Solo Cycle Through West Africa’s Rainforest - With Jude Kriwald

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What does it actually feel like to sleep alone in a West African rainforest — the noise, the insects, the pitch-dark uncertainty? In this Season 5 opener, Chris sits down with Jude Kriwald, adventure filmmaker and cyclist, to unpack Alone Across Gola — Jude’s solo ride across West Africa, including a remote jungle crossing in Liberia/Sierra Leone’s Gola region.

Connect with Jude 

• Book Jude For Your Next Event:  https://JudeKriwald.com/Speaking 
• Follow On Insta: https://www.instagram.com/judekriwald
• Need Mentoring?  AdventureMentor.org 

Alongside the on-the-ground stories (heat, hydration, kit failures, and a few genuinely sketchy moments), Jude shares a thoughtful take on neurodivergence (autism + ADHD), why “analogue adventures” matter, and how we can build a life that’s more honest to who we are.

What You’ll Learn

• What jungle nights are really like — and why the soundscape is unforgettable
• How Jude manages risk when travelling solo (and what satellite SOS can’t solve)
• Why ADHD/autism traits can be powerful outdoors: hyperfocus, pattern-spotting, rapid problem-solving
• The “stepping stone” approach to confidence and route planning
• Why rest days aren’t optional on long bike trips

Chapters:

• 00:00 Exploring the Unknown: A Journey into the African Rainforest
• 01:45 The Call of Adventure: Jude's Formative Years
• 06:49 The First Big Expedition: Cycling to India
• 11:58 Navigating Life's Gaps: The Lost Decade
• 17:34 Harnessing Neurodivergence: ADHD and Autism as Superpowers
• 22:45 Adventure Mentoring: Leveling the Playing Field
• 28:26 West Africa: A New Frontier for Exploration
• 29:44 Exploring the Unknown: Journey to West Africa
• 31:19 First Night in the Jungle: A Personal Experience
• 34:59 Planning and Preparation: The Adventurer's Mindset
• 36:30 Camping and Rest: Balancing Adventure and Recovery
• 38:05 The Trusty Bike: A Companion on the Journey
• 41:29 Hydration and Health: Navigating the Jungle's Challenges
• 43:46 Self-Reliance and Communication: The Importance of Preparedness
• 47:16 Cultural Interactions: Bridging the Gap
• 51:19 Understanding Poverty: A Lesson in Empathy
• 54:29 The Gola Rainforest: An Adventurer's Discovery
• 57:25 Navigating the Unknown: The Adventure of Exploration
• 58:37 The Art of Filmmaking: A Journey into Storytelling
• 01:02:54 Reflections on Courage: The Impact of Adventure
• 01:05:31 Creating a Platform: The Power of Sharing Stories
• 01:08:14 Paying It Forward: Supporting Future Adventurers
• 01:12:25 Embracing Analog Adventures: A Call to Disconnect
• 01:19:51 Connecting with Jude: Where to Find More Adventures

Guest Bio

Jude Kriwald is an adventure filmmaker and cyclist whose documentary Alone Across Gola follows a solo expedition across West Africa and into remote rainforest terrain. Jude also founded Adventure Mentor, offering one-to-one mentoring support to help more people access adventure, particularly those underrepresented in the space. 

Resources & Mentions

• Alone Across Gola (film on YouTube) 
• Adventure Mentor (free 1:1 mentoring) 
• https://www.britis

Transcript

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Jude Kriwald (00:00)
What's it like to sleep alone deep in an African rainforest? What's that like at night swinging in your hammock with all the bugs around you, and the sounds and the darkness? I wanted to know that. And I had this other question, which I never talk about in the film, which is: what is life like for a typical West African villager? That moment for me was actually answered on the trip, totally off camera, when I just stopped in the middle of the jungle and I met this guy.

I was cycling down a dirt track past this old compound. I heard some barking and I thought, leg it. Cycled really quickly to the beach, got there, ran around in circles trying to throw off the scent, and then the dog got to me and I just ran into the sea. Half eleven at night, midnight, I was up to my chest, waves breaking over my head, while six — they kind of looked quite rabid — dogs were just stood on the edge barking at me, waiting for me to come out.

Chris Watson (00:53)
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.

Welcome to another season of the Adventure Diaries podcast. In our first episode of Season 5, we are joined by Jude Kriwald, an explorer and adventure filmmaker, and we'll be unpacking his multi award-winning documentary Alone Across Gola that charts his cycling expedition across West Africa. But today's conversation with Jude isn't just about the adventure in West Africa. We talk about the long gaps between his big adventures,

and what it means to be authentic in today's world. We also stray into the topic of neurodivergence and how autism and ADHD can become a real superpower in the outdoors — from hyper-focus to fast problem-solving. We also get into his mentoring work through adventurementor.org and why analogue adventures are ever more important. So please settle in and enjoy this fantastic conversation with Jude Kriwald.

Jude Kriwald, welcome to the Adventure Diaries. How are you?

Jude Kriwald (02:21)
Very well, Chris. Thank you so much for having me.

Chris Watson (02:24)
No, it's a pleasure. It is a pleasure, and I am really, really excited about this. There's a lot of things to get through — your journey and stuff — but the frame of this for everyone that's watching and listening is your Alone Across Gola documentary, which I said I've watched five or six times. I watched it again today, just as part of my notes, but it is fantastic. A short film, very well received in the industry as well.

I am really excited to unpack that. But before we do it, bringing it right back, I'd like to understand a little bit more about younger Jude Kriwald — where you were brought up in the UK and what your formative experiences were as far as outdoor adventure goes.

Jude Kriwald (03:12)
Yeah, sure. I also would like to understand more about younger Jude Kriwald sometimes. What happened? How did they end up here?

Formative experiences… I don't know. I felt like a pretty typical kid at times and then also other times very much atypical. Typical in the sense I used to like to go on my bike and just, you know, mess around in the dirt and run away for the afternoon. One of the experiences I remember most was…

I left school at 16, but before that I was at boarding school. I was at a boarding school in Hampshire. In some ways I enjoyed it and in some ways I really struggled to fit in. I will talk more later about autism and ADHD and stuff, but I didn't really realise that actually adventure and travel was coming into my life then as a way of escapism.

I would often get on my bike when it was just all too much and I didn't really know how to fit in and stuff, and I would just bugger off for the afternoon into the woods. And I'd always be getting in trouble for coming back too late, but I would just ride as far as I could.

I always just had this feeling of: just keep going and keep going until you feel like you are about to not know the way back anymore. And as long as I had it in my head that I could turn around and get back, I would just keep going.

Yeah, those were some of the early experiences at like 13, 14. And then at 16, people were doing A-levels and I could just see this path which was being suggested to me of: do really well in your A-levels, go to a good university, try to become a lawyer or solicitor or a banker. And I was just like, this doesn't feel right. And I was like, I want to travel. I really want to travel.

So I left school and as soon as I left, my mum said, "Well, you're 16 — you're not going travelling until you're 18 at least — so get a job." But apart from that, I don't feel like I was an overly adventurous kid. It all just sort of bubbled up in my teenage years.

Just this huge wanderlust I can't describe with anything other than just… I would spend hours poring over Google Maps — trips I'd never take, but just dreaming of taking — just to get out there. And that really was a very classic sort of call of the wild, I guess.

Chris Watson (05:20)
Was that — were you seeking independence or freedom, or was it boarding school, or was it just that younger, you know, like you say, that wanderlust that we all have?

Jude Kriwald (05:31)
It's a bit of everything, you know. It's so easy to say it's one thing or another. It was probably a bit of escapism — whether it was parents separating at the time, or school being difficult, or being stimulated in a really quite neurotypical world.

But then also, when I did look online and see images of great forests or mountain ranges, I'd just think, I just want to be there. You know, I'm not really a religious person at all, but so much has been written likening mountains to cathedrals and so on. And I won't try and do those words any sort of justice, but I really feel that it's the closest thing I have to a spiritual feeling — of being somewhere really, really remote.

Almost as if… how it looks might be how it would have looked 30,000 years ago, save for climate change and ice ages and stuff. For me, that is deeply connecting to the universe — like seeing time on a different scale or something.

And yeah, as you can tell, it's a bit of a botched answer, but different fragments always came together to something really strong, but also really hard for me to fully grasp. I just didn't question it too much, and the feeling was strong enough that I thought, okay, let's do it.

Chris Watson (06:49)
Yeah, I mean, I think I can resonate — and no doubt many others can — with the bike at that age as well, and going to the boundaries, pushing the limits — whether it's the parents or the school headmaster or whatever. So did you travel much as a teenager or a younger kid, Jude?

Jude Kriwald (07:15)
Not really. I mean, I was very lucky — on holidays, you know, to the Med and stuff. Learned to do a bit of dinghy sailing and I'd always just sort of shoot off into the distance when given the helm.

But not like travel travel. My parents didn't take us backpacking as such. It wasn't so much like that. But my parents did always encourage us to follow our noses — me and my sister — and to think for ourselves.

Chris Watson (07:27)
Yeah.

Jude Kriwald (07:44)
You know, if one of us got the bit between our teeth about something, they would support us in doing that. And I think that is a key thing. When you're 16 and thinking, "I want to go travelling," one of the first boundaries or obstacles a lot of people will come up against is obviously your parents — who are there to protect you.

And my parents were worried and cared for me, but they were also very supportive. And I have a lot to thank them for — for enabling me to go, and to feel safe to go, and to know that I could come back without being disowned for "running away." I didn't have to run away — I had their blessing in it.

Chris Watson (08:19)
Well, so your first big expedition — India — how did they take that news when you said at 19 that you were going to cycle from the UK to India?

Jude Kriwald (08:31)
I can't tell you in the moment, but I know how they both viewed it generally throughout the whole trip. I think they were proud of me for forging my own path. I think they were excited for me. I felt a lot of that from my mum and my dad in particular — and understandably for my mum, I also felt real concern and worry.

Chris Watson (08:55)
Can I ask a quick favour please? If you're enjoying the Adventure Diaries podcast, could I ask that you take the time to click that subscribe or follow button? And if you're feeling extra generous, a written review or a star rating on your platform of choice would be greatly appreciated. Now, let's get back to the episode. Thank you.

Jude Kriwald (09:21)
But I know that she lost a fair bit of sleep when I was on that trip, and I did it with an old Nokia — not a 3210, but like the slightly longer ones. It was 2012, right? So smartphones were around but it was still kind of a luxury thing. I didn't have one.

And my mum was the only person I would chat to almost every day. When I say "chat to," it was a single SMS. It cost — I think — 50p per SMS. So my phone would be off all day. I'd get into bed, I'd turn my phone on, I'd receive a text from my mum which was from the night before, replying to my last message. And I would just text her saying, "Hey, did this today. I'm roughly here." And then something like, "What was the Chelsea score?" or "How are the dogs?" And then I'd turn my phone off.

And then 24 hours later, I'd turn it on in the next wild camping spot and receive the reply. So we were actually in touch throughout most of the trip. There were obviously large parts with no signal, but they came later once we got used to the distance, I guess.

Chris Watson (10:15)
Yeah, it's mad to think that — I mean, that was a long time ago, but it's not that long ago really, you know, in what the technology was like. I mean, the India cycle and that big expedition — we want to talk about Africa, but for those listening and watching, that expedition was pretty epic in its own right — 15,000–18,000 kilometres across a handful of Europe, Central Asia, over the Pamirs, I believe as well. What was that like? Because that must have been quite an impactful experience for you from a cultural side of things as well, and as a young man.

Jude Kriwald (11:00)
Yeah, I mean, it was nothing short of formative, I guess — as many trips like that for any young person would be.

If you think about it, I'd left school at 16, I'd been working for a year or two, I wasn't going to go to university, and I wanted to keep learning. I didn't know this at the time, but looking back — realising how much I struggled to learn at school and sit still in the classroom and so on — actually this year just gave me this great way to learn at my own pace and in my own way.

But yeah — totally formative and transformational. And I don't think any trip will ever quite live up to… it's the same for anyone, right? That first big trip you do, typically when you're younger — some people it can be later. Nothing ever quite lives up to that huge excitement and just… rosy eyes, you're so green and everything is an adventure.

Even things which nowadays, 10 years later, you'd be like, "This person's annoying me, they're chatting to me too much on the bus," or whatever — back then you're just like, "Yes! I want to talk to everyone. I want to meet everyone in the world."

And yeah, I went through the Pamirs in the middle of winter — freezing cold — and went through Afghanistan, which is obviously in the middle of war. That was a whole thing.

And sneaking through Tibet was, for me, the highlight. Thirty days above 4,000 metres and 20 or 30 checkpoints. And I was just in my element by then. I was in the middle of this big plateau with these mountains. It was towards the end of my trip, my confidence had built up, and the map on the wall behind me — for those who can see it on YouTube — is a huge map of Tibet. Actually, I've spent, as I do many mornings, about 20 minutes just staring at it, just thinking… man, I want to go back.

Chris Watson (12:45)
Yeah.

Well, how did that come about? We'll come to Africa in a moment, but how did you plot out your trip to India back then? Did you just get maps and pull over it and start plotting out? How did you do that?

Jude Kriwald (13:00)
Yeah, well, you start at a very high level, right? You can get a globe or a world map and think, right, England's here and India's here, so I need to travel southeast — and parts of it are water, so you don't go there. And there aren't a ton of options. Pretty much everyone's going to go through Turkey at some point.

And yeah, the really simple route was Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India. However, I was meant to get my Pakistan visa en route — maybe in Tehran. But whilst I was on the way there, Pakistan changed the rules and said you have to get your visa in your home country, which I was gutted about. I even tried to take out some junior Pakistani diplomats for dinner to get them to give me a visa. Didn't work.

But it meant I had to go the whole way around Pakistan, which at the time was gutting. Ended up being the best thing ever. It meant I got to go to Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Tibet and Nepal — all of which I would have missed for the sake of trying to find the shortest route to India. There's definitely a lesson in there somewhere about not always trying to find the shortest route.

Chris Watson (14:06)
Yeah.

And so, without foreshadowing too much, this whole concept of wanting to be an adventurer — I don't like putting labels on it — but if we talk about that drive, and then we've got this big gap in between — this lost decade — between that and getting into a different conventional life that, you know, I kind of live, many people live: corporate life to the next day.

How did that come to be? Because I know you've spoken openly — and in the documentary we touch on that as well — falling back into that conventional way of life, but really having something burning away at you, nibbling away at you… you had a lot of untapped adventures and potential in you. How do we go from India all this time later to Alone Across Gola?

Jude Kriwald (15:05)
Yeah, it was a bit of a journey, I guess.

So yeah, I came back from India in 2013 and I didn't think at the time, "I want to be an adventurer." Social media was less of a thing, and I just thought: I want to keep adventuring. It's interesting.

I tried… there's a company, TDA — Tour d'Afrique — they do Cairo to Cape Town and Shanghai to Istanbul. You can be a paying customer, you pay like $25,000 and go on one of their trips. And I worked on one of those trips — helping set up people's tents and cycling and doing logistics. I got paid $500 in total for five months of work. So that wasn't very sustainable.

After that, I was going to set up my own cycling expedition business. I'd love to take people two or three weeks across the Himalayas or across the Sahara. And while I was setting up that business, I thought I need to earn some money on the side — I'll become a cycle courier. And then I joined Deliveroo as a cyclist — and the story is related, I promise.

I joined Deliveroo as a cyclist. One month later I was offered a job as an Ops Associate. Deliveroo was a really exciting place to work. I was there right at the start in 2015. We were only in London — not any other countries, not any other cities. It was the right place, the right time.

And for someone who didn't go to university, it was kind of good for my CV. By the time my friends were coming out of uni, I was managing a department of a couple of hundred people. I grew with that role over three years.

That gap you talked about — those 10 years — it's not that I was squandering it. I was doing something really meaningful to me, or really exciting to me at least, with this great team. My managers, Paul and Seb, are still good friends. We were so close. It's such a bond doing something new that no one had done before. That's what pulled me away.

But even in that time, I'd still lie awake at night thinking… but I want to be adventuring. I want to be adventuring. So there was a good reason I was pulled away. Life just happens — and life did happen — and it wasn't a bad thing to be happening. It's not like I got stuck in the most boring job.

Chris Watson (17:13)
Well, it's like seasons, isn't it? There's seasons of life, and maybe it was just a season to get that experience, to maybe bed down roots to an extent. I understand the pull of adventuring very much so.

Jude Kriwald (17:29)
Yeah.

Yeah. And I'm grateful for it. As I said, I don't have A-levels on my CV and I don't have a degree on my CV. So to say that I was one of the first people who helped build Deliveroo has helped my CV when I've been doing stuff. I guess when I look back, I've done that a lot — got to the same place as other people have, but just doing it a different way.

Chris Watson (17:56)
Yeah.

Do you think — and if you're uncomfortable with this that's absolutely fine — you've touched on ADHD and autism a little bit. Do you think that hyper-focus, because it's a superpower if it's channelled in the right way, and that's clearly helped… do you think that that superpower is maybe getting focused now on what you can do for yourself, but also helping others through the world of adventure? Because that's some of the message I've picked up on when I watched the movie.

Jude Kriwald (18:32)
Yeah, thanks for asking. I love talking about neurodivergence. I think it's super important, and I appreciate you talking to this modern reframing — this correct reframing — of some of the benefits of it.

It's a shame they both end in D, like "disorder." We can just call autism autism — it doesn't have to be ASD anymore. No one's come up with a good name for ADHD yet that doesn't have the D in it. But it's not a disorder — not the way I see it.

If you put me in a classroom like I was, and you say: you've got to sit still for two hours and copy notes off the board and don't interrupt and don't swing on your chair, and this is the right way — then in that framing, I have a disorder. I can't do it. It sucks — like so many kids.

But if you put me in the wild, or you put me in charge of a group of people outside and say, "Right guys, we need to find water and shelter," then these ADHD traits or autism traits become superpowers: novelty-seeking, noticing things in the distance.

People call it distractibility — like it's a bad thing. Well, when you're all sat around the campfire, who's going to be the one who spots the wolf coming in the distance? It's the person who's not paying attention.

There's a reason these things have survived evolutionarily. Autism and ADHD are often passed down genetically, which means there's an evolutionary reason they survived.

So yeah, I think that's been a big part of it. Whether you're an artist or something else, having neurodivergent traits really lends itself to exploration, to creativity. And it's only in the last couple of years that I'm starting to realise that.

And yeah, I love talking about it with people and helping them realise there are downsides too. There are days when I bemoan ADHD and I can't focus as well as I'd like to focus. It normally means I'm doing a task that isn't really what I want to be doing.

Chris Watson (20:20)
You're burning calories on things that are… yeah, I get that.

Be careful what I say, because I'm just talking openly. I'm sitting fidgeting right now. I have undiagnosed ADHD — I know because I've researched quite a bit of it — and I've always been a bit scared to approach it formally.

I can see where, when you focus your attention on something, that does fill you up a little bit — and particularly the experiences getting out into the wild. That hyper-focus… I can definitely see it as more of a superpower than a disorder or something that needs to be labelled. I just don't feel comfortable with the labels more than anything.

Jude Kriwald (21:07)
Even if you go to the word "disorder" and you're like, okay, you've got neurotypical and then you've got autistic people or ADHD — it's still slightly an incorrect framing. There are different neurotypes. Some neurotypes are good at certain things and struggle at others, and other neurotypes are better at other things — the inverse, whatever it may be. And we all have different neurotypes.

It's not that neurotypical people have perfect brains and everyone else has slightly wonky brains. We just have different brains, and that's been good for the survival of our species over time.

We now live in a world where we're asked to be really efficient and focused, and sit still at a screen, and specialise skills, and have less novelty and less day-to-day challenge. It doesn't suit some neurotypes as well, which is why I think a lot of neurodivergent people are drawn to adventure — where the challenges are immediate, they're urgent, you can be creative with the problem-solving, and you get that dopamine reward within a day rather than within three months, which is very hard for some people.

So yeah, I think it's fascinating. I'm so happy and grateful to be born at a time where this is being discussed — because a hundred years ago it would be quite different.

Chris Watson (22:16)
Yeah, exactly. As an example — because I have a corporate career as well as all this stuff we talk about and do — it's taken a long time to get to where I am in that career. My job is to create solutions and problem-solve, and they come thick and fast, and they change, and they come thick and fast — and it's dealing with that.

That's where you think… I mean, I was in therapy — don't mind admitting that — and I was told that I operate at Mach 3 all the time. When I heard that… and the more you understand it, the more you can divert that energy to the right thing. It's a really good survival and superpower when it's used correctly.

Jude Kriwald (23:08)
Yeah, no, hyper-focus can be a real superpower, as you said, and if left unchecked, it can really waste you hours. You have to try and be on top of it and admit that you won't always get it right.

Chris Watson (23:20)
So on the flip side of that: with expedition planning, logistics and the specificities of it — has it hindered you at any point? Have you realised you've solved a problem that didn't need solving, or gone down the wrong path, or decided to go down an uncharted path — like in the movie?

Jude Kriwald (23:47)
My immediate response was going to be: it's massively helped me. Having this desire for novelty makes me less afraid to look at things which other people might say, "Well, no one's done that, so maybe we shouldn't." Which I think the world generally needs more of, and is what a lot of adventure is based on.

And the hyper-focus is so good for those late-night research sessions. I get it a few times a year: I'm lying awake at night, my partner's asleep next to me and I'm like, gosh, you sound so peaceful — why can't I sleep? And then an idea will come into my head like: imagine if you went kayaking around Indonesian islands for three months and just survived off local fish or something. Then I'll just get up and spend hours on Google Earth, researching people who've done similar, looking at marine maps: is it possible? is it not? What about the seasons? Visas? Security?

That's hyper-focus. So that's definitely a strength.

Where it can be a downside — although I genuinely don't view it as this — is I've maybe done five to ten proper expeditions in my life, but I've probably planned around 40 or 50. And I don't mean planned to the final minute — but dreamed up and researched thoroughly.

I have to notice it: it's something I do when my mood drops, when my dopamine levels are low. A solution I have — even if I don't realise I'm doing it — is: imagine if you had a new trip. Then the dopamine levels go up, because dopamine is about chasing, right? You want to have this thing in the future that you can look forward to.

And I spend hours hyper-focusing on it — two or three days — then something makes me forget about it for a day, and I look a week later and think, oh yeah, I was dead set on going to the North Pole last week and now I've forgotten about it. Is that a downside? I don't know. I quite like it.

Chris Watson (25:33)
Yeah, that just hits home far too much. I've had Rwanda, Uganda and now it's Canada in the past week.

Jude Kriwald (25:47)
But what you're also doing is armchair exploring. It's not just like, "I will go there." It's also like, "What's that like?"

My partner said something the other day: maybe you could use this as a strength — maybe you could help people go on all these trips you've planned and never gone on and be like, "Here's all the research I did." There's definitely something useful in there.

Chris Watson (26:06)
That would be a great blog actually — adventure ideation.

Jude Kriwald (26:13)
Yeah, that's what she said. I kind of like it. Maybe I should start doing that and being like, "This looks viable. Let me know how you get on. PS, don't sue me if it goes wrong."

Chris Watson (26:22)
Put it on a board at the RGS or something and start organising everyone else's expeditions.

Jude Kriwald (26:27)
Yeah, I mean, expeditions do need research. It depends. For me, I would never want someone else to do much of the research for me — it's the longest bit, it normally lasts way longer than the expedition itself, and it's one of the most enjoyable parts.

But I realised some people want support with it. That's why I do the mentoring. We'll talk about it later, but I do adventure mentoring, and a big part of it is people saying, "Hey, I've got this plan. What do you think?" And I sort of walk them through it. That's another outlet for that, I guess.

Chris Watson (26:58)
Right. We'll come back. I did see something on… is it adventurementor.org or something like that?

Jude Kriwald (27:05)
Yeah. I'll tell you very briefly: it's adventurementor.org, and it's basically one-to-one free mentoring for anyone typically underrepresented in the top level of outdoor adventure — whether it's women, trans people, people of colour, low-income households and so on — just trying to level the playing field a bit.

And also because I love hearing what people are up to and it's really nice for me to share some of the expertise I have. It's not coaching and it's definitely not therapy. It's more: we've got one hour. Most people come to me with something like, "I've got this long trip by bike," and it could be anything — confidence, logistics, route planning, where do you wild camp, how do you find food, how do you make a budget.

I've got one slot a week basically, on a Monday. It's really fulfilling for me and it seems to help people, so it's a win-win.

Chris Watson (27:56)
Excellent. We'll revisit that at the end and we'll make sure we get that elevated and plastered in the show notes and socials. That sounds fantastic.

Right, switching lanes — or gears — why West Africa? What was it about Senegal through Guinea, Sierra Leone into Liberia? Why, and why then?

Jude Kriwald (28:26)
So I'll start with why then. If someone's watched the 20-minute film, you'll see this period you and I talked about — this 10-year gap where my mental health was declining because I wasn't being authentic to myself. I wasn't allowing myself to dream big about these adventures.

And why then? Partly because my partner Nicola was so supportive. I'd had this dream of cycling all of Africa for maybe two years. The dream was always too big — where am I going to find two years where I can afford not to work, and two years not in a relationship?

I was in a relationship and I chatted with my partner and said, "I really want to go travelling." We agreed that three months felt like our limit — how long we'd be happy being apart. We had actually planned to see each other briefly in the middle, but it was too expensive. So three months made the goal more possible.

That's definitely something I share with people: don't make the dream so big you don't start. I was like, cool, three months — what can I do in three months?

And the reason it's West Africa is because I just knew so little about it. When I did my cycle to India in 2012, I was 19 and so much of the world felt unknown, unexplored. I haven't travelled most of the world in that time — but partly because of the internet and Instagram and so on, I feel a bit jaded about a lot of places. You could tell me country names I've never been to and I'll maybe incorrectly have an assumption of what it's like, or at least think I know what to expect.

Whereas with West Africa, I just didn't know anything. I knew very high-level history and languages, but there were two questions I wanted to answer by going there.

One was: what's it like to sleep alone deep in an African rainforest? What's that like at night swinging in your hammock with all the bugs around you and the sounds and the darkness? I wanted to know that.

And I had this other question — which I never talk about in the film — which is: what is life like for a typical West African villager?

And that moment for me was actually answered on the trip, totally off camera, when I just stopped in the middle of the jungle and I met this guy. He was so enthusiastic to chat to me, and I was so enthusiastic to chat to him. I said, "Tell me about your life, tell me about your farm, tell me about your kids." And he did. Then he asked me similar questions back.

And when we shook hands and said, "Nice to meet you, goodbye," I just felt so much love in that moment. I felt like I got what I came for — to connect with someone in that part of the world, really connect.

So yeah, I guess that's why I chose it: to try and answer those two questions.

Chris Watson (31:18)
And what was your first night like in the jungle? Was it a tent? It was a tent, wasn't it?

Jude Kriwald (31:26)
No — no, you're right. I took both. I thought it'd be romantic to take a hammock and I thought I might need it. You can't go through the jungle and not sleep in a hammock at some point.

The first night — yeah, that was tough. It's when you see it in the film: I thought I'd got through the hard bit in a single day and I was going to be on a road, and it turned out there was no road. I was deep in the jungle — semi lost, not quite lost, but really not knowing if the route was viable.

I had ants — so many ants crawling up my trousers — and I was totally flustered. I'd forgotten a lot of the stuff I told myself I'd do to prepare, some of the equipment and so on.

But there's nothing like that moment when you finally finish cooking, you can finally get away from the mosquitoes and the bugs, you get inside your tent and zip it up. I love that moment. That home — for wherever you go — you've got that tent, which is the same tent as the previous trip you've been on. You've got so many stories in there and you just feel safe.

Obviously if a giant animal comes along you're not safe in a tent, but I wasn't really concerned about giant animals.

And to answer your question more directly: the jungle at night is so loud. It gets so loud. You've got frogs and birds and insects and monkeys — big monkeys swinging around. I've got loads of recordings I did on my phone: 20 minutes, nothing from me, just this loud cacophony of chaotic noise in the jungle. That was a really special experience. I'll never forget that. It was worth it just for that.

Chris Watson (32:55)
Yeah. Was there anything that unsettled you at all — any noises you couldn't quite figure out what they were?

Jude Kriwald (33:03)
No. I had a dream that a man trampled me in my tent — which I realised was actually just a dream about needing the loo. And I didn't want to go because I didn't want to leave my tent.

No, I kind of thought in the jungle the only thing you'd come across is a big monkey. But when I came out of the jungle a few days later, I saw a guy walking in with a shotgun. I said, "What's the shotgun for?" I thought maybe he was hunting monkeys. He turned to me and said, "Beasts."

I said, "What do you mean, beasts?" And he said, "Forest elephants." And they can trample you to death. But I didn't know that, and I didn't see them.

Chris Watson (33:44)
Yeah. You didn't see it… and I'm not sure you'd get lions down as far west as that, maybe, as well.

Jude Kriwald (33:53)
They technically exist when you look at a weird map of West Africa. So again, that was something I was scared of before I went.

And this is a really good lesson: when you get there on the ground, you can ease your way in and reduce your fear gradually.

When you're sat at home, you look at a map of lions and it says, "Cool, they cover most of West Africa." And you think, bloody hell — same with leopards.

But then you get there and you start in the city, and your first night you're camping not far from the city — you're safe. As you get further and further out, you start getting to villages. Then you can observe things like the fact that villagers leave their goats out at night. That tells you they're not worried about leopards and lions.

And sadly, it turns out — having spoken to people — they've lost so much habitat and been hunted that you won't see a lion in… certainly not in most of the West African countries I was in.

Chris Watson (34:41)
Yeah.

Can I roll it back a little bit? Before you got there — when you were curious about planning and stuff — arriving in Africa, did you have fixers planned? Had you made any contacts with anyone on the ground to kind of ease you into the environment?

Jude Kriwald (34:59)
No — short answer, no. Although that is a nice thing to do, by the way. I'm not recommending against it.

No, I kind of like throwing myself in — not the deep end — but I like intentionally putting myself in positions where I'm going to find it a bit hard and I'm going to have to work it out for myself. That makes me feel alive. It makes me thrive. It gets those parts of my brain working that I like to work. It gets the survival part of my brain working, which I don't get to use very much, like most people.

So my reassurances came from cities. I'd look at maps and be like, cool, I'm starting in Dakar in, I don't know, five days. I'll get to… actually it wasn't a city — I'll get to the River Gambia where I know there's a few guest houses because there are lots of tourists there.

That's where I get my security from: I'll get there, talk to people, see what's going on, then I'll go on.

I use this stepping-stone approach to risk and confidence building: you start where you feel safe — like the city. You think, cool, I'm going to go one step forward, which might be a hundred kilometres. You go one step forward, see how it feels. If I get there and I don't like it, I'll come back. If I get there and I do like it, I can either stay or choose to go forward.

You break it down rather than thinking: right, I'm leaving Dakar and I'm cycling straight into the jungle soon — that's my end goal — got to be jungle-ready. You don't. You just take it one step at a time.

And I've done it the wrong way before — tried to skip those stepping stones — and those trips have failed.

Chris Watson (36:30)
Had you intended to camp most of the way, or were you planning to stay in accommodation in cities, or was that just part of the adventure — see how it goes?

Jude Kriwald (36:44)
Yeah — I really like to wild camp. It's probably one of my favourite parts of trips. Cycling is cool, but I don't really think of myself as a cyclist. I think of myself as an adventurer, and a huge part of being an adventurer is enjoying nature.

There's nothing like having cycled a hard slog all day, then you set up a wild camping spot with a great view, you cook your meal — which you feel you so deserve — your body needs it, you enjoy the view, and then you pass out.

The way I approach it typically is anything between four and six days of cycling and then a rest day or two — like two nights, one day rest day. You get to a city or a guest house — like I got to a guest house on the River Gambia — check in, have a whole day of rest, wash your clothes, buy food, fix your bike, another night, then off you go.

That's really crucial. I remember mentoring someone who was going to cycle around the world and they were like, "How come you're not going to get so tired?" And it's because they didn't realise rest days are a thing. Rest days are really important. You don't see people talk about it in films because they're a bit boring maybe — but you've got to take rest days. Definitely recommend it.

Chris Watson (37:54)
In terms of your bike — did you pick it up in Africa or did you ship it over?

Jude Kriwald (38:05)
I flew it over with me. It's the same bike I cycled to India on. It's my most prized possession. I'm very attached to that bike.

When I did my cycle to India, I was raising money for charity. So my mum got on the phone to Surly and they gave me the bike at cost price, which was very kind of them. They don't make the Long Haul Trucker anymore — they make the Disc Trucker, which is the disc-brake version.

But I've never… I see people online who every trip they go with a different bike, or they're sponsored, and that's kind of cool. It does mean I don't know much about new bikes. But I just think: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I love this bike. It's made of steel. You can throw anything at it.

Part of it broke in the middle of the Tibetan Plateau and I cycled to the next village. It cost me 10p, 10 minutes, and it was welded back together. And you can't do that with carbon, or aluminium, or titanium.

Chris Watson (38:56)
That just made me think — because I had Charlie Walker on the show a couple of seasons ago — did you have a name for your bike?

Jude Kriwald (39:06)
I'm trying to remember what Charlie's was.

Chris Watson (39:09)
He has his own — Jeff.

Jude Kriwald (39:11)
Yeah.

Yeah, I read his books. He's a lovely guy. He was very kind — I went to the pub with him about a year ago because I was like, "Charlie, look, I want to get serious in this adventuring stuff — doing talks and writing." He was very generous, sharing advice with me.

I tried to name my bike and nothing stuck. It's just "my bike" or "the Surly."

Chris Watson (39:26)
Charlie's amazing.

How did it fare in the jungle and those dusty roads?

Jude Kriwald (39:46)
Pretty well in terms of the bike itself — not my comfort, but the bike itself. The bike is 17 kilos with the two racks on it, and then 53 kilos total with all my luggage and food and water. That's hefty. And I didn't have any issues — no mechanical things.

I spent about an hour looking for a two-millimetre screw to go into my brakes on the jungle floor, which I didn't find, so I did have most of that trip without the front brake. But the frame itself — you can throw anything at it. I'm a huge advocate for steel bikes for the ruggedness.

Chris Watson (40:27)
That's pretty phenomenal — four or five countries, 2,500 kilometres, unforgiving terrain, relentless temperatures, and you were having to push it through dense jungle at one point.

Jude Kriwald (40:41)
It's not just the pushing — it's the number of fallen trees across the path. You lift the bike up and basically throw it over, or it lands on top of you and you're screaming in pain.

Yeah, what I would say is it'd be way more comfortable on a bike with some suspension. But the old school of thought is suspension is just another thing that can go wrong — so just toughen up and go a bit slower if it's too bumpy.

Chris Watson (41:10)
In terms of sweat and hydration — how did you deal with that? Did you take electrolytes? How were you topping up water? Because you were drenched in sweat most of the time.

Jude Kriwald (41:29)
Yeah, absolutely. In the jungle, even without moving, within half an hour of putting your clothes on, you'll be wet.

I did take electrolytes. I've never been big into them — I'm late to the game. It's not that I don't believe in them, I'm just a bit ignorant and makeshift and do it myself, and then someone points out I could do it better. Sometimes I listen, sometimes I don't. I think I had some electrolytes.

In terms of water: it was hard in the jungle. There wasn't enough. It was often boggy and marshes, and I'd have to filter muddy puddles where you could see little things swimming around in them.

And I lost a lot of weight. I went in — I think before the trip — just touching 80 or 80-something kilos, and at the end of the jungle I was 69. A lot of that obviously was sweated out.

Chris Watson (42:23)
Yeah, wow. Because if I recall, you were ill with typhoid previously. Were you ill at all on your African expedition?

Jude Kriwald (42:31)
I was pretty good. Because I had had — in India — malaria at one point, quite bad, and undiagnosed for a month. And then I came home with typhoid and giardia. I was quarantined in 2013, long before COVID. That wasn't fun.

And so this time around — roughly 10 years later and 10 years older, crucially — and more risk-averse, I had a huge medical kit with me. It's one of the reasons my bike was so heavy — I wanted to be fully independent.

So I had a malaria testing kit, and I even had the drugs you could take if you contracted malaria — you could sort yourself out.

I did get really sick at one point. I think it was either food poisoning or heat stroke. I was really relieved that I managed to get myself to a guest house — and really relieved to have a malaria testing kit — because I had a high fever, shivering all night, and I thought this is classic malaria.

And it went in two days, and my test was negative.

Chris Watson (43:38)
Must have been a big relief. These things can end the expedition, can't they?

Jude Kriwald (43:46)
Yeah. It's a bit of a gamble, a bit of a lottery, I guess. You never know when it's going to happen, and you try and take precautions.

Chris Watson (43:56)
This expedition was unsupported — and you filmed it yourself, which is great. Were you checking in with people back home? Did you have people looking out for you remotely? What was your plan for evacuation or support, if anything arose?

Jude Kriwald (44:26)
I feel a bit remiss about it. I have a very supportive partner and family, but I didn't have a designated support person — like, "This is my plan, can you help me with bail-out logistics?"

In my mind it's kind of simple: I'm responsible for myself. I know where I'm going.

If I need help, I often think the people on the ground will be able to help me most. If I fall really ill, I'll go to someone and say, "Look, I'm really sick. I don't know what you do — can you get me to hospital? Can you get a cab? Can we contact the embassy?"

But to answer slightly differently: for the first time, I had a Garmin inReach Mini — a dongle that connects to your phone — so you can send and receive text messages via satellite.

My family and my partner could see on a screen a little dot that updated every 10 minutes. It doesn't really tell them anything. The context matters. If I say everything's great, then the dot in the middle of the jungle means everything's great. If I say I'm lost, they're not going to do much with it, frankly. There's no mountain rescue.

That SOS button does give you a level of reassurance, but you mustn't be over-reliant on it. If something awful happened in the middle of the jungle when no one locally knew I was there… you press the SOS button, what happens? Garmin gets notified. What do they do? Contact the Foreign Office, contact the British Embassy in Monrovia… then what? There is no mountain rescue.

The message will go to some police who will go to some villagers who will then trek into the jungle maybe three days later.

That's kind of why — not in a gung-ho way — but I am responsible for myself. That doesn't mean I wouldn't ask for help, but I don't want to go into the expedition thinking, "I've got this SOS button and I paid Garmin, so if anything goes wrong they'll rescue me." My Plan A and Plan B are to not be rescued. Yeah — not need rescuing, I guess.

Chris Watson (46:34)
Yeah. Well, I'm glad you didn't need it because it's a fantastic story and fantastic documentary.

The people you met on the ground — villagers — and that moment that wasn't captured on camera, which seemed very fulfilling… what was it like generally? I speak to a lot of people who do expeditions, and sometimes people are bamboozled when someone just turns up — on a bike or through the jungle. What were your cultural interactions like?

Jude Kriwald (47:16)
It was really fascinating — and not really expected — and in a way sort of a just reward for my idea of: I don't know anything about this place, so I want to go.

I really didn't know. And I've travelled in developing countries — say Central Asia — where very few Tajiks, for example, will go backpacking around the world, yet when a bikepacker comes cycling through, they know what the concept of a traveller is. They're on the Silk Road — people have travelled there for centuries — they have inns and guest houses. So even though you live very different lives, the local people understand what you're doing.

I say that for contrast. In West Africa, the same can't be said. The gap is so vast. The concept of leisure time doesn't really exist.

So when people say, "Why are you here? What are you doing?" I'd say, "I'm travelling." And they say, "But why? What for?" And in broken English you might say, "For fun," or "For pleasure," or "To enjoy it." And they say, "No — what for?" And they wouldn't stop questioning you until you lied — not intentionally — but you just have to say, "For work. I'm doing it for work." And then they'll say, "Okay, I understand, I understand." Because in their minds — why would you not? They have to spend six or seven days a week working. They're never thinking, "Maybe I'll go to the neighbouring country for a little jolly."

And there was the other element of a lot of rural villages having never seen a white person before. Or if they have, it's at 3pm on a Saturday when someone pays a couple of quid to put some petrol in the generator, and they watch the Premier League and see footballers running around.

You will honestly be in the middle of nowhere and come across a tiny little shack and it'll be written on a chalkboard: "3pm — Man U vs Arsenal." And you crowd into this tiny shack with a bunch of men and watch a couple of games — and it's a really enjoyable experience.

And that's the only time they've seen a white person before, perhaps — or maybe aid workers. And that gives an understandably skewed view of what the West is like. I had people run up to me saying, "Hey, I'm a footballer. Will you be my manager?"

So it's hard to bond. You have to be empathetic and understand where people are coming from. It is delicate, and I want to be delicate in talking about it. But our understanding of the world is very different to their understanding. We are very privileged with our education and understanding of other countries, and they don't have access to that.

It made it harder at times to connect because you had so much ground to cover. People are just as lovely as anywhere in the world. I had some really lovely smiles and interactions, but I did find it hard to connect — and in a way, that was a nice thing to have learned.

Chris Watson (50:04)
Yeah. And not to label it at all, but the concept of leisure time… and I’ve had conversations with other people about money and cash economies that don’t actually exist in certain places. The idea of money and things is quite foreign, or developing.

I had a conversation very recently with Becky Henderson about that in the Congo. That made me think about the situation you had going through the jungle — you had the GoPro on your bike and the chap had taken the money. You handled that very well. That could have gone very differently. You're with strangers in remote locations, and these people can survive subsistence living to an extent. How did you feel in that moment? Were you scared?

Jude Kriwald (51:19)
Yes — I was. That wasn't the only feeling. I think I also understood why the guy had stolen the money.

Without giving too much away — for those who haven't seen the documentary — he stole some money when I wasn't looking. So he didn't know that I knew, but I did know. And it wasn't totally planned — it was planned a bit, but…

Chris Watson (51:38)
Yeah.

Jude Kriwald (51:46)
Like you just said — huge difference. I just understood it. The amount he took was maybe £20. And I know the average day wage there, if you are getting paid, is two or three pounds.

So imagine the UK: the average wage is, I don't know, £100 a day. And you see someone with — say — a grand. And if you have this idea that this person comes from a society infinitely wealthier than you, and you know nothing much about them… you just see them on the telly playing football and then this person comes through and you see they've got wads of cash — it's understandable to think, "I'll take a bit for me because I really need it and he's got infinite amounts."

I think that helped me because it helped me not get angry, and not being angry helped me de-escalate it.

But I was scared. Thoughts went through my head for one of the first times ever of: what would it look like if this went wrong, from my family's perspective? Yeah. That was a sobering thought and probably gave me the mental clarity to talk my way out of it — as I somehow, luckily, did.

Chris Watson (52:54)
Yeah, you did. And it's no slight — and thankfully it was resolved amicably. That's a little hint to watch the documentary.

Jude Kriwald (53:11)
I want to be really honest and authentic: when I was about 18, I did something similar. I was helping some really wealthy person travel and I nicked a bit of money. I know I shouldn't have, but I didn't earn much at all and I saw this person with loads of money, and I was like, "Oh, just have a little bit."

Maybe remembering that helps me. My point is: he's not a bad kid. He was a dumb kid.

Chris Watson (53:42)
And it's all very foreign to them. They maybe haven't seen cash before — and then seeing it and realising it could really support them. We're worlds apart at times, aren't we? It's nice to see that we can be understanding and de-escalate.

Jude Kriwald (54:11)
Yeah.

Chris Watson (54:16)
So, for the uneducated — i.e. me — I didn't know where Gola was exactly. Where is the Gola rainforest? Is it in Liberia?

Jude Kriwald (54:29)
Fair question. There's one rainforest that straddles the border of Sierra Leone and Liberia. On the Sierra Leone side it's called the Gola Rainforest. On the Liberian side — which is actually where I was — I think it's called the Lofa–Mano National Park. Excuse me if I've got that wrong — it's something like that.

I called it Alone Across Gola because it's the same rainforest — different names on different sides of the border — and it's just easier to say.

In my head, because I'd entered from the Gola side first, I was like, "I'm in the Gola rainforest." Someone on YouTube commented saying, "You weren't even in the Gola rainforest — that's 100 kilometres away." And I was like, well, it's the same rainforest — it's just different names.

I hadn't heard about it before. I only discovered it because I was on Google Earth, zooming in, and there's this big patch — deep green for hundreds of kilometres — and I thought, I want to know what's in there.

Chris Watson (55:23)
Yeah, I've seen the clip where you've got the map and then you follow the road and you don't know where it goes — it looks like a dead end. That was a big gamble in such a remote location, wasn't it?

Jude Kriwald (55:40)
Yeah. For those who haven't seen it: on my map — and in online maps — I did research in a previous town with phone signal on OpenStreetMap. There's a north–south road through this rainforest and it goes pretty much the whole way through it. I was like, wow — what an amazing trail to cycle on. Must be some of the best gravel cycling, adventure cycling ever.

But there is a small section — a 20-kilometre section, or 10 kilometres on the map — where it just disappears. But it so clearly is the same road as the other side of the gap. I thought, I'm just going to go and see what that gap is about. I did get some local help to cross the gap — that was fine. And the map was correct: there was no road.

Where the map was incorrect is that where the road was meant to restart had been in disrepair for 20 years. Hundreds of trees had fallen over, bridges had collapsed, and no one used the road anymore apart from the odd person walking. And yeah — that sort of led to the adventure, I guess.

Chris Watson (56:40)
Yeah. Coming back to your equipment — your Garmin inReach and stuff like that — did you struggle with canopy at all, in terms of getting signal? How did that weigh on your mind?

Jude Kriwald (56:55)
It didn't weigh on my mind much. In terms of navigation, I didn't mind. It's a shame because, for friends and family, the Garmin online track almost looks like I skipped the jungle — as if I made it up — because the canopy was too thick. I did struggle to send messages.

I was trying to send one message a day to Nicola just to say, "Hey, I'm okay. I've made it this far." And I'd often have to walk around and try to find a gap in the trees.

But I wasn't navigating via GPS. It's simple: can you find the path in front of you? If you can, follow it. If you can't, you're lost — go back.

And the Garmin won't help because even if you plan the route beforehand and try to follow a GPS route, you can't plan it properly: you can't see the trail on Google Earth beneath the trees. It's just a big canopy. That's why I love it. We've got so much data and information on places that they're sort of known before you even go, but the jungle wasn't known. You couldn't see what was underneath. That made it a greater adventure.

Chris Watson (57:59)
Fantastic.

And filming it all yourself… it's a fantastic piece of art, adventure documentary. It's been well received at all the film festivals — Kendal and all that — and even at the RGS. How was that: filming it? Pretty fantastic shots. How much experience did you have with film and storytelling?

Jude Kriwald (58:37)
On your first question — how was it? It was fantastic. I loved it overall. It was a huge amount of work. I'll come onto that.

On the second question: I had no experience at all, really. Pick up a camera, of course — but I barely knew how to use manual mode on a normal digital camera.

I really enjoyed it. This is where ADHD comes into play — whether it's hyper-focus or interest in new things and novelty and learning new skills. I learned things really quickly when it's done in a way that suits my brain.

There's that phrase: "Jack of all trades, master of none." But it actually finishes: "Jack of all trades, master of none, often better than master of one." I think it's useful to know how to do loads of things, like 80% well. Sometimes you want specialists — someone who knows something 100%.

I liked that I could spend a few months learning how to make a film and then make something that's pretty well received — at least it seems that way.

So I was on YouTube before I left, searching: how to film yourself? What is B-roll? How to shoot B-roll? And I loved the problem-solving: how do you back this up? How are you going to store everything?

It was great fun. I had a lot of time on the trip. If I didn't want to film, I didn't have to film. If I thought, "I'd love to get a lovely sunset shot," I'd wait for the perfect sunset. I wouldn't shoot every night and try to force it. So yeah — I loved it. It was a great creative challenge.

Chris Watson (1:00:17)
Yeah. I love having the creative outlet — partly why we're talking here as well.

One thing: it's not in the documentary, but it's in one of your episodes on your channel — you had a hippo encounter. What is it with cyclists and hippos? Charlie Walker said that too. You were in this little canoe-type thing on the water, and you can hear the hippo grunting in the video.

Jude Kriwald (1:00:23)
That's great.

Chris Watson (1:00:41)
You can hear it grunting — I don't know if you noticed.

Jude Kriwald (1:00:49)
I know. I had a sketchy moment in the jungle with the money and the machete — that was bad luck. But the hippo thing was stupid. I honestly think I was stupid, and I regret being stupid. I don't like being stupid.

Nothing happened — for those who haven't seen it — but basically you're at the River Gambia and you want to go see the hippos and maybe the crocs. Obviously you should get a decent-sized boat that the hippo is not going to overturn.

But I felt like everyone with a decent-sized boat was ripping me off. So I found two local guys and they said they'd go for less. I didn't realise we'd end up in this absolutely… it's literally a hollowed-out tree trunk — classic traditional canoe.

But not only that — they weren't boatmen. They didn't know what they were doing. They just borrowed it off some guy. We paddled out and it was really stupid. That hippo could have overturned our boat and we'd be gone. We came pretty close.

I've only had two or three moments in my life like that where I look back and I think: you went much further than you should have. And I felt irresponsible — not just to myself, but to my loved ones. I don't want to do that.

Chris Watson (1:01:58)
I shouldn't laugh, but I think it's when the guy's sitting on the front of the boat and you've got the camera on him and he's kind of going like that with his finger in his mouth — you can see that he's…

Jude Kriwald (1:02:08)
They were absolutely shitting themselves. When they were scared, I was like… I should be scared.

Chris Watson (1:02:16)
Yeah — it's like turbulence on a flight: you look at the flight attendant to see if they're scared or not.

Jude Kriwald (1:02:18)
Yeah.

And I did actually try it: one of the proper boats went past with a more well-to-do older couple, and I was like, "Hey, is there any chance I can get in your boat?" They genuinely pretended not to hear me and just drove off.

Chris Watson (1:02:41)
Wow. Excellent.

Looking back — are you happy with it? Are you proud of the journey and the movie?

Jude Kriwald (1:02:54)
That's a really nice question. I haven't really thought. Yeah, I really am. Thank you for asking.

It's about being authentic to yourself and listening to that part in me that said, "Just go travelling. Just start travelling again."

In terms of the film, it's gone beyond my wildest expectations. I thought I wanted to make something that would share this cool story. I only wrote the story because a friend asked me to give a speech about courage at a small gathering. That's why the end of the film is about courage.

I sat down with my editor the next week and he was like, "Have you got a script?" I was like, "What do you mean a script? It's a documentary — it's happened." He was like, "You need a script." I was like, "What about the speech I wrote?"

It's been a dream to show it to people and people's reactions — whether in person at film festivals or in YouTube comments. People — 30-year-old men who are like, "Oh, I want to go adventuring too" (which is very valid), but also 60-year-old women, dads who are 45, 18-year-old girls — women who are like: it might not even be about adventuring — it's just: "I have a dream too."

Because it's a bit of a cliché to say follow your dreams — it's overdone. But what we don't have as many films about is people who did have a dream, followed it, then life happens and you drop it. And then when you're 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 — how do you pick it back up?

That seems to resonate with people. It's been such a joy. I'm hugely proud and grateful to have been able to do it.

Chris Watson (1:04:24)
Yeah, I absolutely love it, mate. It's incredible.

There’s a parallel because I'm still in a corporate career. I still have this big expansive thing, but I'm doing stuff and I've never really documented it — and it's why it strikes a chord. The neurodivergent stuff, the mental health side, the courage side… and doing that with a supportive partner now — there are so many threads in this.

That's what this show is about — letting people process this conversation, listen again, and watch the film. I'm sure the audience will lap this up. There'll be so many takeaways and inspiration to get out there and do this type of stuff.

Jude Kriwald (1:05:18)
Thank you.

I know it's not meant to be this way around, but I wanted to ask you a question: what you just said about having an outlet and doing this podcast — how does that feel for you? Is that the nourishment? It must be incredible in a way.

Chris Watson (1:05:31)
Yeah, thank you. Nobody's really asked that on here.

I needed an outlet. I needed to keep myself accountable because I felt like, if I draw parallels with your story — that lost decade, as you were saying — you went and did that big thing. I felt like my time was slipping away. If I didn't take accountability, I'd never get back into this frame of mind and back into this world.

Since doing that, it opens doors. I'm now running short trips — little expeditions in Scotland — with friends who've never really got into this stuff. We're now doing grander things. It's just real fire back up.

And now I've got a young daughter — she's coming along — and it's incredibly fulfilling.

Jude Kriwald (1:06:27)
That's incredible.

It's also amazing that you've not only found an outlet for yourself, but you're giving other people a platform to share and dissect what makes people tick. Not everyone resonates with one person's story. Someone might listen to me and you chatting and think it's semi-interesting, but it doesn't get them going. Then they listen to someone else next week and something they said… I think it's super cool.

Chris Watson (1:06:49)
And it's the random things… I'll get someone DM me or tag me in something — and it might be an episode from a year ago that someone has just listened to. It's evergreen content. It doesn't need to be listened to right now. It might help you plan something in two or three years.

And when I hear people are doing that — doing it with a parent — I had a lady contact me and she took her grandparent or something… he did an adventure across a river in the UK. Hearing that — and these people are pensioners — it's phenomenal. I've loved this. It's filling my cup as well. Thank you.

Jude Kriwald (1:07:39)
We could do this for hours. It's so nice to talk. Thank you for asking such wonderful questions.

Chris Watson (1:07:44)
So we'll move into the closing traditions, if you don't mind. Three closing traditions: pay it forward, call to adventure, and then ten quickfire questions.

Firstly, pay it forward: an opportunity to raise awareness for a project, a charity or anything important to you. What would be your pay it forward recommendation?

Jude Kriwald (1:08:14)
Okay. I kind of want to do two, but I'll do one first, which is unrelated to me largely: the British Exploring Society.

For like 90 years they focused on public school boys taking on expeditions. About 10 years ago — or 20 years ago — they pivoted and now they do the opposite: they help take people from the most underprivileged backgrounds in the UK on life-changing adventures — whether it's three days or all the way up to six weeks, depending on where you're at.

Some people have never seen a sheep, never seen a hill.

They're a charity. I volunteered with them a couple of years ago as a Basecamp Manager in Scotland for three weeks. They need social leaders, people with social work backgrounds. They need adventure leaders like mountain leaders, knowledge leaders who know about the environment, and everything behind the scenes — Basecamp manager, logistics, comms, and so on.

It's a really rewarding way to volunteer. You can do it for a few days or a month or two.

Also, if you're a young person — I think 25 and under — go check them out. It's a really affordable and well-structured way to have incredible adventures. So yeah — shout-out to the British Exploring Society.

Chris Watson (1:09:27)
Excellent. Thank you very much.

And can you talk about Adventure Mentor again, please? I think we need to revisit that.

Jude Kriwald (1:09:36)
Yeah. A friend said the word two or three years ago — an amazing adventurer, Michelle Ellison — she said, "Oh, he's kind of my adventure mentor." I was like, that's such a good name.

I went home and bought adventurementor.org. This was before I went to Africa. I was like, "I don't know what I'm going to do with this yet — but when I come back, I'm going to do something."

Basically, anyone who wants to go on an adventure — big or small — and is feeling any questions or uncertainty — could be confidence, logistics, route planning — I offer a free one-to-one session.

It's free for people who are typically underrepresented in adventure: women, non-binary people, low-income households, and so on. I've never actually turned someone down. I've only had one person reach out and say, "Hey, I don't meet any of those criteria." I still had a session with them because… why not? I'm not in a position yet where I have to turn people away, which is great.

I want to not pull the ladder up behind me. I'm really inspired by Alastair Humphreys. He's a great example. I've been reaching out to him recently. He's — he won't like me saying this — but he's a quote-unquote "made it" adventurer.

I messaged him a week ago saying, "Hey Al, I'm at this stage of my career, my film's doing this, I've got these questions, I don't know what to do…" and he just helps. He sent me his book Ask an Adventurer, and he's written an entire book on how he makes money doing it, what his pitfalls have been.

I feel like a lot of people online are like, "Brand me," and they pull the ladder up behind them: "What a sweet deal — I'm not going to tell you how I got it." He doesn't do that.

I'd like to make it a more open place for people to come and have adventures. Forget trying to be an adventurer — just go on an adventure. Make it less scary.

That's a long answer. Adventure Mentor is the one.

Chris Watson (1:11:32)
adventurementor.org — fantastic. And a shout-out to Al as well. He's been on the show and he was a big inspiration for me. Microadventures, Grand Adventures, Local, Ask an Adventurer — the full shebang.

The thing that stuck with me: if you have a nine-to-five, you can still do the five-to-nine adventures — going bivvying on a hill after work. Great stuff.

Right — call to adventure: recommend a place, an activity, something to inspire people to get outdoors.

Jude Kriwald (1:12:07)
So I thought about this a bit and I didn't want to say a specific place because your audience is all over the world. If I say there's a lovely peak in Dorset, that's no good if you're listening from South Africa.

But I'm really into, at the moment, analogue adventures. I got rid of my smartphone in October. I'm interested in learning more about being offline.

I've read Ranulph Fiennes' book — they went around the world in the 80s and had a compass, a map, the stars and a sextant. I thought: we used to be able to have adventures without being glued to a screen. Surely that's the whole point.

And you see videos of people like, "Hey guys, I think we're at the top — our phone says we're at the top." And I'm like, that's madness.

So my call to adventure would be: plan an overnight analogue adventure — even just one night.

The way I'd suggest doing it: look up somewhere — whether it's a cycle, drive, or public transport away — look up the route beforehand. Jot some notes down, or buy an A–Z or similar.

Get there. If you get lost, ask someone where to go. Then you get to the mountain you want — you've got an OS map for it (or whatever map in your country). Plan your route before you go. Do some assimilation between "that's that mountain in my view" and "that's that mountain on the map."

Have an offline adventure. There's something really grounding about doing this. It helps you be present, helps you feel where you are.

If you go on an adventure and follow Google Maps to get there, you don't really know the journey — you just arrive. Whereas if you pay attention to the landscape changing, and you decide, "Am I taking this turn? That turn?" you get a feel for the land around you.

So: overnight offline analogue adventure. Don't take a phone. If you want to take a digital camera you can. Even better: take a Polaroid, or sketch it. Come back, write about it, tell people about it — do something analogue with it — and see how you get on without a screen.

Chris Watson (1:14:35)
Excellent. Love that. I love that as a term as well — analogue adventures.

Jude Kriwald (1:14:43)
When I gave up my phone, the first thing I did — kind of ironic — but I was trying to post less on Instagram. I started a Substack, which I'm going to shamelessly plug: adventuresinanalogue.substack.com.

I'm curious what it's like to adventure in analogue a bit more.

Chris Watson (1:15:03)
Yeah, that would be a great book actually.

Jude Kriwald (1:15:08)
Yeah — it's a thought.

Chris Watson (1:15:11)
Excellent. Pay it forward, call to adventure.

Jude Kriwald (1:15:15)
Alright, let's get ready.

Chris Watson (1:15:20)
It's been absolutely fantastic. I've loved this.

Jude Kriwald (1:15:24)
It's been such a joy to chat. I wish I could do this more often. It's such a pleasure to chat with you, Chris.

Chris Watson (1:15:30)
Yeah, likewise, Jude. It's been a long time coming and I really appreciate you and everything you've shared. The movie is wonderful. It's been well received by your peers as well, if we call it an industry. Amazing.

Are you still on tour with it at the moment — doing talks?

Jude Kriwald (1:15:58)
Yeah. Last year was the film festival push — huge amount of energy, very rewarding. The big typical film festival run is over in my mind in terms of the push.

I'm now moving towards doing talks which include the film. I'm doing one in February in Bristol — the Wilderness Lectures — where I'm going to show the film and talk for a bit.

And then I'm touring with the Kendal Mountain Festival for a few dates in March and April — in Scotland actually, in Banchory and Crieff — and Oxford and Cambridge as well.

In terms of what's next… that's the real struggle: being authentic and true to myself. Do I write? Do I go on another adventure? Do I do a book about analogue adventures? I feel like I've got so much I want to do, but I don't know where to go. That's actually what I was emailing Alastair Humphreys about. I'm going to read his book Ask an Adventurer first, and then see where I get to.

Chris Watson (1:17:03)
I'm pretty sure he still has those podcast episodes up where he answers questions in audio format too — if you haven't, check that out.

Jude Kriwald (1:17:15)
Excellent.

I would just say briefly, in case it's not obvious: the film is now on YouTube. You can just Google — I'm sure you'll link it — Alone Across Gola. I finished the film run and I put it up in December, so it's there.

Chris Watson (1:17:30)
Yeah. I've watched it five or six times. It's 21 or 22 minutes.

Jude Kriwald (1:17:36)
21 minutes, yeah.

Chris Watson (1:17:38)
It's great storytelling. Straight into the journey, no big lulls. It ends and you're like, "Oh — I want an extended version."

Jude Kriwald (1:17:52)
Shout-out to my editor, Christian Burnett. The best thing I ever did was work with him. He is an absolute genius.

You can see the difference between my YouTube episodes that I edited and the film — he edited the film. I sort of directed and said, "Can we do this? Can we do that?" But he edited it. So credit to him.

Chris Watson (1:18:10)
Yeah, fantastic.

A question that just popped into my head: did you get an award or recognition from Eurosport or something?

Jude Kriwald (1:18:22)
Yeah, I did. It was kind of mad.

It was the last film festival — in France, obviously cycling-crazy. There's this touring film festival called Tous en Selle — like "all in the saddle" — a French phrase. They tour like 50 French cities, and their big showpiece event is in the Grand Rex cinema in Paris — the largest cinema in Europe.

They flew me and Nicola out there. It was just my film and then four French films that had been touring around. I was blown away to see my film on this huge cinema screen, did a quick Q&A — bit of French, bit of English.

I was with some friends who were watching with me, and I was like, "Hey guys, sorry, it's quite late — almost 11 o'clock — this is ending soon." And then the presenter said something like, "Jude…" and everyone started clapping. I was like, my God — there's an award. I didn't realise. I forgot there was an award.

And yeah, some guys from Eurosport were the panel — they got to choose it. Eurosport gave it this "king" — sort of genderless — like king or queen of the pedals. It's a really nice little glass trophy. I was dead chuffed with that. I went out and celebrated afterwards.

Chris Watson (1:19:34)
That's phenomenal. Excellent and justified.

So finally — where can everyone find out everything about Jude Kriwald and keep up with your adventures?

Jude Kriwald (1:19:39)
Sure, thanks for asking.

I've got a website: judekriwald.com. If anyone wants me to do a talk at a school or a company, that's the place to go. I'm doing more of them now, which is great.

I have an Instagram — just my name, judekriwald. I've been posting a lot less since I got rid of my phone, but it's still the place I’ll post if I have something worth saying. There's a Substack linked on there, which I mentioned earlier.

And my YouTube channel is also in my name. I won't keep saying my name — but it's all in my name. I'm kind of lucky: no one else really seems to have the surname other than my family, so you can find me pretty easily.

Chris Watson (1:20:30)
It's quite unique. Excellent. We'll get that listed and hyperlinked as well so there's no spelling mistakes in it.

This has been wonderful. Thank you, Jude.

Jude Kriwald (1:20:35)
Thanks, Chris. I've loved it. I've really loved it. It's been such a pleasure. Thank you for having me, Chris.

Chris Watson (1:20:42)
It's a pleasure. With that, I'll bring it to a close.

Thanks for tuning in to today's episode. For the show notes and further information, please visit AdventureDiaries.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.