The Next Adventure

Life does not wait for you to make your mind up. The longer it takes to make a decision, the further away goals get.

I've spent a while deliberating what my next challenge might be. Deliberating, but not deciding, not acting. All while, those pesky life ambitions taunted me from an ever increasing gap between my imagined adventures and reality.

I couldn't decide whether to stay at home and write articles for the content farms for pittance or move to London and try to make it in the Social Media marketing world or what challenge to face next, there are so bloody many!

What I really want to do, of course, is to go on challenging and unusual adventures then turn them into books and write fiction. Unfortunately getting paid for these endeavours is an after effect of the work you produce and, unless I could sustain myself on adrenaline and air, I'd need something in the short term to pay my way while I compile a body of work.

I'd often be asked at the end of presentations "Would you ever go back to IT?" to which I'd always answer "No way!" Well, it seems I spoke too soon.

Having great friends at my former employers who heard about my dilemma meant they wanted to help and they offered me my old job back. With the adrenaline of The Cycle Diaries wearing off, I accepted.

The familiarity is somewhat comforting, as is the corporate pound but it did entail a massive amount of pride swallowing on my part. Let it be known that there's little in the world that tastes quite so bitter as having to eat your own words.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel. I am working with the aim of saving for several future adventures.

The beauty of cycle touring is that anyone could do it, even me. There were some hairy moments along the way (mostly in Turkey) but there was never any point on the trip where I didn't think we would make it to Sydney.

For my next adventure I wanted something entirely more challenging, something that would push me past the bounds that I have considered my limits and so far out of my comfort zone that when I look back at the zone, it'll be a tiny speck.

I have decided to go to the North Pole.

One of them, there are 4 poles and all but one has been visited. The Pole of Inaccessibility has not been conquered. So I'll be joining Jim McNeill and other Ice Warriors to be part of team that gets there.

Frankly, it scares the shit out of me. The thought of walking miles over frozen sea ice, creaking and cracking underfoot, the cold temperatures that will dip to -50 below zero and the threat of polar bears. That is why I have to do it.

There are the uncertainties of success; I have to raise a significant sum of cash, £20k to go. Then, if I get there, will there be enough ice at the pole for us to walk it, or will we have to paddle there? So many questions fill me with doubt. Most of these are out of my control.

Facing up to challenges that you cannot hope to sway are part of what attracted me to the Quest for the Pole of Inaccessibility. I want to test my mettle in a harsh environment, under duress with a real risk of failure, I want to feel the pinch of having to raise £20k and I want to feel the fear of walking over a frozen ocean.

See if I have got what it takes here: www.ArcticAndy.com. Frankly, I have no idea if I do. But it sure does feel good to be out on the road again...