Because It Is There: A Zero Emissions Odyssey

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude to me is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than success, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, gift, or skill. It will make or break a company…a church…a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past…we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it. And so it is with you… we are in charge of our attitudes. ”

- Charles Swindoll

A friend sent me an email with a link to the picture below and it made me think a bit about the nature of fear and especially the fear that’s risen in me when planning my route through certain countries.

Straight of the bat, when your telling someone that your going to cycle and sail round the world the one of the first questions asked is ‘are you not scared?’, to which i usually reply ‘not really’. But if i’m honest, of course i am! Why wouldn’t i be? I’m heading off on a trip that will take me through places i don’t know very much about and so, don’t know what to expect. I’m constantly told horror stories of bear attacks in Russia and muggings in South America, and of course these stories unsettle me and make me question why i’m planning such a big trip through so many ‘dangerous’ countries.

But then i remember, i wanted to do this expedition because i wanted an old fashioned adventure and that for every ‘bad’ thing that happens, there will be thousands of great moments. Having said that, I just hope the bad things are buckled wheels and not coming face to face with a Brown Bear poking it’s head in my tent in the middle of the night whilst im camping in Russia



“What a weird world it is, where we jet all over the world, you know, somebody can be amazingly well travelled but they actually know bugger all about where they are or where they’ve been. They jet in to Beijing; they couldn’t point out north; they don’t know where to get their pants washed; they don’t speak the language. They aren’t really anywhere; they’re kinda in their own heads. So distorting is jet travel in that way”

A fantastic quote from the author Will Self regarding international jet travel