Another Mans Shoes
Interviews with fellow military veterans and adventurers about their experiences of war, the lows and times of hardship, joining them on their journey and how this has shaped their lives in the most extraordinary way. Comedy moments, dark humour and witty banter.
Another Mans Shoes
Skydiving, Summits, and Saving Elephants: The Extraordinary Journey of Holly Budge
What drives someone to leap out of planes and conquer the world's highest peaks? In this thrilling episode, we sit down with the extraordinary Holly Budge, an adventurer and conservationist whose life story reads like an epic novel. From being expelled from school at just four years old to representing Great Britain in triathlon events and then finding her passion for professional skydiving in New Zealand, Holly's journey is a testament to the unyielding human spirit. On World Female Ranger Day, she opens up about the resilience, teamwork, and passion that have fueled her incredible adventures and conservation efforts.
Join us as Holly recounts some of her most exhilarating skydiving experiences, including the wildly unique Funny Farm festival in Australia. We share practical tips for aspiring skydivers, from training in Spain to overcoming initial fears, and delve into her transition into filming skydives, showing how passion can take you to new heights. Holly also takes us high into the Himalayas, detailing the thrill and peril of skydiving and mountaineering in some of the world's most challenging terrains, with gripping tales of media attention and the daunting Skydive Everest event.
But the excitement doesn't stop at extreme sports. Holly also discusses her innovative "mirror step" technique for summiting 8,000-meter peaks and the transition from self-funded expeditions to securing sponsorship for Everest. We then pivot to her impactful conservation work, focusing on the alarming rates of elephant poaching in Africa and the efforts of "How Many Elephants" in supporting female rangers on the front lines. Discover the significance of World Female Ranger Day and Holly's passion for journaling through her adventures, offering a raw, inspiring glimpse into a life dedicated to both adventure and making a difference.
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hello and welcome back to season two of another man's shoes. We're delighted to have everyone with us. It's been a couple of months off, but we've been busy here recording all of the next season and we've got another 10 episodes to get aired every week. What we're asking is if you're listening to the show uh, not too sure what medium you use, because we're on spot podcasts on Apple. You know various other mediums, but if you have got access to Apple iTunes, that's the only one that lets you sort of like and sort of leave a review. So it'd be great if you just pop on there or, you know, ask your friends to pop on there, just leave us a little star rating, leave one word comments even. It just helps us get up the rankings and people find us and get to listen to the show, which we hope they enjoy as much as you guys are. So this season we are on the Explorers and Adventurers.
Speaker 1:We did season one, which was military, and season two's Explorers and Adventurers, and I've got to say you know, some of these interviews that we've done are real edge of your seat stuff. On this first interview, we've got Holly Budge. Now we've actually brought holly on today. It's quite a special day. It's 23rd of june and that's uh sort of world female ranger day, and you'll understand more why. That's sort of prevalent in a minute when you listen to holly in the show. But yeah, you're gonna love this next hour. So all I would say is uh, you know, sit back, grab yourself a brew and enjoy the show. Holly, thanks for coming on tonight. Great to speak to you.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Adam. It's great to be here chatting with you today.
Speaker 1:It is, and I think we're going to sit back for an hour in your shoes and I think we'll probably all be quite tired by the end of it from what I've read about what you've done. So before we jump into the show and we talk about all the great adventures, it's good to get a bit of background and a bit about you, and you know the journey that you sort of traveled sort of in your younger formative years. Uh, so can you sort of just tell us a bit about you know what life was like growing up and it really sort of how your childhood was and and were you always into what you're into? Or is this like a path that you just sort of pivoted down?
Speaker 2:Well, I think I've always been very adventurous. Um, I was probably quite a disruptive child. I think it was quite impressive to be expelled from school at age four for, uh, for being, uh, uh, you know, trying to be into everythinging, disrupting people. Um, but, yeah, I've always loved the outdoors and, do you know, I feel very fortunate to have had the childhood that, uh, the era that I grew up in, um, without technology as we know it today so spent tremendous amounts of time outdoors.
Speaker 2:Um, I learned to ride ponies and then horses from before I could walk and was competing at a pretty young age and by the time I was about six or seven, I was, or probably seven I was competing in triathlon events. So, swimming, shooting and, uh, shooting targets and, um, horse riding, and I was really competitive and we would, you know, as a team, uh, we did really well. Uh, we won most of the uh events that we did, and I think it really instilled to me at a very young age. Uh, it kind of toughened me up. When you fall off the horse, you get straight back on and you try again. And it also taught me very much the importance of teamwork and I realized, you know, I was pretty good at the riding and the swimming and I was terrible at running and I was okay at shooting. So the other members of our team had strengths that I didn't have. So I think these were all really valuable lessons to learn, especially going on to make a career and a life in the world of adventure and conservation.
Speaker 2:So went on to compete for my country, represented Great Britain on a couple of times, but what I realised is it was just a massive commitment, especially when I was at 17, 18 years old. You know, I just sort of gone to college and discovered all sorts of new and exciting things and suddenly riding horses all the time and every weekend and every evening just didn't seem as exciting as it once had. But for me the adventure took a whole new turn. When I was 21. I went traveling around Australia and New Zealand, like many people do, and I and I threw myself out of a perfectly good aeroplane doing a tandem skydive and that 60 seconds of adrenaline and that 60 seconds of sheer terror completely changed the course of my life forever.
Speaker 2:So I decided there and then that's what I wanted to do I wanted to move to New Zealand and get a job throwing myself out of perfectly good aeroplanes every day of the year. Yeah, my careers advisor at school hadn't mentioned this to me, so this was a whole new thought, and that's that's what I did. I came back to the UK, carried on working in my role as a graphic designer, saved up enough money to escape the concrete jungle and brought a plane ticket back to New Zealand, put myself through my skydiving course and several months later, I achieved my rather far-fetched goal was, it was a dream job. I was, uh, getting paid to jump out of airplanes up to 12 times a day every day. Um, only three jumps were needed to pay my whole month's rent so.
Speaker 2:I've never actually had so much disposable income as I did when I was 21. But what it did do was it gave me this, uh, massive confidence and this belief that I could do whatever I put my mind to, or I could at least have a go. So I've tried to keep that 21 year old mindset, as I like to call it, going. I'm now 42. So over the last two decades I've really tried to hang on to that mindset, not overthinking, not procrastinating too much and just going for it. So that's actually taken me on some pretty incredible adventures around the world.
Speaker 1:It has. I mean, that was amazing. So you took your sort of gap year. We did your travel year, where most people go on that and then when they come home they think, oh, they get all depressed and what am I going to do in life? And they haven't really. They've had a great adventure. Well, they haven't actually done much and worked out where they're going and you've come back off as an amazing adventure and actually that's it. You sort of mapped out where you want to go. So you know you've got to achieve that. Um, so yeah, I mean actually I've done some skydiving. New zealand what an amazing place. I was up in bay of islands, I think it was called, and they're jumping really high over there because you struggle to get up to 15 here, but I think it was about 20,000. They did over there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe, yeah, I mean most of the time we were jumping out around sort of 12 to 15,000 feet, but yeah, how many jumps have you got in? Probably done about 3,500 jumps now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you bored of it, yet after 3,500?.
Speaker 2:Do you know, I haven't uh skydived for uh 11 years now so, and I don't really miss it. I'm much more into mountaineering these days, but I think I did so much in a short space of time. I just kind of, you know, I don't feel a need to uh. If I went back to it now, I'd kind of want to go and base myself somewhere for a month or two and just bang out a whole load of jumps, rather than just one here or one there.
Speaker 1:You know yeah, not quite the same. No, that's brilliant. So after you sort of got into the skydiving scene I mean, that is quite a scene, it's quite clicky and you meet lots of interesting people, did you? Did you do like any of these sort of mass jumps you sort of see? I know in america they were trying to get like a hundred odd people out on one stick or whatever. They were cramming them all in a bit parasitic. I think it was you know I haven't.
Speaker 2:No, they're called big ways, but I haven't done I haven't done any. Um, I've done. Probably I don't know the most I've done might be 30 people on a jump, so reasonably, you know a fair amount of people in the sky all together at once. We used to go to this pretty crazy skydiving festival in Australia which is still going, called the Funny Farm, and just I mean it might be a little bit different now, but certainly sort of 18 years ago it was.
Speaker 2:It was pretty wild and yeah they had a big sky van where the whole back opened up and then, you know, people were jumping out with with, like you know, sofas and I think a car went out. Um, you know, they were rolling bowling balls off the back of the sky van and had targets on the ground and we did a pretty uh big way jump out of there, but uh like a tracking jump, and it was probably one of my most memorable jumps in terms of how beautiful the the night sky was.
Speaker 2:So it was like sunset and just all your mates and just it just was just an incredible time. And also, adam, it was amazing hanging around with such positive people, like anything seemed possible, yeah, and and indeed it was. If you could believe that you could do it, you could do it.
Speaker 1:And I think that really rubbed off on me, that that kind of attitude, that real have a go, you know, just throw yourself into it absolutely, and if anyone's listening to this who wants to sort of get into skydiving, uh, and is maybe a bit about it, would you give anyone a tip you know about, like when they're getting into the door or what the best way of overcoming that fear is?
Speaker 2:Well, first tip is skydiving in the UK is a time consuming exercise because you literally are waiting on the weather for the most part, on the weather for the most part. So if you really do want to learn to skydive and you are in the UK, your best bet is to go to Spain for a week. Really cool drop zones over there, it's hot, the plane's running all day long, so then you can really just, you know, bang out a load of jumps in in a short period of time. So that would be my advice. But for me, um, managing fear, it's, it's an incredible thing.
Speaker 2:When you first do a bungee jump or you first do a skydive, it's, it's pretty terrifying, you know, plummeting to earth 120 miles per hour plus just is a complete sensory overload, especially the first few times. And I used to um, sit in the plane, uh, on the first few jumps, looking at the more experienced jumpers, the staff, the cameraman, the tandem masters, and they used to be sitting there laughing and joking and having a, you know, fun time in the in the plane on the way up, and I used to think, god, how, how can you get to that level of you know, that, that sort of much comfort, knowing that you're just about to uh throw yourself out of a perfectly good airplane, and very quickly. After I got my job, that was me, that was me laughing, joking, and it's amazing how quickly you can normalize something that was once incredibly terrifying. I used to say to people jumping out of a plane was like getting up and cleaning my teeth isn't?
Speaker 1:it's actually quite a safe sport when you look at statistics statistically it is, but it's still.
Speaker 2:I mean, if I went and did a jump now, even with three and a half thousand jumps under my belt, it would be really terrifying because I haven't jumped for so long. Um, so it is. You know, it's, it's still a pretty uh, you know, balls out thing to be doing. Chucking yourself out of a plane, it's uh, it's not, it's not a normal thing to do no, everyone should try it.
Speaker 2:If you want to live a little, go for a jump what I did find, when I was uh jumping sort of 12 times a day, is, you know, you started to get a bit comfortable sometimes and a bit blasé, and that was when it sort of could have turned around and bite you on the bum. So you know, you might have forgotten to check some of your equipment, or you know, just just uh taking it a little bit for granted that you know you think you'll be all right and I think that's that's the dangerous area yeah, we had.
Speaker 1:We had a guy we were jumping a few years back and, uh, when we're doing our military jumps and obviously as you're packing your shoot and you're going for your various checks, and a few of those guys just got more into the habit of sort of cram it and ram it, sort of you know yeah and uh and they're like well, look, it wants to open. So if it doesn't open, I I've got my reserve and I'm like yeah, you know what, I'm just going to spend a little bit longer packing this bad boy.
Speaker 2:Well, unfortunately, adam, I we didn't have, we? I mean, we obviously did pack our parachutes sometimes if we were doing fun jumps, but when I was working, just had two rigs rotating all day long and you had yeah, and my packer was called super dave and super dave was all about ramming it in there he didn't care, so that wants to open. That was probably the scariest part of my job was relying on super dave's uh pack jobs of your three and a half thousand.
Speaker 2:I only pulled my reserve once. Uh, in all that time had another, had a few other uh mishaps, but but only had to pull my reserve once in that time.
Speaker 1:Well, that's testament then, isn't it to the safety?
Speaker 2:of it all.
Speaker 1:So when you were in New Zealand you sort of spent a lot of time out there having a great time. Then you sort of got more into the camera side of things, did you? The?
Speaker 2:camera straight away, to be honest. So when I did my first tandem and then realized that's what I wanted to do become a camera woman, I didn't actually know anything about skydiving or filming, so, again, the filming was quite far-fetched. But, to be honest, when you're a skydiving camera person, um, you know you have, this was pre gopro days, so we had a digital slr on the top, yeah, and a video camera strapped on the side. So my, my camera helmet was about three and a half kilos, which is quite a lot on your your neck, um, and then we used to take the photos with a button that sat in your mouth. So you just take the photos with your, okay, with your tongue, and then you just hit record on the video and when you start you have a site on your Google.
Speaker 2:So you've got a rough idea of what you're filming, but you know as you get more experienced you kind of hope that you know what you're filming and where your camera is pointing etc. But it was funny because it was in the days of film, so we used to give people a film role when they got down and of course sometimes you know we had mechanical malfunctions and didn't get all the photos. So it was a real game changer when you know digital came in, sorry. So we started off with a film SLR and then went to a digital SLR and nowadays of course you know it's all weenie cameras and the camera helmet probably doesn't even weigh half a kilo. So things have changed massively in the last 20 years since I was doing it.
Speaker 1:Game changing on that front? I think 20 years ago you couldn't even get a camera on your phone. If it was, it was little pixels. It's amazing how quickly it's all gone along. But I suppose on on the camera side of things I mean, you was that like a job that was in demand is there quite a lot of call for that on the movie sets or to follow adventures around the world um, to be honest with you, I I didn't ever look at it.
Speaker 2:I I would have preferred I always wanted to be a stunt woman. That was that was my ultimate sort of goal once I got into skydiving. But, yeah, I mean a massive demand for it, with people doing tandem skydives so you could go around the world working as a as a camera woman or a cameraman, working at different drop zones for sure, people always want their jumps filmed but I'd imagine, yeah, I think, working on movie sets and, you know, being the cameraman on Point Break and things like that you know.
Speaker 2:I imagine that's probably more specialist stuff or just who you know, but we did do some fun jumps. We had a TV crew come and they wanted a load of naked skydivers. So we asked backpackers who wants a?
Speaker 1:free skydive.
Speaker 2:You've just got to get your kit off. So we had, you know, the queue as long as you know, as long as you can imagine. So that was pretty funny watching everyone in free fall with their wobbly bits. We did some yeah, definitely did some fun jumps in and amongst you know, your regular filming the tandems.
Speaker 1:When you finished the sort of the part you sort of said you gave that up and you then sort of moved more across onto the mountaineering.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so yeah, I basically heard about the opportunity when I was working in New Zealand to jump out of a plane next to Mount Everest.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, as a skydiver, I just knew that was an opportunity I didn't want to miss out on. So it was a world first expedition. And I rang the organizer and said you know, I really want to join the team. And it quickly became apparent there were no other women signed up. So I knew that was my hook for getting sponsors on board. And he said great, can I count you in? And I said yeah, count me in. And he said that will be £24,000. I said yeah, 100%, count me me in, didn't have 24 000 pounds.
Speaker 2:Um, but just knew that by setting myself another big goal I had uh, you know, I'd go give it my all to go and find those sponsors and get them to buy into me and my vision. And that's exactly what I did. So the aircraft that we jumped out of at 29 and500 feet had never flown to that altitude before, so we didn't even know if we were going to make it up there, but we did. But what happened next, adam? Nothing could have prepared me for. The door opened 29,500 feet. The first person to skydive everest was about three seconds in front of me and they jumped out. My camera flyer climbed out onto the step and I'm giving my count ready set and the next thing, my camera flyers uh hand is on my shoulder pushing me back into the plane saying you can't jump, don't get out and unbe to me. The pilot had held up the stop sign behind me saying don't let the jumpers out, but it was too late. I had too much momentum on my ready set go.
Speaker 2:And I'm back pedalling in the door and I fell out of the plane. So people say was skydiving Everest, you know, your best skydive ever?
Speaker 2:No, it was pretty terrifying yeah um had, like student, you know, the equivalent of student equipment on, because my parachute was three times the size of my normal shoot because of the higher altitude, thinner air, so it was pretty bulky equipment and, um, there was almost complete cloud cover on the ground. So when you're kind of up at those altitudes, the minute you even see the clouds rolling up the valley, the next minute you can be totally engulfed in them really quickly. So when you're skydiving you don't really have any fancy equipment, it's just your eyes. So it didn't have any visuals on the ground below and I had to make it back to this landing area disused airstrip which was perfectly big enough, assuming you made it back there there was just very few other places that you could have made a safe landing.
Speaker 2:So I came through the clouds, um, well, pulled my parachute, that opened always a good thing came through the clouds and, um, I had to take my oxygen mask off because it was really obscuring my vision and I was just hell-bent on finding this landing area. So I was still at 18,000 feet without oxygen, so still pretty high, and then I made it back. I had a good landing and then about two minutes later it was complete whiteout. You couldn't see even a couple of meters in front of you. So I felt really fortunate to walk away safely from that jump. A couple of days later, same thing happened. Pilot held up the stop sign, group of skydivers got out and, unfortunately for them, the clouds went all the way to the ground. So you know, one girl had a broke her back and her femur. Another guy landed in a yak farm. You know it was all. It was all like.
Speaker 2:It went, went, fell apart a little bit on that that day, um, but by the time I had, uh, got back to the uk, which was two days after I did the jump, um you, that was probably the scariest thing of it all was the media. The global media picked up the story and I was put in a hotel for 24 hours, courtesy of the BBC, did six live TV interviews, went on the red sofa, the BBC breakfast red sofa, cnn, cbs, and I mean I'm much more prepared these days and have done a lot more with the media, but back then it was just thrusted into the, the limelight and then, a few days later, your old news yes, um but it was quite an experience and the expedition raised uh,000 US dollars for a charity called Global Angels, so a massively successful expedition.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. I did quite a lot of work with military veterans charities. Oh yeah, and in the diary for this November is Skydive Everest, oh really yeah, and so when you sort of said that, I was thinking, oh, now I'm gonna sort of rinse you for the information on this. Like it's still expensive. It's still about 20,000 pounds for a tandem jump um it's big money. I guess you've got a specialist equipment and getting people up there and if you get injured it's probably a bit of a pain getting down yeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean it's, it's, it's brilliant. It's become an annual event, uh, because you know it's such a great way to raise money for charity as well, and uh, just get a superb view of the himalayas yeah, a lot of people have climbed everest now, but not many have jumped here no, no, that's true maybe that's the new thing and it's a lot easier.
Speaker 2:You haven't got to train as much so, in answer to your question of how did I get into mountaineering, uh, when I first laid eyes on mount everest, um, which was pretty magical, um, I just knew one day I would be back to try and climb to the top but I just knew nothing about mountaineering, so I set about uh learning how to climb and quickly found myself back in the Himalayas.
Speaker 2:I went to climb Mira Peak, which is a 6,500 meter peak. It's known as a trekking peak, but I'd say that's a little bit deceptive, in that it's still a really big high altitude mountain. The following week I went on and climbed Burundsi, which is one of the most, if not the most remotest mountain in Nepal, and they call it Death Valley, because you have to go in, you hike in over a 6,000 metre pass and you hike out over a pass and if the weather comes in they can't get helicopters in and out for rescue. And that was my first taste of big mountain climbing and it was. You know. It's pretty freaky, like barunsi is very exposed and there's little ledges that are sort of less than a foot wide and they just have massive drop-offs on each side, sort of a thousand meters, like almost straight down to the base camp, and you're shuffling across these little ledges. I've got this video clip.
Speaker 2:I took um on my gopro and when I give talks you always get a yeah when you put that it's this, that kind of oh my god, if you had any issues with height you would. You would not like these ledges at all, but fortunately for me, my skydiving, backgroundiving background set me up well for these exposed mountaineering moments. But yeah, burundi. And then I went on and did my first 8,000 metre peak, choy Oyu, from Tibet, and that was, I'll tell you, on the first two mountains in the Himalayas. I felt, you know, I was pretty good, and I don't mean that arrogantly, I just mean I dealt with the altitude really well and I got to the summit two hours before anyone else that was in the team, as in you know, there were Sherpas there and I was actually the last to leave the high camp and I didn't even realise that I'd overtaken everyone, because it's dark and you're just focused on, you know, one foot in front of the other. And when I got to the summit I just assumed they'd all summited and come back down again and the sherpa was like oh no, we're the first up here for today.
Speaker 2:Um, and not many people summited that mountain that whole season because of the weather. And at the time I didn't realize and people were saying to me, especially like the big, big guys. You know real six pack guys. Well, hang on. How are you getting to the summit quicker than me? What are you doing differently? And at the time I didn't know, but now I do know and it's a technique that I use on every mountain I climb and I've called it the mirror step, and it's a really simple technique but really effective, and you can use it running and walking as well, and basically, when you leave a high camp, it's pitch dark, there's nothing to see, it's freezing cold, and I just slotted in behind the Sherpa that I was climbing with and when he moved his left foot, I moved mine, he moved his right foot, I moved mine, and I just got sort of really fixated on following his feet. And the good thing with the Sherpas is they don't stop. So they don't stop start. A lot of people you know go fast, go fast and then stop.
Speaker 2:Fast, fast, fast, stop. And these guys, they just plod on very slowly and methodically. So it was quite a meditative exercise following their feet. But what it did and this is the key is it kept my mind quiet. So I get pretty anxious. I don't mean to, but at high altitude I sort of get pretty anxious. I don't mean to, but at high altitude I sort of get quite anxious. And you know, if I'm sleeping at high altitude I can scratch myself so hard I can make myself bleed. It's really. It's kind of a subconscious anxiety. But when I'm climbing I always now try and keep a really quiet mind and by following in the footsteps it kind of keeps those negative voices at bay, because when you get left behind or you get behind the group and you can't catch up, and you're at high altitude and it's freezing cold and it's pitch dark, and then you start thinking you know well, am I not good enough?
Speaker 2:Why have I got behind the group? Am I going to be left alone here? Am I going to die here? And these are all pretty uh scary thoughts in the moment. So by doing this following behind you're always with someone and it keeps your mind quiet. And now I'm a little less selfish about it. I now rotate, so my climbing partner will follow my feet and then I'll rotate around and follow theirs. So it's a little bit like the road biking, the drafting but for the mind it's like mental drafting.
Speaker 2:So, every morning I do. Now, that's a technique. But going back to the 8,000 metre peak, choy Oyu, only five of us summited for that whole season because it because the weather was a pretty tough as well and um, so I was employing this technique, uh, on that mountain. But that last thousand meters, when you get up into the zone and above 8 000 meters, what I've found is, you know, it's tough even breathing and walking, and even if you're that Sherpa that's climbing Everest for the 24th time, everyone in the death zone is is fighting hard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um. There's a brilliant expression train hard, fight easy, um. My husband likes to tell me that, but what I've come to realize is is on these big mountains, you've got to train hard, you've got to fight hard as well. Yeah, um, at these altitudes, it's, it's not all from the park.
Speaker 1:You've got to attack it there's. There's no other options that you've got going 100 yeah but yeah, absolutely did you go for the season? Then you went over to sort of the pool and just spent the season out there climbing big peaks, or was this over a sort of a series?
Speaker 2:of years, no so so I did Mira and Burunsi as one trip, so that was a five-week trip. And then six months later I went back and climbed Choyu, and that was a seven, six-week trip. Six or seven weeks, so yeah, and I took time out from work and they were all self-funded. I couldn't get sponsored for them, unfortunately, because I was still just learning, but for Everest I did get sponsored by an IT company promoting Wi-Fi in remote places. You have to be quite creative to get sponsored these days on Everest.
Speaker 1:I can imagine.
Speaker 2:Quite a few people have climbed, as you said earlier. But I decided to climb Everest on the north side from Tibet, and the reason I decided to do that was to avoid the queues. So on the south side you know they might issue 500 climbing less um. So with the north, it's barren, it's cold, um, and also there's no helicopter review, so the chinese won't allow any helicopters in that airspace. So my husband is a helicopter pilot so he had at times which we'll get on to in a minute when I got in a storm 8 300 meters on everest, he had this kind of romantic vision of getting a helicopter from the pool and flying it around the side picking me up, um.
Speaker 2:But yeah, the reality is you've, you've got to walk. Pretty much, walk or be, uh, dragged self-extract off that mountain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, but yeah, I was on the mountain 47 days above 5 000 meters, so it's a it's a long expedition. The whole expedition was 60 days. Um, and it's tough, you know it's, it's hard. Life above 5 000 meters is uh, it takes it out of you like you're. You know the sort of uh if you're on a sliding scale of of it's definitely declining.
Speaker 2:You do three rounds of acclimatization. You spend a week at base camp trying to acclimatize. Then you go up to advanced base camps 6,000 meters Felt pretty rough when I first arrived there. You spend a few days there. You then touch the North coal at 7 000 meters without supplemental oxygen, but you don't spend a night there. Then you come all the way back to base camp.
Speaker 2:These are big, big distances, hours and pretty challenging terrain and you spend a week at base camp and then you go back up up to advanced base camp, spend a week at base camp and then you go back up up to advanced base camp, spend a night at North Cole 7,000 metres come all the way back to base camp and by that time you're thinking of the summits. You know I'm close to the summit, I just want to carry on. But the reality is you're not close to the summit at all there. There's still a long way to go. So you go all the way back to base camp, hang out there for for another few days and then you go for your summit, push so back up to advanced base camp.
Speaker 2:Night at north coal, night at camp two, touch camp three, go for the summit and then the plan is to get back to advanced base camp um after the summit. That's how it should pan out, but for me it didn't pan out like that. I was climbing as a two-man team, which is rare. Most people climb in big commercial teams and pros and cons of climbing as a two-man team you're flexible, you're agile, you can make decisions quickly.
Speaker 2:You can move at the pace that suits the two of you rather than the whole team, but on the downside, obviously it's a risky business If anything happens to your climbing buddy you are on your own.
Speaker 2:So, me and my climbing partner, we sat on the summit of Everest for an hour north side, with no one else up there, which is almost unheard of.
Speaker 2:Um, an incredible experience, a blue sky, beautiful view. But we got there pretty late. We got there at half one in the day and, um, that's pretty late. You kind of want to get there much earlier in the morning. But the reason we got there late was, uh, we, we spent another seven hours waiting in the camp three and high camp because we wanted the two teams ahead of us to uh to go on ahead, because we, we didn't want to get caught in a queue and we still had to queue for two hours wait while they kept down as we were going up. It was a little bit of a bottleneck, um, but uh, yeah, so, even though we were fortunate and we to have the summit to ourselves and we planned to hit it at that time, um, the clouds rolled in thick and fast after that half an hour and we actually got caught at 8 300 meters for the night at three.
Speaker 2:Um, and that was a pretty scary night. The wind just picked up and up and up. It got really strong and I thought the tent was just going to be blown clean off the mountain. And because of my diving experience I kind of lying in the tent, envisaging being in free fall, but in a, in a yellow tent or a yellow coffin at that point yeah and um.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it was a pretty terrifying night and it was actually tough for my family and people following me because my tracker not literally but on the screen had fallen off the mountain for 16 hours. So the little dot that they were following on the map was at the bottom of the mountain. So it did look like I'd just fallen up clean off the side of the mountain. Um, so that was fortunate technical hitch at the wrong time, um, but so spent a night there and then we knew we had to get off that mountain fast. This storm was not relenting. People were at campsites uh, lower than me, camp two, um. One guy locked his whole tent it. He was on the ground sheet and the tent had ripped off and blown off around him and all his belongings had been blown away so, yeah, absolutely just a sense of how strong that uh the wind was, um, and also adam there that was.
Speaker 2:You know, when I encountered um, the first dead body that I came across on everest we all there's dead bodies on everest, um, but until actually had to step over one, I wasn't really prepared for that. That was a, you know, had quite a profound effect on me, have to say, um, an australian guy that died the day before and I saw him as I was going up, so he was just outside camp three so this isn't a body that's been there for years.
Speaker 1:This is someone you've actually seen like he died the day before.
Speaker 2:So he was brand new. Uh, yeah, you know, like some of the bodies on Everest you can see they've been there for quite a while because they're very winter, battered and faded and torn clothing, but this guy was, yeah, just brand new down suit, brand new boots. You know it was. It was really sad and I was just listening to my music, you know, getting a rhythm, going up this steep slope and I just saw this dark mass in the snow and I kind of double took and then, just like, brain cells start working and you just start thinking you know, is he dead?
Speaker 1:He's died.
Speaker 2:And then I stood there probably for three or four minutes just looking at him and you can't see. You know it's just the town suit, but it was freaky. And then you had to climb over the rope that he's attached to. So where else in the world do you step over the dead?
Speaker 1:You can't extract off the mountain. I guess it's so high it's too dangerous to try and get the bodies down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, they do extract them, but it is very dangerous and it can cost around a quarter of a million US dollars for a body retrieval from that sort of altitude. But some people, you know, uh, especially people in their religions and cultures that need the body to, you know, lay them to rest. You know they pay that kind of money. And then there's a sort of moral dilemma is to do you send a team of 10 or 12 workers up to retrieve a, a dead body? It's, um, you know, it's a one. So he was the first one I saw.
Speaker 2:And then, going up to the summit, probably saw about nine more bodies, you know, and it is a part of climbing Everest, I've never seen another body on another mountain before. But the thing that alarmed me more than the dead bodies was the near dead. So I got quoted the other month for calling everest a zombie apocalypse movie, because then you see bodies that you think have died, you think they're dead, and then they move. Hang on a minute. He's just moved his arm or his leg and that's pretty freaky. And then you look around and there's a couple of sherpas taking a break, have a cigarette, whatever, just chilling out because the guy is semi-conscious and they literally have a meter rope. You know, sherpa behind, sherpa in front and him him in the middle with a rope to the sherpas and um. So I spoke to the sherpas afterwards and, yeah, they literally hide behind people on the set so they can have their summit photo.
Speaker 1:Right, you just semi, semi.
Speaker 2:Well, barely conscious.
Speaker 1:But Because people are so exhausted. It's an extreme event. It's like climbing that high.
Speaker 2:Just a lot of it's um just box ticket. People just want to tick the box of climbing everest. I mean I was pretty horrified um meeting some people that I met on everest. Some of them had never stepped foot on snow before let alone put on a pair of crampons, let alone climbed another mountain before. And of those 260 bodies on everest, half of them are shepherd. And that's not because they haven't got the ability to be there, it's literally. They're dragging people up and back and if they get caught, you know, they pay the ultimate price for that so I
Speaker 1:don't have a desire to go back there no, I mean, it's a great box to tick, though you know that achievement is really commendable. I was, yeah, a few years ago I'm proud.
Speaker 2:I'm proud that I climbed it responsibly I'm proud to have had a responsible and, um you know, a good summit and made good decisions that's good.
Speaker 1:Again, that's probably your experience leading up to that. You know, you, you put yourself in situations and you've just got that. You've got something you can draw on.
Speaker 2:You've got an experience in the past and you can just relate to that and reflect and think well, I know how I'm going to deal with this I often get asked you know by people what to do to climb everest and it's like, at the very minimum, go and learn how to mountaineer, get some skills behind you, make everest a five-year goal. Go and climb some other lesser peaks. Everest isn't a technical mountain, it's just extremely high altitude. So and it's an endurance, it's a long slog at high altitude and a lot of people can't deal with the altitude. So rather than pay phenomenal amounts of money, go to a lesser um, you know mountain and see how you fare at altitude yeah um some people, you know, just can't deal with altitude
Speaker 1:they can't. A couple years ago a friend and I we sort of decided almost overnight or I, was going to climb mont blanc, yeah. So we sort of zipped over, climbed it and, man, the worst headache ever, I mean, I can't remember how high that is, like four, eight or something, and um, that wasn't a pleasant experience, but it's probably. We just didn't climb size. You know, even though we're both experienced. We just sort of up and down thinking we knew better, and then bad headache, and then you think about all the ramifications of that, um, but then I got to the bottom a couple days later. You kind of forget about you, forget about you know how silly you might have been and I thought, right, it's like hangover, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:We thought let's climb Everest. You know how hard is this going to be. So we phoned a company and they said yeah, not a problem. You know, god knows how. I think it was like 60,000, 70,000 pounds. I was like okay, and I said what experience. He went no, don't worry about that. You know, as long as you've got the right kit, we're here, we'll get you up. And it just didn't sit well with me. So we phoned another company and they just wouldn't touch us. They said no, you know you need to have bagged at least twous, that's it and um.
Speaker 1:So I thought, okay, I like this company, it's responsible. But obviously then the world changes. You have families, covid comes along and I think we'll just put that one in the box for the put that on ice. Yeah, I've just spoken to you.
Speaker 2:I think that's enough for me now, actually forever but the sad thing also, adam, is that the sherpas you know the sherpas I was climbing with um whether the mountain at the time some of them are getting paid as little as five us dollars a day and they're lugging oxygen up, lugging equipment up. They might be doing 16, 17 hour days and they're just getting paid peanuts. And most of the climbers don't realise that because they think because they're paying so much, surely it's filtering down to the Sherpas and they're getting paid right, and in many cases that is not the case.
Speaker 1:That's wrong.
Speaker 2:The money is going to the middleman. And without the Sherpas, most people wouldn't be able to climb at Everest.
Speaker 1:It's people taking advantage sadly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a shame. It's a shame. Yeah, it's sad to see.
Speaker 1:It's an amazing achievement. You've done the mountaineering, you've done the jumping. So for most people they'd be like, right, I'm going to go home now and put my feet up. So then you think right, I'm going to shoot across to Africa and start doing stuff over there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and I'll tell you what. Excuse me, that is just blown adventure, clean out the water. So for me it's, you know, I'm just an interest anymore. World first, world records. Yeah, I know that's easy to say when you know, got that under your belt. But so eight years ago I went and studied a master's in sustainable design and, uh, just wanted, you know, to go back to my sort of design roots and, and, um, you know, use the creative side of my brain more and um, that's when I came up with. I started, um, researching the African elephant crisis and I was so horrified by the statistics I was reading that I decided to use my design skills to come up with a fresh awareness raising campaign. So I did. I designed this necklace that's 96 elephants cut in vegetable ivory, which is a sustainable nut from a palm tree from south america. And this necklace I'll show you. I'll hold a picture. It won, uh, five design awards. It's quite a piece and basically it's showing the poaching data in a purely visual way.
Speaker 2:Um, so, to accompany my necklace of 96 elephants, which is showing the daily poaching rate in africa it's 96 killed a day a day, yep wow so to accompany that is my hard-hitting now global global traveling exhibition, which showcases 35 000 elephants on a wall um, which is the annual poaching rate. That's disgusting, so I've purposely avoided using any gruesome or gory images. My campaign is non-political, it's non-confrontational. But, to be honest with you, when you see 30 000 elephants on a wall um, that's huge, 35 000 elephants on the wall.
Speaker 2:It. It's shocking. You know, to see and connect with that data visually is highly impactful. What I'm doing is using design to bridge as a powerful communication tool to bridge the gap between human connection, on one hand, and scientific data on the other hand. So through my campaign, which is now a uk registered charity how many elephants, um.
Speaker 2:I work with and support, uh, female rangers on the front line. So we just launched world female ranger day, which is going to be on june, the 23rd this year, and that's we've created this platform that's bringing female rangers around the world together to collectively share their stories, share best practice. They can set up their own fundraising pages, etc. So it's a. It's a quite groundbreaking awareness day because that hasn't been done before. But the inspiration for that came because over the last three years, I've had the rare, rare privilege of spending time on the front line with two all-female coaching teams the Black Mambas in South Africa and the Kashinga Rangers in Zimbabwe. And the main difference between those two teams is the Kashinga Rangers in Zimbabwe are fully armed, they've all got ak-47s. The women in in South Africa, the black mambas, have pepper spray and handcuffs, um, and they're more the eyes and the ears on the ground. So one comes face to face with the poachers and the other calls in an armed response team.
Speaker 1:But poachers, obviously by their trade I use that word loosely they're obviously dangerous, desperate people almost, because I guess they're earning a lot of money because they need to, for whatever reason, and so they'll do whatever it takes to get that ivory, that ivory, that tusk or, and they're armed. So if you're unarmed and you're going up against them, that's a pretty dangerous. Odds are against you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean there's. There's basically two types of poachers, If if we want to sort of break it right down. There's the your opportunists, villagers, who you might rent a gun for a couple of days. Try and break into the box and you know an elephant for its task, or you know a rhino for its horn, or a lesser, you know a smaller animal not a lesser animal, but a smaller animal for bushmeat. Or they might lay snares and they don't get paid hardly anything. So you know, you got to think it's it's pretty, uh, it's pretty dangerous work, yeah, very little money. But then on the other other end of the scale, you've got your uh criminal, uh syndicate networks who have uh sort of very high-tech equipment. I'd say the poachers are still getting paid very small amounts, given the amount of money that would be involved higher up the chain.
Speaker 1:But, two very different entities right there they're serving, let's say, the Chinese market where, if it was medicine and love potions or whatever, it's just crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely crazy. So with my exhibition, my first exhibition, I had two Chinese ladies come along and they just burst into tears. And when I said to them, are you crying? They said we just had no idea. We just did not know.
Speaker 1:Lack of education.
Speaker 2:Absolutely lack of education. And the Chinese word for ivory directly translates to tooth and they just assumed they were replenishable. That tusks fall about and grow Sadly not.
Speaker 1:Such majestic creatures, again my campaign.
Speaker 2:My campaign is dealing with that, trying to address the. There's that uh lack that gap in in in education and raising awareness. Um, but I'm very specific. So people say why just female rangers? What's the male rangers out there? Um, absolutely nothing wrong with the male rangers. I've spent time on the front line with male teams. Um, I think all of them are doing an absolutely brilliant job. For me, um, as a small team, small charity, I found I have a great expression. Uh, specific is terrific, and the more specific I can be the greater impact I can make rather than spreading myself too thin.
Speaker 2:so my charity focuses very much how many elephants is focused on, on african elephants and anti-poaching. Um, and then our world female range day, you know, obviously is is championing, and some female rangersangers on the front line. And these women, they are incredible, adam. Now you can just see the pride with which they wear their uniforms. They're now breadwinners. A lot of these women are now buying land, building houses, sending their kids to school, they've got healthcare, and the whole female range of movement is picking up momentum at a brilliant pace, because it's just been found that the women are totally smashing it in their role.
Speaker 2:That's brilliant, I was chatting to Craig Spencer, the founder of the Black Mambas they are the first all-female team to be set up there in South Africa and he said, sort of in 2013, they were literally banging their heads against walls, losing rhinos, losing elephants, alarming and they just didn't know what were we going to do, left to do. You know what are we going to do, left to do? And that's when he had this genius idea that these women from the local communities, you know they were an underutilised workforce. So he set up a selection, women from the villages you know, applied to come and become rangers. And who knew it? I mean, they're just, they're tough, strong, dedicated women.
Speaker 2:The women in Akashinga, the founder, damian Mander, he said, just as a sort of a metaphor for them. He said, you know, he's from a military background in Australia and he said, you know, generally in sort of sas style training, you know, 38 men would start, three would finish. This is just an example. With these women, 38 start, 35 finish. They're from it. You know many of these ladies, just for extreme poverty. It could be from, uh, you know, abusive marriages. It could be aids orphans. Uh, just, you know we start marriages. It could be AIDS orphans. Just, you know, we start chatting to them and immersing yourself with them, you realise many of them have overcome huge adversities in their life and all of them said you know, when we turned up to become a ranger or try out for selection, we had nothing to lose. Yes, so they've just got this incredibly tough, strong mindset. Yeah, and it's fascinating spending.
Speaker 2:I mean, I've spent several weeks with these women and when I get home, film crews ring me up and say well, hang on, how did you get that access? We only can get two hours a day with them and I was literally living, patrolling, sleeping, eating, breathing with these, these women, and it was, it was just an incredible experience, but it did blow adventure out the water. So I was out on patrol on one day with the, the akashinga rangers they've all got ak-47s. I don't I'm the only white woman there, and I say that because I just stood out a mile in the bush, you know and they said could put our uniform on, you might try and blend in a little bit better, but I don't think that totally worked short-sleeved anyway. And um, you know, I just felt really exposed. I mean, we were dropped out in the middle of nowhere. There's wild animals. Signs of poachers they're all armed. I'm not and I just thought you know how these women are my lifeline without these women.
Speaker 2:I'm a dead woman and um, yeah, it was just like I said it just it was a whole different, uh, style of adventure. I'm not even sure if it was an adventure. It was more very real life, um, but rewarding it was kind of yeah but it was kind of more like being in a war zone because, you know, because these women faced with the poachers, some of the poachers are armed and dangerous, and there was just no, uh no, knowing how I thought the outcomes were going to be. You know, so pretty committing stuff.
Speaker 1:I'm going to begin to follow that because you know, that's something that's quite close to my heart. Sort of conservation and what have you. And we were in Namibia a couple of years ago, sort of a few mates, we just sort of decided to travel across it, sort of like wild camp travel, and when we were going into the reserves and what have you, we didn't actually see as much. Well, you see all the signs or whatever saying watch out for rhinos, hippos, lions, um, but I expected to see a lot more. When you got sort of talking to the locals, they're like no, I mean, I think there's a bit of a drought. They've been on air at the time so they'd lost a bit to that. But they said just basically poaching, real problem, um, and when you see like these, like elephants go past, or you see the big bull elephant at the front, you know protecting the herd, you think, wow, you know what. They're, amazing creatures. And, um, why would anyone want to do that?
Speaker 2:but I suppose yeah as humans, money and greed.
Speaker 1:It is All along.
Speaker 2:It's important to some of the chain.
Speaker 1:It is. Yeah, I mean hopefully there, you know, something would change. So, moving towards the end of the interview, I mean I've really enjoyed speaking to you. I mean, what an amazing life. Probably talk about things for hours on If you had an opportunity to jump in a time machine and meet someone from history. Is there any one person that jumps out? You think, yes, I'd love to join them on that adventure. Or sit down, have a cup of tea with them. No, they're like a real probably George Mallory. We've had a few Mallory's.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd probably go with someone from the past, maybe, uh, you know the whole the maria vine mystery did they? Make it to the summit or not. Um, you know he'd be a good one to to invite to your uh to your dinner party he would, wouldn't he?
Speaker 1:yeah, he'd have some stories is mallory, the uh, the guy was with him and someone else. They found a camera recently. They're trying to develop the photos they haven't found the camera.
Speaker 2:They haven't no camera's still the one of the the great mysteries in history. What happened to irvine's camera? Who knows? And he got never got found either. It was george mallory. Got found in 1999 by an american mountaineer, comrade anchor, and um, oh, it's fascinating like there's a film about it called the wildest dream, and and it's just um. Yeah, his his skin is like porcelain.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like. It's like a China cup, you know, just preserved on the side of Everest for 70 odd years, so um yeah, I'd say him I reckon Okay it. Yeah, I'd say him, I reckon He'd be an interesting one to have a chat with.
Speaker 1:I think winning the race at the moment is Mallory and Shackleton. The other one is the other guy that's come out well.
Speaker 2:It would have been more.
Speaker 1:And one of the questions in season one, when we're doing a lot of military stuff, we used to ask people if you're running out the door, you're packing your gear to go away on an adventure, on wherever you're off to, what are your top three things that you would take with you? Is there three things that always go on a trip with you?
Speaker 2:Any sort of items, your must-haves. Yeah, and it's really weird, people think I'm quite strange for this, but I'm never without pen and paper. That sounds odd. I got asked the other day if I was marooned on a desert, on what three things would happen. I said pen, pen, a beer. I just, I'm quite traditional. I um, you know, I tiff um lots of ideas all the time and I just love, I'm just contented if you give me a pen and paper, I can whittle away hours just sketching and writing, and so always take pen and paper on my expeditions because there's lots of downtime in the in the tent. What else would I say? I would always take Probably something like a head torch. Can't see where you're going and you're, you're in a whole world of problems. So, um, yeah, and then I'll still go with the beer base camp for sure.
Speaker 1:It's got to be beer beer, pen beer. Yeah, cause you can use the label, you can use. You can use the label on the beer to write on, so maybe two beers so yeah there you go.
Speaker 1:I've been more than happy with that excellent well, I've really enjoyed having you on the show today. Um, I think for anyone who wants to follow you see what you're up to next obviously to follow on the 23rd of june um, I think that'd be great to sort of be able to see, uh, what's the best way of following me?
Speaker 2:can I just say at that point sorry, can I interrupt you? There there's a um walking challenge, we can run it. I just say at that point, sorry, can I interrupt you. There there's a walking challenge, you can run it. So the World Female Ranger Day, you can do it anytime you like, but we're going to all do it on June 3rd for a week and implicating the distances that the rangers walk. So they walk 20 Ks a day, so you can either do 20 Ks a day for seven days or you can do 5ks, which is a snare sweep, or 2ks training lap, or you make your own distance up.
Speaker 1:So go on to worldfemalerangerdayorg, set up fundraising page and um get walking fantastic, we'll get this uh podcast out before then, so people can hear that and then we'll do a big plug on the 23rd. That's amazing. And then on Instagram you're at Holly Budge.
Speaker 2:At Holly Budge, or at how Many Elephants? Or at World Female Ranger Day.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. So anyone who's listening to this head over to Instagram. Follow that, share it. Let's sort of spread the word.
Speaker 2:Thank you, that would be amazing. Thanks so much.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. Thanks for coming on and sharing your journey. Really enjoyed that. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2:Thanks Adam.
Speaker 1:That's cool. Well, that was Holly. I don't know what to say. I mean that was a great hour. I mean, I think for someone in those 42 years who's crammed in that much, that's pretty epic. If anyone wants to sort of follow on holly and what she's doing, best ways to go on to instagram uh, you can go on to at how many elephants and you can see more about, obviously, the uh conservationist works. Uh, you can. Also, she's at holly budge is hers and she's also co-founder of world female ranger day, which is today, the 23rd of june.
Speaker 1:So let's spread the love, to spread the word, leave comments and just, uh, you know, get some feedback to the show. If, if you could go onto iTunes we sort of mentioned earlier that'd be great. Just a little star liking some comments, you know. Any feedback on our Instagram? You know, get in contact with us If there's something you want to hear or something you didn't like. You know, let us know. We're all friends here.
Speaker 1:Next week we have got a great interview with Colonel John Blashford-Snell. He's one of the greatest explorers and you're going to hear some great stories with him as well. So, you know, really hope you enjoy that. I'm also sort of mentioned earlier about ray carroll, author. You can find him on instagram former member 22 sas. He's currently going around the uk uh, peddling, I'll use that pun uh, on his brompton bike selling his new book, which is fantastic the clinic. So you know, I'd urge anyone out there who's seen that to buy it, read it and comment again on him. Let's help the guy along and we're going to get him on the show and we're going to speak to him at various checkpoints along the way.
Speaker 1:Lastly, one of the things we have done is we've created our own coffee brand. So we've done this in mind of military veterans. We called it Another man man's brew and it is available on shopify. So if you would like to grab a cup or two head over shopify, grab some and then we're putting profits across to military charities, so you know that money isn't wasted. Anyway, thanks for listening. Head over to itunes. Please leave a review and speak to you soon.