Adventure
Stung by the travel bug, sailing and surfing around the Indonesian Islands in 1992 Peter has since travelled the world a few times over. Pete has summited Mt Everest and the 8201m peak, Cho Oyu in Tibet. He has climbed Java's active volcanoes Krakatoa and Mt Merapi, stood on top of Africa's highest peak Mt Kilimanjaro, ventured camel-back over the scorching dunes of the Sahara Desert and stayed with nomads.
Peter is a regular visitor to Indonesia to surf, and the Everest Region of the Himalayas to climb. He speaks conversational Indonesian, and is learning Nepali.
Peter says this of his travel experiences:
Best travel experience: almost too hard to say, probably out of (i) venturing out into the Sahara Desert on camel, and finding the way to a nomad camp by the light of the moon; or (ii) and standing exhausted, looking of the Himalayas from the highest point on earth.
Most exhilarating: Swooping over the Victoria Falls in Zambia in an ultra-light glider. The pilot was a mad Scotsman who was also the Park Ranger. He flew so close to the Falls we could feel its spray, and then the flight turned into a mission to drove some animals. This guy flew the glider so low I could have sworn we were going to clip a tree, or an animal!
Worst moment: Suffering severe altitude sickness at advanced base camp at 5,800m on Tibet. It felt like my heart was going to pop out of my chest, my head was throbbing really badly, and I continuously felt like vomiting ...welcome to Cho Oyu! Freezing toes on the final summit push on Everest rates right up there as well.
Most inconvenient: Ripping my back apart on razor sharp reef whilst surfing Uluwatu in Bali. I had to stay out of the water for the rest of that trip and the surf was really pumping. The doctor pushed her fingers into every gash in my back to dig out bits of reef.
Scariest moment: being awoken by a lion at the door of my tent, Nakuru National Park in Kenya in 1999. It grunted loudly and roared, and I just froze. I had heard stories of lions ripping travellers out of their tents by their sleeping bags. I could tell it was looking for something -
in the end it wasn't me!
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