 and bang look there we are straight in hello friends i hope this finds you absolutely wonderful on this new year's eve 2021 or am i supposed to say new year's eve 2022 i think it's the 21 isn't it may i be the first probably probably not the first but as they say to wish you an incredibly uh wonderful new year um tonight we've got a great live show i've got two friends with me that that we've been trying to or that we decided to do a podcast together quite a while ago now and because i've been so busy with um lots of veteran stuff uh we've only got around to it now and what better time to have a joint podcast than on new year's eve and so it's my great pleasure to welcome rich adams to the show and dan mcneil how are you gentlemen not to barge yourself yes um so i guess i should just say so um rich you've done a lot of work exposing the if i call it the dog industry i don't want to say the dog and the m word together because as we said earlier that it just gets us it's silly things like that get us bloody demonetized all the time but anyway let's say the the the dog industry in in korea but you've also um what's what's scooted across both korea and and canada and we've got dan who's a former soldier who's as we speak walking around the uk so i don't know who wants to say hello first i'll start uh we'll get over it um yeah my name is dario mcneil um i'm 25 from dumfries and galloway and uh i'm currently walking the entire uk coastline for the armed forces charity saffa um and uh yeah it should roughly take me two and a half to three years to complete so roughly between 11 000 and 19 000 miles so yeah and dan you've got quite a what do we say a traumatic story yourself i'm guessing samper helped you overcome the dark times yeah so uh so when i when i left the military i got diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis um which is a type of autoimmune disease that affects my back hips and spine and stuff like that so ended up um uh deforming my posture and stuff like that and i just went down a really bad path of addiction uh depression anxiety suicidal thoughts that kind of thing and yeah just um i don't like a cry for help one day and saffa came in and just helped me pay my bills and just helped with my well-being and got me back on the straight and arrow and managed to turn my life around really and just uh yeah i started meditating doing yoga breathing techniques going to the gym that kind of thing and yeah this walk came to my mind and i thought i'm gonna do it and just yeah sold every item in my house and gave my house back to the kinsman i just left uh done fris about nine months ago and yeah so a hoose is is that like a house uh hoose i yeah yeah hoose uh gaffe but yeah no i shouldn't joke um but what yeah what a great um um what a great evolution to your story i should say and um how long ago was this um so um it all kind of started i left the army in 2017 um and uh just the army the um i would probably say it was more of a neezer lifestyle in the army um than it is in civilian life like i was struggling to pay bills to be honest i didn't uh really know how i worked console tax or anything like that so i was just behind on everything um i fell out with my ex at the time we split up and i had a hoose and or a gaffe uh and uh all that to look after and look after my mental health and all that kind of stuff and i just you know i wasn't really i'm normally a quite um introverted person but also like uh people to you know communicate with and stuff like that but at that point i just didn't have that i was losing friends and yeah it was pretty tough um um i didn't really uh know anything else and yeah i couldn't really see the light at that point so um i had lots of thoughts that were going through my head at the time i had no gas and electricity at my house at one point um and yeah just my mental health was in the bin basically um and i i'd done like a cry for help on twitter one day and uh saffa just came in and just yeah they got someone in contact with me and um someone came a caseworker and just sorted my bills out and just uh just helped my well-being kept asking if i was all right and you know just yeah uh making sure i was all right so yeah brilliant well we're gonna come we'll come back to your story and your um your tab as you're saying what regiment were you in uh 19 regiment royal artillery so the scottish gunners oh sorry uh tidworth yeah so you guys would say tab i'm guessing whereas the marines would say yom yeah and you're doing an epic tab at the moment yeah yes i'm rich um how did you end up to be on a scooter was it was it canady you crossed first or was it career uh it was career but uh first i just want to say thank you for having me on and uh it's a real honor to be uh with you two veterans so uh thank you very much ah you're very welcome you sound very english rich did you say that you were english yeah yeah i'm from lester yeah and uh i i guess the only military connection i have i was in the army cadets in south wigston and uh and uh you know uh didn't join the military but uh certainly having a little bit of a foundation in the cadets i think really uh really helped yes and what what took you to canada it was a childhood dream i've always dreamed about living in the rockies and being out here in the snow and the minus forty weather uh so yeah it was always on my radar it was always a childhood dream um i'm a tree surgeon by trade and so uh it's one of those things where a lot of the guys i work with them myself it was always an aim and a dream to come out here and to to work with trees in canada and it's it's nice to have a proper winter isn't it especially if you like getting out and about and getting on skis and stuff it is i've i've uh it's funny i come here with all the snow and the cold and i've never skied so really but yeah never uh it's uh i don't it gets very cold and maybe i'm a bit too fair weather but um but no again back to your original question uh i was living in asia and living in korea and that's why i first learned i guess about the the the brutal dog industry and so korea was the first country that i um i went across yes a bit of a bizarre one isn't it and and and certainly for us i don't know what what europeans westerners or whatever we we are as a collective because the idea of eating a pet is obviously quite abhorrent but they they're not seeing it like that what what what is this a cultural thing i think it is i mean there's a lot of debates about when it started you know there's uh ancient references um to it being eaten you know centuries ago but then there's talk that it started after the korean war it doesn't really matter when it started i think the the the ultimate thing with it is that it's it is brutal and korea's uh i believe one of the only countries that actually farms dogs uh for this and and when i say farm i use that term very loosely it's basically just tiny cages uh with dogs in with a metal bottom and they are uh brutalized you know fed absolute garbage food and they're kept basically on a line between life and death just and then they are again killed brutally and the belief is that there's two beliefs around it uh one of them is for men it's supposed to give you extra stamina and bed and then during the hottest periods of the year it is um supposed to keep you cool so a very uh a very horrific industry yes i mean we hear the same thing in china don't we with the rare the rare species and the animal parts trade and i lived in hong kong as you probably gathered for for a while and i've lived in china and it's yeah it's to use a cliche it's a different world and it's definitely a different psychology going on but it god it just seems so bloody awful doesn't it really you know it changed my life chris you know i in in every way possible i when i went over there um i i became aware of it and i guess at first i don't know whether it seemed like a novelty but you know i was asking questions about it and i guess my naivety i i just didn't realize what was going on and then a gentleman i worked with his name is kevin lehi he showed me a video and it was a a dog being hung and as the the news tightened around the dog's neck it's put it it put its paws up like this to pull on the rope to try and take the pressure off and that still breaks my heart to this day and that moment to me was truly life changing so it from that moment on i spoke to a korean about it and said you know what why do you do this and they turned around to me and and quite rightly so and i'm glad they did they said you can't judge because you eat cows pigs and chickens what's the difference and i guess in their in mindset you know it's all fair game and it you know i pointed the finger and then i had all the other fingers pointing back at me for my own hypocrisy and it kind of made me look and go wait a minute you know i'm i'm doing these things but then i'm drawing some imaginary line and saying you know these other cute and cuddly and furry thing animals that they're they're not okay to eat so it really then changed my life and and from that moment i stopped eating animals and i never forgot about these these dogs and the horrific conditions and then you know i i i guess moved on with my life but wanted to do something and then when i was had the opportunity that's when i went back to korea and tried to do something tried to raise awareness and that was the scooting across the country yeah the scooting thing was just a gimmick uh originally i was going to run across it uh years ago i'd walked across england as well um which well i did hadron's wall so i went coast to coast across hadron's wall um and i thought well i can do the same thing across korea uh and i thought maybe i could run it walk it and then the the scooting idea came up and it seemed like a good gimmick to have a six foot one ginger at the time bearded guy on a kid's scooter going across the country i thought i was going to get some attention when you say ginger i've seen a glint in your eye you remember you're younger younger years rich you i don't even see the gray being shining off to the sunshine the good old days when life was free and careless and my gosh yes oh for a new year's eve i don't want to i don't want to get too to uh i don't want people to get too upset but it you know we do need to highlight it's a very bizarre thing um it's also that dogs get hammered for their skins don't they for their fur they do yeah so a lot of people don't seem to realize this but um a lot of leather products that people are buying in in stores now whether that be belts gloves especially um they're actually products you know byproducts of this trade coming out of Asia uh because it's it's cheap and it's it's available yeah i saw a documentary on it and it obviously goes about saying it was just awful um just the sort of not callous isn't the right word but the the thoughtlessness when they just grab this dog and it's a beautiful dog it's like a like a like a husky type dog you know like the smaller versions of the husky i don't know what they're called but that sort um and they just grab it out the cage put it on this some sort of device and within like three seconds they they've just ripped ripped ripped the whole skin off this animal and it's just gosh probably better not it's probably better not say too much because we're going to get complaints but you know it's it's hard yeah there's a bullying uh sorry chris there was a belief that the more the dog suffers the better the meat is so you know there's there's a lot of things done to actually make the animal suffer so that you know i guess you can get this you know the the hormones that have released the adrenaline into the into the flesh yeah gosh so wegg um we'll put the details for anybody listening that wants to support rich in his quest to you know um breathe these poor animals for you know forever we'll put the link your all your links below mate yeah yeah thank you um have you started your i was looking at your patreon have you started that yet i have to be honest with you i'm not very good with it or anything so um a friend of mine set that up initially um but i don't really monitor it um but you you can find me on facebook as rich adams um i'm on instagram um you can find me on there uh either under rich adams or rich the vegan and i have a website rich the vegan dot com and there's sections on there which talk about the dogme trade and also the amazing koreans you know who are fighting against this and that they're they're the ones really you should be praised because they're the ones living this daily uh and they're the ones who are fighting to end this and and i should mention a wonderful woman called uh jenny kim she is the woman who i reached out and she helped me rescue dogs and um she still has a couple of dogs that are rescued at her sanctuary that i guess were traumatized and just couldn't be adopted and they've they've stayed with her so she's amazing and she has a trainer called jake who is just you know uh these people have dedicated their lives to helping these dogs so yeah and i have links to them on my website they can be donated to and and helped yeah well if anyone out there can help rich get i get in contact because um something simple like patreon you can it's a really good platform and for something like you're doing god there'll be no end to people that will want to support you um yes we had a chat called jay on the show and he he rescues children believe it or not goes abroad you know children that say maybe get kidnapped by a wayward parent or whatever and and jay goes abroad and gets the kid back but yeah he after coming on the show he got a patreon set up and i think i think it's firing away wow incredible so on to the adventuring then so dan where did you where did you start is is it a big thing when you when you're gonna walk around the uk how do you decide where to start um it was um it was weird like last summer i done um like a lot of kind of philosophy the way how like obviously how like society works and stuff like that and i just uh i lost my job through covid um like it was uh locked down i couldn't uh work anymore i got let off and i just wanted something better to do than a nine of five really and um i meditated for four hours straight and walking around the entire uk ghosting came to my mind to have something to do and um i just yeah got out from it and just started writing it all down made the facebook pages instagram and then yeah just uh sold everything in my house and just went yeah i tried not to think too much about it uh because if i did i think i would have just um stopped and maybe i had second thoughts but i just yeah just went for it and yeah it's got me up here and it's been the best decision i've ever made in my life to be honest so just be terrified did you start in scotland uh yeah uh so it was Dolbite Sunday Hills uh so it's like Dumfries and Galloway so that's where i started um and yeah i had to when i ran the length of country i i just met the most wonderful people in scotland and i was i have to say i was a bit surprised because no one had ever told me scottish people were so nice everyone was nice trying to put me up in their backyard you know let me put the tent in the back garden this is you go in a shop and someone's get you out into the shop owner they're like i put your tent in my garden if you know it's just what really wonderful obviously met a lot of scottish people in the military but it's kind of under a different context in the miniature you don't you don't know any background to people do you know what i mean you just well you know yourself you know you own yeah you're absolutely right chris i mean like uh when i was on uh luis and harris um i literally only camped like three times um the rest of the time i was in people's cultures or uh bedrooms sheds um i got showered hot those basically every day and it was it was amazing up there and um just um not particularly the mainland of scotland but the islands specifically they're more given i think that's almost a religious sense as well because they follow christianity quite you know it's quite big up there so um so they're more kind of prone to give but that's not given away from mainland scotland as a whole you know the whole of scotland everyone's been fantastic and have yeah it's uh it's been amazing so it has and rich do you do any meditation you know i um i don't and it's something i really want to do i just don't know how to do it um but it you know i keep seeing it it's funny actually you know how things in life you keep seeing things and then things line up because i keep getting ads for you know i guess apps that do meditation and and i keep seeing more and more people who are into meditation so yeah it's funny how you bring that up as well today yeah well i did a my i i try and do a little running video everywhere you've probably seen them the ones to do on instagram and um today's little running video i was just saying that i've made a new year's resolution for the planet and we're all going to meditate more and i'm i'm fairly new i'm fairly new to the whole sort of spiritual side of things but i have to say it it it's almost like a get out of jail free card for anything being spiritual it's just brilliant um i've tried everything out everything else in this life and yeah i've had some fun but you got some bloody come downs as well but i made this resolution that we've all got to be quiet more and stop the bloody noise get closer down you can correct me here but i call it getting closer to source getting closer to the this incredible universe of which we are an equal part yeah and the issue is when you come away from the universe the further you go away the more you walk you you look on a dodgy wicket because rather than being this big firm thing that's been here from time immemorial and will be here to eternity as as this will maybe not in this form but these molecules will the more you go away the more you start to burden that yourself as oh like it's you so the important thing in the and and it's the other way around it's the universe is important you're not once you start thinking you are important that's when it all starts going wrong and because your stress goes up because you take it on board yourself then your bad habits increase because it's your stress goes up we always resort to comfort eating one more cup of coffee instead you know this sort of stuff that's all that's all the other other vices whatever ever they may be so yeah it's a winner meditation and i didn't realize when you when when you're hearing the bible them's talking about prayer no and you think it's like dear god can i please have a new bike for christmas was that father christmas maybe i'm getting the beard two beards mixed up but but no it's not that at all prayer it means meditation it means go somewhere and just be quiet and stop the noise stop that infernal noise that that that we live with without even know you know sort of recognizing it um so dan is that your is that your sort of experience of it yeah i've probably been meditating now for roughly about three years now and yeah you're absolutely right well someone described to me really well like imagine that you're flowing down the river this is your life basically and what society tells you and what most of the things people tell you is to control things and try to go to the bank and then swim away from the current and what you need to do is just flow with the universe with life and you know and not hold on to things and don't try and control it if you know i mean and yeah that's that's the best way that someone's explained it to me and even if things adversity comes even if bad things happen or you know um because every day can be different you know and um we do get bad days and it's the only way to go through it is to go through and just to flow with it and um yeah every day can be different and yeah it's yeah just um mate while we're talking i'm just i've got your instagram up i hope that's okay yeah that's fine it's a bit late now if it is not okay because this is lying so um but uh bloody incredibly ruggedly beautiful up in scotland isn't it yeah um unbelievable are you are you walking around all the islands did i gather from that then um most of the islands some of that like i think there's like 500 islands in scotland alone so it's just trying to get to every island i can with a ferry um or uh an unmanned island if i can or uninhabited um i'm on my 26th island um and uh yeah i've um i've actually met my girlfriend on the way uh around the coastline as well um i met her in strickeau uh dunun which is like me or for anyone that lives in england it's near glasgo um and uh yeah she messaged the page i have a facebook page and uh she messaged and just saying uh can we walk around the coastline for an afternoon and just uh just turned into four days uh we went to three islands together iona call and uh sky and uh she's packed in her job and she's uh she's just decided to join me in november there and yeah we're we're in orcney just now so so yeah and i i like to do a bit of clairvoyance stuff right yeah and i'm picturing uh charlie charlotte yeah charlotte yeah yeah did i get that right yeah you did no hang on i didn't have instagram on oh what a great what a bloody lovely story that is yeah so you met your your true love um while we while you were on your your tab what how the police been to you because when i um hang on let's get us back where i had i met the police so many times when i ran from jonah groats to lounge n the first time do you know uh you must know wick uh yeah i haven't been there yet but i'll be heading there soon yeah it's just out it's 20 miles down the road from jonah groats so i set off rather late in the day about one in the afternoon i've got my backpack on and i started running down the road and i made wick by sort of early evening i had lunch in the weather spit a dinner in the weather spoons there and then i went out and pitched my tent in the local park and the next thing i know i can see this blue lights pull up and these coppers jump out the vehicle and they've got their bloody mag lights on and i just thought oh my god i'm gonna get arrested on my first day and they come on and here he is here's the guy you're that guy and i said what guy they said you're the guy we saw running from jonah groats so um so i had this little speech that i made every time the police stopped i went as early as i could i went in with the i'm a former rural marine and i'm doing this for the rule you know what was it i'm doing it for a veterans jarrett because then you become like bulletproof they can't they're not allowed to arrest you then um but yeah how have you got on with them oh the police have been unbelievable to be honest i like um the island police especially like on loose um there's there was a day where it was about say five ten millimeters worth of rain it was just absolutely fucking it doing and it was late in the day um and i think it was like 40 50 mile per hour wind as well um and i was just like a few miles away from Stornoway and um i couldn't find anywhere a camp and it was all flattened if i was to camp up my tent would have just been flattened and the police came around and they stopped and like you know that guy that's walking the coastline aren't you and he's like yeah he's like have you found a place to stay well like no i haven't found anywhere and he's like right jumping jumping and he took me like five roughly five miles up the road dropped me off to like an abandoned building dropped me off there um and uh yeah he came back later with coffee sweets and uh just i just made sure i was all right uh the other guy was a vet a vet as well so um i they both looked after me and it was just yeah amazing um like obviously i grew up in like bell's hill i'm freezing that so um yeah it's weird seeing the police in a different light in a different perspective especially um like going into people's houses and people being police officers or being ex-police you know it's totally changed my perspective on police because um you know you're kind of almost grown up to fear them or you know to you know fear them and like just be kind of scared of them in some ways uh i think that's just my way of thinking about them but obviously having that perspective you know it's just yeah they're absolutely amazing so they're um brilliant um just before we go back to Rich um have you met Chris Lewis uh i haven't no um uh like i've phoned him well i he's phoned me once um and uh also he keeps in contact with me comments on some of my stuff on my facebook and stuff he's he's a good lad so yeah he's he's a friend of one who doesn't know he's uh walking the coastline as well for saff and he's been doing it for four years now roughly um which is almost a similar story with me but yeah uh throwing bloke yeah you have to be careful when he phoned you up he's he's normally trying to borrow money it's how he's trying to do me yeah i've just shown i've just shown chris's um podcast that i did with him i did a podcast with chris a while back and he's not just met his true love uh on his travels but he's got a dog as well he's found a dog as well yeah um kate's pregnant as well so like four of them now it'll be across to the fishing line as a force my god yes wonderful oh incredible yes yeah yeah yeah i'm just trying to picture the scene pushing a push chair a dog on the lead i'm sure they can train the dog to pull the push chair oh wow it's um it's the thing with all the coastwalkers like there never used to be many coastwalkers but now obviously there's about three others that i know and one of them uh jim morton he's a gorka uh well no he's not a gorka he's doing the walk for the gorkas for mainland britain um and um he's doing that and he's just absolutely hilarious he's retired he's um he's doing it he can't work instagram very well but he's just just everything's so special about walking around the coastline because every day is just totally different and yeah uh every one of the coastwalkers are absolutely amazing and it's just yeah it's brilliant now i'm just going to interrupt you there um i'm just was trying to get every time i get the chat up it's upside down which unless people come tuning in from australia they're not going to be able to read it but just wanted to say a very good evening to our lovely loyal friends at home um we've got andrew edwards there it's uh we've got ernie from south side uh is that antony angelo alexander mark um many many many many people we've got luke our podcast manager who's always uh always helping out in the chat clarence hello james happy new year to you too and etc etc etc apologies for every video there's timmy timmy's timmy's uh got the upside down vibe um tim if i put your comment now your smiley faces are now the right way up sorry i'm talking there i don't know why i'm looking like that but i've got one camera three three tv screens yes let's get on to that all important topic that i know you're just dying to discuss three letters that strike fear into the heart of any adventurer k i t i think i spelt that right if i haven't my son my six-year-old will have a word with me um equipment oh yeah how much stuff have you looked at and gone i don't need to be carrying this and it's gone in the charity shop or it's gone in the bin yeah that's exactly um like um uh i've got a pair of gym shorts that i walk around in most days and um uh i go about with joggers like a pair of adidas joggers like it's not really um it was just make do kind of thing as i left uh i've got a jet boil that's probably the most expensive uh bit kit that i've got um but the rest of the stuff you know everything that i've literally got is donated to me um my bag my foods all my utilities my diary all the what waterproof score texts uh boots just everything's been donated to me by the people of facebook and instagram and stuff so it's yeah that's just another um thing about kindness as well with people from scotland they're just unbelievable unbelievably given um so they are so yeah yeah it's big love to the people of scotland and a big thank you for looking at when i left it was a little bit emotional i don't do big emotion but there was a little bit there um people were just so nice and rich how about you when you when you're scooting across countries when when you scooted across canada i mean canada is even bigger than america that's which which part of it did you scoot across yeah so um yeah canada is the second biggest country in the world and uh it kind of was the the the natural evolution really because i've done korea and um one of the dogs who i rescued who i brought to canada uh called kathy um she passed away she she was in a really bad state when i found her she was in a cage there's pictures on my instagram but she was in a cage no shelter um i found her and it was like the you know a really hot day she had no shade no water no food and her eyes were bleeding and uh anyway jenny kim rescued her brought her back to canada unfortunately she didn't make it so the canada trip was uh in honor of her and uh i i made every mistake you could make chris uh going across canada or in the planning in that i didn't really plan and i decided to do uh when i went across england i like to go from east to west because you can follow the sun and uh anyway i did the same with canada so i started off on the east coast in halifax and went west but the only problem with that is is you go in into the headwind the winds go from the west uh so you go in into the wind every day and also you're going uphill because the continental divide is on the border of british columbian alberta well that's over 5000 kilometers so every day i started i'd end up at a higher elevation and uh so you noticed it when i you know i'd be going and i'd only roll two or three feet and then if i turned around and went the other way you'd roll you know you'd just keep going the wind would push you along so yeah i didn't really think that through before i started yes i bet that that i'll bet you're kicking yourself weren't you you know it was it was a nightmare and when i first started it was in april and i guess it was still cold and freezing and to link it back to your police uh question i actually got saved by an rcmp officer in nova scotia uh he and and his lovely wife uh you know a mountain they um they let me stay in their house for a couple of nights just at the beginning and so they were able you know i was scooting along and then he'd come pick me up bring me back feed me and then drop me back off and i'd carry on from where i left off so uh yeah it is amazing and what what was the total distance uh in kilometers sorry my brain has switched from miles to kilometers in kilometers it was it was 6494 uh that sounds more impressive if you do it miles i think it's like that's 10 million miles i know i think it's more impressive in kilometers i think it's i think it's only like 4 000 miles or something yeah it's left in miles only about 4 000 on a on a scooter that's pretty impressive were you i you had a loaded kit with you were you camping as you went yeah so i i kind of feel pampered now after listening uh to dana yeah i i um i had two panniers uh that i was able to put um over the front wheel and then i had um a little bag for the back and yeah i had a tent a small one-man tent um a sleeping bag uh a little um a pocket rocket like msr pocket rocket stove um and a little Stanley cook pot and some food and then a couple of change of clothes and then just you know in the tombs and tires but my kit evolved as i got going and um i would camp but like dan said you know often people would open their homes to me as i was going along and so it was kind of a mixture really of um staying in all different places yes you you're kit evolved as you went mine my didn't so much devolve but i did get rid of a lot of stuff my god i started off my backpack weighed about 16 kilos with with that was with two liters of water in and then as time went on and i realized it was going to put me in a pain cave big time i started to shed stuff so first of all it's like my book well i don't need a book to read i'll read something on my phone and then it's um blister plaster well i'm out of blister yet so i can always buy that and and in the end i got the 15 kilos down to about bloody eight or something um just because for me it become about survival if i don't get rid of some of this weight i'm not going to i won't be able to do this and i had a shin splint after 400 miles so i still had over half the length of the country to run with essentially a fractured leg um and at that point i was just going through everything like a little pot of toothpaste looking at right how half of that can come out take out a quart of a gram of toothpaste my little boy don't ever tell him this anyone who's watching i think he's worked it out for himself but when i hit the road he come running up to me went daddy wolf he's gonna look after you and he gave me his little wolf right this beautiful little husky actually i think i bought it for him in Slovenia or somewhere and it was one of those toys like all toys now they've got like beans in the bum do you know what i mean like like yeah like to weigh them down and at one point i've got out with a knife cut wolfie's bum open poured out these beans saved myself like four grams it might sound stupid to people listening but anybody's expeditions like these guys have done will will tell you it's all about the weight and if you get rid of those small things you know you spend half an hour doing going through your kit doing that you you've got this two kilos you can get rid of you know it's a kilo it's two kilo and two kilos when your legs are doing like a hundred and twenty thousand times a day or something you know millions of times a week that is a game it's a game changer i'm the that's i'm the opposite to you chris because i'm a bit of a hoarder and so i accumulate your stuff so i was i'd find stuff as i went so like one day i was going along and i found a big spanner and it was like you know like a i don't know like a two inch jaw on it i guess from one of the the big truckers dropped it and the thing was like i don't know two foot long i put that in my backpack and then you know i found an axe head like i've been dreaming it was really funny i've been dreaming about getting because i'm a tree surgeon i've been dreaming about getting a pilowski axe which is an axe head and like a little pick on one side of it and i've been dreaming about getting one of these axe heads and then as i was going through bc i found one on the side of the road and i so so you know that's another two kilograms i'm adding so i would accumulate stuff and find stuff on the road and and you know i found a little dog toy like a teddy bear kind of thing and you know he became my traveling companion so i was i was doing the opposite i was adding stuff that makes you a is it a matter of kids to or say this i can never remember which one's which it was great because what it did was i was i was seriously overweight for the scooter like you know the what i guess what they designed the scooter to the frame to take and uh but it was great because if i ever got to a hill the added weight you know i think at one point my fastest speed was about 75 kilometers an hour on my odometer so i don't know what that is in miles i i don't know maybe 50 miles an hour or something but the added weight really gave me that extra boost i'm just as weird chatting i'm playing your um a bit of your video it's it's very scenic it have you ever spent time in nor in norway rich no i've been to sweden and uh yes so you'll know it's quite quite similar isn't it a lot of the landscape it's beautiful yeah with canada it's beautiful and you know it it reminded me uh of scotland as well because i've been in scotland quite a lot and um i guess my family heritage comes from avidine and so i'd been up in scotland and yeah there was you know canada's quite unique each province is it feels like its own country and has its own landscape and its own geography and and um yeah there was a lot of it reminded me of sweden and reminded me of scotland as well what took you to sweden i had a swedish friend so uh a load of us uh we got a couple of mates together and we we went over to sweden on uh on ryan air i think the tickets cost us a pound so we flew over for a weekend it was great hey i remember those i spent quite a lot of time in scandinavia over the years i probably lived there about four four years of my life and i remember the ryan air phase when you could get a ticket for a quid but it actually was a quid you paid for it and then you could chuck all your baggage in and it didn't now yeah you might get a flight for a quid but it's not a quid now it's like $39.99 then you got to pay for your bag that's another $39.99 and then you got pay to check in and that's another $39.99 then you got to pay to use the toilet, that's $30. Then you got to pay to sit down that's a foot another $39.99 then you got to pay for every everyone else that gets on the plane that's a lot of $39.99 and then you got to pay for the fuel that's 3,900 and by the time you you've got your quid fly it's the total who's come to about 9 trillion pounds you may as well go with British Airways or something that's great that was early 2000s and yeah the tickets were like a pound and then you just took your little bag carry on and and then it was like a free-for-all you know everyone just kind of sprinted out and to try and get the seat see it was great yes yes um which part of Sweden were you we went to again it's nearly 20 years ago but we were in Gotthorpe I think I think that's how you pronounce it yeah yeah yeah it's spelled got a bug but it's yeah we went to watch I guess it was like the summer solstice so it was like the longest day and it never got dark and yeah it was absolutely incredible I really love Sweden and it was really it was a fantastic weekend it was great let's finish off folks we'll keep it to an hour then hopefully we'll get more people to watch it when the lockdown was on we could do really long podcasts and they were really popular and then of course now people you know now people aren't under house arrest anymore they haven't got time to be watching super long podcast which is a bit of a shame but what I was gonna say for the last 10 minutes have a think what your most harrowing moment was on your travels and I'll I'll try and go I'll go first let me think yes so when I was when I was running the length of the UK oh my god was I in Scotland yes there's a place called the devil's staircase Dan have you heard of it I have but I forgot where it is oh it's round about Glen Glen duh hang on a sec do I look it up is that gonna take ages what's the what's the biggest mountain in Scotland Ben Nevis isn't it when people well it's Ben Nevis yeah and what's the town that's there that lots of hunt like skiing and mountaineering William Fort William of course it is yeah so anyway I was around there Kinlock Leaven is the place I was looking for yeah I made it into King Lock Leaven soaking wet hypothermic it was a real challenge in my head should I keep going or should I go back to Fort William because once once I was on it was the West Highland Way it was completely different to running down the roads when you run down the roads worse that can happen is you stick your thumb out and you can hit your lift to the to a cafe or something get warm again you know or even go to a hotel if you if you was absolutely desperate right but of course when you go across the West Island way you're running across the top of the the Highlands basically I mean you go halfway up Ben Nevis for a start and I didn't know whether to push on because I only had like flimsy running gear and I my biggest fear especially as I'm quite skinny it was getting hypothermia and not having time to get the tense up because my hands got so numb right so I made it to King Lock Leaven and I tried to book into this backpacker and in the hour while they had shut for lunch I managed to go into their drying room which was like a caravan around the back take all my wet gear out hang it in the drying room turn the heaters up get every single thing I possessed bone dry again get nice dry clothes on and I thought ah I'll leg it over this mountain in the evening time I'll you know I'll just crack on is what I'm trying to say and I'll pitch pitch the tent wherever I get so I legged it over this huge mountain I was the only person on the trail it promptly poured down so everything I dried got soaking wet somebody's given me a bag for my tent because I had it in a little bag strapped to the outside of my backpack the little bag was fine thank you very much little nice bit of advertising there for you and the little bag was fine from a sleeping bag but this stuff sack that I was given wasn't waterproof but the person who gave it to me assured me it was so when I got to the other side of this mountain and I had to run I think it was 13 miles you come down a place called the devil's staircase and I ran that 13 miles non-stop up to my knees in water because it was all the trail would just became streams I had to take all my clothes off and just put my waterproof jacket I take my t-shirt off just put a waterproof on otherwise the t-shirt would be soaking wet with sweat and then I'd be in the same boat as if I had worn had worn it hadn't worn it well whatever anyway I finally made it across this mountain got to this lit found this little bit little tiny meadow and started to try and put my tent up my hands were so numb that it took took me ages and when I got in a tent pulled my sleeping bag out and it was soaking wet through by this time I couldn't move my fingers I so I was hyperfermia was you know setting in and I was just there shivering looking at soaking wet kit it's evening so it's getting dark now and I'm just thinking ah shit what to do what to do should I crawl into a soaking wet sleeping bag and I hope for that and as I'm sat there pondering it this voice outside the tent went cup of coffee mate I'm like you legend he said we're in the van I said I'll be there in a sec that was it my my saviours so yeah maybe over to you Rich you know it's the way you tell them Chris I don't I don't know if I follow that I just make something up that's what I do yeah I tell people I was in the Marines and they'd seem to believe it my I think there was a couple actually the I think emotionally definitely career was probably the whole trick was probably the hardest thing I've ever done emotionally because it seemed like wherever I went I was seeing these dogs that were forgotten about no one knew they were there in cages and because obviously of what I was doing I was looking for I could hear it and I could see dog farms and you know I remember one night going past one of these big dog farms and you can't see anything it's all blocked off but yeah I could hear the screams of the dogs and that was emotionally probably the hardest thing to live with that and you know to just want to kind of burst in and you know kick the door down and you know grab the blow but you know I'd be the loser in that one I guess ultimately but no I guess a funny one to end on was yeah with all the weight because I've been picking up all that junk I remember I was on the the Princeton Hope Highway and I was coming down a hill and it was when I hit that top speed of about 75 kilometers an hour which when you're on a little scooter is fast like that this scooters not designed to go that fast and with the weight I had on it you know I was about with my weight and the scooter weight I was probably like 350 pounds you know flying down this hill I got to about 75 kilometers and I'm thinking this is fast and then it curved at the bottom so I didn't even have like a runway it just curved and now that was a moment where I seriously thought I'm gonna die and I remember putting the brakes on but they're just those little flimsy you know rubber brake pads and I remember looking down and as soon as I put the brake pads on they instantly just melted yes so yeah that was that was a real I'm not quite sure I think God was watching over me because I made it round the bend luckily it sounds like an episode of only fools and horses the whole the whole trip was like a Monty Python sketch you know it was like uphill against the wind both ways it just seemed like I was constantly going uphill the whole trip Dan what's been what's been racking for you? It was probably when I had I was at Kinlock Bear very roughly like a month ago I don't know about the start of December and I was hidden to keep craft like the Cape Craft Trail around the top so it'll be northwest of Scotland and yeah there was this lovely beach called Sunwood Bay that I got to and it was roughly about some again 8 millimeters kind of 10 millimeters of rain and there's a river at the end of the beach and it was swollen it was like properly properly heavy so it was and I got my boots off ready to do a river crossing I got my flip-flops on and yeah it just started to kind of wade it it was up to my knees and it was so like I was falling over and stuff like that and then all of a sudden I slipped on one of the rocks and flip-flops went flying I started swimming and it was just horrible I think it was it was it must have been between five degrees or something like that it was absolutely Baltic as well and it was just yeah I started panicking to swim across this river like a wet dog and I got to the other side and I still had to go to Cape Wrath and go to a Boathe as well and I just sweating well not sweating but freezing cold and I got everything off got my dry stuff on just and then just made it to the Boathe but I couldn't I couldn't go to the Cape Wrath Trail I couldn't do it because it was just gonna be too dangerous to be honest I think if I went there it would have been a yeah it'd have been me like because I couldn't get in and dry in the Boathe either and it was just yeah horrendous probably worse experience I've had to like. Did you have that moment where you thought I'm gonna drown? Yeah I seriously I had because there wasn't any shops and plus it was the winter season as well my bag was roughly about 25 30 kilos so I had everything in it five days worth of food so that was gonna pull me down while I was trying to swim at the same time and yeah proper skinny but I'm here to tell the tale. And Dan how I mean what I'm gathering from Chris's story walking the UK coast this takes years to do yeah I didn't you know I didn't before I met Chris I didn't realize what an epic it I mean this is like a it's not just like an expedition it's a it's a part of your life isn't it like a significant part how how long have you been on the road or on the trail and how long have you do you envisage you've got left to go? So I've got I've already done about nine months so far and you're absolutely right the the scale of the coastline is just unbelievable like just the Highlands alone like the western side is probably about someone someone mentioned it to me it was the same length as France the French coastline which is just yeah unbelievable because you're just going in and out in and out constantly it should roughly take me two and a half to three years to complete so it's between 11,000 and 18,000 miles and we'll see how many miles I do when I cross the finishing line but it's between there so yeah I'm not entirely sure how accurate it will be but yeah it's between there so quite sorry so when do you expect to finish? So roughly in three years time roughly three years three and a half three years yeah so that's a real commitment yeah I'll be 27 or 28 by the time I finish I'm 25 at the minute so yeah my god if I was to do that I'd be bloody 24 by the time I finished it I couldn't waste my younger years doing something like that do you know what I mean and Rich what's next on your any more adventurous plans? Yeah I mean after the Canada trip I myself and my partner we we set up an animal sanctuary so we have a small piece of land here with some rescue animals so we have horses ducks chickens so that's kind of been a big adventure you know I've been falling off barn roofs and breaking ribs and you know doing all the the silly stuff I do have another trip planned that I'd like to do 2020 I wanted to do it this year but I guess with COVID you know I haven't been able to so yeah hopefully 2022 there should be a new trip coming but I just want to say you know really thank you so much for having me on good look to Dan and you know if people are thinking about getting a dog you know I just want to say please please adopt there are so many dogs that need homes if I can show you a couple of the dogs that that I rescued see if I can turn this camera around so this dog here this is Bear hey Bear so if you go on my website and Instagram you'll see him he was in a cage and his brother called Buddy they were you know waiting to be eaten and now look at him he's kind of living the life in Canada and then this little girl here my name's Lucky and again she was just kind of waiting to to go and so yeah if anyone if anyone is thinking about getting a dog you know please adopt it doesn't matter where you get that dog from there's all these dogs need homes there's plenty of shelters and there's a couple of good people in the UK who are bringing these Korean dogs over who are rescued from the the dog industry and so I can certainly connect you if you if you'd like to do that good advice we'll put your links below this video so if you can ping me any links that you want below the video I'll obviously I've got your website and Instagrams just makes my hectic life a bit easier or my manager Luke's life a bit easier fellas just say it's great knowing you let's all stay in touch hopefully we can all do some big adventure one day live the dream we'll be like some I mean Jack Nicholson movie we'll be at 85 and doing our bucket list but yeah Dan all the best you already raised quite a significant amount of money so folks if you want to get put some money behind Safa you think it's worth pointing out that when you're down on your luck I mean genuinely like the future is very very bleak it really is organizations like Safa that can help you turn it around very often they're the only people that come into your life they certainly I know they helped me back in the day I've got a career development loan back when I was struggling with with or really struggling with addiction I should say and and I got I got that part of it was from the British Legion and part of it was from Sapa and off the back of it I went to Norway to train as a volunteer worker then went and taught street kids in Mozambique as a volunteer and then I drove journalists to India and back to write about poverty and hate to use cliches but you know never look back really bang back to my old self back out there smashing it and I've just lived the best life ever really and it's just amazing what a little bit of help can do when when when the time is right for you so get behind Dan get on to his Instagram follow this gentleman same for rich and if you guys want to stay on the line so I can thank you properly I'm just gonna play us out massive happy new year to my guests to you all at home to everybody that's been in the chat tonight to Luke for everything he's done for the channel this year to all the patreon supporters who we couldn't do this without you to the channel members and everyone that supported me on social media massive love to you all 20-22 is our year and we're gonna smash it ciao ciao just goes thank you