It was not til about 12 hours before my flight left that all my food supplies and rations for the expedition finally artived. Nevertheless i am stoked to have them and have everything sorted now.
I am currently chilling in brisbane international airport waiting to board my 24 hrs of flights to eventually get to the border town of Hotan where i will meet the rest of the crew and ready for our expedition. If all goes to plan (ha! Like that ever happens), we will be kicking off on the walking part of the expedition this coming Tuesday. Then it's 400km of walking to the other side. The inner nerd in me is actually a little interested to see how high my pedometer can count =D Anyway, they say one step at a time. So here goes nothing! Why we do what we do... The what is always the easy part, the how is short term horrific pain but the why is really the important part and often the least recognised.
My team and I adventure and shenaganise our way around the world to promote and give aid to those who deserve it and otherwise would get lost in a world full of white noise. We're here to give India's street children a chance for a better tomorrow. The four of us are looking to change the life of at least one child in the streets of Kolkata by bringing them an education, health care and most importantly, an opportunity. Just think to yourself, how do you feel about changing the entire life of a child? www.futurehope.net is the charity that we support. Here you can help us to help them. You can show your support and your energy to help a child have a life here, https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/silkroadpirates Just a small update this time with a tidbit of 'fun' information.
Check the lovely little speed bump that the team and I will be overcoming at exactly the mid point of our desert crossing in a couple months. It's a monsterous permanent sand dune over 1000ft high and with slopes in excess of 20 degrees! After years of anticipation it is finally down to within two months of departure. Our final preparations are being made and the time is drawing ever nearer. I (Fisch) have been playing with camels and learning all that I can in the tropics of Australia, Juan has been in the real desert of Australia riding camels (cheater) and Avi and Loz have been busy hiking and expeditioning the UK landscapes.
Avi and Loz have just completed nearly 50km in 2 days with full packs in freezing temps and I've been sweltering away in the Aussie summer heat hiking daily with a full pack in 40 degrees C! Planning an expedition is one thing, but it's a whole other part of terrifying excitement when you enter your credit cards into a cheap flight booking website and hit the ENTER button to confirm your flights. For me that was a few months ago, for Juan that was a month ago, for Avi and Loz that was last night...
Caption reads: "Oh God what have we done!?!?!" To undertake a crossing of a formidable desert on the other side of the world is one thing. To plan on doing it on foot is another, but to do it knowing absolutely nothing about camels is something else entirely!
The team and I have set out on our latest mission which is to acquaint ourselves with the four legged species and better prepare ourselves for the journey ahead. I managed to get in contact with a local camel milk farm by the name of QCamel and they have been incredibly helpful. I'm currently volunteering (reread: playing with baby camels) out there whenever I have the opportunity and am loving getting up close and personal with these guys. They are absolutely nothing like what I expected. They are incredibly social and cuddly animals that are only too eager to come interact and nuzzle me. They are so very different to horses (which is what I have grown up with), they're more placid, a bunch more vocal and they just never ever stop chewing. I'm learning more and more everyday, from their unique digestive systems, to them always pointing into the sun to minimise their heat absorption to how best worm and look after these beautiful animals. I cannot say thank you enough to all of the crew at QCamel for having me along and taking the time to teach a blonde surf bum all they can about camels! For months I had been planning an expedition to cross the Rub'Al'Khali (the Empty Quarter) only to find however that at every turn I was getting knocked back for visas for my team and I to enter the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. For months we tried official and unofficial channels with a very blatant and resounding denial of our requests to have a badenture.
Moving forward, the team has found another desert that is even more deadly, more dry, more vast, less explored and most of all, more scary than the one before. Enter the Desert. Read more about it here! http://www.kristanfischer.com/silk-road-pirates.html Always on the lookout for a way to do something better, I recently put my thinking hat on and came up with a much better alternative to the traditional skydive jumpsuit. Enter the Xtremeracing GoKart suit. Same materials, same construction, sexier looks and half the price! Fisch has been super busy product testing these lately and they're definitely holding up to the challenge!
Check them out here!! xtremeracing.com.au After a totlal of 43 days at sea Juliana Bahr-Thomson and Fisch arrive on main beach of Noosa. Jules had just completed an epic 1000km paddle from Newcastle to Noose on nothing more than a surf rescue board with Fisch by her side as her on water support crew.
Our adventure was nothing short of amazing. Together we stayed on remote islands in the middle of the ocean, were chased by Great White sharks and had seriously up close and personal encounters with some really inquisitive Humpback Whales. At current, Jules has managed to raise nearly $30,000 for the White Ribbon Foundation (domestic violence) and the Surfrider Foundation. It's been an awe inspiring journey to meet and adventure with this special individual. Find out more about the epic-ness here! http://www.mermaidwithamessage.com.au |
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