Ep. 1191: Walking Across Australia With Five Wild Camels Revisited with Sophie Matterson

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Come explore the wild heart of Utah with ores, no notifications, no meetings, no signal.

Just you, the river, and the space to reconnect with what matters most.

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lands and beyond, ores delivers unforgettable guided rafting experiences on some of the

most iconic rivers in the west.

Visit ores.com slash Utah to start planning your next great adventure.

Let's go rafting!

You're listening to the Adventure Sports Podcast.

We talk with adventures from around the globe to give you the inspiration you need to get

started in the outdoors or keep moving if you're already there.

Hello everyone and welcome to the Adventure Sports Podcast.

This is Caleb.

Whenever I'm doing these revisited episodes, I try to bring unusual and unique episodes

from the ASP backlog, and this one definitely fits the bill.

In this one, Mason interviews Sophie Matterson.

Sophie, after needing a break from her career in film and TV, decided to take on a new adventure in her life

by deciding to pick up the interesting location of camel milking.

And through that experience, she fell in love with the animals and never returned back to her old career.

This episode specifically is about Sophie's crazy idea to cross Australia on foot.

She has been accompanied by five wild camels.

Very interesting episode.

I hope you enjoy it.

Here's Mason.

All right folks, welcome to the Adventure Sports Podcast.

This is an interesting one right here.

We get a lot of cyclists, a lot of hikers, and folks just doing random things.

But this is out there for us.

I don't even know what you call it.

You're tracking her something, but anyway, Sophie Matterson, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Mason. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, so is this a thing walking with camels or are you kind of out on your own on this one?

Well, I mean, I guess it's a thing for some people.

It's not super common.

But yeah, I'm out of my own.

So it's me and five camels and we're walking across Australia at the moment.

Folks are getting here.

Folks are going to hear my disbelief when I do the intro.

But I wanted to go all the way back if you don't mind.

You know, I'm judging here, but it sounds like you're from Australia.

Yes, I am.

So where did you grow up and what kind of kid were you?

Were you real adventurous or is this totally strange for you?

Well, camels actually sort of came quite out of left field for me.

I grew up, I traveled a lot as a kid.

I was actually born in Hong Kong and we moved around a lot when I was little.

But mainly, you know, through high school grew up through primary school and high school grew up in Australia.

I'm from Brisbane, I guess, I guess Brisbane is where I'd call home.

Brisbane in Queensland and yeah, I was actually working in film and TV and looking to take.

I don't know, I was kind of sort of wanting to take a little bit of a break.

And I wanted my job, I guess, to be a little bit more outdoors.

And I ended up stumbling upon people that were camel milking.

There were milking camels for the milk.

And it was a friend's auntie who had this camel dairy.

And so I bugged her.

I said, oh, can I go and meet the camels?

And then I just fell in love with them.

And so, yes, so it started from from this bizarre path of milking camels.

But was I adventurous as a kid?

Not I, not like we never went camping or anything, particularly actually when I was growing up.

I guess, I guess I always had the travel bug.

I did a lot of, lot of traveling when I was younger and my parents, the big travelers as well.

You mentioned a lot there.

So you were in TV and had a career and you were unhappy with it.

What kind of, I don't know, gave you the confidence or was it easy to walk away from?

Or was it really a taxing decision?

No, well, to be honest, it just sort of started as I thought I thought I'd just take a break from it.

And I thought I'd take maybe I'd do something totally different for six months.

And that's all it would be.

And then I would go back to doing film and TV.

And yes, like I said, I stumbled across this this camel dairy and I started milking camels kind of on the weekends.

And at one point I was doing half film and TV and half milking camels.

Was that a paid job, the milking of the camels?

Yeah, it was.

It was just a bizarre combination of two jobs, I guess.

Going, going to film shoots during the week and then milking the camels on the weekend.

It was quite strange.

But yeah, and then the camels just started taking over more and more.

And yeah, so it wasn't it wasn't planned or anything.

And yeah, like I said, I thought it might just be sort of a little six month break.

And then I'd go back to film and TV.

And I just kept going.

I, you know, I got too busy to do film and TV and I worked at milking camels full time.

And then I had a trip planned overseas.

And so while I was overseas, I thought, I'm going to go and see what other people are doing with camels overseas.

So I actually ended up on your side of the world.

I ended up at a dairy in Michigan of all places milking camels with a family of men and nights over in Michigan, which was an incredibly interesting experience.

A lovely family, lovely area, possessing camels, I guess in the green pastures of Michigan in the US.

And so then I went down to Texas.

I met a guy who had camels down there.

And then from there over to India and spent a bit of time with the nomads and their camels over there.

And then came back to Australia and got really, I was really interested in pursuing more camel trekking.

So I worked for a company down in South Australia who took tourists out on nine day tracks out into an area called the Flinders Ranges.

And fell in love with that.

And then moved to Uluru, which is the big beautiful sacred rock in the middle of Australia.

And that's sort of where I started preparing for my trip.

So it's been a, it's been about four years that I've been hanging out with camels now.

Okay, I said, yeah, it was only meant to be a little six month break from film and TV.

And yeah, four years later, I was still chasing camels all around the world.

You got to be careful. You got to be careful.

Catch that camel feeder.

That's right.

That's right.

You know, you're in Michigan.

I'm sorry.

I'm nothing against folks in Michigan, but there's a, there's a lot.

I don't know.

Maybe more interesting parts of the country.

Hopefully you were able to see more of the US.

There's some great places.

Michigan.

I'm, you know, it's great.

It's fine.

But especially doing what you're doing, I didn't realize you were camels there.

But no one does.

No one does.

I, yeah, I love to the beautiful red barns though.

I was obsessed with those.

Yeah.

And the Minonites are so interesting.

Minonites say very interesting.

Very.

I didn't realize they work with camels.

Maybe I'm just a dumb American.

But I didn't realize you could get so much milk from camels.

Yeah, yeah, less than a cow.

But the milk is very popular in the sense that.

A lot of people use it for gotten bowed disorders.

Some people you will use it actually with autism.

So it has a bit of a sort of following in, yeah, in that market.

And they're also making it into skincare products now.

So similar to how you find goats milk soap and that kind of thing.

Very, very fascinating.

You learn something new every day.

Well, let me ask you this.

You talked about, you know, I think a lot of folks can relate wanting,

wanting a change, falling in love with something a hobby.

Or not a, not a hobby of passion, like a new direction in life.

Why, why camels for you?

What, what was it about them?

Yeah, I, I had grown up riding horses.

So I sort of, I sort of knew large animals.

And I was interested in large animals.

They, they play a huge role in Australia's history over here.

So I, I found that part of it fascinating as well.

We actually have a huge population of what we call feral or wild camels in the outback here.

So anyone, it's something from anywhere between a quarter of a million to over a million wild camels roaming around the outback.

And, and yeah, and a lot of, and a lot of even, even Australians don't realize that.

Because most of our population is on the coastline and not that many people travel to the outback.

So I'd started to learn about that.

And I thought that was fascinating in itself.

As they were brought over here for basically exploration of the outback and setting up come.

Developing outback Australia.

So, so they had a very, very important role in our history over here.

And once the cars started coming in and trucks started coming in, there was no more need for the camels.

And so the men that ran them, they, they let them go.

And from there they, they bred up in the wild.

So now we actually have the only, the only population of wild one hump camels in the world in every other country they're domesticated.

So, so, so that was interesting bit like being able to, to work with the wild animal is incredibly special.

And, and they're just, they're, they're fascinating in the way that they're so well adapted to the desert.

All of their whole physiology and makeup is, is so perfectly adapted to the desert.

And most of our, most of our country here, you know, if you're gonna, if you're gonna cross Australia, most of our country is made up of desert.

So they're the perfect, perfect vehicle for that, perfect vehicle for exploration, I think, maybe a little slow.

So that's what makes me wonder why, why camels versus what, what we see in here a lot on the show is cycling, cycling across Australia is a big one.

And you obviously had a passion for camels at this point.

What led to the idea to, to walk across Australia? Did that just seem like the ultimate goal, the ultimate, I don't know, you know, challenge?

Yeah, it's sort of, I guess there was, it's, it's really hard to sort of give one particular reason why.

And probably a lot of you other guests in the show will be able to relate, it's, you know, you get so taken up by an idea, it happens.

I don't know, somehow the sea gets planted and then, you know, you spend years of preparing and then by the time you get to set off, you're like, why did I even decide on this?

You know, it seems like so long ago that I can't even, I can't even remember where the idea came from.

But yeah, partly, I guess it was I wanted to see more of Australia and I wanted to see the outback and visit some of our most remote regions.

And like I said, the camel was just the perfect sort of vehicle for that.

I guess I, yeah, for me, I was never particularly a cyclist.

If you're going to do a walk, you have to tow a cart.

And I thought, how good would this be? I've got animals to take out my equipment. I don't have to carry anything.

But I mean, obviously there's a lot more work in having five animals with you as well.

But I think part of it as well is was the whole challenge of, so my five camels, they came from the wild.

So sort of in some ways for me, the adventure all started when I took those camels from the wild and I trained them myself.

So that was that was all sort of part of part of the challenge.

But I guess that entail training a camel because I know horses are, you know, you can tame horses.

There's probably 50,000 wild horses in the US. I think.

And I know that's a thing to break them.

Yeah, well, camels similar, similar thing to horses. Yeah, you have to break them in.

And they're incredibly smart animals, very, very smart.

So they learn things very quickly.

It often revolves around, you know, a lot of repetition or a lot of repetition.

So, you know, saddling them up every day, unsaddling them every day.

And in some ways, the trip itself has all been part of the training of my camels because they, you know, as we walk and as we cross Australia, they're seeing new things and new landscapes.

Or we might come across a new scare, you know, what seems like a scary thing for them.

So, so slowly, it's just, it just exposure to that.

And yeah, so, but yeah, it was, it was good fun training them training to training to ride on them, training them to sit down.

You have to train them to what we call push, which means to sit down.

Because camels are so tall, you have to sit them down in order to load all the gear on their backs and then stand them up with all of that gear.

So, that all had to be trained, you know, teaching them to have pack bags on their back and all of that.

Why five camels?

Why not one or two or ten, you know, what, what made you land on them?

To be honest, it's too many.

It's more than what I need, I would say.

I don't know, in my head originally, I sort of thought the trip, I thought that I might have people maybe sort of jump on, jump off the sections.

And so I thought that having five would enable me to have a few extra to carry extra pack bags.

And it worked out well because all of my camels are slightly younger.

And so, and also because it's like, it's like humans going into training, I guess, for us, you know, to do a big, a big walk or whatever you need to be, you know, trained up and used to carrying pack bags and stuff.

Mine weren't, mine weren't used to carrying, get to carrying any of that gear.

So, so I was kind of able with five, I was able to distribute it a little bit more so they weren't carrying a super huge load.

Whereas, you know, if I just had three, they would have been loaded up a lot more, a lot more heavily.

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So, so five camels, you're out number five to one.

I mean, is it difficult to wrangle that many large animals at a time I would feel intimidated with one honestly with one horse or something like a camel five you've got a you've got a crew to maintain.

What is that with like what's the practicality of kind of the logistics of doing that it's definitely a crew.

I think the main thing is is you sort of have to work out their personalities. So just like any animal, they all have their own very unique personalities. So some will make great leaders some will be better followers.

So, you know, as I was training them, I started to pick who was going to be my lead camel. So in my little string of five they all have their position in that string. So they're always in the same order.

And, and so that gives them, I guess, a sense of security and yeah, so it's kind of, you know, you've got to you've got to take a little bit of time to work that out.

But yeah, for sure it's, you know, you put a lot of trust into your lead camel because he's the one basically towing towing the rest of the game behind.

So you have to be able to have control over him or to be able to have a good, you know, working relationship with him, I guess, because he sort of really controls the rest of the four behind him as well.

But like I said, they're just so smart. So, you know, and this, it took me probably about a year to train them before we set off. And so you start to develop that relationship. He knows my lead camel is Jude.

And he knows, you know, lots of words like he knows, you know, steady, you know, stand, he, they pick up very much on your mood as well. So, you know, there be times where I don't feel very confident because it's the first time I've, you know, walked in this area or walked in this, you know, remote location.

But, but you sort of have to have to sort of fake it almost, you have to be a strong leader for them because they will pick up on your energy and if your nervous, then it'll make them nervous as well.

My goodness. So interesting. What did you, what did you look for in the camels when you, when you were picking them out? Is there any sort of qualities you're looking for or most camels going to fare well with this type of thing?

You can probably get, most camels will probably, will probably do it. Like I said, you know, not, not every camel will make a leader.

So I was lucky that I found a, I think I was lucky that I found a really, really great lead camel. But otherwise, no, no, I mean, it's a, it's a bit of a gamble really because when I took them from the wild, it was, you know, all you're looking, all you're looking at at that point is whether they're a nice, you know, whether they've got nice confirmation, I guess.

Whether they look like a strong camel and, you know, whether they look like they can carry a load. And then you only really get to know what they're going to be like to train, you know, as you get further down the road then.

So you're kind of just, you got to pick it, you know, pick the crew, say, this is, this is our team. We're going to go make it happen. We're going to work it out. We're going to get frustrated.

Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah, they've, they've, like I said, they very much have their own personalities. I have a little camel Clayton and a lot of people always ask, you know, one of the major questions people ask is to camel spit, which they actually don't spit. They, they vomit.

So if camel's a very unhappy, they will puke up their guts on you. And I had a little camel Clayton. Yes, taken a long time for us to get to, to an understanding between one another.

He has covered me in a fair bit of regurgitated plant matter, many a time, which I tell you what does not smell good, but he's a, he's a very, very hard little worker. He just is never probably going to be a cuddly camel. He just does not like affection, particularly, but an incredibly hard worker. And so it's just, it's just working out, you know, where I say I have another camel Charlie, who adores beer.

They're being padded and cuddled and loves kids. And so they're very, very different. And you just got to respect them for, for who they are, I think.

Yeah, if you treat them well, they will treat you well. And I think that's probably one of the hardest, being one of the hardest things of my trip is, is it is round the clock camel care. So, you know, there your life line out there.

You have to look after them so well, because, because, you know, they're doing all the work and they're, they're all you've got out there.

So speaking of that, what do they need? Because, you know, I think we all know, or we, we, at least it sounds like it has the potential to be folklore that camels don't need to drink that often. How true is that? And how often do they need water? And what other kinds of things do they need?

Yeah, well, the water one is, is really, really tricky. It's, it's an equation that I've almost never been able to work out because it, it all depends on how hard they're working, what the temperature is, what the feeds like.

Camels get a lot of, a lot of water from their, what they're eating. So, so that was probably one of the biggest struggles I had as well, is that actually when I, when I crossed WA Western Australia, is that it was a lot of the area was in pretty, pretty severe drought, which camels actually, you know, they do a lot better than a lot of other animals out there in the dry season.

But, but still you, you know, they require a lot of feed and to keep them going. And, and also, you know, the dry areas, the less moisture content they're getting from those plants and the more that they need to drink. So, so I was carrying 12 Jerry cans on me. And most of that was for the stretches in the desert, where I would need to actually give my camels a drink.

Having said that, I've heard of, you know, station owners have told me of, of camels that have gone sort of six months without a drink of water, just because they're, they're eating amazing, you know, succulent, succulent feed. So, it's pretty incredible, six months without a drop of, drop of water.

Six months, unbelievable.

Pretty nuts, where you think a cow, they have to drink, you know, every day horses, you know, definitely, you know, I think I think you might be able to push them on that 100% rough shore on this, but, you know, two, maybe three days max, but, but my camels, you know, often I did a stretch where I didn't give them a drink for two weeks.

So, yeah, they start to get, it's a little bit depressing sometimes when you're out there, though, because they, they get thirsty, they can do it, but they, you know, they, they think that they need a drink of water.

And so every time you have to fill up your water bottle, you're kind of doing that secretly, like they'll be off grazing and you've got to secretly fill up your water bottle back at camp and hope that they don't hear the sound of the water or hope that they don't smell the water because otherwise they're, they're right over there up in your face.

So, yeah, you're always hiding, hiding about trying to fill up water bottles and have a drink on your own.

I'm just blown away by this whole experience. You've got these massive animals that have these super natural powers almost and you're, you're walking across one of the largest continents in the world.

And you're just, it's like something out of a sci-fi movie. It's incredible. Do they, do they, do they feel like your, your protectors, your, they're like walls around you? Does it, does it, do they, do they feel like that?

Yeah, absolutely, actually. Yeah, they do. I think it would be a really different experience without them.

You know, like you said, there's a lot of people that cycle across Australia and for me, I almost can't even imagine that because I think for me, you know, the camel's really hold off a certain amount of loneliness.

When you have them, you have another sort of, I don't know, another spirit out there and yeah, yeah, so you become very, yeah, you become very, very attached to them.

And one of my favorite things is to, is, you know, when I sleep at night, I sleep, you know, really only a couple of meters away from them, partly because I, you know, I have to, they're tethered to trees. So just in case they get tangled up in the ropes, I need to be able to hear or if a, if a wild camel comes into our camp, I need to be able to deal with that situation.

But I love my favorite thing is lying, falling asleep with the sound of them chewing their card. I love that.

So what are you doing about that now? Do you have that playing in the background? You got to sleep not on the trip right now?

I should have recorded that so I could go to sound.

I don't think that's an option on most of the little machine. That's right. No. I don't think it's up there with the, the rainfall or air conditioning.

What noise?

Well, that's hilarious. Yeah, that's a, you'll need that. So I mean, there's just, there's just a million questions I want to ask and I know it might sound basic, but we've just never talked to someone doing this.

You're not on paved roads for the most part. It's, it looks like it's mostly dirt tracks, dirt roads through, through the outback.

Yeah, all dirt roads. So I don't think I crossed any paved road in the, I've traveled about 2,300 kilometers, I think roughly so far.

So I actually was looking in this up because I suddenly thought you guys work in miles. I think that's 1,000, about 1,400 miles roughly. Am I right there?

1,200 kilometers. Actually, let me look it up. We have so many folks from all over the world on this show that our listeners are used to it. Yeah, it looks like about 1,300 miles.

Good gracious.

So, you know, when you overlay Australia in the US, it's, it's about the same distance or it's about the same size. And so this is very similar for American listeners to literally walking coast to coast across America.

With a tenth of the population.

Oh, yeah, yeah, it's a, and especially the area that I've just crossed Western Australia is, is very, very remote.

I don't know what their population is, but it's tiny. I was thinking today, I, the largest town I went through was, I think about 800 residents.

That's the largest township I went through. Otherwise, otherwise I pretty much did not go through a single other town.

There was a stretch that I, when I went into the Great Victoria Desert, which is Australia's largest desert. And I think the seventh largest in the world.

It's a stretch of 1,000, 1,300 kilometers. So say roughly 800 miles, I think that is.

And all there is is one little roadhouse or, you know, like a fuel bowser in the middle that sort of man by two guys out there.

That's it. There's no one else out there. It's a, it's a four-wheel drive track that I was following. But actually, well, as well, because of, because of COVID, no one was, a lot of the time that I was walking, no one was traveling that road that I, that I went along in the Great Victoria Desert, it was actually shut.

The only one you have to get permits to go across that road because a lot of the land that you're traveling across is Aboriginal land.

And no one else was able to get permits because of, because they weren't allowing people onto Aboriginal land because they didn't want to spread the disease. But because I was taking so long to get on there, you know, I would have gone through my own amount of quarantine.

Basically, I was sitting doing my own extreme form of social distancing. So I was the only one traveling down that road, which was actually incredibly special experience. I sort of got to have that desert track to myself.

I mean, I know I keep saying it, but this is so unbelievable of an adventure, so incredible. Something that we hear a lot, because we do, we do have a lot of Americans on the show who are exploring America.

And they are, you know, like myself born and raised here, but when you see it from the seat of a bicycle or on your own two feet, going to these reaches of the country, your home country that you've never perceived even existed.

Have you had that experience with Australia?

Oh, definitely. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'm actually, I think one of the, one of the reasons why I wanted to go into the great Victoria desert is I felt like I had not a single other person I knew from Australia, even knew of where that desert was.

A huge, huge area of land. And no one even knew where it was in Australia. So, so I guess that kind of that really intrigued me and, and we're very, very lucky in Australia, I think to have such huge areas of, you know, remote wilderness.

It's really quite humbling to stand on the crest of a hill or on the crest of a sand drain and look out and you can see 360 degrees and there is not a single sign of human inhabitants.

And, and that happened, you know, you know, I wasn't like I found one spot like that that happened many, many a time on my trip. So you really feel like a tiny, a tiny spec out there in this wilderness.

And I think, you know, and you're probably, I'm sure a lot of your listeners will, will agree with me is that the nice thing about traveling, you know, rather than traveling in a car where you've sort of shielded, whizzing through in this bubble is when you travel slowly by bike or, you know, walking or by camel like I did, which probably even slower than your regular hike. We only travel at about three K an hour.

Yeah, that's right. We saw enter across the desert. So we really like you really just get to take in the small changes.

And you get to be, be a part of that environment, you're not shielded from, from anything you have to deal with, with the weather, the changes in weather, the, you know, the sand storms, the dust storms, the flies, the beautiful crest, fresh,

crisp mornings and beautiful sunrises and sunsets out in the desert. And, and you get to really see that the detail in that that I just don't think you, you pick up when he was through on a car.

Absolutely not that that's a sensation that we hear described a lot. And one, you can't really explain until you go out and do it yourself.

Has it, I mean, just it's so much desert. It's almost primarily desert, what you're crossing. Does it get a notness to you or are you enjoying kind of the consistency of it?

Well, I think that's a thing is that a lot of people that do drive in these places will say, oh, it's all the same because, because I don't think you, you see those subtle changes, whereas for me.

Yeah, I mean, there was a few areas where I sort of thought, oh, God, here we go. Another, another moulder forest, which is sort of like a similar type of, you know, scrubby tree out there.

But, but I, I, I felt like I really started to appreciate all the differences in vegetation. So, so no, I sort of didn't find it. I didn't find it boring or monotonous.

Because actually there is so much variety out there. And the landscape can change very, very quickly. You know, you can go from, I mean, even, even when we're out in the desert, there was huge areas where it had been burnt by a wildfire back in 2018.

I think it was a huge areas of just sort of very sort of desolate looking dunes. And then you, you walk over another June, and then it would be totally different.

I mean, a lot of people think about the desert as they think about the Sahara, they think about bare dunes that you're crossing.

Australian deserts are not like that at all. They are actually incredibly vegetated. We have one of the oldest land masses in the world.

And so our tunes are quite stable because there's, there's been a lot of time for that vegetation to grow. There's quite a lot of bird life, a lot of reptile life in the desert.

So there's actually a huge amount of life out there. And then I got a big change in weather too. And I had right at the end of my trip, I got all coming into sort of at the edge of the desert.

I, we had a lot of rain. And so it was magical. It was something I'd always wanted to see. And I finally got to see it was, was the desert come to life after rain.

And literally the, the day after rain, you see these, these flowers called paracilia popping up through the sand. And it's just like it's instantaneous, the transformation.

And yeah, it became, there was sea, you know, sea of wildflowers out there, birds started to migrate in. It was really, really special.

I can only imagine, honestly, just the payoff of the rain and the life that it brought. And you were in tune with the landscape to sense those subtle changes.

And that it takes that, you know, I've gone places on a trip that took a lot of effort to get there.

And it was so much more vivid, so much more impactful. And then I'll go back and visit, you know, with my wife and we'll drive there.

And it just, it doesn't feel the same anymore, you know, because it wasn't very hard to get there. And absolutely.

And so it's so bizarre. Like the places aren't as magical, which is sad. But it's also, you know, it's there. You're just not looking at it that way.

You're, you're saturation of your eyes are turned down. The, you know, it's not as vibrant. It's not as, I don't know.

So I imagine that incredible.

Oh, absolutely. It's like, I always think, you know, you can have the worst. You can make a terrible cup of tea in the most dirty cup out there.

When you're out there and you've done a hard days walking, it feels tastes like the best cup of tea you've ever had.

And everything is like that. You, you know, you appreciate, you appreciate that much more because you, because you've worked for it.

You know, there's, there's some recipes I've come up with out there that, I love. And then I get back home and try it.

And I'm like, how in the world did everything this takes?

I think this is good. I absolutely know what you mean.

So speaking of that, what, what are you carrying for food and, and how often, you know, you're only going to, you know, towns of 800 at the most, where food, how often and, and what is it?

Well, it was a big logistical sort of, well, yeah, I had to do a lot of organizing beforehand. So, so I carry about a month's worth of food on one of my camels.

And I had to, I basically organized about five months worth of food before I set off out there. So, so I, I trucked the camels.

I actually bought, bought a camel truck loaded the camels on it all the room in the center of Australia and, and drove to the coast of Western Australia with the camels on board.

And I had all my food boxes packed up in the truck. And as we went along, I actually managed to drop them at a few places.

There was a couple that sort of had to, you know, one that went out to a more remote area in the desert.

Everyone's, everyone's so helpful in the outback.

Yeah, everyone is willing to pitch in and help. So, one of those food boxes, it got run out by the guy who tops up the fuel out at that one remote roadhouse in the middle of the desert.

Food boxes out there on a fuel run. So, they sat out there for several months before I'd even, before I'd even got to them. So, yeah, so most of the stuff obviously is long life.

I tried to stick away from cans. I mean, you can eat a little bit better. I think then, you know, if you're going on a hiking trip because you can carry a bit more weight, the things you're not carrying it on your own back.

But, yeah, I tried to stick away from cans because, you know, that does make it heavy for the camel. So, a lot of, a lot of rice, a lot of lentils, a lot of, you know, stodgy things, pastas.

I actually did what the old explorers used to do. I salted some beef. So, you basically get a big hunk of meat and you just pour salt all over it and then you stride out that way.

It took me a while to work out how to cook that the best way because it doesn't seem to say no matter how many times you wash it, it's still insanely salty.

But that's what the old explorers used to survive off in Australia. They would pretty much eat salt beef, damper and tea.

Damper being sort of a type of bread that we do here just on the fire. So, no wonder they ended up with scurvy. I don't think I was eating a little bit better than that.

But I was craving just fresh food and salad by the end.

So, you're mostly, you're not riding these. Are you, are you sometimes riding the camels?

No, I ended up walking the whole way. My lead camel dude, he's, I trained him to ride and look, we're, we're pretty good at it.

It was one of the last things that I trained him to do. So, our ability to go in a straight line is great. Our ability to turn left and right, not so good.

But I, in the end, I sort of, I decided to, I decided to walk mainly because partly to make it easier, easier on him.

It's not like you're walking very fast. So, it's not particularly strenuous walking.

It meant that he could carry more pack bags if I wasn't riding. And also partly a safety thing.

You know, like you were saying, it's, it's having five large animals and it's not, you're not just riding one animal, you're really riding five, you know, you've got the others in tow.

So, I had a, I had a pretty scary experience actually where my camels took off on me early on in the trip.

So, so after that, I, you know, and I wasn't, I wasn't riding, then thank God, but I remember thinking, yeah, it probably would have been a whole lot worse if I was riding. Yeah.

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So they just took off running.

Yeah, so you don't have to tell if you don't want to.

Oh, no, no, no, no, I can tell it. It was a good learning curve. That's for sure.

I was weird actually. It was sort of before we'd got to desert stretches. So we were we were on station country and when I say station country, I mean like farms, but, but stations in Australia are huge, huge vast areas basically.

You may as well be in the middle of nowhere and I had actually that day I wasn't even following a dirt track or anything I'd gone cross country because I had gone 5k in the wrong direction, the beginning of that morning.

I thought, okay, right, that's annoying, but oh well, I'll cut cross country.

We'll be right. So I was leading leading the five along and totally, totally oblivious. I think I was probably singing along at the time, you know, enjoying the enjoying the morning and then all of a sudden out of nowhere, Jude saw a dark shape in the bushes.

It was actually just it was just a cow of all things.

So nothing scary, but for some reason he just totally free. So I was holding on to the rope, his rope at the time, he pulled away from me, it pulled me flat on my face.

And they're all, you know, roped to one another. So he, he shied and pulled off and it toppled all of the other camels over. So my camel Mac went down with all the Jerry cans on him, things started to fall off.

And you know, my bedding, what, what we call a swag, which is kind of like a bed roll was hanging half the, half the way off, Jude.

And then they sort of all recovered themselves got up and then just hook off. And I always, I never, I always try and not run after my camels because, you know, it's only going to spook them more if you're sort of you crazy human running after them.

But you know, there was nothing I could do. I had to run after them. There was, you know, I had, I had to go catch them.

So I was running and in the middle of, in the middle of nowhere. And as I started to run, I realized, I don't have my, I'd been using my phone to navigate.

That had been that had fallen out of my hand when the rope is pulled out of my hand.

So as I started to run, I realized I didn't have any navigation on me. I didn't have my per on me. I didn't have my cell phone on me. I didn't have any water on me.

Everything was packed in the saddle bags. And they're all taking off into the distance with all of my safety equipment on their backs.

And I, so I'm running after them. I started to lose sight of them at one point. I had to keep stopping and listening to the sound of the Jerry cans flapping about on the back camel.

Because they're all sort of spooking one another as, you know, you know, the lead camel. He hears the sound of the back camel with all the gear thumping around and then that spooks them more and he runs more and then they're all running more and, you know, they get into that herd mentality.

And yes, just a vicious cycle exactly. And I caught up to them at one point and all I had on me was my little pocket knife. And so I got my pocket knife out and I thought, I'll cut the last two camels off because at least then I'll have some of them.

And then the others might stop. And as I sort of reached out with that knife, they took off again and Clayton bold me over and I was on my face again. And then I'm running after them again.

And became totally disorientated realize I had no idea where I was because you're just you're focused on them and you, you know, all the bush can look exactly the same.

And thank God I managed that the only reason I actually caught up with them was because dude spun round a bush.

And he sort of spiraled in and they stood at the string spiraled in on itself so he couldn't escape because of the other camels.

And so I managed to catch up to him, grab the rope.

And oh my gosh, it was, yeah, it was one of the most scary experiences of my life.

You know, I suddenly, I just realized just that if I, you know, what would have happened if I hadn't caught them.

And I was just in such a frenzy when I, when I got to them.

And it was funny. Actually, I, I remembered to do reading this, this survivalist book.

And they say, you know, when you, I think it was obviously an Australian one because they said when you, when you lost in the bush, one of the first things you should do is boil the billy.

So a billy is like, you know, a tea pot basically.

And so it was saying, you know, like you'll never make a good rational decision for your safety when you're in, when you're in a state of fear and panic.

So boil the billy, have a cup of tea.

I just take stock. So I actually did that. So I, so I tied you to a tree. And I was in tears, you know, I was in sterics and stuff.

And I thought, I'm just going to make a cup of tea.

And it was probably the best thing I did because it meant I had to calm down.

And, and then it, yeah, it took sort of once I, once I'd done that and sort of regained a bit of composure.

It took over an hour. I had to retrace their, their footprints.

And it took us over an hour to get back to where it had all happened.

And, and all the gear had started falling off so I could recover my phone and everything.

So yeah, so big, big learning curve. I, after that, I changed a lot of things.

I always made sure I carried water on me. I had always my sat phone on me, my e-curb on me, just in case that was ever happened again.

So, was, was there any lesson you learned in that about dealing with those kinds of situations or dealing with just chaos?

Yeah, I think even from, even from working with camels, not even necessarily that particular situation.

I've kind of developed a bit of a mentality of when things go wrong, do nothing, or like, you know, kind of like, don't panic.

Like I said, like the camels pick up a lot of, on your energy, that particular situation.

Yeah, I guess my main, my main things that I learned was I needed to have all of that safety equipment on me, just in case that was to ever happen again.

It's so easy to become complacent, you know, especially with the animals.

Because, you know, you're like, are they doing really well? And everyone's really chilled.

And all, you know, can take one tiny little thing and it'll be on the day that you least expect it, you think that they're so super relaxed.

And then some tiny sounds, some thing in the bushes will scare them.

And, and you're, you with a fight or flight, or you're with a flight animal.

So they just have that herd instinct and they just, they just want to run from a predator.

And so, yeah, so that was the main thing I learned from that one.

But, but in general working with camels, I've, I really struggled on my trip because my camels were all new.

And so they did use to, they used to spook it.

This, that, and everything else, you know, a water tank, a 44 gallon drum in the bushes, a, you know, some little pile of rubbish or something like that.

The scariest thing in the world and they, and you're walking along and you have all of your five camels, like sort of running up behind you.

And you feel at first when you're training them, you feel like they're just going to run over the top of you.

And then you sort of start to realize that they won't do that.

So, so I developed this, this ability to just be at it, you know, they would spook at something and they would run up from behind or, you know,

things would flap all over the place and I would just literally not even turn my head to look at them, I would just keep walking.

And I would just totally ignore that behavior.

And, and I found, yeah, I found with them like there's just no point in, in panicking, you have to sort of breathe and take it back down to basics.

You know, no one's injured, you know, no one's dying.

We're all okay, you know, you just keep moving forward.

Hmm, some life lessons right there.

Oh, life lessons.

Forward, grin and bear it and just don't panic.

Don't panic.

Don't panic.

I'm sure that kept a lot of things from going wrong later on.

You know, speaking of this, speaking of, you know, safety and being spooked and all that.

How is it traveling, you know, as the only human of the pack, but also in, you know, coupling with that.

What has the interactions been with, with other humans and locals?

How, how are those gone?

Actually, amazing.

So, so amazing.

I've met just the absolute best people out there.

I haven't had a single station.

Say, no, I can't walk across their land.

Everyone has said, yes, straight away.

Everyone's, you know, because I contacted all of these, all of these farms before I left and to ask permission to walk across their land.

And to, you know, to ask them where it was about the water points were and so on.

And all of them have been above and beyond helpful.

You know, they were all like, you can come and stay if you need a shower or, you know, if you want to put your camels in the in our cattle yards for a night.

So, yes, I had some amazing interactions with, with station owners.

And Aboriginal communities out in the desert, I had a lovely community, Oak Valley community that they actually, there was a stretch that I just would not have been able to make it without someone dropping water to me.

It was something like over, you know, close to 700 kilometers without any water.

And, and I just thought it was, it was too much to push my camels to do.

And so they had agreed to bring the water out to me and their community wasn't even anywhere nearby.

Like it was it, it was a two hour, two hour drive for them to get to me.

So a four hour round trip on rough, rough roads, towing, towing a trailer with a thousand litres of water.

So they were, they were incredible and they ended up doing not just one water drop, they ended up doing four water drops for me.

And, and it was just lovely too. It was lovely to be surrounded by these communities out in the desert as well.

They have a really strong sense of culture.

They, English is not their first language. So they're all speaking in, well, pigeoned arrows, what they speak out there.

And, and so, so it's sort of almost strange, because it's like, you feel like you've landed in a different country and then you realise that actually this is the language of this land.

And they have, yeah, very, a very strong connection to, to that land.

And, yeah, so it had a beautiful experience with them. The ladies were all super lovely that they, they really, so it's a, it's a group called their, their unannue people and they really, really take it personally.

If they feel like when you're walking across their land, they're sort of, because they're the custodians of that land, your safety is their responsibility.

So they really, really take it personally if, if something was to happen to you. So they said to me, they said, please just call us on the sat phone.

If there's anything, if there's anything that you feel worried about, you know, please safety first, we don't want anything to happen to you out there.

So, so they were, they were awesome. And the ladies actually brought me a whole, they set up some tarps so I could have a shower out in the middle of the desert.

And they, they brought up shampoos and conditioners and the whole little gift packed for me, because I had been sort of three months on the road, basically at that point without a shower.

So, that was awesome. And, and then actually, well, after the camels have taken off on me, I met someone who was so,

so very helpful for me before I hit the desert. I ended up staying at a station and there was a guy caretaking a station and he was ex-military.

He was actually an ex-sniper. And he helped me because I knew I was heading into the desert. And because like I said, there's a lot of wild camels out there.

I actually had to carry guns on my trip because it can be a real problem with feral bull camels are in the season and they will come in and they will either try and mate or fight with your camels.

And that can be a big, big problem because my camels are all loaded up with gear and they're restrained, you know, they've got ropes on and these balls can be really, really aggressive big teeth on them.

They can do a lot of damage fighting. And so, so yes, I had to carry rifles on me to shoot them if I had to.

And I felt before going into this desert stretch, I felt totally unprepared. I don't think I even had the rifle sighted properly. I didn't really know what I was doing.

Because I stopped at this station and this guy basically just taught me everything from the ground up. He helped me sight the rifles, he took me out shooting, he taught me about breathing, he taught me about, you know, where to shoot the camel and how to deal with it and how to check if they were dead.

And then not only that, he went through all of my pack here because you people are so, you know, they've had to march with 40 K packs on their backs. They sort of, you know, all about placement of gear and you know how to make things easily accessible, how to balance loads and that kind of stuff. So he basically did all of that with my camels and rearranged all the equipment on them.

So after staying with him, I just went into the desert feeling so much more prepared.

So it seems like the kind of the common theme we hear on this show is that most people are good. It has also been true for your adventure.

Absolutely, yeah. There has seriously not been a single time that I felt unsafe with, you know, any humanity out there.

There's been no one that's been weird, creepy or anything. Everyone has just been above and beyond helpful.

You know, you think you're not going to see anyone in weeks and then all of a sudden it's crazy. You know, in these most remote areas, someone sort of pops out doing, I don't know, motorbike trip or, you know, something and then all of a sudden you've got a bunch of people offering you a beer around the campfire.

It's like, oh, I wasn't expecting, wasn't expecting this. But it's nice. I love those kinds of interactions. It's really nice to have that. And yeah, gosh, everyone has been so, so helpful to me.

That's wonderful. That's so cool. So tell us a little bit about the second half of the trip. You're about halfway. Are you coming from Cooper Petty right now?

I will, I will head back to Cooper Petty. Okay, I thought I was saying that wrong.

Cooper Petty. It's a funny old place, Cooper Petty. It's like a moon scape there. Very, very bizarre, open mining. But yeah, anyway, so my camels are, they're on a summer break at the moment.

So they're stuffing their little faces right now, trying to get them nice and fat for the next season. Yeah, so I'll head back and I'll pick them up, which might, might until sort of maybe one to two weeks of looking for them because they're on a huge area.

There are about 900 square kilometers of area to roam. So it's almost like I've let them go back into the wild. So I'm not sure how happy they're going to be when I, when I have to wrangle them back in again, make them do more work.

But yes, I'll go and pick them up probably around March. And then I will drive them back up to Cooper Petty. And then we'll start from the same place that we've finished off and we'll walk from Cooper Petty to to Byron Bay on the east coast of Australia.

So how long are you thinking that's going to take you and what kind of differences are you looking forward to with this second half of the trip?

Oh, I think it's probably going to take me maybe five, six months. That's just total estimate. I mean, it took me six and a bit months doing this first half.

I think probably because we've gotten the groove a little bit more will, you know, probably be able to do some more case on this stretch. So, so yeah, probably five, six months.

In some ways, this is almost, it's, it's much less remote.

Oh, having said that, actually, the first half of it is going to be quite remote leaving Cooper Petty and basically through Petty across most of that will be quite remote.

But once I hit the east coast, then it then it becomes a lot more populated. And in some ways, that's really the hard part is starting to take the camels into areas that are much more populated.

I think by that point in time, we'll probably will have to take some roads. I don't think we can get away with tracks the whole way.

And yeah, and then it becomes mountainous too. There's what we have what's called the great dividing range, which runs all down the east coast of Australia.

So I've got to get them across that, which I really need to go and have a bit of a wreck of that area and try and find a way to get them, get them through that.

And then find a way to get them onto, yeah, a very popular holiday destination beach.

So, so yeah, so it requires a bit more logistics. I think this, this half of the trip.

I'm all, I already sort of, I don't know, I'm wishing that it was like the first half in the sense that, you know, although it's, it's tough traveling through deserts and very remote.

In some ways with camels, it's, it's almost easier and, and I love, I love that isolation. I love that remoteness. So yeah, it will be interesting. It'll be very, very different this second half.

So interesting. I'm so excited for you. And, and, you know, we're going to be, you know, posting this before you get started, but it's something that folks are going to be able to follow along for five or six months, because you do, you do post about it.

You do share about it. And you post incredible pictures. So it's going to be something we're going to have to talk to you about how the second half went once you get it.

And was it, was it what you expected? Because I'm with this, you know, you can look at maps all day, but the reality of being out there is usually just so, so different.

Yeah. Yeah. No, that'd be great to chat to you about the second half. Yeah.

Well, great. Well, where can we, uh, where can we point folks to, uh, to follow you? I'm going to plug everything all your social, your website, but, uh, you can go ahead and.

Oh, okay. Um, probably what I'm, I'm most active, I guess, on, on Instagram when I'm not in the remote areas of the desert. I'm.

Now, at the moment, uh, I'm currently, yeah, posting some photos from really a couple of months back that obviously I wasn't able to post because there's no reception out there.

Um, so, so my Instagram is, is Sophie Madison one word, um, Madison is M-A-T-T-E-R-S-O-N.

Um, so Sophie Madison Instagram, I'm on Facebook as coast to coast camel track.

Um, and I do every now and then I'm trying to do a bit more of it, do a blog on my website, which is www.sophymadison.com.

Uh, yeah, that's me.

Sophie, it's, uh, appreciate you being on the adventure sports podcast and, uh, what an incredible adventure.

I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm inspired to think outside the box about my next adventure. What, what can I do? I've got two dogs.

They're pretty much useless. I got to find another answer.

Thank you, Carrie, some pack bags, right?

No, they're not, they're not going to be there. They're, they're only good. The only thing they're good for is to love. So, uh, that's about all I can do with them.

Yeah, it does make it interesting traveling with animals. That's for sure.

Well, Sophie, have a great day and I'll let you know when this comes out and thanks again for, uh, for being on.

Thanks, Mason. Thanks for having me. You have a great day too.

Thank you. All right. See you.

Bye.

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Come explore the wild heart of Utah with ores, no notifications, no meetings, no signal,

just you, the river and the space to reconnect with what matters most.

From one day adventures in dinosaur national monument to week long journeys through canyon lands and beyond,

ores delivers unforgettable guided rafting experiences on some of the most iconic rivers in the west.

Visit ores.com slash Utah to start planning your next great adventure.

Let's go rafting.

Support for this podcast is brought to you by Walden University.

Ever catch yourself thinking, what if I could go after what I actually want and really make a difference?

You're not alone. And that's exactly why I want to tell you about Walden University.

For over 50 years, Walden has helped working adults like you get the w with the knowledge and skills to build the future you want

and make a difference where it matters most.

If you've been waiting for the right moment, this is it.

Head to waldenu.edu and take that first step.

Walden University set a course for change certified to operate by chef.