Vegan Canyoning in Australia | Adventure in Karijini | Sven Borg

Link for the show notes

In today’s episode, we’ll be talking to Sven Borg, founder of Spacechameleon Adventure Co, a vegan-friendly adventure tourism company based in Western Australia. Sven offers incredible outdoor experiences in and around Perth and Karijini National Park, including abseiling, canyoning, climbing, and multi-day adventure tours. In this episode, he shares how he got started in the outdoor industry, what makes Karijini such a special destination, what canyoning actually involves, and how he incorporates vegan-friendly travel into his adventure offerings.

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Transcript

 [00:00:00] Welcome Sven, to The World Vegan Travel Podcast. 

Hello. 

I am really happy to have you here. We have not had anyone on the podcast in all of the episodes talking about Western Australia, which is where you and your business is based and where you offer very, very vegan-friendly travel opportunities. 

Could you tell us what it is that you do in the vegan travel space? 

 Yep. So we're a small adventure company based out of Perth, but we operate up and down the West Coast, mostly in Karijini and Perth. So Karijini is our premium products where we are the only operator that goes into the restricted access canyons. So deeper into the depths of the Karijini. 

Oh, okay. So can you explain to our listeners what is canyoning? 

Yeah, so canyoning on the basic form is moving through an area created by water over time. So you can have a dry canyon, a wet canyon, or a combination thereof. [00:01:00] It's called gorges in the US as well, but saying gorging doesn't sound amazing. So canyoning it is. It just depends on where you're from. 

Gorge, canyon, same, same. You could potentially break it apart and say one is higher, and there's a slight formation difference, but they're the same. In Karijini, if you ever Google it on the official websites, it'll say Gorges of Karijini. yeah, they're also canyons and like I said, we canyon into them. 

So we use ropes to access, abseil, climbing water slides, and then we spend most of the day in tubes, paddling through the gorges and traveling through our trips that we run. 

How did you come to create this business? 

I didn't reinvent the wheel, so canyoning was happening in Karijini before me. There was an operator up there. The business that was up there sold three times. They lived up there and just, I guess, due to politics, and just not being busy enough in the off seasons, they did fold. So the third operator that owned the business shut it, and yeah, I didn't want to buy [00:02:00] it, so I already had my own business; abseiling in Perth. 

I just shifted some of what we do up to Karijini. We head up from Perth three times a year, and just run the holiday seasons only, where we have the volume of people, you know, it makes it worth the time because yeah, I wouldn't want to live up there permanently. 

Right. Well, we'll talk a little bit more about Karijini in a minute, but I'm very curious how you got into this sport, hobby, pastime? 

 It's not a massively exciting story. Probably, 15 years ago, I was traveling Australia again, probably the third time around. I ended up needing a wisdom tooth out . The lady said to me, 'You know, why don't you go on Centrelink benefits?' I didn't want to do that because I was looking for a job and just at the same time, I had also applied for a job and they needed qualifications. 

I had to study for. I was 35 at the time. I've done a fair bit of study. I really didn't want to go back to study, but just sort of how it came about and then making inquiries for this particular course, in outdoor education, [00:03:00] in the Blue Mountains, it was $51. I was already on the East Coast, so I'd never been on ropes before. I'd certainly love the outdoors, but hadn't done any of those things. So at 35, I just enrolled, and a year later I worked in the Blue Mountains for some people and then worked my way through the industry, then came over to Karijini, working for somebody else. And then, yeah, set my business up. Shortly thereafter, 2014. And then, yeah, in Karijini, I think, we're in our sixth year at the moment. So Karijini, it's about the fifth or sixth year. I'd have to double check that. 

Since the last person was there. 

I mean, I'm so curious as to what inspired you to move all the way from the East Coast. Obviously, the Blue Mountains is beautiful and famous, and it's close to a big city, and I think Karijini is quite far from Perth, which in itself is such an isolated city. 

So 33 years ago, with a girl I was traveling with, I fell in love with it back then. I actually didn't know [00:04:00] about Karijini. A lot of West Australians actually, don't. It is Western Australia's second-largest national park. It is by far, probably, the most popular next to Kakadu. That's pretty well-known. Yeah, I was looking for another job at the time from the East Coast. This came up, you know, that there was a job offer. I just drove my campervan over, and I started working for this guy. And then in the course of 

working for him, I met somebody and then ended up back in Perth. I set my business up in that time when the relationship folded. You know, being a bit older, I thought I'd try and do the adult thing. I had spent a fair bit of time traveling. I'm not a big fan of adulting, but you know, it's kind of the required thing, I guess. So I decided to stay on one spot, and I have been now, since 2014, which is rather a strange thing to say. That's 12 years. Yeah, 

pretty wild. 

It's a unique position that we're the only ones in a space. It's not big enough for two operators. It's always just been one. And look, I can only hope it stays that way [00:05:00] because we would both suffer, and we'd have to outcompete each other until whoever runs out of money first. It wouldn't work. 

Let's talk about Karijini National Park. I have never heard of Karijini National Park before. Like, where is it located, apart from canyons. What are the features. How do people get there? 

Yep. So it's about 1,400 kilometers, up North in the Pilbara which, it's a bit of a mixed bag. So the Pilbara, unfortunately, is well known for iron ore mining. So there is a lot of crossovers, you know, between tourism and mining, unfortunately. People either drive up generally, on a road trip. So they would head up, normally, the coast or they would come from across the top and they would either do Coral Bay, Exmouth, on the way up. Maybe, Kalbarri, just depending on where they stop, and then head across to Karijini or go the other way, where they come from across the top via Broome, and then go to the coast. So there are tour buses that do those routes and then people drive themselves, or they fly up. So [00:06:00] for our multi-day trips, we encourage people to fly. We don't include the flights, but we do pick them up from the airport. It's an hour and a half flight from Perth. 

Fantastic. Could you maybe, explain to our listeners the kinds of services that you operate, then maybe we can talk about one of your favorite trips in more detail. 

On the website you'll see we offer bushwalking, as well. It's not something I do a lot of. I try and stay in my own lane. So we specialize in roping for the tourist market. We do work occasionally with schools, but it's not something I chase. I'd probably say, we're are the only operator in Perth that still does the tourist market, where the other operators that do stuff that concentrate on schools. So I mainly, work in the tourist market, offer abseiling, abseiling, climbing, and then canyoning in Karijini for the most part. We're also a nationally recognized training provider, so I do offer nationally 

recognized training. I don't do that for money. I actually do it out of frustration. In our market, it gets interesting that we don't get checked. Which is [00:07:00] good and bad if you do the right thing because then you don't have to put up with being checked. What's bad about it; there are a lot of cowboys out there. I had a few interesting experiences when I was working for people when I came from the East Coast. I set my business up out of frustration. So running a business is definitely the hardest thing I've ever done but it's also the most rewarding. I came home one day after a kid fell two meters when somebody I was working with didn't tie them. Now the kid was luckily, okay, 

Ooh. 

But the way the school and my boss dealt with it, I thought was pretty disgusting. So I said, I'm not doing this anymore because, you know, being the lead guide on a project, you get hauled to court, you know. As much as you can point the finger back and say, 'Well, I'm not the employer.' I still have a responsibility and I don't ever want to be in that position. So I set my business up out of frustration, and then, I guess, on top of that, again, just seeing not much training that was to the standard that I wanted. I sought out working with registered training organizations on the East Coast, that [00:08:00] I wanted to work with. So I work with one at the moment that's run by Ex-SAS soldiers. 

So, you know, that works really well. I do it mainly, well, two reasons; one, to get my own staff. So if I can get somebody who has their head on their shoulders and cares about things, and that attention to detail, because I don't have the time to teach you that. I can teach you how to tie a rope. So I look for those sorts of people, generally older because that's generally our clientele, as well. And I'll train you, you know, so depending on the 

situation, I used to offer it for free, but it's bitten me a few times. I don't have full-time staff. I've got a few casual staff. They're friends as well, so I have given them things for free. 

Right. I will say, I'm full of admiration for providers like yourself as a fellow sort of, tour operator. 

Hundred percent. So once someone's on my rope, I'm not worried about them. If I have you attached to my rope, you are very safe. The concern with the clients I take out, is them walking around by themselves. 

[00:09:00] Right. Falling down a canyon or something like that. 

Not following instructions. 

Yeah. 

It's a bit of a fallacy in our industry because the fear of falling is such an intrinsic fear in humans, you know, being up high. But if you rationalize it, and actually look at the equipment, if you use it properly, it is way safer than driving a car. It's way safer than flying, and it's way safer than just going for a hike by yourself. 

Riding a bike. 

And riding a bike because I've got hit by one. 

Yeah. 

I'll say, that in the past, we have worked with really good, reputable, bike companies to provide activities for our tours, and we vetted them, and everything was great. Just one of our travelers, just kind of, had a little bit of a panic. She was fine, but she could have ended up crashing into a car, and after that, I was just like, 'No, biking is just too terrifying.' 

I don't have it on my insurance because the premium would go through the roof. So horse riding, and riding bikes, and water activities, are actually the most [00:10:00] dangerous and most expensive insurable things. So I think, horse riding is number one, but biking, because more people ride bikes, I think, goes up in volume, and then water activities. My insurance company would do them. I don't have them for that reason. I wouldn't take it on. 

Right. 

I've got no control. And once you're on your bike, you're gone. So I don't want to do it. I just don't want to it. 

Fair enough. Fair enough. 

 Why don't you dig deep and tell us about your most signature tour, that you offer? 

Yeah, so I guess there's two places what we're sort of, known for. One is Perth for twilight abseiling. So we were an operator that started that. As far as I could tell, the only one in Australia, and I'm potentially, at the moment, still the only one. A friend of mine copied it in Brisbane for a bit, and that's that's fine. It was Brisbane. But I don't think anyone else is really doing that. We start at about four o'clock in summer. We go till about 10 o'clock, and we abseil in the daytime sunset, and at nighttime. And then we serve vegan pizzas, vegan bliss [00:11:00] balls, coffee, tea, juice and, or cordial, just depending on what I've got at the time. So it's about a six hour experience, about an hour from Perth overlooking the city. So you get sunsets over Perth, which is kind of cool. That has been my bread and butter, but over the years I am sort of, shifting it towards Karijini. So that would be the next thing that's then obviously in the Pilbara. We run single day trips, which are bookable once you're there, where we do nothing but meet you at the canyon and you provide everything. With that, we don't do food. It's just logistically too difficult. To do it, we used to get Eco Retreat to make us vegan wraps, but they were super hit and miss. So from a quality perspective, I couldn't justify it. And then the other thing, is our multi-day trips. Now, unfortunately, we are not allowed from Eco Retreat to be a hundred percent vegan with that at the moment. But as a vegan traveler, you can certainly request that. They have vegan options on the menu. And if I get enough of them, depending on the head chef, I can twist their arm and they will do more. So it's a bit of a [00:12:00] challenge with us. When I first started running them, we had some good chefs that were really open to it, and they actually really enjoyed doing something different. 

So they actually enjoyed making up, you know, menus and it was great. So we do lunches for the clients for that window. We do vegan snacks, chocolate, all that stuff. The breakfast is optioned, so you choose. It's a buffet type breakfast. So you can choose vegan options, they're available. And then for dinner, there is vegan options on the menu. But I would love to say, it is a vegan trip. But yeah, unfortunately, yeah, we can't, I would love to. The other thing I guess, it's sporadic, but we have run long table vegan dinners, five-course dinners, with abseiling. My partner has catered those, but she's got a full-time job. So she actually, did a vegan cooking course online with the Future Food Institute. They have shut their doors since then. She's pretty good at what she does. She often caters our training days for the five and the eight day adventures, as well. I guess, the passion there for me is just to show people that we [00:13:00] don't just eat lettuce, you know. We make all our cheeses from scratch, crackers from scratch, breads from scratch. And yes, you can buy stuff as substitutes, but you know, if you make it yourself and understand where your food comes from, that's obviously, another level.  

Right. 

You know?  

Right, of course. And what is a typical day like when you are doing the eight day tour? I mean, eight days of canyoning seems like a huge amount. 

Yeah. So everything we do and even getting up there, it's still canyoning, so to speak. Like I said to you, canyoning in the process of naming it, is moving through any area of credible water over time. So even the public access parts are canyoning, but we only do three restricted canyons. So they're the abseiling ones that go deeper, but we basically layer it up. So what we normally do, we do a restricted canyon to start. That's your big, 'Hello, welcome to Karijini, wow factor.' Then we do a non-class six canyon. So the eight days that you're there, it's six days of full activity. The last day sometimes, has activity depending on flights. 

Otherwise, it's straight home. So you do three restricted canyons and three [00:14:00] non-restricted canyons, which gives you the entirety of the park. So you get everything that everyone else sees, and then the other stuff that you can only see with us. So we mix it up with a hard day, easier day, hard day, easier day, hard day, easier day. That sort of breaks it up a bit. Yeah. 

Fabulous, fabulous. And who are your typical clients? 

Generally, female, about 85-plus percent. female Yep. Yep, definitely. 45 to 55, 60. My personal theory on that in Australia specifically, because we mainly get Australians. Australia is a very much a macho culture. So if you're a bloke, you don't want to ever put yourself in a position where you know, you can be seen to be scared of something. I've had some interesting scenarios. We've had guys rock up, they're scared. That's my personal take on that. Women, they'll drag their partners, their kids along. We do get guys dragging their kids along, but generally, it's women that book it. They're also more in Australia, at least what I have seen over 14 years that I've been around. 12 years, sorry. [00:15:00] They're more the ones that would do the booking, you know, and do all of that stuff in the background. So for our multi-day trips, it's pretty much always been mainly, women. 

We have to do twin share because we can't offer single accommodation. It just becomes super untenable. But the price has to go up by an extra $2,000, you know, which is nuts. 

Wow. 

 Which is insane. 

And how large is a typical group size? 

So for the multi-day trips, generally, we cap it at 10. In saying that, we have run, currently not on the website, but maybe again soon, yoga and canyoning trips. We have tried to run a pilates and canyoning trip. We have tried to run art and a painting, and canyoning trip. That one did not succeed. We do run photography trips, as well. Now, why I say this, the group size varies. So if we do a yoga trip, and I'm looking at reinitiating that. I've just had a meeting with a yoga teacher yesterday. We can go up to 20. So how that then works, we run two groups of 10 and they crossover. So on the class six day or the restricted day, [00:16:00] myself and a guide take 10 people. The yoga teacher takes the other 10 just to do the more casual stuff, and then they swap. So those sizes can vary. For day trips, if I have enough guides, the max we take, and I know this might sound a bit ridiculous, but in the canyon you can spread out. The max we take is 24, so we have a one to eight race. 

Wow. 

Yeah, so it's one to eight. So generally, 16 is our cap. But if we get teams in for team building, you know, and we run a specific trip for that or we get a large group. So as long as we can find a way to mitigate the wait time. We often split the group. Once they're in the canyon itself because Karijini is a very open canyon, so you're about a hundred meters down and you've got lots of space. People can spread out. The bottlenecking for us, really only happens on the in and on some of the out, depending on which canyon. As long as we can manage that, it's not as bad as you might think. And I guess, our reviews speak for themselves. We don't do a lot of 24 though. So generally it's [00:17:00] 16. 

Okay. Okay. And, I'm very curious, have there been any travelers or guests that you have had that have overcome particular fears or have had some sort of transformative experience through doing a trip with you? 

Transformative experience. I can't, actually, speak to that. People may say that. It is some of the oldest, naturally exposed rock on the planet. So geologically, some of the rocks are 2.2 billion years old. So incredibly old.  

Right. You are based in Western Australia now. Where do you see your business in five years from now? 

I would love to do something in Tassie and then look, I would love to take it overseas, but the problem with, I guess, what we do, is licenses and insurance. I have to work with operators, and I have to trust them, so that I don't feel that I'm lowering the standards we have. And I also want to have somewhat of a hand in, I guess, and I don't ever want to [00:18:00] step on the other owner's toes, but if it's obviously, dangerous, then yes I will. That's my biggest challenge, why I haven't expanded as far as I would like. And then the other reason I guess, is just selling it. 

 One thought that I have is, you know, a lot more tourists come to the Blue Mountains, rather international tourists come to the Blue Mountains maybe, than Karijini. So you never know. So how is it that listeners could, most of my listeners are international, mostly from North America and I mean, I have never been to Western Australia, but I know that it is a very beautiful place and people should definitely make the effort to get out there if they have the opportunity, if they come to Australia. So how is it that people can learn more about the offerings that you have, the times of year and the pricing, et cetera, and to find out if they might be a good fit for one of your tours? 

The business is Spacechameleon Adventure [00:19:00] Co, but if you Google Karijini canyoning, we're the only ones that come up. So you'd be able to find us that way. Jump on the website, have a look under the adventures, what we offer, whether that fits with you. 

 Give me a call, you know, pick a time, and we can have a chat. 

Oh. 

You know, so for me it's more about building relationships. I really feel as a tourism industry, we don't need a third party. Like if we worked together and shared our resources and our people with a like-minded thing and build a community. I can pick up the phone and ring somebody and say, 'Hey, what do you think?' That for me works way better, and it keeps them more personal because then you get to choose who you work with rather than somebody put together an itinerary that you have no control over. That's the other thing as well. 

Sure. Understood. Understood. Okay, well Sven, it was so lovely to chat with you today, and I'm so inspired to come to Western Australia because I have never been, despite spending many [00:20:00] years in Australia myself. I love being out in nature and trying new things, whitewater rafting or more physical things. So I will definitely be looking you up. Please tell us one more time how people can find you, and all of your Instagram handles and all of those things. If you do those things? 

I do. I'm not massively active on social media. Spacechameleon is the business. So if you Google Spacechameleon. It's one word, so S-P-A-C-E as in space, chameleon, like the animal without the I. A lot of Australians want to put an I in there. C-H-A-M-E-L-E-O-N. One word. We're the only ones in the world as far as I can tell. So you Google that. That's the same on Facebook. It's the same on Insta, it's the same on LinkedIn, and you'll find our website. That's probably the easiest way to do it. Abseiling Perth, we tend to come up as well. and then Karijini canyoning, obviously, we come up, as well. Yeah, that's pretty much it. 

Thank you so much!  

No worries. You're very welcome. Thanks Brighde.