Crocs, Fishing and Buffalo Hunting: How Adventure Became Angus Dicker's Business Model

What happens when you combine crocodile encounters, buffalo hunting, and a submerged 4WD on a broken bridge in the middle of an outback river - with business ambition? You get Angus Dicker's incredible journey.

Sam and I had so much fun in this episode! Angus Dicker is not your typical business owner. He’s managed to carve a life for himself in which he gets to do work he loves, in places where most people don’t go. From early beginnings in the military to becoming a Masters of Business graduate, Angus Dicker, owner of Home Filtration Systems, turned his love for the extreme outdoors into a unique business model. His company doesn't just provide clean water systems – they reach the places his competitors won't go in the remote corners of Australia. Which is perfect for Angus. Because adventure is his game and for him, the more remote and adventurous the location, the better. And luckily for him, all remote locations need clean water.

If you have an adventurous spirit and a love of autonomy, you’ll love this episode! You’ll hear Angus’ stories of outback adventure combined with business ownership. Angus shared how a random concrete driveway job ended in an unexpected mentorship, leading him to build a niche business that services remote communities across Western Australia. If you’ve ever dreamed of building a business that aligns with your values and thirst for adventure, this is for you.

Angus’s story is a masterclass in grit, growth, and unconventional entrepreneurship.

Highlights:

• From the Military to a Master’s Degree: Angus opens up about his unconventional academic path, overcoming educational gaps, and pushing through self-doubt to complete a Master of Business.
  
  
• Finding Business Clarity in the Mud (Literally): Discover how helping a mate pour concrete became the catalyst for launching his own company in the water filtration industry.
  
  
• Mentorship and Opportunity: The pivotal role that experienced mentors played in shaping Angus’s business approach and how one old-school entrepreneur helped unlock a new venture.
  
  
• Niche Market, Big Impact: How Angus carved a unique space by servicing remote and often overlooked communities, bringing clean water to places that desperately need it.
  
  
• Building a Business Around Adventure: Angus shares his love for the land, off-grid living, and how the ruggedness of remote work is exactly what fuels him.
  
  
• On Accountability & Autonomy: Real talk on the ups and downs of being your own boss and why Angus wouldn’t have it any other way.

• And Lots More!

👉 Like what you heard?

Subscribe to Thriving Business Podcast for more candid conversations with entrepreneurs who are doing business their way.

👉 Want to connect with Angus?

Check out Home Filtration Systems  and learn more about their work in regional and remote water solutions.  https://homefiltrationsystems.com/ 

Thanks for listening and remember success doesn’t have to follow a traditional path. Sometimes it’s found on a dusty road, under the sun, with nothing but grit, heart, and a damn good water filter!

Connect with the Hosts:

Kate De Jong, PhD | Inspired Business

Website: https://katedejong.com/

Instagram: katedejong.inspiredbusiness

Email: kate@katedejong.com

Sam Morris | Digital Systers

Website:

Transcript

0:00

All right. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome back to the Thriving Business Podcast. Hello, Sam. Hi, Kate. Good to have you back. And we're very honoured today to have a special guest with us, Angus Dicker from Home Filtration Systems. Hi, Angus. Hi, Kate. Hi, Sam. Pleasure to be on your podcast and finally speak to you both about sharing some of my ideas and where we're sort of tracking it at the moment. Yeah. So you and I met at a networking event, which is often how these things go, who happens to be the man who's now upgrading your website, which is awesome. Yeah, so we met at a networking event, realized that we both sort of had a, I've got a background history in water systems as well, and that's how we sort of got talking. And thenWe met up, had a coffee, and I learned that you had some pretty interesting stories about growing your business that I was keen to share with our audience. So maybe we'll just start, Angus, with how did you embark on the business ownership journey? When did that start for you and how did it ventuate?I think at least the business side of the journey started for me with aI think I was chasing a little more autonomy in my life. And I think at that stage, the business side was providing that opportunity for me. But at that current time, I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to go into. There was, I had. it was hard to sort of focus on the exact idea and an opportunity that I could bring to fruition per se. So I think the first stage of it for me was I thought I might be able to gain some more immersion into this world by starting a master's degree in business. And that for me was, I thought it was a big thing to chew off just given my my educational position, I'd left high school quite early. I mean, I'd left high school without a grade 9 or a 10 certificate at the time. So I think I thought I might have been biting a little more often than I can chew. But starting that master's degree was what I thought would give me a bit more clarity into where I'd like to go and what I would like to pursue. So I mean, that was a bit of aa journey in itself over 4 years being part-time. And instead of having my Saturdays and Sundays, I spent most of my free time writing essays on leadership and accounting tests and that sort of thing. So did you, so what you're saying is you've done an MBA? I've done a master of business. So it's less the administration side. So I'm down for four more subjects. So there was just a master of business flat. And then there's the MBA, which was the 12, the 12 whole units accredited as far as I know. So there was 4 subjects less, less on that. Yeah. But I ended up doing a certificate 3 in executive management through the same university in Sydney, which essentially it accounted for a couple of the subjects, which then expediated getting the master's degree itself. So I was flying over to Sydney doing intensive courses for a couple of weeks at a time, which thenit knocked off about a year's worth of that study for me. Nice. So you went from year, you said you went from year nine at school into, so you're working presumably during that time before you, know, what were you doing in that time before starting your masters?So I was in defence for 13 years. Oh, right. Yeah, I was tracking along in the army. So most ofmost of that free time that was allocated to me by defence as part of a transitional phase to then move on from defence. But I think I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to at least complete the grade 10 certificate being in defence while I was there. I just didn't have the minimum schooling requirements to start a master's programme in in university without that, at least a grade 10. And even that, they were questioning a fair bit, but they gave me the opportunity to at least start it, given I could prove that I could pass the first subject of a master's degree. But if I couldn't pass it, they were still going to take the $4,000 or whatever it was at the time to pay for that subject. So I think it was just a small game of Russian roulette there to at least get the opportunity to chase it down andcomplete it. And that's what ended up happening. It was just a little bit of me negotiating backwards and forwards with them and giving them a, writing my own sort of letter towards them and saying, this is why I think I should be given the opportunity. Right. Well, good on you. That's ballsy and brave and bold, isn't it?Like to take that big and to then and then to then actually finish it off and do it. Well done. We're certainly glad to get it out of the way, to be honest. I bet. As it's not a, I'm not, it's not my strength being a, you know, studying by our, you know, a lot of textbooks and being on the literacy side of everything. Yeah. So it was, it was more of a, a challenge I'd set my academics. Yeah. If I could, if I could commit to doing something that I wasn't solely, it's not my main interest for four years, I could safely assume that if I set myself for that for four years. What could I do with another four years being focused on, laser focused on something that I am looking to take as far as I could get, yeah. That you're interested in and that you find exciting and yeah, which for you has turned out to be the water filtration systems. Yeah, it's sort of kept me busy so far. Yeah. So what was it that finally made you land on that as the product that you wanted to get behind? Was that actually a bit of a funny situation in itself?And this situation came around to me off the back of an older guy who I had, I was in conversation with and he asked me if I could give him a hand doing some concreting on a weekend. And I thought, yes, I can come around and give you a hand concreting. He said there was a few guys that were going to come around, we're going to lay this driveway. And I get around there on the Saturday and there was nobody else but me and him there at the time. So everyone else was a no-show. So the pair of us ended up there for a few long hours completing this driveway. But I'd spoken to him and said, I was studying the master's degree at that point in time. And he said, well, I've got some people that would probably be able to give you some real life experience in business if you were interested. in hearing their opinions and sort of meeting them. And I took that on board, but it really just sat in the back of my mind for at least a couple, two months. And then I thought, well, I would like to meet these people and at least start this sort of networking journey in itself. And I'd contacted this older fellow back and said, look, I'd like to take that opportunity. And he said, well, we'll turn up at this pub. there'll be a group of guys there and sure enough I'd went down there, met these guys and they were a group of certainly a lot older than me, but a lot more, they were successful in their business ventures and one of them happened to be quite successful in the water business a number of years ago and he had all the know-how and the structures in place, how this all worked, but he had since moved on topersonal finance services. But I just thought I'd sort of started to use him as a mentor there a lot with the other group of the guys that were down there and just sort of bounce ideas off them all the time. And I just asked this guy, do you mind if I have a go at rebuilding this company thatyou'd previously run and exited and sold out of. Would you mind sharing or giving me a day of your time here and there?And he said, I'll give you anhour. So once we'd sort of got that underway and it was a matter of just fighting a piece off at a time then and spending more and more time with thisthis guy and having him as an active mentor in the process to really set down the stages of how he did it himself. And I just kept following through with that. Yeah. Right. So he'd sold hisbusiness, but you were setting up a similar one. He had sold out, yeah. He'd sold out of, he was in most major cities at the time, but this was about 10, 15 years prior. and heavily into the commercial side of business with water filtration. So he certainly had the experience there. And just given Perth's water quality, I thought it was a, and he did as well, a good place to start and at least sink my teeth in to get a good understanding of how this business works. Yeah. Good on you. I mean, because it's pretty risky, isn't it? Start like just. starting from scratch and having a guy as your mentor and just giving it a crack, sort of, isn't it?I think that was one of the main driving factors, though, because then at least I know there's nobody else to blame for the poor performance. It's all it's either it's me or it's really up to you as an individual to make it work so that it's hard to sort of to hide behind any facade if something starts going wrong or it's not working. in my favour, but at the end of the day, for every time there's a mistake, there's something learnt as well. Yeah. I definitely, I think Sam and I both love being on our, being independent for that very reason. Well, the opportunities are endless. I mean, the barriers that you get are the only, the ones that you place on yourself at the end of the day. Yeah. Yeah. And when you work in companies and the corporate world and so on, and you sort of, it's easy to blame incompetent people around you, as I used to. I think it's an easy out as well. I think for people, if there's a lack ofaccountability, it's the first go-to is to try and throw it on the nearest person to sort of get the weight off your shoulders, but it's not always the best solution. Yeah. And I think a lot of people find that terrifying in business that it's all on you, like you're the only one that can make it happen. But I personally find that that challenge keeps me going, if you know what I mean, that, yeah. It's certainly incentive factor. Yeah. Which I like. Yeah. So you've built up home filtration systems and from when we were talking,It sounds like you've built a bit of a niche for yourself in that you're one of the few people who will service these really remote areas. Yes, yeah. Well, I mean, most of my, at least over the COVID period, when we do a little rewind to that, where most people, well, everyone can't forget that. that excellent few years where we were sort of confined and locked down there, but at least being on the Western Australian side and having almost half the country as a lockdown sector to venture around, I was spending a lot of my free time then traveling around the state and going up to regional areas in remote Aboriginal communities and fishing and hunting. and that sort of thing, but it was always, it always draws me back every time. So if I, if there's an avenue for me to make that work on a business side, once starting that, the water filtration side of things is having clean and potable drinking water is always a necessity for life, everyone in itself. So a lot of the,The water systems that our communities and people on stations and regional areas are operating on is certainly not the same quality we're getting from the municipal water supply in the city areas. Yeah, although they're on bores, there's a lot of high calcium content and salt and other bacterias that can be in the water. So, I mean, it's not the most It's not where the biggest lucrative side or revenue driving thing is in the water filtration side, but it's certainly second to none for the adventure side. I'm happy to, that's almost, that's the main driving factor for me to be out there is more so the adventure and meeting new people and getting out there because every day is a challenge to get there in itself, not so much the job in itself. It's more so accessing these areas andgetting across all the water crossings andcompleting our own maintenance on vehicles and this sort of thing to get there just to explore a job opportunity. Yeah. and there's not many people that would be able to do that. You're a country boy by origin, aren't you?I am, yeah. I grew up on a cattle station in western Queensland, bottom left-hand corner, was out Thargaminda, so it's two hours west of Cunnamulla. Yeah. We're still a fair way from the sea. Yeah. But I think the fact that you grew up and the land and remote conditions and that means that you've got a really unique skill set that majority of city dwellers don't have. Like they wouldn't know how to do those deep river crossings or reach the remote community. Do you know what I mean?Like it's. A lot of the time they brought me unstuck as well, which is they've turned into days of recovery. for me, starting to question my existence out there a little bit. We've been stuck in some floods and washed off bridges and that sort of thing, but it certainly keeps me on my toes. There's never been a trip up there where we, I haven't sort of been challenged in some sort of way. Yeah. But you're up to the challenge, whereas I think most, the majority of people, I don't, I wouldn't know how to survive in those conditions. I think you just learn a lot as you go along. As well, getting a bit more comfortable with the layout of the land and the different weather conditions everywhere in northern Australia that, the end of the year is quite tropical and very hot and there's a lot of rainfall and flooding and then south of the country all the way down. Well, it's not assuming we're not running into anywhere, you know, weather conditions that, you know, seem similar to it at all. Yeah. But I love how you've pretty much carved your career intentionally. It's like, well, I want to have autonomy. I want to be able to do my own thing, do what I want when I want. I want to do something that's hands-on that I find interesting and that gives me the chance to have adventure on a regular basis. Right. And so you've got this, you've got this business now that gives you, oodles of opportunities to travel and go remote and do all the things you want to do while earning money, which is brilliant. Well, I always enjoyed the dislocation from all the, you sort of get stuck in the white noise of being in a city and you've got all your social media and your fast sort of pace of life and everything, a lot of people trying to contact you. And then I found before this is,A little bit before the Starlink sort of first came out, I was always sort of, my contingency for communicating with everyone was a satellite phone or sending a 50 character text message across a satellite phone somewhere if I needed some sort of recovery. And I sort of, I enjoyed that dislocation from all the noise of everything else. You're just sort of out there by yourself relying on your owncapacity to get somewhere, but you can also use sort of soaking in the serenity as well. But yeah, at least since Starlink and that sort of and technologies advance, that's given me the opportunity to do it even even more. I've found I've gone up there and I can turn Starlink on and and sort of manage everything at about an 80% solution. If there's bookings being moved around and there's there's plumbers contacting me and they've got questions on installations and locations. It's a matter of, youhaving that Starlink on, we've got high-speed communications and emails. Yeah. It's really changed a lot of things, hasn't it? Starlink's genius. Yeah. So I've certainly enjoyed that. Yeah. But Sam, you must relate to the appeal of being away from the big cities because you've chosen to live, you know, away kind of remotely. not remote, like what Angus is talking about. But yes, I'm a couple of hours away from the city. So I've got that little bit of distance, which is very nice. I was actually talking to one of our staff members who was stuck in Melbourne traffic this morning. I was like, I'm so glad it's you while I'm sitting here in my little office, in my backyard of the farm. looking out over paddocks. You can't see it with your background, but Sam's got a view out over the paddocks. Yeah, over farmland. We just flooded for about three months of the year. So I say I've got water views for three months of the year. You can't complain about that. No, complaints whatsoever. Sorry, go Sam. No, I was going to say, I've picked up on Angus, you're talking about this dislocation from social media and things like that. So I have to ask the question about your marketing strategy and what your approach is to that, given that you are dealing with with people who are quite remote and we do think of them as quite disconnected from all the technology that we use. Yeah, yep. So in terms of reaching them on a marketing sector through social media to get the jobs. Well, how do you get your leads for your business?Yeah. Are you relying heavily on social media?Is it word of mouth?What are you doing?To be honest, I was probably a fair bit behind the eight ball in terms of social media marketing. Really, I first just sort of started off with the website and that's all I was running for an extended period of time because once I found thatA couple of customers had, they got the installations done. Most of it was word of mouth. So there was just the website open. I would speak to each other and somebody else would see you across the road doing it. And I would be out doing, I started doing more shows, agricultural events, and it's really a face-to-face with the customers or the person that needs the solution to their problem. So that's where social media was a really a backseat. for me, because I found that was sort of generating most of my leads and sales at the time. And it's only sort of been in the last, probably 8 or 10 months that I've gone out and sourced further, advice on social media marketing and that side of things, which I'll start pouring a bit more time and effort into as well. It's just a bit of a fine line. It's very hard to clone yourself. It's findingan expert in that field and sort of, delegating as much as you can and running with that solution and refining it. So since that social media one has been up, it can always be done better, but there's now we've got leads coming in through social media and that as well. But I find thatmost of them are still through word of mouth and show. Yeah, they're in the website, yeah. so the agricultural shows have been a huge part of your lead generation. Winning customers have come from those shows and building the relationships with the locals and then word of mouth, right?Yes, yeah, They've been exceptional for me, at least for getting out there and doing these shows. We did the Perth Home Show the last couple of years. as well, which has been really good. We get a lot of high flow traffic through there and all the customers that are coming in, they've already got, they're already set where we're after blinds, tinting, this sort of bath, bathroom attire, and we're after water filtration. So you sort of, you're face to face with the hot leads that you're looking for at those sort of shows. So I find that they've been invaluable as well. Yeah, because it's all about building relationships like all businesses, isn't it?And it's interesting that that's been the way you've developed those remote connections is through those shows, is that right?Yes, yeah, that's what I found that it's always, social media is always good, but it's quite contested as well. Yeah. I mean, it's hard to differentiate. Yeah. Yeah, on the spot. I mean, it's certainly still valid. It's just a area that I didn't fully understand how to optimize as well. So I thought I would lean more towards a strength of mine and. I was essentially already out there and enjoying the aspects of the remote side of things. So it was really just doubling up and taking opportunities. Yeah. Right, because you're getting, like you actually started your business by getting out there, talking to people, building relationships, which Sam and I, when we're coaching startups and people who are wanting to start and grow businesses, quite often they just want to sit at home and do social media marketing and think that they're going to win customers that way, you know. Well, I think that I think probably the most daunting thing that was task that was given to me, and this was by the one of the first mentors that was advising me with this, this elderly. He's not even that he's not even that old. He's super, super fit as well. But he'd be he'd be late late 60s, but he'd given me the task of going and door knocking 120 houses. So That's, I was sort of chewing through those for a while in the middle of summer. And most of the time that they're not going in your favor either. I mean, there was not much of an understanding from my side of how to actually deliver what your solution is to people. And most of the time they don't really want it. And I can sort of resonate with what they're, you know, how they're feeling when there's a random person turns up in their doorstep and they're sort of offering something. He said it was the best way to sort of get your padder down and understand your product and also communicate with a diverse range of people. And that's, and it was, not that, to be honest, I never got a sale out of any of those door knocking things. So I got shut down a fair bit. But in doing that, you did gain more confidence in how to communicate with people with what your pitch is and what your product is that you were proposing to them. Oh, well, hats off to you. That is one of the most horrifying things that anyone could suggest you do, isn't it?Go door knocking 100 times. I certainly think he got a lot of entertainment out of it. But in terms of initiation by fire, yeah, that's the, definitely, and yeah. It's a good tactic, isn't it, to make you develop a thick skin and to test whether you really want to do this or not. Yeah, Because even when Sam and I are encouraging clients, if it is social media marketing, to go on video, and a lot of people just do not want to put themselves on video on social media, you know, which is understandable. But the only way to get around it is to do. Just do it. Just do 10 videos a week sort of thing, or spend a day just recording and getting over it. You just got to get over it. Well, that's probably also another weakness of mine is not being out there as much. I find most of the time is, consumed chasing it around or being out regional. I find I'm rarely sort of the... in one location, I find myself sort of try quite transient. And that's probably, that's certainly something that I can relate and see the benefit in is getting out there and, actually having that face to the name to verify your product. Yeah. Do you share any of your adventures on social media, like even just reels or things that you're doing, you know,installations that you're doing in remote?Do you ever capture videos and put them on socials?We've still got the home filtration systems Instagram, but it's not so much, I almost felt like I might have been pushing a little bit away from what we were doing or get, it was all, I thought it might have been a detraction too much with the remote work because some of it turns into a bit of an adventure, but at least recently I thought I would certainly like to try and start implementing it in there because it is aa point of differentiation, which I think people could probably, or customers could actually gain some entertainment out of the journey of actually getting to some of these places. It's not so much the installation. But you are pretty active on social media by the looks of it. On Instagram, you've got your posting 2 hours ago, something was put up four days ago. Yeah. Have you got an assistant helping you do that?I've got an assistant doing that as well, just given I was sort of pretty busy in Europe for the last... a couple of weeks so they can sort of take up a bit of the weight for me at the same time. But I'll still jump on there and do bits and pieces there as well. But I'll leave, at least for the remainder of the year, that would be one of the goals that I'd be striving for is to refine that social media side of things and probably intend to put a few more of these regional jobs on there. Yeah. I mean, you're doing a great job by the looks of it. The fact that you're actually present and active on your account with good imagery of the sites that you're visiting and so on, it's good. But I'm dying to hear about some of your best stories, your remote outback experiences doing. Because you mentioned a couple when we caught up and I just thought, wow, that's crazy. Well, I think I can probably, the first,inception for it actually starting in the WA side was, there was a day that I just thought, I'll stuff it, I'm just going to buy this Land Cruise and I'm just going to head straight for the northern sector of WA and see what I can find. And it was, I think the setup then was quite rudimentary. I mean, I've always a little bit of an understanding enough, I'm confident with four-wheel drives and being able to, you know, recover yourself and that sort of thing. ButThe mistake that I made was deciding to do this in December and head all the way to the Kimberley in the north. And that is the absolute prime time for the wet season to be. I was going to say the wet season. What were you thinking?Yeah. And I wasn't, that's the, I wasn't thinking. What a great way to throw yourself into something. I didn't start thinking till. the Pardoo Roadhouse when I ran into the first set of storms and lightning and thunder, which essentially stayed with me for the next two weeks. And that gave me my first immersion to the Kimberley and sort of got a little bit of a bug for it up there then, but it was super wet, really hot. It was just that humid all the time to the point where I couldn't get, couldn't dry anything anyway and ended up getting a lot of prickly heat and this sort of thing. But I, at the same time, I'd gone up to where it was Columbaroo community, northern sector of WA up there. And I went up there for a number of weeks. Wow, that's right on the northern tip of WA. Yes, yeah, we've and sort of fanned out around there. There's some other other communities up there to the west and east of there, but I mean the, it's a different sort of country when you're up there in the. the wet season. There's nobody else that you're competing with for any sort of real estate up there, just given it's too hot. But I mean, the sun rises and sunsets you get in the middle of a wet season with the thunderstorms rolling in it. You wouldn't be able to, there's not 1000 words that could paint that picture unless you were there. But certainly a sustainable part of the country where I can stay up there for weeks and not have toto come back. We're just sort of out there crabbing and fishing and I've pulled into some of the communities and we'd gone through making traditional spears and that sort of thing and gone out on the boats, catching turtles and just sort of eating most of what we find and catch up there. I think you mentioned that you would figure out who the elders were in the community that you needed to get permission to be on the land. Is that right?That you would? Yes, I would. it was, I'll probably go a little bit of Russian roulette on there. Most of the time, this is before I had any sort of proper mapping devices, I would just sort of follow a road and just keep going. And really, I didn't know what, I knew that I would have at least 1200 kilometres of diesel. So I've got a, in my mind, I'm just sort of following a trip metre. And once I get sort of the halfway, I know that this is about me where I need to turn around. And this is the distance that I'vecovered, but now I would generally just find communities along the way and just go and speak to them. I would just drive there and just get out and just say, do you mind if I'm sort of up here fishing and hunting or shooting?Do you need a hand with anything?It just sort of, it sort of led on to, most of the time I found that they were quite accommodating and then I'd sort of built relations with them and we just sort of kept, we kept going from there and I thoroughly enjoyed being up there and you know, I always learn something new. every time I've got a lot of knowledge that they're quite willing to pass on. Yeah. And do they even speak English in the, like, how do you communicate with them?I found most of the time they can speak English, but they're also, at least for the really northern sectors of Arnhem Land and then across into the Gulf country, they're also still quite proficient with their own language. Yeah. as well. But most of the time I did, I did find that they did speak, they speak English. Yeah. No, that's good. Because yeah, I mean, for those of you, I'm just looking at the map that it's right, the northern tip of Australia that you're talking about, right?It's as remote as you can get in terms. There's a lot of, yeah, there's a lot of roads up there that you can still go. I would use that as a base and then fill up on, you know, fuel and supplies and that sort of thing. But if I push back out fromthose communities and sort of I'd handrail the coastlines and follow some of their goat tracks all the way out to different escarpments and areas in different coastal bays and that sort of so I would still push out another 300 kilometres or 600 K's from those communities along those coastlines and we would just be out cutting tracks with chainsaws and making our own way and some of the time we'd ended up with breakdowns that we'd had to go and source somesome other parts that are rolled over vehicles and that sort of thing to get us there. But you do normally travel with someone else. Most of the time, I would say I'm by myself most of the time. I have had other friends or family members that have flown up and done a couple weeks or a month or so here and there with me, and we'd gone over to Cape York and done some of the four-wheel drive tracks over there at the same time, and then they would consequently fly back out again. Yeah. But I would always, I'll always leave by myself and I sort of come back by myself. Sometimes I just jump along for the ride. I mean, it's brave, Considering like you're talking about getting out of your car with a chainsaw to clear trees off the road because you can't get past. Is that right?Yeah, they just don't have some of the tracks get lost over the wet season because they had so much growth over with trees and all the rain and that sort of thing. So I'm really just sort of following a satellite map. I've got a satellite screen in the car that's hooked up to running off Starlink and I'm just following the screen. Sometimes the track is lost and might have to get out or, you know, just sort of roll some rocks over to fill in some holes on different bridged areas or cut some trees down to get out of the way. But I'm at the end destination of wherewhen I sort of get up there and some of the positions where I've been fortunate enough to sit up there on Starlink and organise water filtration systems being installed in Perth while I watch the sun come up on an escarpment out to sea in different islands has been excellent. Yeah. Modern technology is helping you live the dream. Yes, I've certainly, I've certainly. can enjoy that phase of it with theStarlink. It certainly certainly aided me a fair way and I even leave my vehicle and boat and everything there and fly back, fly back down or do another show or go out to some agricultural events and then fly back up north again. Yeah. And so when you're doing these missions where you're doing 300 or 600 K's away from a community, a local indigenous community, are you doing that for travel and pleasure seeking or are you doing that for home, for your business or?It's a bit of column A and a bit of column B, but most of the time I think it would be initiated on my own side for adventure to see what I can find. Yeah. And because it's a lot of these areas I haven't been to or seen myself. So I sort of enjoy the fact that I'm flying blind because I don't really know what I'm in for on a day-to-day basis. And most of the time I've dealt with some sort of a challenge that keeps me occupied. enough or something's broken or we've, I've had to fix something on the fly. But when I have had any anything that's broken or I've sort of washed, washed away, I think I can explain one instance where I was coming down from Cape York and Bamiga going to Normanton in the Gulf of Carpentaria and I've taken a central rdAnd it was in the dry season, so it's not often that it rains. And it was a, I think I had about maybe 1000 K's fuel on me, but I decided to take this backtrack through thecentre of the Cape York down to that Gulf country. And there was a random storm which had flared up and I'd completed a few water crossings at that stage and I had one sort of major crossing left or river to cross before getting intothe Normanton town, but this thunderstorm had essentially, it started raining and the rivers started, they rise in a hurry and the last crossing that I needed to get across was, once I'd got there, it was late in the afternoon, maybe about 5.30, so didn't have that much sunlight, but I could, the bridge to get across the river was no longer visible and it was just, I could see the whirlpools on the side of the pylons to get across, but And I thought I'd just get out of the vehicle and sort of push across with a stick just to make sure that the bridge was still there. But I didn't want to walk too far into there because I wasn't too sure about the crocodile danger there, but it was generally quite fast flowing. So I mean, they would have had a hard time, I assume, trying to sit in one position there, but I decided to get back into the car and make the crossing because I didn't have the fuel, enough fuel to go back. Butunlucky enough for me that halfway across the bridge there was a sector of it missing and it was to fall down into the, off the bridge and into the water and it was ended up being stuck there for 20, about 24 hours. I still had a boat towing a boat at that stage and the boat was left on top of the bridge and the vehicle was down in the water and it had dived down into the water and thenstuck up in the air. So the engine and most of the vital components were out of the water because it had gripped a rock and sort of, I was stuck in a funny V position where the boat was stuck on a bridge and the vehicle's pointing up in the air. How did you get out? At least at that stage, I wasn't too happy about it, but I got out and there was, in the middle of the river, there was different, like big gum trees and I'd extended the winch out and started trying to pull myself onto these, it was like a built up rockescarpment to the right-hand side of the bridge that was crossing the river. So I thought I could pull my vehicle onto that and then at least I'd be out of the water. But just because it was flooding so much that the trees all started, they were pulling out of the ground every time I was trying to winch off there. So it turned into a little bit of a, into a bit of a mission. I mean, I was there through the night just trying to think up any way to get out of there. And I knewI'd made a marking on the side of the car just to know if the water level was consequently rising because I could see out to my left there was there was still a lot of thunderstorms and lightning building up and then I could the water marks had disappeared from the last time that I'd mark it. So I knew it had sort of rise about the five centimetres since I'd last last checked it. But I mean, I tried a few things. There was big concrete pylons that would that had broken off the bridge and I'd tied the winch around it and pushed them off into the water, hoping that they'd get stuck on something and be able to winch the car out and it consequently pulled the causeway out of the ground. So I certainly wasn't enjoying myself, but it was about one or two in the morning. I had a red cattle dog at that time and I decided to leave. She was sitting on the roof of the car and I thought there was one last big tree left and was on the other side of the river. I joined all the ropes, winch ropes and snatch straps, everything together and just decided to put a head torch on and make the dive and just swim across to the river. But once I got across to the other side to winch around the tree, it ended up being a foot and a half short because all the water that had sucked into the rope on swimming across the river, it's sunk down with the weight of the water in the rope. I couldn't pull it back up, so I couldn't actuallymake the connection for that last foot and a half. So I decided to hook it onto a smaller tree and it, when I swam back across the river holding onto the rope, started winching and there was a sharp tree and it rubbed up against the rope and it exploded and flew back across the river and then I could no longer reach it anymore. So I ended up sitting on the roof of the car till the sun came up the next morning. I think I was just fortunate enough there was a regional grader driver coming downwho lived, he actually towed his small home behind his grader and he lived with his, just a dog and him and swam back across the river to him to ask him if he had winch extension rope. And I was fortunate enough that he had 30 metres spare, which he was happy to lend me. And I swam back across and did the whole thing over again and got out. Wow. And your vehicle survived okay?It was full of water in the rear, a lot of all thethe spare parts and that I carry was full of water, but lucky enough that I had a couple spare wheels that I carry on the vehicle itself once I'd got out of the water and winched out, I had to swap over the two rear wheels because I'd let too much pressure out of them at night trying to get more traction that's ripped the tyres off the rims. So we swapped those out and that was enough for me to get toto Normanton and then I'd saw the local mechanics there and got them to drain all the car of water, you know, all the diffs and everything, replace them with new oil and that sort of, that set me off in my next sector of adventure up to North Arnhem Land. Yeah. Wow, okay. And yeah, you must have come across some crocodiles up that way or not Arnhem Land. Yeah, there's certainly a lot of them up there. certainly I'm on the apprehensive side of getting in for a dip. If I'm in there, I'm in the very shallow sections of water. Yeah. But so you haven't had any crock experiences toshare with us? I'd spend a bit of time up with a community in there in Burktown. with a guy named Murrindu Yenna, and he's still going quite strong up there with the community, runs it like clockwork, and they're an excellent bunch of people to hang out with. But we had spent a bit of time up there sustaining and providing for the community once I'd got past that last adventure and got up there, spent a couple of weeks there with them, and we would, they would traditionally catch thethe crocodiles with their, the roping with the small little barbs and harpoons, and they would spear them on the back when they're laying in the mud. And we'd end up doing barbecues up, they'd do like crocodiles and turtles and mud crabs and this sort of thing. So we'd be out for, you know, days at a time just collecting andand hunting and that sort of thing. But at least in terms of crocodiles, they're always around. And when I'd spent a lot of time in the Kimberley up in those areas, they sort of, I found that they'd get into a pattern if I was catching fish or I'd get a catfish or different fish that I didn't like. I would throw them onto the shore and then the eagles would come down or the croc would come. There was one specific instance where he had athere was a nest not too far from my camp and he had come, he would come down, he would watch me every time I'd launch the boat and sort of sit off, a few metres just observing most of the time. And when I'd catch fish that I didn't want to eat or catfish, I'd bring them back in the boat and throw them over the edge and then he sort of got into a bit of a pattern that this bloke's going to feed me. So if I wasn't, you know, I'd sort of throw one to thethe wedge-tailed eagle and one to the croc, and that we ended up in this rhythm up there for two or three weeks at a time. And I was lucky enough that he behaved himself most of the time and sort of kept his distance, but always something to keep in mind and be cognizant of. Yeah, because primitive animals, you don't, they're kind of unpredictable, aren't they? Even though you think you've developed this little bond with them, you know. I can certainly appreciate the size of them once they're out of the water. Yeah, they can get up quite close or they get inside the pots when I'm pulling them up or they'd like eating all the mud crab pots. We'd have fish carcasses and that sort of thing in there trying to catch crabs and the crocs would come and bite them and mince them all up. Yeah. I think you're officially the first guest we've had, Sam, that has combined business with shooting, hunting and fishing and setting up camp 3 metres from a giant croc. I've since moved into the rooftop temp now, so I appreciate a bit of elevation in my band positions now. Yeah. OK. So now you're almost glamping by the sounds of it. I know, I've just sort of gone in completely the opposite direction. I think the one long stint up there in the middle of the wet season was enough to convince me that I'd like a battery set up and a fan and a rooftop tent and a few more luxuries. It gives me a bit more longevity. Yeah. and a bit more enjoyment. I mean, It does, yeah. you can actually, it sounds like you just have a great time travelling around andI do. I certainly can't complain about it, but it's the more I travel, the more transient I am, the more opportunities I find as well, meeting new people. And also there's a lot of opportunities for, water and that side of things up there. It's good to be able to provide a solution for the people up there that are just after good potable drinking water. And it's also, you know, keeps them sustainable. Yeah. so it must be super fulfilling actually working with these people to give them something that gives them better quality of life. Yeah, well, it's also the same. Even in Perth areas, there are northern suburbs, the water's quite hard, you know, quite calcified and people are spending a lot of money on building new home builds or they've got customized tap and shower heads and they've laid outtheir hard-earned money for it, and then the calcium ends up eating it all away in, a number of months. So they can also appreciate that problem is then not something that they're concerned with. And this is in the city sectors as well. So there's opportunities for it everywhere. Yeah. And what are your big aspirations in business?What's your next big goal, if you have one? Next big goal?I mean, I'm always sort of setting myself someevery year. And that'll also differentiate where I'll set myself a goal to complete, whether it's an arduous task, which will be separate to the business side of things, and it'll be an event of some sort. And this year, I found that was going to be a cross-country skiing event in France. And then that was, I find it gives me a good piece of humble pie because if I end upI get too comfortable in one environment, being in a, I've got I've got everything you sort of need in a city, you're comfortable, you've got your, you know, your aircon or your bed and your, life's pretty good. So, at least for that was my goal this year was to get up there and ski the Aguidemede and summit that glacier in France and actually make it down there. So, it was a couple day in. Yes, yeah, it was certainly I thought I'dcertainly bitten off more than I can chew to complete it, just given I'm not, I wasn't born in the mountains for snow and that sort of thing. It was hard to replicate the altitude, just given there wasn't, there's nowhere in Australia that whether the elevation is that high to operate on a daily basis. And I think, yeah, when I sort of think back when I was doing it, I was starting toyou start second guessing your decisions. But I was never going to, I was never going to pull out of it. wasn't a matter of ever stopping it, but it was, it brought me back to ground zero and that's exactly what I was chasing and that's whatI got. Yeah. How long did that take?I was there for 2 1/2 weeks. The actual major summit itself was 3 days, but Four, I sort of set the three-day summit towards the tail end of the trip and I stayed in the village, Chamonix village in that sector of France, scheming the different, making smaller summits every day. And I'd do a run every morning. I'd run for three hours just to try and get some immersion to the altitude and get a little bit higher every time. Three hours. Yeah, I'll just sort of get poke along at a sustainable rate and I could really, you could just feel that difference in altitude, sort of sucking in the big ones most of the time and feeling like I'm not really making much progress. But certainly that it was good preparation for the summit towards the end of it and once getting up to the peak of Gweed-Madee, I certainly felt thethe altitude hit me in the front of the face and as I stepped out from the doors on there to make the decision to ski off there. But yeah, it was, over that week and a half period, we'd lost, I'd lost 10 kilos for that event. Yeah, it was good. Hardcore hey Sam. Do you have any burning questions for Angus before we? Oh, no, I don't because I, gosh, we've covered so much ground today. It's just fascinating listening to all your adventures. I think I probably got sidetracked a little bit with your ongoing, with your goals, but I'll probably diverse a bit, at least on the business side of things. I'm always learning or looking to learn and progress it in every area. So I mean, at least my goals for me on theon the business side of things is just to keep growing it and keep the opportunities open. I think I always like keeping an open mind. I've got in a sense of 0 expectations, I'm never disappointed. So I never put any limitations on myself. So that keeps the opportunities open for me. So I'm just happy to keep growing it and exploring all theopportunities that come towards me. Yeah. I do have one question I should ask is, do the communities have a nickname for you?If they have, they have a nice one. Do they talk about all the water mans coming or anything like that?I'll have to run it by them, but at this stage, they haven't they haven't given me one that's stuck, and I think it's probably only a matterof time. Yeah. And those, when you like, do those communities have the resources to pay for filtration systems?Obviously they do if you're... Yeah, like I thought most of the regional job would be for stations and those sort of those sort of areas out there and small. There's also like remote and regional towns where you've got more of aa shire council and that sort of thing, running it where there's more funding and opportunity to do that. But the communities in itself, where they're even further out, where they're running, there's no power and they're running off, you know, solar batteries or a generator in that sense. So if it's just a means of supplying a small RO unit and that sort of thing, which is a it's a redundancy given that there's major flooding or that sort of thing. At least there can be a few litres of potable drinking water supplied as a last resort. And so these shires, you would just rock up and meet the local representatives and tell them that you've got these systems that help them out?Yeah, pretty much. I'll just go around. Every time I would stop, I'd get talking to people, go down to the localpub for a counter meal and most of the time I end up staying there for a week or something like that because it had always led on tosomething else or given, what was the last, ended up going and catching buffaloes or something for three weeks. I had some contracts up there doing that had led on to another little bit of adventure in itself. So that you'vePeople are always seeing you and they're asking what you do. So at the back of their mind, it's always, this is a guy that can provide some water filtration opportunities. And then if that becomes a problem for them, then they're always, you know, I find they reach out from there. I'm not sort of always on the forefront to sell things to people. I'm just providing a solution. Maybe one day they might need it. Yeah. And it's the best marketing strategy ever. Just show up and it's like the Outback version of, you know, the white collar. Playing a round of golf, isn't it? Exactly. They're hanging out down at the pub. Yeah. Yep, that's where you can get face to face with potential customers. Yeah, and I forgot about that, buffalo shooting is another thing that you do as a paid side hustle, isn't it?You go and do contracts, you were saying, for to cull buffaloes, is that how?Yeah, it can be sort of any pest animals and that as well, where they're feral pigs. Most of the time, ifIf they're larger animals like that, then the buffaloes are actually caught for live export. I will also hunt them for food and for that for my own benefit. But also if we're getting a large sum of meat like that, then we're supplying to the communities that are up there as well. They might be there taking their cut or 2/3 of the meat and then I'm taking some back straps or that sort of thing. We're making jerky out of it and filling the freezers to come back home. Butbig, big game in terms of the buffalo is most of it's done for contract mustering up there, catching them, physically catching them. Which is something you do, right?Is it in four-wheel drives that you round them up or how does that work?They'd have a number of helicopters and bull catchers. Yeah, What's a bull catcher?It's essentially like a, it's a modified Land Cruiser that's cut down with no roof oranything like that. And most of the time, no doors, no roof. There's a little, there's like a actuated grabbing arm on the side. Yeah. And you chase them down and then flick a toggle switch and it would grab the buffalo around the neck and then you would drive up to the nearest tree and then get out and do a knot around his horns and then tie him up to the tree and release him. And he would just be tethered. He'd be tethered to the tree. And then you would come and get him later in the day when you've essentially got a herd of buffaloes tied to all different trees and you would load them onto a truck. Wow. By the end of the day, yeah. So that's contract work that you would do. Well, there was contracts up there doing it. I'm mostly doing it on the charity side, but I'm not sure if I'm doing it for something to keep me busy as well. And to feed the local community. Yeah, more so opportunities that are presented to me and I just thought I'd go along with it and grasp them and take them. So they're always really good experiences to be a part of. And since I'm doing, there's always opportunities to go back there and sort of to help out with those things again. Yeah. Amazing. So the next big adventure that you've got planned, it was the cross-country skiing in France. What's the next big one?I think I would like to do, I've sort of got a little bit more of a bug for that. I think we're looking to extend it instead of three days, which was completed this year. There's another one that's sort of pushing the week long through the Alps in Switzerland there, or there's another event in Norway, which goes for six days across there. It's just a matter of camping out. being a bit self-sustainable there and probably covering an average of about 20 kilometres a day doing that. Yeah. So I think, I haven't sort of set one in stone yet, but it's certainly on the horizon. Yeah. A taste for the snow sports by the sounds of it. Yeah. it's just something that, not an environment I'm used to operating in. So it certainly gives me a... a good challenge. it sounds like you're someone that does not like vanilla or the status quo. You're constantly seeking the edge and new experiences and right. Yeah, I certainly agree. I just I don't feel like I want to waste any time wondering. Yeah. Well, good on you. It's inspiring. Makes me feel verysheltered. Well, the world's a big place. There's so many opportunities out there. That's right. Yeah. I just spend a lot of, I traveled a lot in my youth, but then having children, it sort of limits your ability to do that. But I do miss it. Yeah. I live precariously through people like you now until they're old enough to. Oh, well, I'm glad I could provide that service. Yeah. Any final comments, Sam? No, it's just been a really fascinating conversation today. Thanks, Angus. Refreshing. Oh, pleasure, Sam. Where is it, Kate?Yeah. Thanks very much for the invitation. Thanks for coming on the show. You are definitely our most exciting guest so far. Oh, well, I'm flattered. At least you'll know where to find me. I'll be in the Perth area for a little bit now. Yeah, okay. And anyone listening, go to homefiltrationsystems.com. Is that correct?Yes, that's correct. Yeah. And on Instagram. Water issues. And yeah, stay tuned and follow Angus's journey. Thanks so much for being with us, Angus. All right. Thanks, Sam. Cheers, Kate. Thanks very much. Enjoy the rest ofyour day.