In January 2022, Preet Chandi made history becoming the first woman of colour to complete a solo expedition in Antartica. Covering a distance of 700 miles, she took just 40 days to reach the South Pole. I first spoke to Preet back in January of 2020 when she had just returned from a self-funded training expedition to Greenland. At that point she was relatively unknown, had no sponsorship and was trying to convince the polar gatekeepers that she really did have what it takes to complete an...

Maggie Fennel works in environmental R&D, specialising in green roofing and innovative planning techniques for aesthetic and environmental impact. She is a founding member of GRO, the UKs first green roof trade association and has recently worked with the West Midlands Combined Authority setting up their natural environment plan. Maggie recently spoke at TEDx Moseley delivering a talk focused on how we value the natural world.  This is a wide ranging conversation considering some of the...

Moose has over 30 years of traditional and alternative education experience around the globe. His experiences include course directing 58-day Outward Bound instructor trainings in Appalachia, working as a deputy headmaster in the Kalahari Desert and juggling as a street performer in too many cities to mention. He has more than 2000 days of field instruction in a wilderness setting and has recently returned from teaching a canoe program for Veterans on the Gulf of Mexico. Since 2002 Moose has...

Charlotte Ditchburn is a Countryside Access Officer and  passionate advocate for access to outdoor spaces. Through her blog, Public Rights of Way Exploer, she shares posts on access campaigns as well as advice, guidance and her own experiences of spending time in the outdoors - and how this has benefited her both personally and professionally. She is also an ambassador for Ordnance Survey, British Canoeing and The National Outdoor Expo. In this episode, Charlotte shares her in depth...

A former mountaineer and Army Reservist, at the age of 26  Darren Edwards was involved in a serious climbing accident which paralysed him from the chest down. After searching for ways to continue living adventurously, Darren took up kayaking, founding Kayaking 4 Heroes. In 2021, he organised and led an adaptive team kayaking 1400 kms from Land’s End To John O’Groats raising over £110,000 for charity in the process  In this episode, Darren shares his journey from his life changing accident to...

 Kelly Smith is a sustainability and flood prevention enthusiast with over 10 years experience in the construction industry.  Kelly has an active and passionate relationship with nature and believes that these two sectors should have ever-more intersectional relations as this would improve progress in the built environment sector. Kelly is the regional lead for Black Girls Hike Sussex, an outdoor swimming ambassador for Swim England and the founder of an Adventure Equality Diversity and...

Kitty Dimbleby is a writer, editor and best-selling author with over 20 years experience of writing for national newspapers and magazines.  I first came across Kitty's work on her Instagram account and was immediately captured by her wonderful poems and the photos of her everyday adventures, wild swimming and paddleboarding. She is a proud feminist and having battled with serious illnesses throughout her life, she uses writing as a way of opening conversations and covering topics that are...

Jocelyn (Floss) Cockle is the founder and CEO of Freefloski. She started skiing at nine years old as a recreational skier and went on to become an internationally recognised ski teacher and race coach by the time she was 30. She is a fitness, mindset and adventure coach and as one of the few British female ski coaches in France, she has helped hundreds of people to build their skiing confidence and skills. In June 2021, she took on the challenge of skiing Mont Blanc and her incredible videos...

Gina Allsop is a military veteran and adventurer who was supported by the charity SSAFA following a series of traumatic events including the death of her brother to cancer. Inspired to  give back, she undertook a challenge to complete 100 miles for each week of the year, raising over £10000 for the charity in the process. As a way of navigating her grief, Gina also sought solace in writing poetry.  She subsequently came up with the idea of curating a book of poems written by those connected...

Keri Wallace is the co-founder of Girls on Hills, the UK's only guided trail, fell and skyrunning running company, designed specifically for women. Their guided runs take place in the Glencoe area of the Scottish Highlands and are aimed at women who want to break free from the road and take their running into the mountains. Girls on Hills also recently supported Black Trail Runners in their Ramsay Round Challenge. Keri is a fell runner, skyrunner, rock climber and writer. She is Summer...

Frit Tam is an award winning adventure filmmaker and founder of Passionfruit Pictures and between May and July 2021, he travelled 1000 miles across England by rollerblade and bicycle.  The aim of the journey was to experience and showcase LGBTQIA+ stories and narratives through interviews and visits to historical places of significance for the community.  Frit was accompanied throughout the journey by his partner, Frankie Dewar (some of you may remember Frankie from S1 Ep23 when I spoke to...

On the Outside is a new podcast focused on sharing diverse views on outdoors news. The show is for anyone who spends their time outdoors in the UK and wants to engage in the wider outdoor community. In each episode, a diverse panel of enthusiasts and experts from a range of outdoors sports discuss the news stories that matter to them. In this bonus episode, host and founder, Francesca Turauskis, shares her motivation for starting the podcast and some of her favourite stories so far. You...

Tom Hewitt, a lifelong surfer, first went to South Africa in 1990 on an anti-apartheid fact finding trip with local activists. He also spent time with peace activists in Maputo, Mozambique during Mozambique’s civil war. It was here that he met street children for the first time. Inspired by the movement against apartheid, Tom stayed on in South Africa to volunteer further. Shocked at the plight of street children in Mozambique, upon his return to South Africa, he noticed and befriended a...

Annabel Abbs is an award winning author whose fiction and non-fiction has been translated into over 15 languages. Her recent book "Windswept - Walking in the Footsteps of Remarkable Women" is a part wild walk, part memoir that follows Annabel's own walking experiences, interwoven with the stories of six incredible women whose lives were partly defined by their love of walking too.  Annabel decided to write the book when searching for stories of other women who walked and finding that they...

Belinda Kirk is an explorer, author and speaker who draws on her experience of two decades of leading groups on adventures across the globe. She is the founder of Explorers Connect and in 2020 she founded the inaugural Adventure Minds conference exploring the links between psychology, resilience and adventure. She has recently published her first book "Adventure Revolution" which sets out to explain why adventure is so essential for our wellbeing. In our conversation, Belinda shares the...

At the age of 35, Emma Gray’s husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Not only was she faced with losing the love of her life, but overnight had to come to terms with the reality of bringing up two children alone, becoming the family breadwinner and the carer to her partner. Emma found the experience isolating and lonely as she battled with her demons whilst everyone else appeared to be getting on with their seemingly happy, normal, family lives. Yet, even on the most challenging of days,...

Francis Benali will be a very familiar name to football fans and supporters of Southampton FC in particular. Born and raised in the city, he played over 400 games for the club, retiring in 2004. More recently he has completed a number of endurance challenges culminating in 2019 with a challenge undertaking 7 ironmans in 7 days, raising over £1m for Cancer Research UK. He has received a number of high profile awards as a result of his efforts including Freeman of the City of Southampton and...

Ash Alexander-Cooper is a former specialist unit Colonel in the British Army, disabled veteran, international athlete and musician, business leader, mental health campaigner and speaker on leadership, resilience, performance and adaptability.  In June 2021, whilst in quarantine in Australia, where he had travelled to see his daughter for the first time in 12 months, he decided to run a marathon in his hotel room. He eventually ran a distance of 32.2 miles (or 11,334 turns!)  and used this as...

Kwesia is the founder of City Girl in Nature, a movement she created as a way to give back to her community. Having grown up in Deptford in SE London, she experienced many of the challenges that come with living in an area, and with people, who have often been neglected, excluded and marginalized. An opportunity to be part of a British Exploring Society’s expedition to the Peruvian Amazon Rain-forest in her words, transformed her life. On her return she started to think about connecting with...

Sally Orange is a physiotherapist, veteran, charity fundraiser, endurance runner, Invictus game medallist, inspirational speaker, ambassador for the Army Cadets  and mental health advocate. She holds multiple world records including being the only person to complete a marathon on every continent dressed as a piece of fruit! Having faced her own challenges with severe depression and chronic anxiety, Sally speaks openly in an attempt to remove the associated stigma with mental health and...

Emma Kingston is a mountain biker turned bikepacker, adventurer, writer, teacher and self-confessed map-geek! She is  also the author of the recently published "Bikepacking England" which contains 20 great multi-day mountain bike adventures across England. In this episode, Emma shares how she started bikepacking and what inspired her to write the book. She talks about the challenges of visibility and the benefits of being able to share her passion for the sport and combining it with the art...

Catie Friend is a presenter, commentator, mother of two and host of the brilliantly named podcast "Chatting to a Friend." In her podcast, she speaks to incredible women about their lives and adventures, but she also has some pretty impressive adventure credentials of her own. In 2018, she competed in the Patrouille des Glaciers from Zermatt to Verbier and she has also completed the Half Marathon Des Sables. She commentates for the ISMF (International Ski Mountaineering Federation) World Cup...

For many who love adventure, Sarah Williams will be a very familiar voice. As founder of Tough Girl Challenges and the host of the Tough Girl podcast, Sarah has given voice to an incredible range of women adventurers. Tough Girl is now in its 6th year, having received over a million downloads and Sarah herself has undertaken a number of impressive adventures along the way including the Marathon Des Sables and hiking the Appalachian Trail. In this episode, Sarah shares what inspired her to...

Yvette Curtis is the founder of Wave Wahines CIC, a surf and fitness club based in North Devon which aims to provide affordable and accessible surf training for women and girls. She has also recently launched a diversity programme funded by Sport England and Active Devon, introducing a group of Syrian girls to the joys of surfing and the ocean, some for the very first time. In this episode, Yvette shares what inspired her to start Wave Wahines , despite her own limited experience of surfing...

Shadi Ganjavian-Connor is a philanthropist, adventurer and public speaker who has undertaken some extraordinary challenges. In 2016, she climbed Mont Blanc to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust despite her fear of heights and hatred of the cold. She has since gone onto scale the Matterhorn and Mount Elberus and is currently planning to be part of an all female team aiming to ski to the North Pole in 2022 to conduct ice research. In this episode, Shadi talks about what motivated her to...