c&k#35 dps-m spg - Canoe & Kayak

ADVENTURE PHILOSOPHYThe Unclaimed CoastAdventure Philosophy’s SouthGeorgian OdysseyMark JonesMark Jones is a member of the Adventure Philosophy team andlecturers at AUT University on its Outdoor Leadership courses.South Georgia Island. People who had been there spoke ofit in hallowed tones, with faraway looks, in turn intense ormisty eyed. Each had an epic to share: a shredded tent, ananchor dragging, seas whipped to frenzy- narrow escapes.Marcus Waters, Graham Charles first heard of the “unclaimed coast” in March2001. There had been two attempts to paddle around the island - the southwest coast, a full third of the island had never been kayaked.It was a coast that had seen fewer than 5 boats of any description explore itslength since the sealing days.I talked to people who had been there and read everything I could lay myhands on about the place. The impression I was left with was of an uncommonisland, remote, beautiful and unquestionably wild. But it was the wildlifethat drew me to it more than anything. Stories of beaches buried under sealsand astronomical numbers of penguins, averitable Serengeti of the south. The thought ofvisiting the island and exploring it under our ownsteam burrowed into my mind like a worm. Iacquired a 1:200,000 chart of the island fromArgentina, and from time to time I would furtivelyopen it, gazing wistfully at the outline of the island,tracing its coves and headlands with my eyes,trying to imagine just how it would feel to seethem from sea level. The mind worm burroweddeeper...The Island itself is one of the most remote partsof the planet, but a flight from Auckland viaSantiago to Port Stanley in the Falklands and thensailing 1300km ESE will get you there. It doesn’tseem so far away when you say it quickly. Wesailed with Greg Landreth and Keri Pashuk aboarda 53-foot Ketch Northanger, with a long history ofsuccessful polar expeditioning. After six days wegained our first glimpse of South Georgia.Impossibly jagged peaks, floating untethered in adistant haze with a large tabular berg sticking upfrom the horizon like a worn molar.Then everything was swallowed up by cloud and South Georgia became asmear of luminescence on the radar scree. It looked rather like those ink blotsthat shrinks are fond of using to psychoanalyse their patients. As thissimilarity struck me I couldn’t help but ponder why I wanted to be here. Whatstate of mind drives one to want to travel to such a far-flung scrap of land atthe edge of the world, to journey nearer the edge of reason that I cared toadmit? To be the first to kayak around the island was how we had pitchedit to sponsors, but that wasn’t the attraction.My mind winnowed through other possibilities and the real reasons that Iwas there soon dropped from the chaff- the quickness of breath, theextraordinariness of each day, the mystery that each unfolding headlandheld; for the shouted exultation of joy, and the warm glow of satisfaction atthe end of a hard won day; to experience simple awe of the elements andnature unbridled- extravagant, unsullied and mysterious; for theWe landed in snow that had fallen continuously since our journey beganGORE-TEX(r) Adventure Scholarships are “Good for Life”Three groups of young New Zealand adventurers have gained the opportunity tolive their dream adventure through the 2005 Adventure Philosophy - GORE-TEX(r)Good For Life Scholarships.The scholarships, administered by Adventure Philosophy, funded by GORE-TEX(r)outerwear, and sponsored by Mountain Safety Research (MSR), Bivouac Outdoor andMacpac, required applicants to submit an in-depth proposal for an adventure.Traverse of The Serpentine RangeFrancesca Eldridge and Glenn Pennycook plan to traverse the little travelledSerpentine Range in Fiordland National Park, Climbing several peaks along the waythat have had few ascents and all of those poorly documented. Mts Xenicus (1912m),Erebus (1978m), Ocean peak (1848m), Nereus Peak (1962m) and traverse Mt Somnus(2293m).In the Footsteps of KehuLauren Moyes, Louis Brown, and Nick Fairclough will celebrate the historic 160 yearanniversity of the Charles Heaphy and Thomas Brunner’s epic 1846 expedition withMaori Guide, Kehu along the west coast of the upper South Island.Black Sand to White Sand- a transcoastal adventurePhillip Baker and Kelsey Serjeant will journey across the upper South Islandtramping, mountain biking, white-water and sea kayaking from west to east,beginning at the Heaphy Track and ending in Blenheim. They will also be using theexpedition to raise money for the Books in Homes charity.8 ISSUE THIRTYfive • 2006