From the comfort of his Australian home, on 26 April adventurer Huw Kingston set off in his sea kayak from Gallipoli, to spend 12-months circumnavigating the Mediterranean.
The 365-day journey, named mediterr année, will see him kayak, mountain bike, ski and trek across 20 countries that bound the Mediterranean in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East – and over 15,000 km.
For Huw, it all started eight years ago. A long time lover of outdoor activities and interested in environmental issues, he has spent over 30 years enjoying travelling by human power means in wild places across the world, including skiing and trekking the Indian Himalayas.
So the idea to go around the Mediterranean came to him naturally, as an attempt to revisit his European roots, to connect with Mediterranean cultures. He had already done a 25,000 km journey around a continent – Australia – so why not do a journey around the sea?
It was only three years ago, becoming aware of the centenary of the Anzac landings, that gave Huw’s idea a real push – and a great connection for an Australian to start and finish his adventure at Gallipoli. The expedition is timed to coincide with the Anzac Centenary in 2015, 100 years since the Allied landings at Gallipoli.
But there was another reason for the Australian adventurer to set off on the tour. With his journey already linked to the First World War, Huw decided to raise money for the innocent victims of war. And the most vulnerable of those, in Huw’s own words, are children, who just happen to be in the wrong place in the wrong time.
Huw’s expedition will be raising much needed funds for the organisation Save the Children, to assist their work with children caught up in conflict zones across the world.
“I’ve done a lot of fundraising in the past through expeditions and journeys, but this will be definitely be the biggest fundraising attempt, and with much more focus on fundraising itself,” Huw says.
This week, Huw has just finished his over 50-day-long Greek leg of the adventure, kayaking from the border with Turkey all the way to Igumenitsa, following the mainland coast.
When we speak, he’s looking on to Albania, ready to leave Greece but not the hospitality of its people.
“It’s my first time in Greece since 1998, and I have had the most beautiful of times with fantastic hospitality that has been bestowed upon me, just random hospitality, of random people that didn’t know I was coming. I just land in someone’s backyard, on the coast, and suddenly I’m having dinner with them, or
I’m being put up in hotels. Greek people have been incredibly generous all the way through, for what I’m doing.
“I’ve been blessed with wonderful times here. I’m 52 days into my journey, with 300 days still to go – if it went like this all the way round it would be amazing,” Huw tells Neos Kosmos.
To give a boost to his fundraising efforts whilst in the home of the marathon, Huw went out of his kayaking path, to walk the 42 km ancient marathon route, from the town of Marathon to Athens.
To add an additional challenge, he did a 100 km marathon paddle across the Gulf of Corinth in one day. Quite an effort for someone who is used to paddling around 40 km per day. And even more so for a person who, in the two months before his big Mediterranean adventure took off, had stepped into his kayak on only two occasions.
You would have thought that 12 months on the go would have required extreme physical preparations. But there is another logic to it, as Huw reveals.
“The journey itself is a very long one, so there is plenty of time to get fit. Once I reach Slovenia, I will have been paddling for three months. When I step out of my kayak in July, it will be time for my legs to walk for three months through the Alps; the legs that have sat in the kayak for so long. So, even if I had prepared before I left it wouldn’t count anymore,” he says with laugh.
While in Greece, Huw was welcomed by the Australian Embassy, where he shared the stories of his travels so far. He jokes that he invited himself to the Embassy, in need of assistance.
“Just before I crossed the border from Turkey to Greece, some of the locals told me that I may be shot at by coast guards if I’m crossing in a small boat, because of the refugees. So I thought it would be good to have a flag, to say I’m Australian. I contacted the embassy for this reason, and was invited to
Athens where the ambassador presented me with a small Australian flag.”
Despite challenges like this, Huw says the biggest challenge of his journey so far was trying to balance the amount of time spent taking advantage of wonderful hospitality but also keeping on moving.
“On many occasions in Greece, I would just pull up on a beach, in a small village, just to have a quick stretch of the legs, or a bite to eat. And the next thing I know it’s three hours later and I just roll out of someone’s house having had a long lunch.
Because of the immense hospitality of the Greek people, it got to be quite dangerous to stop – I just didn’t know if I would ever get going again.”
With $30,000 already raised, Huw hopes his Mediterranean expedition will finish with $100,000 for Save the Children.
To follow Huw Kingston’s daily adventures, visit www.facebook.com/mediterranneejourney
For more information on the project and to donate visit www.mediterrannee.com.au. All funds raised will support children affected by conflict through Save the Children.