Chaz Powell: Walking The Wildest Rivers In Africa

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In this raw and riveting episode of Adventure Diaries, I’m joined by expedition leader Chaz Powell—a man who walked into some of the most extreme wildernesses on Earth and returned with stories of survival, connection, and purpose. From dehydration in Zambia’s 50°C heat to being kidnapped in Mozambique, Chaz’s journey isn’t just about distance—it’s about transformation.

We cover his treks along Africa’s wildest rivers—the Zambezi, Gambia, and Mangoky—where he faced wild animals, dodged bandits, and survived by intuition, diplomacy, and grit. But this isn’t just a story about adventure. It’s about how walking saved his life, pulled him out of a troubled past, and became his way of giving back—to people, to rivers, and to the wild.

You’ll also hear about his off-grid plans in Scotland, reflections on fatherhood, bushcraft, and how a simple walk along the River Tay became a form of healing and tribute after losing his dad.

🎧 What You’ll Learn

IDEAS – How adventure can become a personal and societal turning point.
INSIGHTS – What wild rivers teach us about life, growth, and human endurance.
QUOTES – “Walking saved me. I’d just go—bag on back—and keep moving forward.”
FACTS – The Zambezi River trek covered 3,000km over 137 days in 50°C heat.
RECOMMENDATIONS – Walk your local river from source to sea. See what it teaches you.

🔗 Resources & Mentions

• The Wildest Journey – Chaz Powell’s website
• Chaz Powell on Instagram
• African Wildlife Foundation
• Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer – book inspiration
• Sidetracked Magazine – Chaz’s Madagascar article

Chapters

• 0:00 Surviving the Gorge: A Near-Death Experience
• 1:16 Introduction to the Adventure Diaries Podcast
• 1:39 Meet Chaz Powell: Expedition Leader
• 3:36 Chaz's Early Life and Inspirations
• 7:28 Turning Point: From Trouble to Travel
• 15:44 The Start of Chaz's Adventure Career
• 23:52 The Wildest Journey: Walking the Zambezi River
• 36:48 Experiencing Zambia: A Welcoming Nation
• 37:25 Civil War in Mozambique: A Journey Interrupted
• 38:16 Hostility and Survival in Mozambique
• 41:48 Completing the Journey: Reaching the Ocean
• 42:40 Navigating Corruption and Bribery
• 43:50 Sustenance and Gear: Preparing for the Journey
• 48:18 Wildlife Encounters: Crocodiles, Snakes, and Elephants
• 49:54 The Gambia Expedition: A New Adventure
• 51:35 Lessons Learned: From Zambia to The Gambia
• 58:41 Reflecting on Career Choices and Wildlife Passion
• 1:01:52 Madagascar Expedition: Facing Bandits and Challenges
• 1:10:19 Reflecting on the Journey
• 1:10:33 Witnessing Deforestation in Madagascar
• 1:12:41 Challenges and Companionship
• 1:13:28 Water Supply and River Crossings
• 1:15:02 UK Expeditions and Personal Reflections
• 1:25:14 Living Off-Grid in Scotland
• 1:28:00 Future Aspirations and Adventures
• 1:30:09 Closing Traditions and Final Thoughts

Transcript

 Once I got out the gorge, I drunk off my water temperatures were nearly 50 degrees Celsius. I was up and down these little gullies trying to get on a bearing to another river that should have been going into the zabe. And I basically, a bearing was lost a million times. You know, I was in round things and forms everywhere and I was getting myself snarled on forms and stuff like that.

And in the end, I ran outta water, realized I wasn't going to be able to do what I planned to do, tried to get back down to the river, couldn't get back down to the river. Ended up hunkering down some shade and eventually having to activate the SOS on my satellite phone. And yeah, in the end, I didn't get anyone to me.

I ended up having to go back to this cliff that I dismissed earlier on and sort of clamber myself down and get myself down back into the water. After having drunk my own ing, I was grabbed and dragged on the ground and kicked and whatever it was, and chucked in this hut. And I ended up in a young offender's institution when I was 19.

It's something that I've obviously not, not proud of whatsoever, but I got to a stage where I was going down that path in life. And I think the, the travel initially was just I needed to get away. Welcome to the Adventure Diaries Podcast, where we share tales of adventure, connection, and exploration from the smallest of creators to the larger than life adventurers.

We hope their stories inspire you to go create your own extraordinary adventures. And now your host, Chris Watson. Chris Watson.

Welcome to another episode of The Adventure Diaries. Today I'm joined by Chaz Powell, an expedition leader who's walked the length of some of the wildest rivers on the planet to spotlight the places and the people that are often overlooked from trekking 3000 kilometers along this MBI river where he nearly died of dehydration to being kidnapped in Mozambique yoing through lion territory in Gambia and dodging bandits in Madagascar.

Chaz has journeyed in some of the most untamed and wildest places imaginable, but this isn't just a story about distance or danger, it's about what happens when you decide to make a change, to leave a troubled past behind and walk towards something better, and how wilded places can become turning points and chaz's adventures.

They serve a collective purpose advocating for river ecosystems, for wildlife protection. And cultural understanding across Africa's lesser known regions. So if you've ever wondered what it takes to survive 50 degree heat, while the elephant charges are seeing your own noose being drawn in the sand in front of you, then this one's for you.

So settle in. And enjoy this fantastic conversation with Chaz Powell. Chaz Powell, welcome to the Adventure Diaries. How are you? I'm very good, Chris. Thank you for having me along. Thank you. I'm excited for this. And more so because you've just completed a Little Trek adventure in Scotland, which will come on to at the end, and it's given me some ideas and suggestions.

I've, I've got some questions on that in terms of how I could replicate that from a paddling perspective, actually. So thank you. So a lot to unpack the wildest journey. Crazy expeditions through some of the craziest rivers on the planet. And before we come on to all that good stuff, I just want to bring it right back to your early days, Chaz, your, your upbringing, your early life.

Because I think you grew up in Shsu, is that right? Yeah, yeah. Sup Shere? Well, a little town called Newport Market Town in structure. What was life like for younger Chaz in terms of outdoors and adventure? What were you getting up to? I wasn't too academic as a kid to be honest. I was always wanting to be outside sort of with my mates, you know, building dens off on a bikes and things like that.

And yeah, just sort of camping and I didn't really have any aims when I was a kid. I would just had a real daydreaming brain about me and I'd be sat in the classroom and I'd want to be out exploring. And that's obviously echoed through my life. But yeah, I guess the town I grew up in is like a little market town.

It was, I guess. Still is obviously a market town, but I had a close knit group of friends and we always obviously grew up together and got into little scrapes together throughout our young days and stuff like that. And yeah, I guess it was one of them. I guess any small town, you've got your community and it's whatever happens in the towns happening in the town, everyone knows about everything.

And I guess it's a little bit narrow minded in that sense, and that's where I grew up and couldn't wait to get away, to be honest, even though I, I like to nip back in now and again, see people, but yeah. So did you have any influences younger or any daydreams about, because if you fast forward to where you are now, we rewind and go through some of that journey, but how does Chaz go from Newport to walking some of these crazy, was it a plan?

Did you have any idea that this is what you, where you would end up? I dunno, it's, it's hard to really summarize the transition. I think the influence, my dad passed away this year and I've obviously thought back about what influence he had on my life and he used to take me camping and you can go walk in the woodlands and stuff like that nearby.

And when I think back that's probably is one of the root things, isn't my father. Was an inspiration. He was always out in his motor home and camping and things, and I guess that was always something I, I liked to have anything when I was younger. You know, I, I did have a passion for reading when I was young.

Not necessarily as much nowadays, obviously podcasts and whatnot, but when I was young, I used to read a lot of adventure stories and be inspired and, you know, I always grew up and watched stuff like Attenborough, David Attenborough and, and admired the world, you know, and, and fascinated by things. But I guess I looked at, when I was young, I was always interested in stories and adventure stories and old explorers that had these crazy adventures.

Obviously nowadays you've got a million people doing adventures in various different forms. And when I was a kid, I guess it used to be in book form and it would be a very sort of rare thing, you know, to be reading about someone who's been out and done. Stuff like that. So I guess that was probably what inspired me to want more in life.

I think there was always something in me, people obviously do this stuff. I think there's something within you that makes you do it. Or there's, it's genetic, isn't it, that you want to get out and explore and you can't sit still. Maybe I had a little bit of a DHD or something when I, I couldn't sit still and I was very restless.

I was a bit a bit of a cheeky kid and stuff like that at school. I didn't really want to be educated, and the older I've got, the more educated I want to be and I have become. But when I was younger, I was always just gonna join the Army as well. That was something I was interested in as joining the Army.

And I was in cadets for a couple of years and that's always what I wanted to do. I joined, I was in the Cubs and stuff, then I went to cadets and that was sort of in, once again, an inspiration to wanna be outdoors and have an adventurous sort of life. But when I got to like 16, I think I, I got to a realization that I didn't really want to do that.

I, I think it's more 'cause I, I knew. Myself, I wasn't probably capable of having someone discipline me. I was a bit of an idiot to be honest. And from the ages of 17 to 18, 19, I just, I was in and out a bit of trouble as a kid as well, and I think that that sort of gave me a kick up the backside to sort of.

Get away from where I was, if that makes sense. So it's a bit of a long-winded story. But yeah, basically I was getting into trouble where I grew up and I ended up leaving the town I grew up in 'cause I was getting into a way of life I didn't wanna be in and ended up going to work away. I worked at Butlins of all places that Brandons place.

I worked there for a couple of years and after I'd finished there, I was about 22 I think when I finished there. And I was actually looking at going on working on cruise ships or doing something similar, you know, but travel based. And one of my friends said, have you ever thought about just going backpacking?

I said, oh, you know, I'd rather do something that involves work. And we came up with a compromise to get working visas for New Zealand. So we ended up traveling all around Southeast Asia and. Went across Australia and, and traveled around there in a car and then went over to New Zealand for about five months, I think it was, and, and worked out there.

And that was sort of the first sort of stepping stone, I guess, into the travel industry. That was obviously 22 years ago now. So Wow. Butlin is a blast from the past. I don't know if that's still, is that still a thing? It was Minehead, I think there's only three left now. Minehead Ness and Bogner Regis. But yeah, he has an adventure.

But it, you know, looking back, that was a lifesaver for me 'cause it was, yeah. It took me out of the town I was in and, and that was like a stepping stone to meet other people. Mm-hmm. People that weren't in the, you know, in the environment I grew up in. And, you know, it was a bit like, I guess you look at it like a club repping type phase where it was just drinking and, and bars and, you know, parties.

And that was a good, good stepping stone. Everyone who's ever worked there that I know now, they, they all look back and talk about that. You know, it's like a part of their life. They can't really let go through all that kind of phase. Chaz, were, were you consciously aware that you were trying to find a vocation or a purpose or, or whatever it was, or, you know, were you looking for it?

Seeking for Yeah, I don't even know, to be honest. It was just, it has been a gradual transition to this sort of lifestyle. But I think when I was young, I just, maybe I was running away from. That part of my life from being a teenager and getting into trouble. The bigger picture of it was I ended up in a young offenders institution when I was 19.

It's something that I've obviously not, not proud of whatsoever, but I got to a stage where I was going down that path in life. And I think the, the travel initially was just I needed to get away. I needed to get away from what was happening and the way I was becoming in life. And if anything, it's always been something I've been embarrassed a little bit about.

To be honest, that part of my life, and I've moved away from it ever since. And I think initially the bottlings thing was getting away from where I was. And then the travel thing was maybe getting away from the country, maybe in a way, but. I think I, I don't think it's anything to be embarrassed about something, you know, to cut in Chaz, I think, I mean, everybody's got their own stuff, their own shit to deal with at times.

But if you think of we are now and the kinda stuff that you're doing and you know, it's just part of the story. Yeah. Isn't it? It's nothing really to, it's something I've never been able to escape, to be honest as well from, and um, even this year I tried to go into the Armed Police. I thought it was like, well I did, I got offered a job in the armed police.

I went for a five month process to do it and obviously my past came back and bit me on the ass and said, no, you're not done this when you were young, you know, 25 years ago. And, and then obviously I'm like, oh, that's that and that's always gonna be there as such. It was minor, minor stuff in, in the bigger sense of things.

It wasn't any kinda serious crime. There was some theft and things obviously it was, again, I'm not proud of it, but justice system in this country is a, an absolute shambles. And that could be a podcast in its own right. Yeah. Uh, you know, I pleaded and appealed and whatever and obviously tried to justify who I am now compared to what I was when I was a kid.

And I say it, you know, it's one of 'em things that I guess in a way it's embarrassing to sort of, 'cause people are all, no matter how long ago it was in life, even go back to the town I grew up in, I'll still get people, oh you are, that's not me. Like, so, I mean, people will always judge you on it and like the justice system, like you say, it doesn't really reflect.

I mean there's a thing called the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. I think after 10 years it doesn't get recognized. You know, certain crimes, obviously there's always crimes that you can't get off there if it's something serious. But if you've done something of minor offense, it's supposed to be wiped after 10 years.

But obviously with the police and things, it's never wiped. So that was something I had a realization for this year. But yeah, I always have to focus on, I. Moving forward away from that. And that's always what I've done, you know, from the travel and trying to do things. Good. Are you looking for a different type of career or just to supplement what you're doing?

Jazz then? Uh, I think, I mean, I always look at adventures. It is never as a full-time career for me as such. I mean, I did have a life where I was doing expeditions. I was going away, I was doing expedition, like work based expeditions. I was coming back, I was doing my own personal expeditions. And since I've got married and had a ba, a new baby and things like that, I, I mean, I've tried to make a little bit more of a subtle life where I can still do my adventures myself, but then I've got a constant income.

I think it's so difficult to earn money from expeditions, you know, probably everyone is the same, that in the adventure world, you've always got to have books going on. You've got documentaries or whatever talks, and I guess I'm not really good at marketing myself too well, and I think, yeah, maybe not good at.

Financially making it any better than just, you know, doing this stuff and coming home and working a normal job, I guess. But hi everyone, Chris here with just a wee reminder. If you've been enjoying the stories here on the Adventure Dies, could you please take a moment to press that follow or subscribe button on Spotify or Apple Podcasts?

It's such a small thing, but it makes such a huge difference to the show. It helps the show reach more ears, brings more voices to the table, and really helps keep this adventure going. So if you are up for more wild stories, more adventures, and more thoughtful conversations, and please hit that follow button on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

And thanks for being here and spending time with us today. It is really appreciated. So hit that follow button and now let's get back to this episode. It is a tough, a tough business as well. I, I mean, I, I was just at, was it just at Kendall Mountain Festival there and I. There was some people up talking around like the adventure filmmaking industry, and I think it was Sophie Darlington and she, she said something about it almost being in light free fall at the minute.

And you know, 'cause I know the adventure and expedition side of it's quite difficult and, you know, there's a few people I spoke about the TV and production side of things and, and that just seems extremely competitive, but there's just no budgets and no money in it. It's, which is travesty really when it got to the stage where, you know, obviously social media kicked off and it's got competitive more and more, isn't it?

And I think I just sort of, I don't wanna be competing against like-minded people here. I'm, I'm just happy doing my ventures and Yeah. And, and if people want to take note of what I've done and sort of I'll write about it and do my magazine. I've done obviously written about stuff and I've spoke about it many times, but I guess I don't really put myself out there for any more than what's on offer.

You know, I, I, I probably could, you know, I know I've done stuff that's I. Good enough caliber to probably promote myself higher to, to Oh that. Yeah. I think that's an understatement and what will come on. It's something that I think there's some absolutely epic and you know, naturally with what I'm doing here, I'm speaking to lots of people doing adventures and that this is one I've been particularly excited about.

So, because I think you were one of the first people I reached out to, I don't even know that back on LinkedIn. Uh, yeah, I remember, yeah. Or whatever. More than that. And we just took a while to kinda reconnect and get things in the diary. So I'm buzzing to get into the, the meat and bones, uh, meat and bones.

It's not you. Nothing. Meat and potatoes rolling back again. Wee bit cha then. So when did you first kinda comment into the, you know, the adventure world because you've done a bit of like guiding expeditions, a bit of bushcraft and all that stuff. So, so, so when did those kind of doors and influences come to be?

The first, when I say when I went to New Zealand in 2003. Then I ended up coming back from there. I had a bit of a sort of to and fro from traveling. I'd come back, work for six months. I'd be away again. I'd be traveling somewhere else. I'd be, I've got working all day in Australia. I worked and lived there.

I was doing a lot of that to and froing for about eight years. And then I think it was 2012, I became a father for the first time. And, um, that gave me a kick up the backside. I started to think about making some kind of career and, uh, ended up, I became a mountain leader. And I always thought to, when I was traveling that eight years on and off, I, I always thought to myself, what, what is it I want to do?

You know, I've never really had an idea that until that point what I wanted to do. And I always wanted to do expeditions and I thought, okay, I want to be an expedition leader. So I went onto the route of becoming a mountain leader. Obviously I had a, a lot of travel experience and then I went for a few jobs, sort of weekends, whatever it is, where they expedition leader weekends where they pick a leader and you get told if obviously you're good enough to leave expeditions.

And the first time I did it, I think it was an outlook, the one I've led with the most, they, they said to me, look, we're gonna offer you a job on the subject subjective view. I haven't got any teaching experience and I guess my. Public speaking was really sort of patchy. Well, I was quite nervous and you could tell I wasn't used to speaking to a group.

So they said, look, you've obviously got the experience, you've got the qualification, but we can tell you're not quite ready to be leading a group. And I ended up, they had like a sister company called the Bushcraft Company and I applied to work with them, uh, which is obviously teaching survival in the forest mainly.

But I was doing, I was working at the Mountain Center as well and leading mountain expeditions. But basically I was, yeah, I got a job teaching bushcraft to students, to young kids and stuff like that. And I was doing that for a good five years and as well as doing expeditions. 'cause once I'd obviously taught, been teaching for so many years or for so many months, I had enough experience to learn to say, okay, I'm good enough now to take a group out.

So. Outlook Expeditions was the company I worked for mostly. That was from about 2015 and then till the pandemic basically. That's another reason why, you know, I've completely forgotten about the Pandemic then for a moment. But that was another reason why I changed Career Path because the companies I was working for were Liquidized and well the back up and running now.

But at the time they were, there was no jobs and I ended up seeking other work and obviously became a ranger up here in Scotland, but that's obviously a different. Category of story, but yeah, that, that was, that was obviously, yeah. Going back to the expeditions, after I'd finished that big stint of travel, I then looked at becoming something so I could support my child and, and work and back and forth to different countries and coming home and then, yeah, working at Bushcraft, working on expeditions, and I had a quite a good career going with that.

But obviously, like I say, the pandemic changed that a little bit and ended up, yeah, moving. Where was Outlook Expeditions? Was that in Scotland as well, jazz, or was it No, that, yeah, that was in, in Wales. They were in Wales initially in Banga. I think the offices were in Wales and I think they're in somewhere near London now.

I can't remember the name of it, but they're, they're there now. 'cause obviously that's where more of the custom base is. But I think, 'cause I lived in Shashi and sort of the Wales, England border. Most of my sort of holidays were in Wales and Sia, and that was sort of the area I was always, it was like my second home when I was young.

Really back and forth to there and doing a lot of my training there. What was your first expedition like? Can you remember? Uh, work-wise you mean? Yeah. The first one that you ran after becoming the leader. What, what was that like? It all. It went well. I think it was, yeah. 'cause I think with Outlook and with most of these expedition companies, with school-based, you've always got a couple of teachers with you.

Then you've got yourself as the leader. Then you've got obviously a group of students. I think I only had about six students and they were like 16, 17, 18 year olds. They were all really quite grown up. The first group, well, most of 'em have have been, but that first particular group, I think made my life quite easy.

And they were just nice. They were good people. And I think with that as well, I think it's always relatively easy because they're obviously wanting to go there and they're wanting to have that experience, and then they just look at you as the one that's qualified and to fall back on if there's any worries in the group, you're the one that answers the questions and can be that sort of, uh, professional.

So I think I like that, obviously. And I think they, you know, I've always touched wood, been received Okay. By people. So. It was, uh, yeah, it seemed to go. Do you not miss doing your training? I do miss it. Yeah. I do miss Expeditions and I was gonna lead actually again, and yeah, I, I just haven't, 'cause of obviously my job now, I just haven't gone back to it.

And I think because I've got, you know, I've got house and all this stuff now I've got a little baby as well. He is just over a year old and Oh, gotcha. It sort of took a back burner in a way, maybe in a, in the next couple of years I'll get back to it, but I think I've just sort of thought to myself, you know, I was injured as I had a hernia for.

A good while and that, that stopped me getting out, doing too much to be honest. And I got the surgery last year and that that sorted that out. But there was a number of things going on. My dad was a bit ill, there's been a lot the last couple of few years that obviously pandemic, which has sort of curbed me.

But this walk along the river te I've just done, that was the first walk I've done for two years. Yeah. I'm slowly wanting to get it back out there and obviously now the little boy is, is getting. A bit older. He's watched over one, but he's not crying anymore at night and getting a bit more settled and things.

So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean there's probably a market still for doing some of the bushcraft stuff, even over weekends. 'cause I know, I mean, there's a few things that I've been trying to get on for the past eight or nine months that just diaries don't permit and been limited slots. So I would imagine there's a, there's a market for some of that to even without being, because family life, you know, I get the challenge with that.

Yeah. And trying to go away for any extended periods of time is, is difficult with, yeah. Home life commitments. I mean, bushcraft. Yeah. I, I, I worked for companies for that and I've often thought about trying to just hire a patch of Woodland and try and organize. I'm not the most business minded as well, so I'll always think about it and, and know I can do it, and then I'll get to it.

I just, yeah, I mean, I, I probably, it probably is, like I say, this part of Scotland, I don't think there's any bush crafty type courses as well, so maybe there's a market for it up here as well. But I know a lot of other people as well that you've interviewed people like Ollie, France's got a family and people make things work if they want, and I respect that.

You know, I've. I just think I'm not as good at it maybe, but yeah, I, no, it's, I mean, yeah, I mean I juggle a professional career as well as a family and then trying to do stuff, so I'm kinda stuck to vacation days or Yeah, the weekends. Yeah. So I do get it. I've teased the tea. That's a river tea for any non UK natives that may be listening, which is a, a UK expedition, which we'll come on to.

So I do want to touch on your wildest journeys, you know, fantastic brand around that. So. Walking the rivers in Mozambique, The Gambia, Madagascar. Where did the idea come from? You know, from doing stuff, you know, travel's one thing I get that, you know, you know, bit the backpacker, you know, whatever mountain guides.

But to then go into like, you know, let's take Africa as an example. That's a massive undertaking, like Mozambique, and we'll come on to, you know, what happened with that. But where did you get the idea and how did that come to be? So, yeah, the, the wildest journey, well, basically I'd, I'd done all these expeditions.

I've traveled and been to all these different countries and they've all, all, in a way, they've all been relatively not, I've been off the beaten track, but they were all relatively safe. You know, they, they felt like there was always quite a safe environment. And like I said before about when I was young, I read all, read all these adventure stories about.

Explorers, you'd go to different parts of the world and they'd be a little known about places to most people. One of the biggest inspirations I had was David Livingston, his explorations in Africa, and people that went looking for the source of the Nile and things like that. And I always had this crazy ambition to try and go on a really wild trek in a really wild place, wild part of the world.

And and Africa was always one of 'em places that I looked at as a continent where there's still relatively little known about some of the really wild places and very little explored about some of the wild places. And I wanted to basically walk the length of the wireless river in Africa, which was a zabe.

Yeah, I'd come up with a, well, I'd say initially I'd come up with a number of ideas and I'd come up with a number of different expeditions I wanted to do and I, and basically said to myself, the Zabe was the one that ticks all the boxes. You know, it's the wireless river in Africa. Little known about some of the places that there's zabe is within some of the real wild areas and.

I basically, yeah, called it the wildest journey. 'cause it was gonna be the wildest journey of my life taking this expedition on and trying to walk the length of the zabe. And I did that in 2016 and 17. It was almost the last journey from what I've seen and heard. So I think it was 130 something days or so, two 3000 kilometers you got in, but you had the threat of kidnap and murder, didn't you?

Yeah, it was about a 3000 kilometer trek. And yeah, it took me, well, I had to do it in two stages. In 2016, I started to walk in the, basically, I, I could talk about this for hours, but the zambezi is in like several different sections and there's like a, an upper zabe, a middle zabe, and a lower zabe. And, and the upper zabe for the first section, it is got a huge floodplain, one of the first sections, and about 80% of the year that flood planes on the water.

So I decided I, I had to time all this. It's a lot of research went into it and I had to basically look at the weather patterns and when it's gonna be accessible to walk through these areas. And I basically started at the hottest time of year walking. I. And that allowed me to walk through this floodplain area, which was about 400 miles long.

But that was still up to my waist in swamp water at times and things like that. But there was that. And then once you get past that, you've got the middle za where it drops down, the Victoria Falls. Obviously the biggest waterfall in the world drops into a huge gorge. 'cause it was the hottest time of year.

The, the wart was very little and there was no water at the top of the land. So I had to walk down in the gorge. And walking down in the gorge wasn't easy. You know, there was a 150 miles of gorge where I was maybe walking one or two miles a day. That was one of the times that you might have heard of where I nearly died because I had to try and climb out of the gorge.

'cause I realized I wasn't gonna be able to walk one or two miles a day for 150 miles and running outta food, managed to get out of the gorge. And once I've got out the gorge, I'd drunk half my water. Temperatures were nearly 50 degrees Celsius. I was up and down these little gullies trying to get on a bearing to another river that should have been going into the zabe.

And I basically, the bearing was lost a million times and I was in round things and forms everywhere you, I was getting myself snarled on and stuff like that. And. In the end, I ran outta water, realized I wasn't going to be able to do what I planned to do, tried to get back down to the river, couldn't get back down to the river.

Ended up hunkering down some shade and eventually having to activate the SOS on my satellite phone. And yeah, in the end, I didn't get anyone to me. I ended up having to go back to this cliff that I dismissed earlier on and sort of clamber myself down and get myself down back into the water after having drunk wear and urine for however many, you know, just random stuff that I had to do that was very surreal.

Nearly died, like I said. And, well of, of all the times in my life. I think that was it, probably the main time I thought, that's it. Like, you know, I'm just sat there thinking I'm, I'm, I'm a goner. But that was that. And. Yeah, after that cycle to kind of roll back a bit jazz, in terms of your preparation for that and your research and stuff, how did you research?

'cause if the river think the way that, you know, changes, maybe the landscape changes, particularly around like the flood plains, I'd imagine there must be tributaries and stuff that would probably come off of that. And how did you map the route out and were you using GPS or anything like that or, uh, I did have a GPS most of the time I had just a big roadmap of Zambia and, and Mozambique and whatnot.

And I'd basically give myself like a weekly target. Maybe I'll get from, uh, this town to that town within a week or that was an estimate, you know what I mean? It was very rare. I couldn't get any defined maps that had, there was some old Russian maps I had to look at, but I would've had to carry too many, you know, and I've had to carry so many maps if I wanted to get fine maps.

So I had a roadmap and I had a rough idea about getting from this point to that point. And basically, 'cause there's a river, I followed the river and sort of had a rough idea of what might be in between that point and that point I did have a GPS didn't really serve much purpose. It was a, I can't remember the name, eTrex, Carmen eTrex or something.

And it didn't really serve much of a purpose. It ended up breaking in the heat. A lot of the things I had broken the heat, and basically by the end of the walk or even within a few weeks of the walk, I was relying on local people to sort of guide the way or show me the way or point out the way. And that would be a daily process.

You know, like I say, the weekly process be getting the map out saying, all right, I need to get to this point. To this point, there's obviously several towns and cities on the river, so if I got a rough idea, I, I could, I'm gonna follow the river, it's gonna be a national park. There might be, you know, some lodges there.

There might be, it might just be completely jungle, it might be very barren. There might be some floods and yeah, and I have a rough idea. Each time I looked at the map and I'd get out more than that, you know, I'd get out every day and have a look and just for the sake of it, but it was basically a rough idea.

On a map and I basically wing it in a way, I suppose, of getting from point A to point B several times, obviously over the space of 137 days. But did you know from the map where the villages and towns and stuff were and what the kinda did you foresee what the culture on. Yeah. Implications are interactions would or could be.

Is that wild area, isn't it? You couldn't, every village was, obviously there wasn't the maps that have like the big cities or the little towns. There's significant places that would be on the, on the bus route or whatever it is. And, but yeah, there was village, village after village that, you know, these villages only last a lifetime for people.

They like straw hots and stuff like that. And you know, none of these villages are on a map, not to that range anyway, you know, they might be able to get some really old fine maps that might have more info on it. But What was it like when you came strolling through with you, your map into some of these areas where when people weren't necessarily expecting to see you, were you, were you well received?

Or how, how did that go down? Yes, I was, the way I always explained to this is I'd get, I, well, I, it would be really, you know, obviously understandably it would be frustrating, uh, but understandably for them it was alarming because you get this tall, white guy walking through a village and they might have never seen a white person before.

I'm reaching this village and the first thing I'm seeing, I, I already know as, as a village, I can see it like a bit of a clearing. There's, there's maybe a few, you know, little pots and people are collecting water from outside the village, and I already know straight away that there's signs of a village coming up.

And most of the time, the first thing I'd say is maybe kids filling up water. You know, on the heads and they, they just, well, they'd see me and then they just throw whatever it is they've got and then they just run, run as fast as they could towards the village. And everybody knew that. Not purposely, but that's my way of them knowing that I'm coming sort of thing.

And I'd get to a village that most, you know, I think everyone is out of the village. They're all like looking at me. And then I'm obviously then trying to find someone I can communicate with to explain what who I am and what I'm doing. And most of the time it was a school or a teacher and I try and go to the schools every time I got to a rhythm of going to the school.

And I'd say to the teachers, look, this is what I'm doing. Uh, please ask people not to be alarmed. You know, I'm obviously just, uh, passing through and you'd have to sort of, well, one, one bit of information I was told as well from locals is make sure you see the headman or the chief and let them know what you're doing and ask permission.

You know, ask permission to walk through the village and then it's obviously gonna be a respect thing and you're gonna get help as well. So. I'd have that process. I'd speak to the teachers, I'd speak to the headman, the villager, the chief of the village. And then I'd say, look, thank you for, you know, blah, blah, blah.

Is it okay if I pass through? And most of the time, you know, 99% of the time, especially in Zambia, they'd be really happy. And as a guest, they'd put you up somewhere and normally on a classroom floor in school a lot of the time, and they'd bring you hot water in it to have a bath and, and bring you some food.

And, and they just, they also be the hospitality in some of these rural areas, especially Zambia. Yeah. You get treated to a very high standard. They look at you as a, a very high on guest coming in. And some of the most beautiful times I had had just sat with local people and just eating food and sharing food out of a bowl.

And yeah, it's just fantastic. It was, uh, yeah, everywhere was different as well. Like that. I mean, there was some big bigger villages where. It was more like that. And then there was smaller villages where it was more humble. I'd just be sat with people and yeah, just sharing a, a bit of food or giving, you know, giving them something I'd, I'd carry.

I always tried to think of what I could give back and I'd carry like fishing hooks and little things I could have in my bag that I could then give them to go fishing and stuff like that. And seeds and stuff. Random bits that I could just hand out. And there was one guy I gave him, he had malaria. I gave him a course of anti-malaria, you know, the treatment, whatever it was.

And a lot of random things I just carried with me to try and give some it back. Obviously you can't give much. A lot of the time these people don't, you know, they're just living a simple life. They're getting the fish out the river, they're growing a few vegetables, they're getting the water out the river.

They're not really going anywhere, you know, they're just living their lives. And I guess that was Village Life. You know, Mozambique was different. Mozambique obviously, I haven't really talked about Mozambique, but that was the last country I walked through on the Zabe and. Completely different vibe. You know, that's where I got kidnapped.

That's where I was sort held captive and as such, and yeah, that was a different ball game there. They, they weren't too happy about me being there. And there was a lot of suspicion and a lot of it wasn't the same process in the village. It was sort of like any type was. Skirt around this village, or I just need to tread really carefully, you know?

And some of it was, some of the villages were just as nice, but it wasn't as, you know, guaranteed to be, to be good. But yeah. So what happened then, before I asked that? Actually, rolling back to Zambia. When you said about fish hooks and stuff, were you catching your own fish by any chance when you were on the river or?

I wasn't, no, I mean, I, I probably could have done, but I just, yeah, I was, I didn't have a fishing run and things. I just had the hooks, but I was just, I just saw it as like a, a trading thing as well. Yeah. Something like that where I could, I could see the fishermen, you know, on the Zambia and I could trade a fish for, yeah.

A lot of times I'd, I'd trade fish, especially dried fish. It'd be drying fish on the village hooks and stuff like that. And I'd trade a few fish for some hooks and I'd look at it as like that. 'cause yeah, even money I'd pay, obviously pay my way and stuff like that, but there's only so much money you can carry, or there's only so much you can offer in that sense.

But a lot of the times, you know, if it's just a fisherman on the side of the river and he's caught some fish, he can sort of do a bit of a trade, stuff like that. But I didn't, yeah, I didn't really have time to. Oh, I probably could have made time, but I think I was just more confident on walking and getting to places.

And what was Zambia like as a country? Zambia's a lovely, beautiful place. People are probably one of the most welcoming in the world in my eyes. You know, they, it's always been somewhere I've been many times and received well many times and just very good people. You know, there's obviously like anywhere you've got sort of patches that are a bit rougher than others.

You know, there was various times I was a bit hostile, you know, and people pushing me and whatever, and random little things. But, you know, 99% of the time, the, the people, I'd probably be dead if it wasn't for the people. I, you know, I was, I was really looked after well. And so why the hostilities then in, in Mozambique?

What, what kinda went down then, Chaz? How did you come to being kidnapped? Well, the reason, the reason I had to sort of stop my walk in 2016 and then start again, I think it was five months later, was because of a civil war in Mozambique. I basically was refused a visa, and when I went to immigration in Lusaka capital of Zambia and tried to get my visa from Mozambique, they said, look, we can't give you a visa.

If you go into MoSo, you will get. Kidnapped or killed. There's a civil war happening, and I ended up coming back to the UK and, and I was watching, you know, and I couldn't rest. I couldn't rest. I was restless. And they ended up announcing that there'd been a cease of this civil war in, in Mozambique. And yeah, the first opportunities they had going back out there and just continuing, but it was obviously still very temperamental.

It was very fresh. And when I was going into villages, there was a lot of, uh, questions and why is he here and what's, what's going on? Who are you? They thought I was some kinda spy or some, obviously it wasn't the same. The one particular time I tried to get permission to go through a village and I ended up being sat there for several hours and the crowd grew round me and the hostility grew and in the end they just, I was grabbed and dragged on the ground and kicked and whatever it was, and chucked in his hut.

And a few days later I was, I managed to get out, but. Yeah, it was that. Wow. Yeah. That, that was, and it was like, you know, even after I got outta that, every time I reached some kind of substantial village that it was like it was gonna happen again. Yeah. So I had to just sort of say, see you later. I'm going keep moving.

And it was just, you know, I got to the stage at the end of the Zabe where you question why, why you doing it? I mean, I obviously initially wanted to do this crazy wild adventure, which is, you know, getting me outta my comfort zone and, and pushing me to the limit I want to be at. But then at the end of it, I'm thinking I'm putting my own life at risk.

And I'm, obviously, I'm going into places where I'm not being wanted. So that sort of had a bit of a strange effect on me. But, you know, the, the selfish aspect is I wanted to finish my walk and I, I'd set up to complete this journey and yeah. Were you getting desensitized? What? Were you getting hassled quite a lot then as you were going through?

Yeah, I guess I must have been a bit desensitized towards the end and, and I was getting so much, I guess it was hostility, you know, there was a lot of hostility in that in the end of, I just, I was on my own and I was battling against all this negativity and I just, just kept moving. And it was that thought of just getting the journey done that kept me going.

But yeah, maybe I just desensitized to, you know, there was, there was, I remember just being in tech in Mozambique and it's one of the cities on the river and I had a hotel and I thought, oh God, thank God for that. But when I went, I went out just to get to the shop, to get something to eat, and I was literally like.

A hundred meters away. And I got stopped by, I think about five police officers. And every single one of 'em wanted money off me and I hadn't got any money. They wanted my passport. I hadn't got my, I left it in a hotel. Oh God. So I had to then just, I didn't even go to shop, I just had to get back. I was just like, ah.

Ended up having to give about 40, $50 out and it was constantly that, I mean I don't wanna bad mouth Mozambique 'cause I'm sure there's some wonderful parts and even when I went to Maputo there, it was a nice town, but the time I went it was just really not a good idea I guess. Yeah, I think that's an important point Chad.

I mean, you know, we are just talking quite open and transparently and and raw about the experiences and I mean that reminds me of conversation I had with Ollie, actually Ollie, France and he was talking about his psycho through Africa and. Certainly in times when you are getting chased and, you know, machetes and rocks and things getting thrown at the bikes.

But like you say, there's bad places anywhere in the world, and that is not to draw a, a broad brush across, you know, Mozambique or anywhere else in the continent necessarily, to say that it's, you know, unbecoming or overly or whatever. It's, yeah, you do get pockets of this and, and these, you know, politically and stuff, these countries, a lot of these countries can be unstable in pockets of time and in recovering and yeah.

It's not throwing shade on the country whatsoever. Yeah. Not sure what it's like now, but, yeah. Well, yeah. So when did it come to an end then on that we were you when you had to. I got to the ocean and, and completed that walk. But it was, um, it was two days after my birthday in 2017, September, 2017. And yeah, I got, got to the end of that after obviously the 137 day combined journey.

There's so many things I could talk about with it, but I'd overstayed on my visa 'cause I was too scared to go and try and get it renewed somewhere. 'cause it was so corrupt trying to do everything, you know, trying to get, uh, trying to, I couldn't imagine trying to go somewhere and say, oh, can I have an extension of my passport?

Yeah. Because I'd have had to pay the thousands of dollars or something. It, it would, and then they took it off me. Ah. So I ended up just overstaying on my visa and taking the consequences after. Luckily I had a corrupt guy who just asked me for some money and stamped it, and that was it. I was gonna say that, 'cause touching that ly Fran conversation was Stan story about, you know, being detained for a drug as being a drug trafficker.

And it was just because he'd coco them all tablets and Anthony bribe his way out. But did you plan, did, did you have like, emergency funds to try and buy your way out of trouble? Did you plan for that? Yeah, I, I very much a shoestring budget to be honest. I didn't really have much money at all. I didn't carry much, especially I'd have my bank card and every time I got anywhere I.

Substantial. I might get some money at the ATM, but I probably wouldn't carry more than like $50 on me at a time. I definitely didn't have much money in a sense to, I mean, I could have gotten money, like I say, when I was at the airport at the end and, and the guy said, look, it's gonna $150. And I said, okay.

Went to the cash point and got it out and put it, I put it in the passport, give it to him, and then he just put it in his back pocket and stamped it. And then that was that. So, I mean, I was happy enough to do that 'cause I knew that Yeah, the alternative was, I dunno how much money and how much time, so, well, exactly.

It could have, you could have been detained for, you know, for months or years potentially. And, and it could have been six and seven figure sums. Yeah, it's difficult. Curious, Chaz, in terms of, so the journey in itself, you know, sustenance, what were you eating along the way and were you carrying like a backpack or your cooking stuff on it?

What was your, your setup, your gear is equipment like. Yeah, so I had, I, I carry always managed to carry really light, actually I carry about 10 kg with me all the time that I'd be in my lightweight tent, my sleeping bag, and my first aid kit, my roll mat, et cetera. And the food wise, I, I thought to myself, obviously, you know, dehydrated foods are always the way forward, obviously if you're in the UK and you just want lightweight.

But with that, obviously I knew I couldn't carry that many dehydrated meal packs. So I ended up just getting like the similar ingredients. I'd have bags of spaghetti, uh, bags of oats and bags of rice, and then I'd have like some dried beef and I had some dried vegetables and everything was dried, basically.

And I could carry a lot of that. I could carry like a, a month or two worth of dry stuff. And then all I had to do then was source fruits, vegetables, meats from the villages. And I found that, you know, most villages, you could get some tomatoes or you could get some kind of vegetables or fish. And that was basically what I did.

And. Tins of sardines became quite a important thing actually. 'cause they, you know, if you've just got rice or spaghetti, you mix a tin of sardine and then it just changes it and it's, uh, yeah. Fantastic. It's pretty good, isn't it? I mean, it's, it's a lifesaver. So that beca Africa shops in villages, Africa, you can get tins of sardines and they're cheap.

So I'd have a good five or six or seven of them in my bag at a time and mix it into the oats, but I'd mix it into that. Poor God, that's so sweet. That's a good, that's actually a good, good meal. That'd say that's a good bit of protein. They've got a, a omega free fats and, and a good bit of carbs. That's, uh, that's quite smart.

That's really, yeah. Like secret ingredient for you? They're healthy, aren't they? But I mean, you could probably just live off sardines, but Yeah. Yeah. Even Madagascar, you know, that all we had was rice, so I knew all, you know, I already knew this and I thought I'd just fill a bag full of sardines before I went.

So I basically, I'd be the envy of everyone 'cause I'd have these sardines and my rice and I wouldn't share it. But it was a secret little healthy ingredient. And what about your, you know, you said there your ultra like backpack essentially tent uh, and stuff. Did you get any threat of wildlife, c crops or anything like that across the river?

Did you have to be careful where you had to take up? Yeah, I never really had, I definitely saw a lot of crocodiles, but I never really had any encounters with them. While I was in my tent, you know, I woke up a few times and there was prints and especially leopard and lion prints, elephant prints I saw many times, but I didn't have any particular run-ins with, I mean, I, I'm definitely no wildlife expert, but you get to read and you get to learn how the animals behave and, and what you're supposed to do around the animals and how you're supposed to act if you come across the animals.

And crocodiles I found were the most easy to sort of read. 'cause as long as you are not in between them and the water, and same as hippos, you know, they're just gonna go in the water. They're just like, that's where a safe zone. So if you go to the water's edge and they're there, obviously it's a bit of a silly thing to do, but if they're on the banks resting and you are walking past, you know, not the riverside, then they're gonna just go in the river.

That's what I found anyway. And I mean, it didn't have any, I saw quite a few snakes. Snakes became part of daily life. You know, there was some dangerous snakes. I didn't necessarily come across any, um, I mean in The Gambia we came across lines, but zabe easy. I just saw, you know, evidence of them having been now.

And there's obviously a lot of luck involved with stuff like that. 'cause it's, as you know, any wildlife encounter, it's just luck, isn't it? And yeah, there was some times I was walking through hours and I, I was holding my breath, you know, especially there was an elephant charge actually, which was one of the scariest things that's ever happened to me.

I think, you know, in a moment it was, yeah, this elephant charging towards me and I'm just, yeah. Heart in my mouth. Where was that? That was in Zambia as I was obviously the Zabe. There's the lower Zabe national Park and obviously you get to that and it's full of wildlife. But what I was trying to do was get to the gates of it and then I was going, I'd been told I'd have a guide to walk through with me.

That didn't turn out to be the case. But on the way there, just like we're in a few miles from the gate, there was an elephant that came crashing through the the trees and towards me. Luckily there was like a, well, there was like a runway next to me where the National Parks runway, there's like a small a bush runway and there was like a bit of a dip, you know, like in between.

So I jumped over the path onto the runway, sort of like, and this elephant got to the end of the road and stopped and it didn't go off. See the dip must have put it off going any further. So I just then slowly backing away and my legs like jelly and just like. I scary stuff, but yeah, it can be quite aggressive.

In fact, at that Kendall Moten Festival, there was Ollie Pemberton adventure filmmaker. He had a video, it was about in SVO in Kenya, and one of the, I think it was one of the farmers or something, had been attacked by a huge, you know, the big Tusker, and he had lost like half his chest. Apparently when it happened at Pears, you could see he's beating heart and had to put the guy in the back of a pickup truck and take him to the hospital.

But he was just like. That happens kinda because he survived that. Yeah, he survived it. Yeah. And he's he's still with the guy still. He's, you can see like, it's like he's full, like pictorial muscles away and it's like quite flat and it's almost like something's carved out with a knife, but apparently there was a large tusker elephant just kinda prodded him.

He's lucky. He's lucky to be alive. Anyway, that's, it's brutal. I mean, just. It's like getting hit by a truck, isn't it there? Yeah. Just solid. Yeah, that's, I mean, that's the zabe, that's epic. Was it the plan to do going to like The Gambia and Madagascar and do those as well? Was, was that always part of the, like the trilogy or, or, or what or No, no.

I mean the, the, the Zambezi was the, was the, the wildest journey. I can't, I mean, I call it that 'cause it was the wildest journey I was gonna do and it was the wildest river in Africa, et cetera. And I just got home and I just thought, I think it was someone I had met on the way while I was walking. Have you thought about The Gambia?

I thought not, not really. And got home and I just, I just started reading about The Gambia. I see a seed had been planted in my head about it and ended up just saying, okay, that, that looks like a, an interesting journey to do. And me and a friend decided to go out and do that one together. And it was like a half the length of the Zabe easy, but it was a different part of Africa, obviously West Africa, different culture, different sort of countries, different.

A little bit different environment and it was similar, similar sort of thing in a way. Obviously fallen a remote river in Africa and uh, there's obviously wildlife involved and whatnot and was a difference in climate from the coast, staying from eastern to west when you'd, in The Gambia where I was with the Zambias was Sub-Sahara, so it was very tropical I suppose.

And obviously the, the further north I got became a bit more sort of cooler nights and I mean it was still, it was still a hot environment, still sort of similar stuff, you know, it was more, yeah, I guess very similar terrain actually. Similar environment, similar sort of landscape and a dry, dusty paths, you know, and some jungle, a lot of flooded areas and arid sections.

It was, yeah, similar. I think a lot of Africa in that subsaharan section is a very similar environment really. And is there anything from that first journey where you done through the same busy that helped you? Plan for The Gambia. Was there any lessons learned? You know, things that you might have done, you know, that you had to do differently?

I think I found The Gambia easy because of the Zabe. You know, the Zambezi was just, I think of any kind of ultimate training exercise you can do is go and do something like that. You know that there's something that's really gonna push you further out your comfort zone than anything. The Zabe was that, you know, there was every, every day it got to the stage where.

I thought something that was trying to kill me. You know, the insects, the heat, the, the wildlife, the people, the terrain. And I think when you go through that for months on end, you just sort of, when you get home, everything's just easy and everything's just simple. And The Gambia, you know, it was just, it was like a nice walk.

If I just did it first thing, I think I'd probably be similar. Oh, this, that, and the other. But it was just a nice journey. And there was a lot of similarities where there was corruption and we were getting stopped. You know, there was lions and whatnot and some dodgy people, but it was just easier 'cause of the Zambia and.

I think I just found, you know, I planned it better. I sort of made wiser decisions. I'd sort of know how to deal with people more, you know, more sort of conflicts and just appreciate it more as well. You know, you, I think that's one, one of the big things that you don't think about too much is when you're on a journey, you just thinking of the hard times and you're not appreciating the things that are happening around you as much.

And I think with The Gambia, I took more time to stop and sort of appreciate where I was and the, the people I was meeting and the actual situation that people are in as well. You know, because there's, they're poor, the, a lot of poor people and they're, you know, they're living a very simple life and you have to try and learn from these people that you don't need all of this crazy stuff that we have in the UK or the western world that you can just live simply and be happy.

So, yeah, I concentrated on that a lot more on The Gambia. That's fantastic. Did you have fixers and stuff when you went out to The Gambia and places to help you? Um, yeah, I would say no, but we did actually have a fixer on The Gambia because there was a, I dunno if you've read anywhere about it, but we, one of the reasons, I don't think anyone's actually done The Gambia River.

We were the first people to have done it. Known wise was because the middle section, there's Neo Kohler, COBA, national Park, and it's full of lions and basically no one's ever walked through it. And we got told initially that we should be able to get a permit. And then when we got there, similar to the lo zabe, when I got there I was told, no blank.

No. You know, you're not having a permit, no one's allowed to walk through there. It's full of lions, et cetera. Which is fair enough. And we were gonna have self guides and things, but basically the charity I was walking for, well, trying to raise awareness for and funds for, was the African Wildlife Foundation.

And they had a few contacts in in that area and I got in touch with them and said, oh, is there anything you can do, anyone you can speak to? And. They rang up this guy who was, was a massive gold mining industry in The Gambia and obviously gold panning and there's a lot of corruption in that sense. You know, these people obviously helped me, but with Wildlife Comp, obviously don't wanna talk too much about wildlife charities doing companies, but they have to try and work with everyone in the area to protect the wildlife no matter who it is.

In a way they have to try and be making sure that they're not doing stuff they shouldn't and that's affecting wildlife in a way. So one of these gold mining companies obviously got massive power in that area and, and I spoke to one of the head guys there and he says, oh, what do you wanna do? I said, oh, well we want to get a permit to walk through the park.

We want obviously some rangers to walk worse. And he goes, leave it with me. We've been trying for like three or four days to try and get some headway on this and. This guy, like within half an hour I've got just produced these permits. Gone away on the phone. He said, come back in half an hour. Came back, got these permits printed out for us, arranged to have some rangers with us, and that was that he was sorted.

So I say we didn't have a fixer, but that guy was like, yeah, he was the reason we finished the journey. We were thinking about trying to go round and do alternatives, but obviously that would've added on. About a few more weeks at least, of walking. So we ended up getting, yeah, we walked through the national post.

It was only like a four day trek of the journey. You know, it was a part of the journey where we had to walk from ranger station to ranger station, but we had to walk in the single file and they had to obviously be the front and the back of us. And they'd obviously say they'd have the hand up if there's a lion, and we'd just have to stop and wait and wait for the lion to move on and things like that.

And so you actually encountered lions then as you were? Yes. We encountered a, we encountered two, two lions, which, yeah, I thought we were gonna see hundreds of, but there was two that we had to stop for, you know, there was signs only, I mean, the first time, you know. Heart in the mouth situation. Again, there's a line, you can see it waiting and the line's obviously doing its own thing and it, luckily they're going off and then the guys say, come on, let's keep moving.

Type stuff. And is that an area where they get tourists for watching the wildlife or, or what? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, any, most national parks, you'll get tourists that come in and do game drives and things like that. Yeah. But I don't, I don't think we saw any that time. Lesser so. But I mean there is definitely, they do.

Tours there and, and game drives there, but I don't think it's nowhere near as, as popular as the, obviously the more, uh, you know, like the Serengeti and whatnot. But it was a protected national park where it's fenced and there's rangers within it. Protect the wildlife, but it's got one of the highest concentrations of Lions anywhere.

Most of a big part of Africa, I think. So it was a bit of a dicey one, but I mean that was always gonna be, there's all, any of these expeditions, there's always gonna be sections that are different. I mean like say get the map out, right this section, how am I gonna manage that? And you have to know what you can do.

Each section have a little plan for each section. And the za easy. Back to that. I'd have, I'd have permits, I'd have applied for permits. It was like a two year process of planning for me for that one. And I had several different sort of permission letters from Wildlife Authority, the tourism industry. And I'd have gone to the, the effort of trying to get all these little things I could use if I got into a situation like you say about the bribe your way out and things, I'd have like letters with names on and I'd use them, you know, like the Zambia Tourism one.

It's probably saved me thousands and thousands of pounds. You know, with being able to go to a lodge and say, look, this is what I'm doing. Tourism board, they put me up before board, you know, with food and I mean, yeah, I don't want to make out, it was a luxury trip, but there was definitely times where there was a lodge on the river and it was sectioned off because of that lodge.

I'd go into the lodge and I'd tell 'em what I'm doing and, and I'd be once again treated like luxury, you know, I love that part. Then I'd love the villages. So it was, it was an interesting journey actually. So you are kinda rolling back, Chaz, had you ever been to Africa before you decided to take these journeys?

Yeah. Yeah. So I did an, I did an Overland of Africa. Oh. In 2012. That's one of the last journeys I did. And it was with a company called African Trails and I went across Africa and that journey I did, it was like a, it was like a six month journey and I basically wanted to concentrate on wildlife and yeah, visit all different places where there was wildlife and ex, I'd never been to Africa until then.

And then I just decided to do an overland, so, wow. Yeah, that was, that was a cool trip. And that triggered off, you know, doing some wildlife stuff And after that journey I went and Southeast Asia and I volunteered a couple of wa elephant sanctuaries. And I've always been passionate about wildlife, you know, thinking back to when I was young.

If I'd have had my head screwed on it would've either been the military or something to do with wildlife. You know, I'd, I'd have done zoology or I'd have gone to uni. I'd have done something interesting like that, you know, you know when you get to an age like now I'm 45 now, and. I was often think, well what, what would I have done with them years instead of doing what I did?

But you know, I, that's funny. I had a very similar conversation with my wife a couple of nights ago a about exactly that. 'cause we're talking about like my little girl and what she wants to maybe do when she grows up and career ideas and all this kinda stuff. And we were reflecting on her and I was the same.

I passionate for wildlife and wanted to kinda get into that. And career's advice when we were younger was a bit shitter in all honesty. And I wanted to go and work in the zoo and they sent me to go and clean drum kits in some music store in Glasgow. And it was, yeah, it's just, yeah. So I wish I'd kinda really stuck at that.

But it's never too late, I suppose. It's still, yeah, yeah. That is the thing. I mean, most young people, I, I mean, I'm very envious if they know exactly what they wanna do, but, um, when, like, when I'm on expedition, most young people, they, it's really a lot of pressure at that age in your life to decide on one thing to do.

And it's say, it'd be easy if you could just know it, but it takes a lifetime sometimes to really understand what you like and what you wanna do. And it's a really lot of that 16, 17, 18, that them years are like, pressure to decide is, is, is a, I dunno, it's difficult, isn't it? It's, it's, you know, it's like being asked what you want to do and you, you don't know what the options are a lot of the time.

It's like, well, what can I do? I guess, yeah. I mean, I, I did a, I did a test, like similar, probably say the careers advice was useless. I did a. I did a test which summarized my ideal career and I'd put down wildlife and mount, whatever it is, all the stuff I love. And it came out of engineering and I said, I dunno.

And I ended up doing a computer course at college and hated it. I mean, I, it probably did do me something, you know, then I'd use computers from a young age, but. It was just no interest whatsoever in gonna work in an office or anything like that. I was, I'm the last thing I want to do. So if it had said to me, look, you should work in a zoo, I'd have probably been fine.

But it was useless. Yeah, exactly. And there's so many options now and I think the internet, social media, all that stuff, it just thrusts everything and in the young faces. But as long as he can get away from the screen, I think more than anything. And if you don't mind, I want to just quickly touch on your Madagascan adventure, some dicey situations in that as well.

Didn't you? You come across bandits and all sorts. So when was that? Was that 2019 I think, is that couple years? 19? Yeah, The Gambia was January to March, 2019 and then Madagascar was August, September, 2019. So. I did two expeditions that year and yeah, that was it. It was like a, yeah, I dunno if you know, know much about it.

We, we crossed the country from east to west, walking the longest river in Madagascar, which is the Mangochi. It was a bit of a cat and mouse thing with bandits and things like that. But yeah, 'cause I actually read your sidetracked article yesterday. That's like Indiana Jones type style. And the thing that stood out for me is I think you talk about being warned about the bandits.

I can't remember what were they called? The Malo? Was it Ma? Yeah, Maslo. Yeah. MAs. Did they put in the sand or something like that? Was it a picture of a, like a, like a hangman with a noose on it? And this says that you are en entering bandit territory. Yeah, basically. I, I knew there was bandits in that, in the central Cor Madagascar, but I didn't know any information I could read was they were further south to where we were gonna be.

And when we got to like the central part of Madagascar, you know, we had to hire protection because they were everywhere apparently. They were just hiding that in the bush. And there, you know, there's camps here. There's camps there. And we hired this protection. So basically when we were walking, they'd be able to sort of let us know where to go and where not to go, and obviously protect us if we to be.

And they pointed out things so that little noose, there was like a, in the sand, they'd put like a head in the noose type thing and the guy said, that's, that's bandits, that's a sign, obviously. So I dunno what, what, you know, they just obviously leave little signs to let people know they're in the area and to.

You know, they're gonna under threat or something I guess. But it was, um, did you know what to think? Like, oh, not again? Uh, yeah, I mean that was a real underestimated journey in a way because, yeah, I had a team of people with me on that. I had two girls, Nina from Austria, it was gonna be the photographer, then Emily from France, who was ecologist and then there was Justin.

He's an American who was coming along as, as a friend, but he was also gonna film the Journey. And we just, all our plans just went to pop when we ended up, you know, trying to divert and sort of escape these bandits. But it isn't quite a good plan. But we obviously, apart from Nina, who hurt her back. The first week we were doing it, she stopped the walk early on me, Emily and Justin carried on through the central core and obviously finished the journey, but it was just like cat and mouse.

We were crossing rivers, we were crossing mountain ranges. We were just two and a row and across the country, and having to hire protection as we went along and. It was very dangerous, but we ended up seeing bandits, but luckily we were with some protection that talked them out of doing any harm to us.

And apparently they'd been in trouble a couple years previously for attacking tourists or something. So I think it was, well, what it seemed to be was quite a lucky, coincidental, you know, sort of occurrence where the people. They didn't harm us or want to harm us, and it was definitely dodgy. You know, we could tell it was straight away that it was a dodgy environment and a load of guys with guns just smartly who, uh, are looking at you up and down who the atmosphere just changed.

And our protection. These guys are like hard guys. And they were like, you know, heads down. Yeah. Sort of scared people, you know, and it was a dodgy one. How, because if that journey was what, 29 days or something like that? So what, what, yeah, it was just a, it was a month, yeah. 29 days. Yeah. Was, was the entire journey a bit heightened in terms of that threat, or did you have pockets where you just had to navigate around that and then get back to, did I say enjoying the journey?

About two weeks. If it was like that. The first week we were walking along the, the jungle railway line from the east, from Manana carra to fi Rosa. We were walking basically on the jungle line to there. And then once you get to there, the mangochi headwaters begin and you're going into the central core of Madagascar.

And it was from that point, probably within a few days of leaving the city, that we realized that it was, uh, we were sort of in a lawless territory and we had to hire protection. So between then and about maybe a week before we finished, we were in that middle section where it was just, yeah, dodgy. So it probably was about two and a half weeks at least.

I think there was about a week or two I hadn't been able to, I think a lot of people were worried. I think there was probably about 10 days where I couldn't communicate with anyone. There was search parties going on or something. I dunno. But. 'cause no one had heard from us. 'cause we'd just been lost in this jungle, in the middle, well, not jungle, but in this wild environment where we, we didn't have any communication or any internet or anything, and we just sort of kept our heads down walking and, I mean, I probably could have sent a satellite message or something, but I just thought I, I just wanted to, we were so concentrating on what we were doing that all we cared about was just getting into a safe place, safe place, safe place company.

You know, looking back, obviously similar to the zabe, you know, you, it molds you into a life experience that you take a lot from where you are. Ultimate training, you know, it is crazy the whole situation in your life. It was, you know, we were like nervous wrecks when we come out of it, but I never sort of dwell on stuff like that.

It just makes you. Slightly better prepared maybe for stuff. But see, in terms of this, you know, high protection, security, how do you go about doing that in Madagascar? Do you just turn up in a, a village and these people see that you need that and volunteer their services? Or do you go flicking through the magazines or something, or No, it was, it was once, it was like a chance thing, I suppose.

I mean. A few people had mentioned it along the railway line. We stopped in a few villages and, and along the line, it's like a, the railway line's like a, I think it runs like twice a, a week or something. It wasn't, we walk along that, 'cause it was a, a linear sort of navigation aid to get from, from one point to another.

And basically the villages there would say, you guys are gonna run into some trouble. You want to think about hiring protection. And I, I didn't think about how I was gonna hire protection, but when we got to this one village, the headquarters of the Mangochi, the mayor of the village said to us like, you, you guys, you carry on where you're going.

You're gonna get robbed. You're gonna get killed. There's bandits, you know that. So they, they gave us a, well, they told us to, basically the headwaters of the mangochi is about three or four different long rivers that go into the main channel. So we had to cross from one channel that we were following to another.

Which involved going through rivers and over mountains, and they said to us that we can give you some guys to come with you. They'll, uh, protect you. Obviously this is the payment. They won't have to pay them. Obviously, we couldn't just come with us and help us. So I obviously paid them to come with us and they had guns and knives and stuff like that.

And then they basically look after us. From that point to that point. Then they arranged some more people. We, at one point we had a, just a group of lads, group of lads who just like knew the area, knew the language. They had some sticks and poles, you know, and they were just good guys. But then they, it was more about, I.

The guys we had with with the bandits were there, they were hard guys. They had the guns and stuff. They were, they were serious guys. But probably the middle section of being in the middle section, we had a group of young lads and they just basically act as translators and, and sort of helped us get through villages and basically just found out any information about where the bandits might be and how to avoid.

And there was two guys. One was fan and one was Angelico. These two guys stayed with us for about a week out of all that time, and they were good guys and they'd fix us up with other people. And the final stage we had the protection that Angelico, he was too scared to carry on. We knew that there was something wrong.

'cause the guys we had, they were too scared. So then we had to get someone else who was a bit more. Solid. Like, you know, he was uh, gonna be able to sort of deal with whatever comes at us. So, and that once you get so far within the central called Madagascar, you're sort of stuck as well. There's no point in going back.

You've gotta keep going to get out the other side of it. So yeah, we ended up getting some tough guys who you could see. They were tough, you know, you can crack a smile out of 'em or anything. They were, they were serious guys. They were nice, you know, they, but I, you know, they must have quite a past or whatever life they've had.

I dunno. But yeah, there's definitely something about 'em where they, they're tough guys. Like, and they, they, you know, they helped us big time. Yeah. What was the journey like then? You noted that you seen like, settings of deforestation, the charcoal industry. How was that to witness? One of the reasons Emily was with us, 'cause she was an ecologist, we wanted to study some of the environments, study some of the wildlife we saw and, and we didn't see any, you know, there was several little, they ran on afar and National park.

We went to. On the way to the start point, you know, that was a jungle and there was obviously there, there was lemurs and different chameleons and interesting animals. But as soon as we got into that central COR Madagascar, there was just the forest all chopped down. There was all the land was burnt.

There was just signs of just nothing, you know? And there was just, that was like that. How did you feel about that? Did you feel disappointed, frustrated, or, I mean, I sort of half read about it before and knew that deforestation was massive in Madagascar, and I think it's like, I think it is 96% of people in Madagascar rely on charcoal for cooking.

So all of the forest and the trees have been chopped down to produce. Charcoal obviously is used for cooking. So I knew that middle section people are chopping down trees so they can produce charcoal and obviously have their livelihoods, but feel like the Lorax, you know, the Lorax. So there's just like, there's none left type thing.

But I felt sad and I felt a bit frustrated by it, but at the same time I thought, you know, this is people's trying to live and people are trying to get through here. So. I can't really judge or be disappointed with them. It's just a sad state and I mean, it's happening all over the world in a way. But to see it there, I mean, in my vision, I've never been to Madagascar before in your vision, you've got this wonderful oasis of forests and, and stream rivers and realities.

It's just a lawless, deforested part of the world. But interesting so much is that, you know, if large parts of that deforestation are to, you know, sustain themselves, whereas, you know, other parts of the world, arguably that's about to sustain the west, you know, you think about palm oil and you know, the cattle ranches and all that kinda stuff that are feeding the US and things.

So was it four of you that started it? Chaz that, that Jan who, who finished it with you then? Yeah, so I'd say it was me, Nina, Emily, and Justin, and me. Emily and Justin finished it. You go through a lot with people. I speak to Justin. Sometimes I don't, I haven't spoke to the as much, but it was like a difficult situation, you know?

And I think like hunger, there was times we couldn't eat and rice and stuff like that. We. We, we were struggling to eat a lot. Yeah. And you go through a lot with people like that and, you know, in them situations. And I felt quite bad 'cause I was the one that would organize it and put it together and things.

But it was, um, yeah, we finished it, you know, everyone was very happy to have finished it, but I don't know if they'd do it again. Who know? What was your water supply like then? How were you talking about with water, rainwater, or rivers or boilers? May as well, may as well talk about this one. Water to go bottle.

You've probably heard of 'em, but Yeah. The, the filtered bottles I use in the river. Straight from the rivers or, yeah, straight from streams and stuff. But Did you ever go into the mangochi for a swim? Well, we had to, we had to walk across it several times. You know, there was, there was several patches where it was over deep.

Yeah. To especially the mangochi at the end. There was a few forested areas on the sides of that. It was just so, so thick and whatever it is, you couldn't walk through it. So we'd ended up having to walk across the rivers. We still have crocodiles in, but you know, we got to the stage where we had to, we didn't got much choice.

We had to just cross through the rivers. And when we had to cross from one point to another, from the bandits, we were walking through the rivers as well. Sometimes chest deep, fairly fast flowing bags above our heads type situation. But yeah, we, we had to walk through 'em quite a bit and, oh, there was one, you know, there was, once again, multiple stories, but there was one time I having a wash in the, one of the streams and leeches, leeches all over me, like to sort of get their eyes.

It's just a bit, yeah, strange, strange time. Not tempted to fry them up after Oh yeah. Could have done. But yeah, it was one of 'em where, I mean, I've never had leach on me until then, and it was just. Oh, there's hundreds of them. I dunno how many. There's lots. So yeah, it's just awkward trying to get 'em off.

Yeah. Fantastic. Chaz. So yeah, kind of flipping, right, so from further afield back to more back home than some of your UK expeditions, you, you have just completed the river teat. How many days did you, you do that in, it was eight days. That was eight days. How was that experience? Is that more an adventure for yourself really more at home?

How was that? Yeah, I guess I haven't really, like, I haven't, I. When the pandemic hit in 2020, obviously I'd done them big expeditions before that. I'd done the, um, Madagascar and The Gambia that, that year when I got back and all the pandemic stuff happened. I, I've managed to just do some UK based stuff and I did the River Spay initially in 2021 and I was always gonna do the River Tail next and ended up getting a hernia in 2022.

And it put me out of action for any kind of big stuff and got that fixed last year. And my dad, my father passed away. Like I said, this, this year condolences in, um, April. It was just, you know, obviously things like that. I mean, I, I, I'm okay and I can accept stuff like that, but I think it's nice to get out and reflect.

And I think the river Tail was a way of doing something in memory of him, but then giving me time to. Get out and think and, and you know, I've been working on something. I get out and think and have time to process it nicely. And as obviously well as wanting to do something closer to home, do an adventure nearby, and the river te was something that, you know, I, I couldn't, I, I'm sure someone must have walked it, but can't find any evidence of it being walked.

It hasn't got any designated sort of footpaths next to it and things. So I like the idea of going and finding the source and following the river in my own way and doing an adventure like that. So it was ticking a few boxes really to get out and just clear my head a bit and pay respects to my father.

And I also obviously have wonderful, get that adventure outta my system for, for a little bit longer, you know? Do you feel that builds up that you need to get to a point? Because if you look at the timestamps of your adventures, do you feel that that just in you, that you need to then go and release it?

Yeah, well, I think that that, that, that comes from, you know, obviously going back to when I was young and that that something in me where I'm looking out the window and I'm, I'm itchy and itchy feet to do something, and I think that, let's say naturally within me, it just needs to do some kind of adventure in it.

I think it's got, you know, that was that peak in my life when in my twenties and thirties I was just full ball, you know, zabe and traveling for eight years and doing all this crazy stuff. Just constant, you know, like a, and I've got in my forties and I'm trying to be more of a family man and calm down a little bit.

But I always know that thing that, that is underneath me kicking away and wanting to do something. You know, I said, I always say that if anything ever went wrong in my life, I'd probably just. Bag on my back, I'd walk around the world or so I, I just wouldn't, I wouldn't try again to have a normal existence.

I'd just go, I think a lot of people that have problems in their life, I think walking is something that really needs to be more advertised to help people. 'cause it's, if you walking, all you care about is that you're not really thinking about the, the other silly things in your life. You know, actually I've got a couple of books on actually the benefits of, of walking and, and everyone, you know, that little cliche, go for a walk to clear your head.

But there is, there's some signs behind it and definitely, yeah, I had, I just had a chat a few weeks back with Paul Walker. I don't know if you, you know Paul, uh, Paul Walker. I know Paul Paul Harris, sorry, the Warrior Walker. Paul Harris, he walker in the UK twice. Yeah. And that's a, that's a great story as well.

But yeah, it's, sorry, coming back to the Thet, I mean there's Mbbi in Africa, all that. I mean, it's, they are grand expeditions that they're great, but. What Scotland's got. I mean, what the uk But you know, I'm particularly biased, but what Scotland's got to offer is fantastic. I mean, there's proper wild places and even the less like, like the river tea for example, coming into Lochte Kenmore, what a beautiful part of the world.

It's phenomenal. It's fantastic. It really is. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think like part of me is just like that as well now, you know, I think there's so much on the doorstep that is incredible, especially in Scotland, that do I really need to be going after doing the big, massive things and I can keep, I can like say that thing that's kicking away underneath me.

I can, I can go climb in Monroe and, and then. I'm, I'm all right for a few weeks and then I feel like again, I'm gonna do another one, or I'd say the river tail, that'll keep me satisfied till probably spring and then I'll wanna do someone else maybe. But Scotland, you know, the, the Highlands, it's just, it's just incredible.

I might need to tap you up for some insights on that. 'cause I've been planning, I say planning loosely scratching out, trying to do that, but paddling it, so trying to get from the source into Kenmore and then up up the lock T and trying to do that as well. But you know, whether that's a mixer pack, pack, raft, and kayak or something, you need to work at the logistics of that.

Yeah, it should be quite reasonable. I think there's obviously that bit where. Is it killing? Is it where the, the Yeah. Dock the, the Docker falls or it is that, that looks like a, I was there, funny to say that I was there about three weeks ago. The weather was terrible. Sort torrential rain. And it's a magnificent site that, that the falls, the docker, yeah.

Yeah. Is, yeah. I dunno if anyone's ever down it, but I'm sure. But it's funny looking over the bridge where you've got the Kalin, uh, old mill to your right and you look over and is watching, is it water? There's like, there is a bit, and I was trying to look at. Could you actually just take the plunge on that and light a raft and get through and you would get through the other side of the bridge.

But it's probably a bit madness thinking of like that, you know, like that. Even when I think about the zabe, you know, the, and I talked about the different sections. It's every time I walk a river, you know, there's so much to a river where you've got like a beginning and an end, and then you've got these different sections like that.

But it goes from one river to, because obviously it doesn't start as a tails, it starts as a fill in and the dock art, and then it goes into tta and, and each little section's got its own little story and, and its own little pathway. And it, and I looked at the, you know, there's zambezia, I'm looking at every river.

I do have a similar mine where. You know, it goes down the falls of dock art and then into, and for me that was similar to like the Victoria Falls going down into the go, you know? And each little section is quite unique. And I think once again, you don't have to necessarily go anywhere else. If you've got all these really cool journeys on your doorstep, that probably aren't much different in a way.

What is it that attracts you to the water? Do you know? I don't, I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I've always been fascinated by rivers for some reason. I think it's, I think it is, like, it's always hard to summarize it, but I always try and I think it is a case of something that starts as just like a trickle of water and then obviously ends in the ocean and, and it's got all these different layers to it.

And it in a way, it's like a life, isn't it? You know, you start as like a baby and then you're grown to this wise old, whatever it is, and then you'll just flow out. And disappear. Yeah. But it's, yeah, everything relies on rivers. You know, throughout time we've built cities on the greatest rivers and we've needed them for navigation, for transport, for food, for water, for livelihoods.

And rivers are, you know, the wildlife that live on it, the different terrains on the river, the different environments, the different, yeah. Not fancy, uh, doing the River Clyde, I mean, that, that can't be, that can't be much more than. A week I would think. Less than a week maybe. 'cause it's quite safe. I, I've not looked into that one too much.

Yeah. Bay is a good one though as well. Yeah, no, I love those analogies and, and that, that kind of thinking about this can be, a lot can be said about particularly British history and the river systems and what that done conscious of timing stuff as well. Love this conversation. I wanted to touch on just a bit of your own recognition.

You, you were recognized as the SES Explorer of the year in 2021 as well, not long after COVID, not long after Madagascar and stuff. How, how was that in terms of recognition? Yeah, well I definitely didn't ever expect that, you know, it was, I think I got into a bubble of doing stuff that I wanted to do that excited me.

And then I've obviously done the Zabe, I've done The Gambia, and I was on a bit of a flow of it all, I suppose. And then the pandemic hits and I guess no one's doing anything, so they have to, then this society's looking at everyone who's done stuff prior to that. And you know, humbly I got. Acknowledged as being one of the ones that was doing something pretty good.

So I, I definitely didn't expect it. I was obviously over the moon of it. I definitely got imposter syndrome to a MA maximum level. Like I say, I don't, I don't advertise myself. I don't really want to put myself out there and, and I'm not. I'm quite happy just doing my stuff and living a simple life otherwise, and when I got given Explore the Air, I, so I had to reread it a few times.

This can't be, can't be right, you know, and I think there's, there's so many people out there that could get that, you know, there's, you know, say you spoke to, you know, most of 'em and there's so many people that deserve a similar award. So for them, me to get it, I was obviously very grateful. Uh, but also, like, I can just tell you're not self-deprecating whatsoever, but it is justified.

I mean, the experiences and the hardships that come with it, you know, whether it's sought out or not. I mean, they're fantastic expeditions and experiences and it's certainly deserved. Yeah. Thank you for that. Yeah. As I said earlier, you were one of the first people I reached out to on this and you said Yes, and it took us a while to out get it organized, but I do thank you.

And it's, it is from a fire, it is very intriguing and it, it, it lights a lot of fires, certainly in me and others. So it's fantastic work. Thank really deserved. Before we move into closing traditions in the likes, Chaz, you know, you are living in Scotland in a minute, but you're trying to live off grid or trying to live a bit more sustainably.

What, what's the deal with Well, initially, I mean, when the pandemic went off and I was living in a van actually, and I was living with my dad who was in a carvan on a Carvan site and everyone got kicked off these caravan sites. So we ended up, I was in a van in a layby and then we all got told we weren't allowed to be doing that, et cetera.

And my friend who I went and walked The Gambia, he. Let me come and stay on his boat in Warwickshire, his canal boat. So I lived there for a bit and then after I'd been through all that, I just thought to myself, I don't want to be living anywhere. I want to be off the grid. And ended up me and my wife's American, we both traveled around Scotland, which is one of the reasons why we both.

Fell in love with Scotland and we hadn't got a mutual place to sort of be, you know, I didn't, she's from New York. I didn't wanna, after the pandemic especially, I didn't wanna move to New York and I didn't necessarily have anywhere to live myself anyway, so we ended up buying some land in Scotland, came up this dream to live off grid and, and grow her own food and have chickens and obviously build a house.

And, which I lived, I lived there for a couple of years. I built a cabin, um, you know, I was living off grid. Enjoyed it. But then she obviously went through all the, went through all the visa situation and she managed to obviously eventually come over and, and on a espousal visa, we got married, et cetera.

And, and then, uh, we had a little baby and we had to, the situation we were living in wasn't perfect really for, you know, for a young baby. Weren't quite ready for that. So. We've ended up since buying a, a small house, which is only about a mile from our land. So we've got both now we've got a little house, um, and the land, but we live in the house obviously with the baby and things.

So yeah, it's, um, yeah, we, the off grid dream sort of parks for a while. Yeah, I think the long term we want to get. Probably gonna sell it both and buy a house with land and do a 50 50 maybe of off grid perhaps. But yeah, well, the, the intent there, and it seems like a bit of a ambition, a bit of a dream, so good luck with it.

I did see that you painted it, you were kinda decorating it or renovating your house and you were painting it, you painted the front of it and stuff like that. The before and after looked quite cool. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah, we, we got a, it was a cheap ex council house basically, and we've just, yeah, we, we've painted it and I knocked a wall down a couple of weeks ago and opening it up and, and yeah, it's, look, it's nice.

It's a nice little house. But yeah, we just wanted, um, a cheap little house basically. We can have the, the baby and whatnot and yeah, it's, it's coming along. Yeah. Fantastic. One question, foreclosing to this, and sorry. Any future aspirations in terms of any other big, big adventures, any other big rivers that you've got planned in future, if you could?

Family permitting commitments, permitting. One I've always been fascinated with, and I always, I always mention it, is the Congo. You know, if I had, uh, if I had to sort of sit down and plan a journey and I had all the infrastructure in place, the Congo River is the one that's fascinated me since I, I can remember even before the Zabe and know the Congo.

I've always obviously dismissed it 'cause it's so dangerous. And so, I mean, I think it's one of the last great. Undone adventures in my eyes, you know, the Congo River, someone who, whoever walks that is, it's, it's an epic journey. You know, one of the wildest journeys that definitely is left to do, trekking the Congo from source to sea.

And it's a similar thing, you know, it starts as different. It starts, I've looked into it a lot, and it starts as a couple of other little rivers. It even, it even starts near the, uh, lake Tanika. And it goes, there's different rivers and it flows for, you know, thousands of miles. And it's fascinating. You know, I'd love to just sit out and walk a wild river like that.

I'm obviously, that's not one I'm doing, but who knows in life maybe I, I would do it, but, um, fantastic. I dunno. I mean, I'm quite spontaneous as well, and I'm concentrating at the moment on a few others. But one of the journeys I've sort of, I may as well announce it. I don't, I, I'm not necessarily gonna do it, but.

I wanted to walk across Iceland, but follow the longest river in Iceland. Similar to sort of having walked across Madagascar and followed the longest river in Madagascar. Iceland is another one that I think I could possibly do it in a month. You know, 20 nights, similar timescale, three or four weeks. And it's not gonna take me forever, but it's a journey that would be quite an interesting one to do.

Very different, you know, climate and uh, landscape. That would be interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Do it so you can come back and talk about it. Yeah. That's been fantastic jazz. So we'll move on into the closing traditions, if you don't mind. So, of which there are two pay forward, and then the call to adventure. And I've got a third and final quick fire round for some fun to close out the episode.

So pay it forward. So for you to share a, a cause, a charity, or a project worth, anything that may be important to you to raise awareness of. So what would you say is a paid forward recommendation? I was looking at this earlier, trying to think about a particular charity, but 'cause my dad died of prostate cancer this year, I was, I, I wanted to obviously say something about maybe that as a subject that.

I'd like, yeah. To pay it forward and maybe some kind of raising awareness for that prostate cancer and some kind of charity based around that, that can look into it more. I mean, I dunno, cancer's such a, something I've never really thought about too much until the last couple of years. And obviously it's affected me most of the time, most of my life I've, I've raised awareness and for wildlife, but it's probably one of the first times I've actually thought, you know, I've, I've been hit by someone close to me who's passed away from, from cancer.

So I guess that's my pay it forward. But I couldn't think of a particular charity that helped. I think it was just the cause itself that I'd like to raise awareness for. Yeah. Likewise. Sometimes until, until these things actually touch your life, you don't really think about them in that way. So anything that anyone can do to help contribute to those causes would be very noble.

Thank you. Next call to Adventure. So a recommendation for a call to adventure to get people active in doing something exciting. What would you say is a call to adventure for the listeners? Uh, I think, like we were talking about Scotland earlier, you know, there's so many things in Scotland that are just close to home that I think just say, find a river.

Find a river that's not necessarily one, one of these ones that's got a path. You know, there's Thames and the, the seven and a lot of these are relatively laid out for you already. I think find a river like say like the Clyde or one that you, you live nearby and, and find the source where you can find nearest the source ta tackle the river.

You know, just do something that no one's done. That's always the thing. I think, you know, just find something unique to yourself that interests you and, uh, try not to follow everyone else as much. I mean, I have done stuff that a lot of other people have done, like, especially in the uk, but there's so many rivers that.

It's a bit like the Everest. Everyone wants to do the Everest or Snowden or whatever, but all the, all the stuff around it is, is probably much more interesting. So I think it's the same with rivers. If I was say, you know, to someone called for adventure, uh, find your local river. Plot a journey. Get a map.

Look at the little place that goes through, find the source and see where it ends. And take yourself on an adventure, which, you know, might only take you a few days. It might, it might not. Just have to dig into your life too much and it's a cool little journey. Exactly. Get a backpack on, pack your own sardines, your rice, your own snacks and stuff.

And yeah, sardines and spaghetti. Yeah. Fantastic. Excellent. This has been brilliant Now, so that this is a. Stupid, silly, fun, quick fire, whatever it is. And I need to look at my notes for this. So 10 questions, answer just freely off the top of your head. And if you need to pass, you need to pass, but we'll see.

So Chaz, per first question, so. You have a dinner party and you have the opportunity to invite two guests, dead or alive, who would you invite? I'd get David Livingston 'cause I've talked about him. Let's have him there. Let's find out his stories. I wanna about hear about his time in Africa. You know, he disappeared for years and no one heard from him, so it'd be interesting to hear his story.

What about George Mallory as well? I wanna know what happened up on top of Everest. Just get him down and let's figure out what happened to them guys. I think that's something that recently saw Irvine's foot was so, was found, wasn't it? And yeah, I'd like to know what happened. You know, I like to hear stories about mystery.

If I'd like to find them, them two guys get 'em down. Let's listen to their, their stories. Yeah. Amazing. Fantastic. Question two, what was the funniest story or experience from your expeditions? The funniest thing that's happened, I dunno about funny, but I mean there was a time I had. This probably isn't funny.

People probably don't find this funny, but very bad diarrhea. And I was in the floodplains trying to get up to a village and I had to keep relieving myself while people were watching me. 'cause I just, it was, yeah, in, in the war. That's not funny, is it? But yeah, it's, yeah. Excellent. Yeah, almost a bit embarrassing, but I suppose looking back at it, it was funny.

Yeah. Oh, crazy. Number three. Do you have a hidden talent? I. Uh, I mean when I taught bushcraft, they do like this talent show. Tribe's got talent they call it, where we get into group and, and I never had anything, I always used to speak about just walking and people like, that's not a talent. I said, well, my talent is obviously putting myself through extremes walking.

But I mean, I can do stuff, I can juggle. I mean, that's not necessarily a talent as such as it, but there you go. Excellent. One of my, one of my friends actually died when he was 18. Well, I say obviously he was a good friend when I was young and he was good at magic and all these things. And two of the things I remember from him, he is learning how to juggle.

He taught me how to juggle. And that thing where you, you know, you move your legs like that and the basketball in between. Ah, and, and you can, I can do the basketball in between my legs and might do, there you go. So then two things I remember from him. That's talents. There you go. That's two. Two for the price of one, what's your favorite movie?

I dunno if you saw my story earlier, but Lord of the Rings is a definitely, I think one of the best films ever made. Best series of films ever made. Yeah. Especially probably one of the last I can remember that I think was a really fascinating film that was well made and we'll put you, you know, venture and it is obviously a bit of a kid's movie in a way, but that, I'll just stick with that one.

Yeah. Fantastic. Have you watched the TV series? I, I haven't got around to watching that yet. No. No. But I've read reviews and I think it, it doesn't seem to be as good as the film, so I, I've decided not to discover that I just point myself. But favorite book. Book because I haven't read books for a long time, but I used to always, one of the books that I definitely enjoyed the most when I was traveling was into the Wild.

I mean, I know it's a massive thing now, but when I was younger, when I was in my twenties reading that before it became a massive film and things, well, I suppose it sort of Half was Then But Into The Wild was one of the books that was just, yeah, it got me excited. It made me want to just do this even more, so I'll just, I'll go, uh, go with that.

Yeah, I love that. I see it as well. It's a great shout. Number six, what was the last music gig you went to? I'm not a massive music gig person. I can't think, uh, can't even remember. I, I've had such a sheltered life in that I, I haven't drunk alcohol for about two years and embarrassingly, I think one last ones went for an ex-girlfriend was Michael Bla, or so that I think, but it's not really a gig.

And I went to V Festival in oh 2011 or so. Wow. Yeah, I don't think I've been to my, I used to, when I was younger, I used to be a raver. I used to get to rave the rave scene and uh, I think I just avoided, uh, stuff since then in a way. Excellent. Number seven. If you could snap your fingers and be anywhere doing anything, what would it be?

Maybe at top of Everest. I mean, it takes such a mission to get up there and do it all. Might just not snap my fingers and be up there and experience top of the world. That's excellent. Just bypass, bypass. Yeah. Bypass the hard work. Just get up there. Excellent. Number eight, what scares you? I don't think many physical things do.

I think lions, if I think about lions, I've, there's many a time I've been, uh, a bit scared of a lion. So I think lion is probably, well, actually I don't, I, being the fort of being enclosed in something, in a type space like that, I think is just like the worst. I'm really claustrophobic Distance isn't, yeah, I'm really claustrophobic yourself.

Yeah, just yourself. You maybe stuck in somewhere and you can't get out. Yeah, that's uh, yeah, you seen these Caven videos, they've been coming up on Instagram a lot and this guy went, oh it gives me the, he. No, I dunno how they do it, but yeah, that's not for me. So number nine, what is the wildest rumor that you've ever heard before you went on an expedition?

I dunno. I mean like the zabe, there was several people talking about witchcraft a lot and possession and you know, people being lifted off the ground and, and I mean, I dunno, I did witness some minor versions of it, but I mean, I guess as far as stuff I've heard, witchcraft is probably one of the scariest.

Just spoke about being scared, but that's something that obviously, uh, is a bit supernatural. Yeah, and I'm not gonna say anything on that. I don't want to attract any bad, no bad vibes or the occult. Thank you. So, and then finally, what's the best advice you've ever received? I guess I can't even remember who said it to me actually.

I think it is just to keep moving forward, probably from when I was young and I was in trouble just to keep moving forward, away from anything that's happening in your life now. And if you keep going forward away from that, that's what I always say to people as well. You know, like if, if they're in a bad situation, just keep moving away from it.

Forward, forward, forward. Yeah. And even if you get to a stalemate, don't go back. Just keep going forward, you know? And yeah, move away from any bad situation in your life. That two shall pass. Excellent. Keep moving forward. And that's it. Thank you Chaz. This has been epic. It's been thoroughly enjoyable. I really thank you for spending the time taking us through some of your expeditions.

It's been great chatting. Yeah, it's my pleasure. It gives me time to get these things off my chest as well. It's very rare. I do have that opportunity, so thank you. Yeah. Where can anyone that's listening or watching follow along, Chaz and, and get more about Chaz Powell and the wildest journey and, and all your expeditions and back catalog?

Instagram's the only real one I use nowadays, to be honest. That, and it's just Chaz Powell or the wildest journey on there, and especially my Africa journeys and, and UK based treks, but that's probably the one. Yeah. Excellent. Thank you, Chaz. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for tuning in to today's episode.

For the show notes and further information, please visit adventure diaries.com/podcast. And finally, we hope to have inspired you to take action and plan your next adventure, big or small, because sometimes we all need a little adventure to cleanse that bitter taste of life from the soul. Until next time, have fun and keep paying it forward.