Cycling, trekking, skiing, sailing: for some the action never stops. Hattie Curl and Miranda Jessop meet three women who have made adventure travel their lives
Earlier this year, 23-year-old Laura Bingham embarked on a mammoth six-month trip across South America from Ecuador on the Pacific Coast, cycling over the Andes and through the Amazon jungle to reach Buenos Aires. A tough enough venture in itself, you might think. But there was a twist: Laura did it all without spending a single penny, relying instead on the kindness of strangers and picking up work en route.
“My initial idea had been to do a cycle race around the world,” she explains. “Then I realised that, for me, it wasn’t really about the race at all, but the adventure and getting to know the cultures. So I decided to cycle across South America instead.”
Adventure aside, the trip was also to raise money for Operation South America, a charity that cares for girls whose parents lack the money to feed or look after them properly.
“There were two girls who thought you only had to eat every other day,” recalls Laura. “That’s what they were used to. So, on this trip, I wanted to know what it feels like to be truly desperate.”
Her wish was granted. One bleak day in Ecuador, close to exhaustion, she stopped to plead with a woman.
“I could take no more, so I dropped to the floor, tears streaming, and asked if we could camp in her garden or have something to eat. The lady made eye contact and just shook her finger. I had to pick up my bike and keep pushing.”
Short of food, Laura and her companion – she was joined at different times by family and fellow adventurers – completed barely 20km a day in Ecuador. Once in Paraguay, however, they chanced upon a family who gave them three huge batches of cookies. The average shot up to 140km.
“Having cookies hourly made me realise what an emotional motivator food can be,” reflects Laura, from Hampshire, whose travels began when she left England at 18 to “try to find myself and discover what makes me happy”.
The answer, it transpired, was travel itself. When, after four years, she returned home from Mexico, it was via a two-month crossing in a trimaran.
“That was so challenging, but it gave me a real thirst for more hard-core stuff.”
This summer Laura wed TV explorer Ed Stafford, the first person to walk the length of the Amazon, but the couple have no immediate plans for a joint expedition. Instead, Laura is plotting two new trips of her own: to the jungle and to Iceland. The classic suburban couple they are not. HC
Paula Reid has a ‘Live Life to the Full’ list: over 150 adventures she would like to complete. So far she’s clocked up around 100 of them, including a 10-month sailing trip round the world and a gruelling 46-day ski from the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole. She’s paddled the Mekong River in a dugout canoe, kayaked the Thames from source to sea and walked the breadth of the UK. Now she is embarking on a cycling project that takes in most of Europe.
“I remember my first real taste of adventure,” recalls the 48-year-old from Portsmouth, who relishes putting herself in what she calls the “stretch zone”.
“The school organised a month-long trip to India. It was a real off-the-beaten-track experience, and it was very unusual for a 15-year-old to go to rural parts of the country where they hadn’t seen a white person before.”
For Paula this experience set the tone. Prominent on her adventure list are activities such as firewalking, bog snorkelling and glacier trekking, along with hiking Hadrian’s Wall, running the London Marathon, trekking through troubled West Papua and, of course, diving with great white sharks.
For her present exploit – entitled ‘50 Good Turns’ and spread out over several years – Paula plans to cycle across 50 European countries with 50 different friends, doing one good deed in each land.
In fact, she has already started, completing the length of the UK – 803 miles into the wind from John O’Groats to Portsmouth – in 11 days.
“I often choose the hardest way on my challenges,” she says. “Cycling into the wind, or skiing into the wind to get to the South Pole. In fact, when we sailed around the world, we headed into the wind for that too!”
It was during this spell on the ocean wave that Paula met her adventurer partner, Alex Alley, who is currently planning a sailing trip of his own: solo, around the world, non-stop.
“It’s great because we can support and motivate each other through all these crazy things we do,” laughs Paula.
Just as well, really. HC
As Chemmy Alcott strides into her local deli in East Molesey, her neat baby bump is clearly visible and, at first glance, you may think this is just another yummy mummy-to-be. But do not be fooled; beneath this glamorous, friendly exterior is a determined athlete, more used to skiing down mountains at 90 mph than changing nappies.
Four-time Winter Olympian Chemmy, aged 34, grew up in Twickenham, the youngest child in a sporty family.
“My father worked as a chartered surveyor but he also played rugby for Richmond and my mother, a teacher, was an excellent swimmer. My parents actually met at Isleworth swimming club when they were 11 so I really haven’t ventured very far.”
Right from the start, it was clear that Chemmy was keen to keep up with her three elder brothers but it was around the age of eight when she was a pupil at Newland House School that her parents realised Chemmy had real potential.
“We were travelling to Scotland and France, competing in races and soon I was beating all the boys. When I was 11, I won the world junior children’s Olympics.”
By the time she went to secondary school at Surbiton High, she was training five times a week but still keeping up with her education.
“Because skiing is such a dangerous sport, I knew I needed something to fall back on. I also wanted to know that I was choosing to ski because I loved it and not because it was the only thing I was good at.”
Chemmy finished her A Levels in June 2001 and by the following February she was competing in her first winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. She went on to race in three more Olympics although she never actually achieved her goal of winning a medal.
“My dream was to win an Olympic gold and I spent 20 years chasing that dream. Although I didn’t actually achieve it, following that goal taught me so much about who I am. I am proud of that struggle and that fight, particularly as skiing is such a difficult sport and especially coming from Britain.”
So what is her greatest achievement?
“When I became the first and only British ski racer to win a run in the World Cup. At that time I found the expectation and the fear of failure really hard to handle; I was unbeatable in training but I couldn’t transfer that to a race. And then, that day in Solden in 2008, I just charged down and I won.”
Two weeks later Chemmy broke her ankle and that was the start of a succession of injuries. Unbelievably, she has broken a total of 49 bones, including her neck when she was just 11 years old.
Six months before her last Olympics at Sochi in 2014, she had an operation to insert a 15-inch metal nail inside her leg but she still managed to compete. However, she was then told by her surgeon that if she continued to ski at such high speeds, she would be in danger of damaging her leg so badly, the only option would be amputation.
“I didn’t want to jeopardise my skiing as I love it so much and it is my life so, reluctantly, I decided to retire.
“Being an athlete is quite a selfish existence. You get up every morning and you think how today am I going to be better, stronger, faster? When I was forced to retire, I knew that I still wanted to continue pushing myself both physically and mentally so, during that first year, I embarked on a series of extreme challenges.
“The Arctic Circle Race in Greenland, widely regarded as the world’s toughest ski race, was difficult because it was cross-country, a discipline of skiing I had never done. We did 160km in three days and camped out at night.”
But the most gruelling challenge was the Artemis Great Kindrochit Quadrathlon, Scotland’s hardest one-day endurance event.
“After being told I could never run with my leg injury, it included a run of seven Munros; the whole course took 15 hours and I was completely wrecked for quite some time afterwards.”
Two years on and life is busier than ever. She is a regular presenter on BBC’s Ski Sunday as well as running a ski coaching company, CDC Performance, with former British champion ski racer, Dougie Crawford, who also happens to be her husband.
Chemmy is passionate about developing life skills in girls through sport. Through her role as an ambassador for Surbiton High she became involved with United Learning.
“I realised I could help with the understanding as to why girls should get into sport and we set up an initiative called X-Elle, designed to raise young girls’ confidence through sport.”
Chemmy is also an accomplished motivational speaker and has even turned a great personal sadness in her life into a positive.
“The last time I ever saw my mum was at the finish during the Turin Winter Olympics in 2006. [She died shortly afterwards of liver failure]. My mother dying so suddenly made me want to live even harder and to forgive quicker. It made me realise that this can always be our last day and just to grasp everything.”
And now Chemmy and Dougie are expecting their first baby, a boy. The baby is due on New Year’s Day and Chemmy has every intention of being in the Alps by mid-January, ready to present the first episode of Ski Sunday.
“I am so looking forward to becoming a mum but I still want to follow my passions and keep exploring ways that I can improve myself. When you are an athlete, every day is about being better than yesterday and I don’t think that should ever change.” MJ
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