It’s what I’ve been doing for years without putting a name on it, I’ve cycled from Northern France to the most southern point of mainland Europe with my dad, an epic journey creating memories I will treasure forever. It sounds like a feat of incredible fitness and endurance, a journey of well over 1,000 miles, the reality however, is that we only travelled for an average of 45km (30 miles) per day.

If we passed a nice looking cafe, we would stop and drink coffee, a cafe con leche for me and a long black for dad. If we passed a beautiful viewpoint, we would stop, take in the view, and possibly brew up a coffee. You could really describe it as a tour of Europe’s coffee shops.

Some of the worst days we had were when we had to be somewhere at a specific time, requiring us to push on for long days and cycling into the evening, cycling past lush wild camping spots and instead camp in a layby or somewhere we’re not very hidden or safe. We tried to avoid this at all costs, often not booking flights home till halfway through the trip to avoid unrealistic timelines and the stress that comes with that.

Recently on a trip to the Dolomites with my partner - a slow travel hiking and wild camping trip with a general direction but no real agenda - we noticed the most beautiful butterflies I’ve ever seen. We stopped in our tracks and watched them for 15 minutes, watching their behaviour, looking at all the different details, trying to commit the image to our minds, letting them get comfortable with our presence and come closer to us.

We could do this because we hadn’t set an arbitrary distance to cover each day and march to the next highlight.

It’s easy to approach adventure like that under the guise of ‘seeing more’, however, there is enormous delight in seeing more but moving less.

When we think of adventure, we tend to think of crazy expeditions going higher, faster, further or deeper. But I would argue that adventure has no official bar when something is considered ‘adventure’. To one person, going for a 1 hour drive could be adventurous, for someone else a stormy night in the Brecon Beacons might hold little “adventure” value.

Given that adventure is so subjective, we can bring a sense of adventure to whatever we’re up to.

For me, I’d rather see 1 view and really be present than racing to the next 2 peaks to tick them off or give a half-arsed ‘wow’ then rush off. You get a photo, but do not experience it.

Going slow doesn’t mean seeing less, going back to the butterflies, it gave us an experience of awe and wonder, one that we had while others walked right past. They covered more ground but missed a wonderful experience in the process.

Slow adventure isn’t all about butterflies. For me, adventure is a combination of opening yourself to the unexpected, choosing uncertainty and making the stories that make life rich. On this trip we weren’t short of stories:

We were so close to a lightning strike we could feel the air fizz and our hands tingle, we slept in a bivouac (similar to a Scottish bothy) at the top of a mountain 2,700 metres high to wait out a storm. I will always remember that feeling of being at the top of the world in the eerie orange pre-storm light, surveying the vast landscape where, apart from the hut we slept in, could see no evidence that humans had ever walked the earth.

This isn’t the only way to see the world, heck I’ve taken part in ultra events where the whole aim is to cover the most ground possible, and I loved it too! But slow adventure is a wonderful way to meet the world.

Next time you’re planning an adventure, try relaxing the plan a little if you can, leave space to slow down or change the plan a little. Having that flexibility can be uncomfortable, but it might just give you a different perspective.

Let whatever happens happen. Not everything needs to be optimised.

My partner and I are in our sleeping bags, I lean against the trunk and she dozes with her head on my lap. The sun starts to rise for the summer solstice.

We’d spent the night in the park, camping under a bit of tarp held up with paracord and a short length of old tent pole.

The previous night, as we walked through the park to our camp spot, there was an excitement and tension that comes with doing something you’re not really supposed to do. We were constantly checking over our shoulders. This was heightened by the fact that our minds play horrible tricks on us, and other people making their way through the park are suddenly terrifying, particularly for my partner, who, like most women in London, walking anywhere after dark means they’re on high alert.

We were sensitive even to each change of temperature in the air, it was a warm night but as we got closer to the lake, the air cooled by it made for a sinister feeling, we actually turned around at one point because in the heightened state we were in, my partner said “it feels like death”. I was completely sure it was just the air currents going over the lake, but I said we should turn around anyway. I’d have felt like an idiot if we got murdered (for a few seconds anyway).

Rewinding back 18ish hours to the morning, we had been planning to use Friday night to go for a date night at a cocktail bar my partner wanted to show me, but we were chatting as we were getting ready for work and the idea of camping in Richmond Park for the solstice that evening came up. But it was pretty bad timing, we were exhausted, she was off to a hen do the next night, we had no time to get our camping gear sorted in advance, there were lots of reasons why it wasn’t a great idea and we should have more of a chilled night at the cocktail bar and get to bed at a reasonable time. We left it on a question mark, and went off to work.

Later in the day, she calls me, “have you got two minutes”,”literally two, yes”, “well I was thinking, what are we going to remember more in years to come? Going for a cocktail, or camping in Richmond Park on the solstice” I laughed, we had our answer. We were going to camp in Richmond Park, a little stupid? Yes. But a little adventure? Also yes.

I mentioned all the scary stuff earlier, but in reality that only formed a tiny spec in the whole experience; once we found our camp spot in the moonlight, we settled down to sleep in an old oak wood with our heads peeking out of our sleeping bags, gazing at the stars through the tree canopy. There was a gentle rustle of the wind and the scary thoughts and adrenaline had abated now we were used to our surreal surroundings.

Just after 3, we packed away our gear loosely and in the first streaks of morning light, walked down to the lakes to see the sun rise, as we sat there in our chosen spot, back in our sleeping bags now to keep us warm, the dawn chorus erupts. A wonderful cacophony of all the incredible birds there are in Richmond park, the geese wake up, swifts, swallows, chaffinches, blackbirds with their beautiful birdsong, even the lowly wood pigeon sounds lovely in the golden morning light.

We watch a magnificent yellow sunrise after the shortest night of the year, ready for the longest day, seeing in the peak of the sun’s power. I wonder; how did I get so lucky to live on a planet as beautiful as this, and be so privileged to have the means to go out and enjoy it, I don’t have to work two jobs to make ends meet, my body can move, I can see, I can hear. Wow.

I’m so glad I didn’t let the logistics and practicalities of normal life get in the way, this is the juice, this is life, the stuff I might see if my life flashes before my eyes. I won’t remember feeling knackered the next few days, but I will remember that solstice night in Richmond Park. Worth it.

I feel grounded, content and full. I take this as a powerful reminder to spend more time in nature, more time on adventures, and a reminder to ask myself:

“what am I going to remember in years to come”.

In my last newsletter I spoke about Mycelium and mycorrhizal networks - networks of fungi underground connecting the roots of different fauna together, sharing nutrients and communicating with each other.

So one tree can raise distress signals detectable by the other trees through the mycorrhizal network (the tree internet), another tree picks up that signal AND actually responds by sending any useful nutrients it has in excess to the distressed tree. It’s essentially putting a message on the group chat saying “hey guys, anyone got any nitrogen to spare I’m getting pretty low out here” - mental!

This raises a question: If trees are connected and can communicate (with neuron-like structures) does that make a forest one living organism? Should we consider trees and plants as organs? If so, how is a forest different from any animal.

Let’s compare a woods to a rabbit:

A rabbit moves, reproduces, eats, flees predators. The woods expands into areas where there is more sunlight, reproduces, sucks in nutrients (eats). It even reacts against predators in minor ways. It does everything a rabbit can do, just a little slower.

However something I can’t deny is that a rabbit has a brain and a tree doesn’t - at least not brain as we think of one, there is a whole internet rabbit hole (pun intended) you can go down trying to find out if trees have brains. It’s complicated, and quite frankly I don’t know what to believe.

What I can’t deny though, is that it’s made me change how I look at the trees as I walk through a woods, I know they’re all interconnected, communicating, sharing the resources available, whether it’s a single living body, or even a community it almost doesn’t matter. While I have always loved being around trees, climbing them, touching them to ground myself, I have a new respect for a complex ecosystem that the more I learn about, the more I know I don’t know.

I’ve very new to learning all about this and there is so much to learn and understand, I’m just trying to share with you a little of what I’m thinking about and how my thoughts are changing.

For now, I’m treating not just trees, but all plants, with a little more reverence, respect and love because, who knows, maybe they do have feelings…

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If no, you're not alone. I discovered this the other day and have been telling anyone who will listen ever since. Enter mycelium (pronounced my-see-li-um) - these are little hair-like fungus strands. They connect with roots creating a fungus root structure called Mychorrhizas, the fungus provides trees and plants with nutrients like nitrogen from deeper in the soil where the roots can't get to. The tree exchanges this for sugars and fats that the fungi need.

Because mycelium are so long they connect different fauna together, allowing trees to even share nutrients if one tree has excess and another is lacking.

Studies have also found that when one tree is damaged by an animal eating its leaves - the fauna nearby was detected producing defensive hormones, how crazy is that!?

They say that mychorrizal networks stretch whole continents.

They also are a huge carbon sink, slowing down the decomposition process that releases carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere and retaining this carbon under the soil.

There are symbiotic relationships with certain plants that mean the plants can’t survive at all without mycorrhizal networks, some heather and orchids can’t reproduce without certain types of Mycelium, there is only one Lady Slipper Orchid left in Britain probably due to fertilizers killing the mycelium fungus in the soil.

All this raises the question: If trees communicate with neuron-like structures, does that make a forest one living organism with trees as organs? If so, how does a rabbit vary from a forest?

I’ll discuss this dramatic left turn next week in part 2.

Thanks for reading :)

G

It makes me think of empathy, as I feel that’s the core feeling you need to compel us to act in a way that’s responsible for the collective. It feels like something we must have once been incredibly good at as a human race when we lived in tribes of 150odd people. But also something we’re quite poor at in recent times.

I think it comes from how many lives we interact with on a daily basis:

Someone commuting to work in London is likely to see thousands of faces before they’ve even got to the office. That’s not even counting the ones seen on the news or instagram as we stand there on a crowded tube.

There are so many more inputs now, simply seeing so many more people.

Our natural empathy and compassion we previously had for the people in our tribe HAS to be subdued, it would be overwhelming and we couldn’t function if we felt the same level of empathy for all those around us.

Instead, we naturally turn inwards and concentrate on ourselves. We find ourselves trying to dive headfirst into work, be more efficient, go to the gym, see friends, not get burned out, save, earn more, get that promotion.

We never get a chance to pause and look around to even take stock of what we’re doing, let alone have space for empathy with others. I’m not saying this is wrong at all by the way, that is me.

I think this is why so many people today are seeking connection with others, the way society has evolved makes it incredibly difficult to both see others and feel seen by others.

We see SO much going on in the world, feel so powerless and are then less inclined to do the small act that might make the world 0.00000000…1% better.

Deep down we know this isn’t what we have evolved for, that’s why so many of us are constantly looking for connection, or some kind of purpose to all of this.

All of this explains why I love sitting round a fire with friends, sharing stories and connecting with each other or going on little adventures or appreciating the little things - like that bug I was about to swat away, it’s actually got really cool eyes. All of that, it makes me feel a little more like me, the tribal me.

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