Land Cruisers
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: are what they are, We went outside, and this guy
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: was super proud of the fact they had three parking
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: spots in the front of the factory. And he said,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: these are the three spots that we set aside for
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: a vehicle that needs rework or quality control. And of course,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: there was no cars in the spots. And I have
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: been to other manufacturers' factories, and I will not say
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: their names because it would be... And they had parking lots...
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: full of vehicles that needed to be reworked. And what
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: the guy said was, um, you know, if you have,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: if you have one car that ends up in the lot, it's,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: it's an embarrassment. Um, if you have a second one
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: in the, they, they stopped the entire line until they
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: solve the problem, uh, because they just won't let it continue.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: But the fact that they can produce all of those
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: land cruisers and there was not a single vehicle that
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: was set aside for rework.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: That's insane. Yeah. Yeah. I think, One 70 series every
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: 10 minutes was the.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Number that they were cranking up. That sounds about right.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: And it was just so cool seeing like.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: A body move. Did you get to go to the.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: We didn't get to do a tour because they weren't
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: running them at the time. But we sort of skirted
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: around the edges.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, nice.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: They took us on a tour like around the complex
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: because it's a huge complex.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: It's a huge complex.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And we got to go to like the staff
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: shop and the canteen and just hang out. It was
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: cool to be welcomed as like... Very much so. somebody
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: on the line rather than, uh, you know, go through the,
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: like a curated tour experience.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: It was, it was really cool. Yeah. What a, what
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: a vehicle. And, and that's what you guys drive. You
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: guys have a troopie. What, what made you decide on
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: a Land Cruiser? Let's talk a little bit about your build.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: What kind of a camping setup do you have? Um,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: how did you set up your truck for driving around
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: the world? Yeah.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Uh, so we do have a, we got a 20,
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: 2011 VDJ 78. So it's the troopie with the V8.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: the one VD. Um, I was drawn to it when
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: we moved to Australia because I wanted something to travel
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: in and it seemed to be a good balance between
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: a four wheel drive and a van. Like it had
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: space in the back that you could at least lie
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: down in. Um, ours is actually an ex fleet rental truck.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: So it was the high mileage, but looked after and
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: it was super, super clean. Um, and so that, I
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: think that's what primarily drew me to it. The child
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: within me was also very happy that it was a V8.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: I probably should say that out loud because it sounds nice.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that, I mean, that's what we had in the
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Expedition 7 trucks. And those things, they make way more
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: power than you think. They almost make more power than
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: it should for that chassis because the engine starts writing
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: checks that the drivetrain and the vehicle diagnostics has no
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: business trying to catch. Yeah, yeah. The brakes and everything else.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: Where's she up to now? I want to say 367,000
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: kilometers on the clock now.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: I believe it.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: And no dramas. We had an alternator die on us
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: just as we left Cooktown to do Cape York. And
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: that's it. And that's it.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that has been an issue with those in
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: the deep water crossings. You can lose alternators and starters
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, it had a good innings, and so fair enough.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: And do you guys have a little camper set up,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: or you sleep just inside?
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: We've got a pop-top.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Pop-top, nice.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we've got a Molgo pop-top from the guys
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: at Expedition Center in Sydney.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: Daniel and crew. It's like an aluminum subframe and an
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: aluminum top. Got a little Starlink mount and solar panels
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: on the top. It can take weight, even though we
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: don't really put that much up there. And then down below,
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: we've got a little drawer system for when we're outside.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: And then just a basic sort of bench.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sure.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: Fridge behind the passenger seat to try and keep the
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: weight central. And that's about it, really.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: There's a lot to be said around those little campers
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: because they tend to do a good job of keeping
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: the dust out.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Like if you've got a roof tent on top of
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: your vehicle, it's usually just no matter how hard you
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: try with ceiling and covers and everything else, they end
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: up being packed full of dust. And it's nice to
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: be able to, you know, no matter what the weather
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: is outside, you know, you've got a little bit of
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: a retreat.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: A little bit of respite. Yeah. It is funny, actually.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: when we stripped it apart to revamp it for this
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: Japan trip, there's still red dust from previous trips, like
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: trapped on the inside quarter panels and stuff like that.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: I believe it.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: It will always find a way.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: I believe it. And that can be a real challenge
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: when you try to bring a vehicle back to Australia
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: because Australia, in my experience, has some of the most restrictive,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: you know, agricultural and other quarantine requirements around vehicles. So, yeah,
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: you definitely have to clean them out really well before
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: you bring them back in. So in addition to the
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Japan trip, let's talk about some of your other journeys
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: that you felt were really transformative for you guys.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah. We, this all started, we left home in November,
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: 2019 with the truck fully dialed as we thought it
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: was at the time. And we had this grand ambition
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: of driving all the way around the world, really. I mean,
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: starting with Australia.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: It's quite a, it's quite a thing. It's almost like a,
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: a rite of passage to do a lap of Oz now.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: And so we were really keen to do that and
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: then see where the winds took us. I've always wanted
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: to do the Americas.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: Always wanted to do the Americas.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: The length of the Pan American kind of thing. Sure.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: Plus I, fun fact about me, I was born in
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: the States. And so I've got this, like some of
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: my childhood memories are all, you know, nostalgic.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: You know, US things like Chuck E. Cheese.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Chuck E. Cheese is awesome.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: I love that when I was growing up.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: So i always wanted to come back as an as
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: an adult and like experience traveling through let alone the
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: great outdoors and you know what overlanding had become and
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: all of that um of course we all know what
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: happened in 2020 yep and so that grand.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: You hardly got started.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah we got we got as far as coughs harbor
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: so we're good as the crow flies like 18 hour
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: drive away from where we were living at the time
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: so yeah we didn't get that far yeah um But
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: that whole experience was pretty formative, all said and done.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: It was the let go of what you can't control,
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: be where you are, where you're at, and just celebrate
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: the little wins. Which for us at the time was,
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: we were stuck in Queensland when everything was locked down,
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: happy to be there.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Many worse places in the world.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: And honestly, being able to experience Australia when the international
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: borders were shut... We got to watch the sunrise at
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: Uluru three days in a row with not a single
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: other soul there with us. Wow. I don't think that'll
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: ever happen again in my life.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: Probably not in our lifetime.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: We went to Fraser Island or Kigari and we were
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: there for 10 days and we saw seven other cars.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: That's it. And that's a beautiful little spot. Amazing little spot.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: And of course it's very popular. And so again, like,
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: will we ever be able to see Fraser when it's
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: had a bit of a rest?
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: Hmm.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: Probably not. Probably not in my lifetime.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: Did you notice any differences in the wildlife? Because there's
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: a pretty significant dingo population on Frasier and some incredible
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: bird life. Yeah. What were you, did you notice a difference?
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: The rangers told us, like, be on higher than usual
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: alert because the dingoes have had free roam of their
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: own space for a long time now without any human interaction.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: And so they're pretty bold. And I do have this
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: one memory, like, I was filming Emma, like we parked
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: the trippy in a beautiful picturesque spot and I'd hopped out,
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: grabbed the camera and I was going to film Emma
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: popping the roof. And as I bring the camera up
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: to my eye, I then see this dingo that's almost
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: the size of Emma, just like about five meters behind her.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: And so I just shout like, Emma, you know, just
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: turn around. And so she's like slowly got up into
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: the car and just shut the doors and like, I
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: don't think the dingo was a threat, but it was just,
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: it was curious.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: But they've, they have definitely taken children. Yeah.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Um, which is not the dingo's fault. I mean, it,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: it literally looks like a nice slow moving prey. Yeah.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: And, and they, they're dogs, right? And so they do
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: the playful thing where they get down on there and then,
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: and you want to, you want to pet it. I mean,
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: you shouldn't, but yeah. So the dingoes were pretty, pretty
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: feisty that time around.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: That's cool.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: And, because you've had a chance to explore so much
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: of Australia, and for those that are listening, give them
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: kind of your top spots, the spots that you really
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: think people need to experience in Australia.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: That's a good one. There is nothing like an Alpac sunset.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that red dust hanging in the air.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: So the Simpson Desert is pretty special. That has a
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: real special place in my heart. And when we were there, Again,
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: didn't see anyone for five days on a single other track.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: And it had been quite a wet year. So the
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: desert was green. Oh, wow. And there were birds. There
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: were butterflies. We saw a few feral camels. Like the
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: desert sprung to life.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, wow.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: And that's pretty magic.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: At the moment, Lake Eyre, huge salt lake in the
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: middle of the country, is actually full.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: Because of all the rainfall is the lake air sailing
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: club at it yeah they're at it boats are out
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: it's so funny I love that though yeah they just
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: let the boats sit there until the water comes back
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: but it's.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: Mad how like the migratory birds just somehow know yeah
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: and so just huge populations of pelican yeah it's it's
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: pretty magic to see.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: And it is way in the middle of nowhere in
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: that country very in the middle of nowhere it would
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: i would think that for the australian explorers it would
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: probably be like the american explorers when they came across
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: the grand canyon it's like what do we do with
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: this you know like you know when you when they
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: would have come across lake air and as long as
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: far as you can see you can see the curvature
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: of the earth across that salt pan yeah.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: And you get so easily disoriented because of the you
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: know the the haze on the horizon and you've no
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: idea which way is left right or up.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Down And the animals die out there. As soon as
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: they get away from being able to see the horizon,
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: they're done. They'll walk in giant circles.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: It's definitely special. Flinders Ranges in South Australia.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: One of my favorites.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: Again, it's just red. There's also like unique wildlife specifically
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: to that area, like yellow-footed rock wallabies. And, you know,
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: radioactive rock. And there's dinosaur fossils all over the place
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: because it's like on a fault line. And so you
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: can just see thousands and thousands and thousands of Earth's
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: history just by staring at a wall, as well as
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: indigenous rock art, as well as animals you can't find
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: anywhere else in this little spot in South Australia.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: It's an ancient continent. One of the things that I
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: experienced was in the south, it's kind of the southernmost
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: point of Australia, there's this giant chunk of granite, and
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: it is the same rock that matches Antarctica, like way.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: It just went and got torn apart and moved over
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: the millennia. Yeah, just incredible. And I thought that Canning
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: Stock would be my highlight of Australia, but the telegraph
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: track was one of the coolest overland routes that I've
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: ever done in my life. It absolutely shocked me with
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: how beautiful it was, challenging, deep water crossings. There's not
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: a lot of people. I don't know why it isn't
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: more popular, maybe because it's so difficult, but Like there
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: was not that many people on that track.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. And it's, Emma drove the tele track when
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: we did it. She's a much better driver, like technical
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: driver than I am. And there was this real sense
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: of achievement when we both got to the other side.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: Heck yeah.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: It was like.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: It's legit. It's legit.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: It was a lot of fun.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: And, you know, we'd never, I wouldn't say we're hardcore
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: like off road. And also, we were living in the Troupy.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: It's our house.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: And so I don't really want to put it on
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: its side. That would be less than ideal.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: But we did.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: And it just felt so good to get to the
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: other side. And then you watch the sunset over the ocean.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: You've got as far north as you can possibly go.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: It's a very cool spot in Australia and so different
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: from the desert. I mean, these dense jungles and cassowary
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: and like these, you know, like close to dinosaurs as
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: you'll see in anyone's lifetime is those birds. Wow. Totally.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: A cassowary is no joke.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: It's a dinosaur.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: It looks like a dinosaur.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: It's like if you ever want to get as close
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: to a velociraptor as you can as a living creature,
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: that's the one.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: Wearing a bright blue coat.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: They are so cool. They are so cool. Let's talk
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: a little bit about in your experience, in the ways
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: that you've been able to travel, what are your couple takeaways?
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: What are some things that you would recommend to a
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: new traveler or someone who's trying to work from the
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: road or maybe trying to be a creative? What are
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: some of your key learnings that you've had over the last,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: you know, five, six years.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah. That's a good one. Um, I used to
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: measure success in miles. I thought miles was the measure
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: where I was going for. And that was, I like that.
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: I think that drove so many behaviors that put a
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: lot of pressure on us to just keep going and
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: keep getting to the next spot. And in some circumstances,
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: like almost be distracted from just enjoying where we are.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: And like, it sounds cliche, but slow down and just
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: enjoy where you are. Most of this, most of why
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: we do this is to meet people is to build
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: community is to make friends and to have shared moments
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: with people that care about the same stuff you do,
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: or even have different opinions about the same stuff you do.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: That's what you take home. It's not how many thousands
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: of K's you drove. It's not how many liters of
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: diesel you, you burned through. It's not how many countries
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: you visited. It's, how many memories did you take away
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: from these things? And memories come from human interaction. You know,
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: when we were traveling during COVID, human interaction wasn't allowed.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: And so like we had this weird, almost disconnect between
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: the adventure we thought we were going to be going
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: on and the one that we actually had and experienced.
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: And that took a little bit for us to reconcile. Yeah.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: That was a challenging time. Yeah.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: So I think, I think it sounds like, you know,
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: old man wisdom. Uh, and I know that younger, younger
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: me would, would sort of take this advice and go, yeah,
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: what do you know? But, but no, seriously, like slow down.
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: It's not about the miles you drive. It's about the
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: memories you make and they come from meeting people and
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: getting stuck into local experiences on the way.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I've wasted a lot of energy trying to
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: check a box when I didn't get much out of
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: that experience. Whereas you're right. Doing things you love with
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: people you love is the thing that gives us our
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: greatest reward. Yeah. So I've got some cool questions. We've
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: been incorporating our seven questions into the more recent episodes.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: What do you think is the most intense moment you've
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: had as a traveler? It doesn't have to be that
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: somebody stuck an AK to your forehead, but like what
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: was the one thing, like maybe it was a vehicle
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: accident or a breakdown or what was that really intense
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: moment and what did you learn about yourself and how
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: did you learn to proceed as a traveler after that?
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: I've got a couple layers to this. I'd say like
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: a physical experience that comes to mind was Emma and
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: I were in Judbro National Park, far Northern Territory, really
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: in the middle of nowhere. Utterly beautiful landscape. And it's
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: an old cattle station. And so there are still a
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: few feral cows and bulls running around. Sure. We came
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: across a feral bull. Oh. That was the size of
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: our car. Yeah. it was huge and it was angry
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: and we're in this real tight scrub with nowhere to go.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: I'm in low range, so not going very fast. I
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: stick it in reverse thinking I'm going to give it
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: some space, but I'm only doing a few. And this
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: bull's throwing its head around. And, you know, I, that
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: was the only moment of all the moments we had,
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: you know, being almost on our side at Cape York, um, being,
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: you know, down to the axles in sand, uh, being
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: up to the windshield in water, none of those moments
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: did I ever have this sense of fragility. When faced
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: with an angry feral bull in the middle of nowhere
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: that could tear a hole in the side of the car,
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: that's when I was like, we are a long way
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: from anywhere and we are actually pretty fragile out here.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: And so we ended up having to like tuck into
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: some bush, put a few trees between us and the bull,
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: like allow it to settle down for a bit. I
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: put it in high range and got ready to, you know,
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: drop it into second and actually get some pace going
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: quick sharp, uh, to get away from it because it
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: was not happy we were there. Um, so that's like a,
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: like a, a physical experience, I suppose. Yeah.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: Cows can be dangerous. Yeah. I've been out on the
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: motorcycles with Tavia a couple of times. She calls them
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: murder cows, which I don't think she's wrong. I don't know.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: We were looking at the statistics earlier and how many
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: people died last year from cows. There was way more,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: Way more than should have died from cows last year.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: And I was like, okay, maybe I'll give them a
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: little more respect.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: You don't want to come across one of those on
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: a bike for sure.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sure. Anything else that comes to mind around those
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: intense moments?
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: I'd say the recent one was actually Japan. And this
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: one's more of a kind of ethereal, thoughtful, emotional one. But,
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: you know, we've been planning and we had these grand
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: travel ambitions for over a decade. Yeah. Japan was our
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: first international trip and it was potentially the start of
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: something big. Shipping the car, not just to Japan, but
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: maybe to the States, maybe to Malaysia and then drive home.
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: We had all these options and all these plans. Three
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: or four months in, a really intense experience for both
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: of us was kind of sitting back and going, wait
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: a minute, why doesn't this feel the way that I
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: thought it was? How is this not feeling Like the
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: reality that I'm living is not the idea that I.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: Had in my head.
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: Why is that? What is that? And that threw a loop.
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: That threw a real loop because it was like I've
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: been gunning for this ambition for years and years and
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: years and now I'm finally here and something doesn't feel right.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: What does that mean and why? And, you know, doing
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: this sort of thing was so much of our identity
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: and who we were and who we were going to be,
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: who I wanted to be. And I realized, properly struggled
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: with a moment of like, wait a minute, this doesn't
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: feel right. Why is that? And what do I do?
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: I didn't know.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: What did you, uh, what was the conclusion that you
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: came to? What, what do you believe made it not
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: feel right? And how did you remedy that?
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: That's a good question. Um, I think we're still working
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: through it really, uh, both as individuals, Emma and I,
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: and then also as a couple, um, you know, Emma, uh,
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: I think, I think we had been doing this for
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: so long and we had been almost so codependent on
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: each other living in such a small space, like doing
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: something so stressful as driving around in a foreign country,
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: putting up with all that discomfort, you know, and I
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: think where we are at in life, you know, I
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: think she sort of thought there's other things that I
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: want to achieve that are maybe uniquely Emma that, aren't
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: related to this.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: How do I articulate that out loud? How do I
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: articulate that in a way that doesn't sound like, I
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: don't want to do this anymore? Because that wasn't true either.
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: It was just like, what do we, how can we
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: facilitate something that's fulfilling for both of us? And maybe
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: this format is not doing that job.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: And same for me. You know, there was a lot
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: of pressure on it. I didn't, you know, I didn't
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: cope well with us not coping well. And so the
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: pressure builds, you know, I'm supposed to be having fun.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: I'm supposed to be enjoying making this creation. And I was,
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: but I think just the pressure sort of weighed on
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: the whole experience when it's supposed to be liberating. It's
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: supposed to feel light. It's supposed to be amazing. And it,
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: it was in so many ways, but I, I think,
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: you know, we realized, wait a minute, you know, is
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: this actually meeting our needs as individuals and as a couple? Um,
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: And the answer was no. I didn't really want to
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: hear that. But the answer was no.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: And maybe that was the liberating moment is when we
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: can allow ourselves to be vulnerable enough to listen to
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: that still small voice that's starting to get louder and louder.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: Because otherwise it can really undo us if we're not
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: prepared for that.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: And I think as well, maybe it's just me, but
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: back to my comment earlier about it's not about how
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: many miles you do you know my natural response to
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: these things is to just work a little harder yeah
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: just drive a little further just make a little extra
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: effort and you know that just sort of exacerbated the
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: whole the whole thing i think a real learning is
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: you know listen to your feelings listen to what they're
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: telling you even if you don't really understand just at
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: least given the time of day and it's okay to
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: change it's okay to you know, acknowledge that maybe the
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: path you're on isn't where you're at anymore, you know?
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: And at the end of the day, you know, you've
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: only got yourself, you've only got yourself to, to be
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: with and live with and, and, uh, you know, make
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: the most of it, whether it involves giant change and
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: uncomfortable change or not, you know?
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: Were there some things that you guys worked on as
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: a couple that began to make it easier to talk
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: through those feelings did you do like a weekly check-in
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: what were some of the ways that you found that
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: you began to change in the way that you were
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: communicating with each other that opened some.
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: Of that up yeah yeah um It's been a work
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: in progress and it's all about communication. It's about being
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: able to articulate something almost like, hey, I want to
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: stick my hand up and I just want to share something.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: There's no unintended consequences here. There's no implication. There's no
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: implied language. I just have something I need to say.
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: That's thing number one. Thing number two is then being
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: able to listen to that and receive it without trying
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: to fix it. You know, like my, how I'm feeling,
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: how I'm doing.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, skies are bad. We're bad about that. We always
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: want to fix it.
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: Always want to fix it. As always like, oh, there's
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: a problem. I need to jump into solution mode and
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: fix it. And it turns out that's actually not very helpful.
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: I wish, I wish I knew that. I wish I
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: was better equipped to cope with that in Japan. Cause would, would,
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: would that experience have gone differently had I had those tools?
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: Totally.
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: Cause I would have been a better partner. I would
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: have been a better, I would have been, better able
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: to receive emma's experience and then work through it rather
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: than just work a little harder to try and fix
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: it right um so that's sort of the two things
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: you know be able to articulate out loud without fear
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: of consequence you know but then also be able to
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: listen and receive and know that like it's not my
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: responsibility to look after how emma's doing or it's not
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: emma's responsibility to look after how i'm doing we're responsible
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: for our own emotions and communicate them And you're in
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: this together. So it's not you versus each other. It's
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: you versus the challenge you're facing. And in that, when
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: you're living within two meters of each other in the
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: back of a Land Cruiser, space is tight. And it
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: pressurized the whole thing. And little moments like, In Japan,
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: you really do stick out like a sore thumb. We
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: didn't see a single other foreign license plate. We got
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: stopped by police nine times just because, like, what are
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: you doing here? How did you get here? You know,
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: little things like that. They just, depending on where you're
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: at in your own headspace, it can either be an
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: amazing experience that we find funny, as we often did,
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: Sometimes it can feel like, man, this is just one
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: thing after the other. This isn't fun. Yeah.
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: And yeah, that was hard. That was hard.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: It is difficult. And it's difficult. I see that on
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: trips where it's people get to the point where maybe
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: it's that pressure cooker and they start to project what
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: they're feeling on others.
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: And I think that's one of the most difficult things
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: for us as humans to do is to recognize that
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: I'm having a reaction.
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: And I'm allowed to sit with it. I'm allowed to
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: think about it. I'm allowed to feel all of those things.
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: But what's not okay is to say, is to then
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: take that out on someone else. And that's very difficult,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: especially when you're working as a team to get across
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: something really challenging like a South Pole or whatever. You
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: have to find ways to not project how you're feeling
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: because everybody gets frustrated.
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: Totally. And hats off to Clay, to be honest, because
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: I remember him coaching me on that when we on
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: the spirit of the venture trip to Alaska, you know?
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: And I imagine you guys face that, you know, West
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: coast of Africa. That's no joke.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: I imagine there were times it was pretty pressured and.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: We did pretty good job. Yeah. And we were really,
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: and we had, a lot of us had traveled together,
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: which was good.
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: You know, and Richard's a, even though I had not,
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: I've known Richard a long time, but I haven't traveled
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: with him a lot. And he, he has a real
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: stoic way about him that made it really easy for
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: him to also make sure he wasn't projecting.
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: All of that. But there was definitely times that I
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: had bad days, for sure. And I just worked really
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: hard to make sure that I wasn't taking it out
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: on anybody else. It's a difficult thing to develop, for sure.
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: So I think, yeah, long-winded answer. No, I like that.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: That's what podcasts are for, long-winded answers.
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: No, it's definitely an intense experience, I'll tell you that.
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I am sure. We did touch a little bit
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: on this in this last interview. question but really it's
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: about understanding how it's how travel has changed you as
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: a person um so what would you say are the
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: couple things that have it's really shaped you differently traveling.
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: I think it's definitely put being present front and center
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: of my day-to-day I have for a very long time
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: always lived in the future. I've always lived for, like
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: I'm working towards some goal or some ambition. I'm a
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: very goal-oriented, process-driven person.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: I hear you. Yeah. Not the process part, but definitely
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: the driven part.
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: And like, you know, almost to a fault, like to
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: my detriment. And, you know, as per the Japan example.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: And so it's like travel is not an answer, but
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: it is a fantastic facilitator to give you that space.
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: to think and experience just as, as Emma had to like,
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: suddenly she was faced with this whole expanse of time,
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: no roles, no responsibilities, no, you know, nothing to look
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: after other than herself. And, and she was allowed the
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: time and space to be like, wait a minute, what
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: do I really want to do? You know, where am
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: I at in life and what do I want to
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: do next? And is it this, you know? So I
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: think travel has, has really helped with putting presence front
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: and center and, you know, listening to that.
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's such an interesting human behavior. I mean, I'm
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: sure that a psychologist could let us know why it
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: is that way, but the amount of time in my
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: head that is spent thinking about the future, I don't
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: really think about the past too much. I don't tend
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: to ruminate very much on the past, but I really
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: struggle being in the now. Maybe that's why I like
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: the podcast because, like, we're literally... we're in it together
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: for an hour which i think is good but it
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: is hard to be present and not think about the
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: next trip while you're enjoying the current one yeah i
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: do that all the time how stupid is that totally
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: like it's such a weird human behavior of like i'm
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: okay i'm in the grand teton national park and i'm
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: thinking about getting up you know what i'm going to
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: do when i'm up in jasper or band for whatever
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: that's so silly.
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah particularly and like on international trips when If
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: you've only got a certain amount of time, but you
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: already need to be thinking about visas and logistics and
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: shipping lead times and customs lead times and paperwork and
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: certain visa windows, sometimes the process dictates that happening to you.
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: And yeah, I learned that about myself, I don't cope
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: with that well. Like, I just don't.
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I need to keep doing a better job of that,
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: trying to be more present. Um, one of the things
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: that we think is really important in the Overland Journal
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: podcast is to give back to these communities and these
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: beautiful places that we get to experience. Uh, what are
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: some ways that, uh, Emma and you give back or, um, or, and,
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: or if there are organizations that you guys really believe
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: in that help to support these places?
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, no, for sure. Um, we try and shop
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: local and stay local as best we can.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: Hmm.
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: This day and age there's a rising industry in like
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: curated experiences and and i think that's okay but there's
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: a little bit of a commodification of what makes a
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: place special and i got funny feelings about that um
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: and so wherever we go we always try and shop
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: local and and stay local particularly in australia when you
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: know recently huge communities have been severely impacted by not
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: just COVID, but then terrible bushfire season.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: Like Australia runs on small businesses, family run businesses. And so,
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: you know, they haven't got huge balance sheets to, to
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: lay back on. And so go through the small town,
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: go get a beer at the local hotel.
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: Like you don't really know how they're doing. Yeah. Um,
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: and so that's, that's just like a daily habit, uh,
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: organization wise. uh, Emma's big into surf. She's, she's definitely
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: diving into the world of the ocean. And so reef
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: conservation charities.
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, sure. Especially in Australia. Yeah.
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: Is, is something that she's really leaning into. Uh, she's
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: actually like working on her own business and her own
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: product line, which I'm super pumped for her about. Uh,
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: and you know, she wants to include a donation amount
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: to an Indonesian, you know, reef conservation group, uh, as
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: part of every sale, you know, like, take some of
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: that social accountability and social responsibility, bake it into the
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: product that you bring into market.
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: How cool is that?
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: So she's super passionate about that. And myself, if you
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: couldn't tell or hear it, I'm a big advocate for
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: mental health. Beyond Blue is an organization in Australia that
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: can step in When people find themselves in crisis.
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sure.
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: And it does people the world a good.
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's great.
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: So I'm a huge, huge believer and contributor to organizations
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: like that.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and, you know, your veterans in Australia obviously need support,
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: our veterans here in the U.S. So find ways to
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: help support these communities that make our freedom. possible, too.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: So that's certainly an important one. If you could only
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: own one brand new overland vehicle, it needs to be
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: a 2026. Which one would it be?
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: Have I got a budget?
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: No, you can have whatever. Well, I mean, it needs
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: to be an overland vehicle. which I guess anything really
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: could be an overland vehicle, but you're like 9-11.
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: Which is, that's an okay answer because they make off-road
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: versions of those now too.
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: What's that dude called? The Campagini?
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's funny to watch.
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: Would I be a good Aussie if I didn't say,
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, they're still making the 78, right?
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, of course.
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: It would be a troopee. yeah there you go you
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: know and yet there's a whole drama around they don't
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: do it with the v8 anymore but you know what
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: the 2.8 it's just fine six-speed auto.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: That's what i that's what i drove up to uh
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: cape york and but it was a manual thankfully because
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: that was i mean not that a manual is better
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: than an automatic it's not it's just more fun yeah
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: it's just harder which i liked yeah so more.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: Challenging man it's a troopy yeah she's a majestic steve
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: yeah that's.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: So true oh that's cool um I know that you
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: do a lot of reading yourself, but are there a
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: couple books, any subject matter, but are there some books
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: that have really made a difference in your life or
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: that you recommend often to others?
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: 4,000 Weeks. That's a good one.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: By Oliver Berkman.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: Great, great book. Yeah.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: That really threw my head out for a bit. You know,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: just saying out loud that on average we have 4,000
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: Weeks on Earth and that's it. So how do you
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: use each one of them? that takes a minute to digest. Uh,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: but the book is a fascinating dismantling of how we
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: have perceived times as time, as a concept, as cultures,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: as civilizations and as individuals and the modern relentless push
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: on optimizing it, you know, making the most of every minute.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: Like, yeah, he disassembles that big time and.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: It's amazing, you know? And, and I think it was,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: I think it was impactful for me because as I've
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: shared earlier, like, I've always had this, I've always put
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: way too much pressure on myself directly related to time.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: Got to keep moving, got to keep driving, got to
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: keep fixing. And so that book really helped me take
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: a step back and go, the amount of pressure you're feeling,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: most of this is coming from yourself. So these are
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: some things to unlearn. And I was not expecting that
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: out of that book at all.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: It's a great book. In fact, we even, uh, had
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: it in Overland Journal as part of one of our
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: recommended reads because it, it really does help you reframe,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: especially this relentless obsession with productivity. He basically is like, yeah,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: none of that stuff works. Like humans aren't meant to
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: do that. Like, so think of it in a different,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: think of it in a different way.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: Totally.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay. So, um, I'm going to do the bonus
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: question instead because we talked about some of your favorite places, but, um,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: what is one of the inexpensive things that you've got
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: along with you either in your truck or cause you
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: travel a lot, you know, in bit for business too,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: but like what's one of those small little things that
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: cost almost nothing that you're like, man, I can't leave
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: home without it.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: A teabag. Okay.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: I like that. Teabag.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: Always have a couple of spare teabags.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: Uh, I know that we've been in Australia for a
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: long time. Uh, but my family's like, I have a
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: chapter of growing up in the UK.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: Hmm.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: There's nothing a good cup of tea can't solve. So,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: you know, if you're stuck in the airport, if you've
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: broken down, if you've popped an alternator, put the kettle on,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: have a good cup of tea, and it costs like
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: 50 pence.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it costs nothing. So... Yeah, I think it does,
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: for a lot of people, comes back to, if I
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: can have coffee, you're solving like 90% of the world's problems.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: Totally.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: At least my problems.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: And I think a huge amount of it is just
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: because you've just taken a beat.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so true.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: You've just taken a step back, put the kettle on, decompress.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: Gain some perspective.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: You know, a cup of tea is magic. So always
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: have a cup of tea on you.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: That's a good one. There you go. A cup of tea.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: So how do people find out more about you and
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: Emma and your travels? You guys have a series coming up.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, we do.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: With the Overland Collective. So let's talk a little bit
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: about your series that's launching. Let's talk about how people
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: find you.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah. At WeWillRoam, all one word, in all the usual places,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: the Instagrams, the YouTubes, that's the go. You know, we've
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: taken a bit of a hiatus, I'd say, for the
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: last little bit, just working through everything I just shared.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: But we're coming back. Yeah, we're launching a series with
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: the Overland Collective. It's about Japan.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: Can't wait to watch that.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: It's awesome. It is such a beautiful country, such a
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: beautiful culture. We had such an amazing time on so,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: so many levels. And, you know, unique to this sort
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: of environment that we work with, the series explores a
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: little bit about what I ran through around, like, not
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: everything is sunshine and rainbows, you know, and that's okay. Like,
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: it's okay that it's not, you know, a big life altering,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: life-changing center of your identity thing that you're doing now
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: um seated in you know japanese concepts one called uh
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: iteki mass which is um that's gonna be the name
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: of the series and the japanese have the japanese language
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: has all these words that contain so much within them
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: uh so uh iteki mass is like what you say
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: when you're about to leave and it's not just see
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: you later It's, I'm going to leave. Don't worry about me.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: I'll be fine. And I will come back, I promise. Like,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: all of that consolidated into this, like, one word. And, like,
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: the cultural response to that is itesai, which means, like,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: I will think about you. Thank you for letting me
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: know you'll be safe. I look forward to your return. Yeah, nice.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: And so, yeah, there's, like, we explore a few of
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: those things all across, seated in, like, the beautiful landscapes
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: of Japan from south to north.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what an incredible culture. And you hope that they
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: can find ways to continue to allow their culture to grow.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: And they're not making enough Japanese anymore, which is a
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: weird thing to say. But what's the impact to this
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: planet when that incredible culture is now a fraction of
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: its size and influence? I think it's a very positive
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: influence on the world. So, you know, I hope that
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: they can find ways to continue to be healthy and
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: grow as a culture.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: Very much so. It is a very strange fact, but
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: I'll share it. A lot of our campsites that we
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: found were empty towns, like empty schools, empty shopping mall
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: car parks, because towns have shrunk. And some towns that
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: we drove through, particularly in the very regional areas far north,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: you know, we must have brought the average age down
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: by half just by being there. Right. And it's fascinating
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: and terrifying all at the same time.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: It is terrifying.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: Like, I thought we'd be camping in nature, in rainforests, and,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: you know, not so much. It was car parks of
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: towns that had no people in them anymore.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they're wild.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: Well, and thank you for everything that you've shared. One
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: of our responsibilities as content creators, as leaders in the space,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: is to remind others that, It's really important to be vulnerable.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: It's important to share what you're feeling. As men, we
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: need to be able to learn how to communicate what
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: we feel. Otherwise, it can manifest in ways that are
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: really unhealthy. So I do believe that mental health is
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: something that we all need to be aware of. We
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: all need to give, especially men need to give each
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: other a space to talk about what's going on in
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: our life so that we can work through it and
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: we can be better and we can be healthier because
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: of that. Um, and those are things that we hope
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: that we can continue to break down in these conversations
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: is that it's part of being human, not just part
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: of being a man or a woman. It's part of
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: being human is to feel emotion and to have these
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: really profound experiences. And we have to have a way
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: to be able to talk about it.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. Totally.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: Awesome.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: Reach out to me. Just ask. Yeah, exactly. You're doing
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: all right.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Have a conversation. Well, thank you so much
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: for spending the time with me on the podcast today.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: I've been wanting to have you on this show forever.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: I loved working with you at the Overland Collective and
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: I know we're working hard to reel you back in,
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: in the ways that we can, but maybe after you
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: make your squillions in AI and you got extra time,
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: we can, we can reel you back in, but really
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: appreciate you being on the podcast.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: I appreciate it. I love the team. I love this community.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: I love doing what we do and I'm, It's been
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: a journey the last 12 months, not going to lie.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: But I'm leaving the big thing really grounded and stoked
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: to pick up the camera again and do what brings
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: us joy. And some of that will be Emma and I.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: Some of that might just be me. And that's okay.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: Just get stuck into it. So thanks for having me on, man.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: Find new adventures.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: I'm pumped.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: Thanks for being on, Ant. I appreciate it. And we
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: thank you all for listening, and we'll talk to you
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: next time.