Crossing the ditch | James Castrission | TEDxAthens

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James Castrission crossed the Antarctic, made it to the South Pole and back in 89 days. He described his unique experience during TEDxAthens 2013.

(Wind)

(Music)

(Video) James Castrission: I'm going
insane here. I cannot handle this.

We're just trying to do everything
we can to stay in this.

Justin Jones: We don’t need
to be dealing with this right now.

JC: I just can't keep dealing with

the pain on the trail and not sleeping.

JJ: So close...

JC: I just can't move.

What is this place?

(Music)

(Applause)

JC: Well the place is Antarctica.

The coldest, windiest,
most inhospitable place on the planet.

And just over two years ago,
my best mate Jonesy and I,

found ourselves undertaking the longest
unsupported polar expedition of all time.

The plan was to ski
from the coast of Antarctica

to the South Pole and back,
completely unsupported.

So the food, the clothing, the tent,

everything we needed
to survive for 3 months in Antarctica,

were in those
two little yellow sleds behind us.

When we started out from the coast,
our weighing about 160 kilos.

So try and imagine filling
a fridge at home full of beer,

throwing it on its side and try to pull
that through the snow for 3 months.

That was the weight of these sleds.
And we knew we were in

for by far the toughest expedition
the two of us have ever undertaken.

Now if you rewind
a few years before that,

when we were ready to leave school,

my best mate Jonesy and I,
were two pretty average kids at school.

In fact, we weren't athletic at all.
(Laughter)

This is me, just about
to go off to my year 12 formal,

as I was leaving school and I really
feel quite sorry for my date there.

But Jonesy and I were both
carrying an extra 25 kilos

to what we're carrying now.

We were pretty confused and happy blokes.

We went through school
doing what we were meant to do,

both went to university and I started
studying and a career, accounting,

that I wasn't particularly engaged in.

And on the weekends,
we'd absolutely come alive.

We'd go bush-walking,
paddling, rock-climbing,

but always kept on bumbling
through these occupations

that we weren't happy with.

And then the idea came up
one day, to paddle across

one of the most violent stretches of ocean
in the world, the Tasman Sea.

We'd done some smaller trips in the past,
and I've got to this crossroad in my life

where either I could go
down life as an accountant,

or I could commit myself to this objective

that we did not know if it was possible.

And that's when we threw everything
we had at trying to unlock this puzzle

and trying to figure out if
it was possible to kayak 2,200 kilometers,

- so the distance from here to Moscow -
in a little kayak.

Seas were going to be
up to 10 meters high, wind up to 100 km/h.

And we end up designing
a kayak that was 27 feet long,

with a little cabin on the back end of it.

The cabin was about
the size of a coffin and a half,

stalked on top of each other –

so just big enough
to crawl into at night time,

get out paddling the next day.

November 2007.

Went up on the north coast
of New South Wales in Australia,

and departed across the Tasman Sea.

And initially we made
some phenomenal progress.

Each of these yellow dots
represents a 24 hour period at sea.

And this one day, we actually paddled
178 kilometers in one 24 hour period.

So the first half of the trip went great.

And then as we approached
the middle of the Tasman Sea,

we got struck by this storm,
that the two of us will never forget.

Seas were the height of the screen
behind me.

The waves would break,

the kayak would get pulled through
these enormous, monstrous waves.

And it just continued on, and on, and on.

It pushed us up, further North,

and then we found ourselves
battling a two-week current.

We went round, and round,
in circles for two weeks.

We tried to fight against it,
tried to get out

but we just could not make progress.

The only way we could escape this current

was to paddle 150 kilometers
back towards Australia,

loop down to the South
and come round for another shot.

And by thinking a little bit lectern
and a little bit outside of the box,

the strategy worked and -Apollo 13 song-,
we slung-shot our way out of it

and continued on towards New Zealand.

Barnacles popped up the bottom of the hole
and they were slowing our progress,

so we had to get them off
and we resolved the situation

by playing scissor-paper-rock
to figure out

who was going to go
and scrub these things off.

Fortunately Jonesy had to scrub them off.

And what we realized though,
was by scrubbing these things off,

and the stench of his unwashed body
created a burly trail up behind the kayak.

And then when it came time
to quit for the day,

these two sharks popped up on the kayak

and started grinding
and rubbing themselves up against us.

Their skin feels exactly like sandpaper.

And I'll never forget
going to sleep that night

and having less than 1 cm of kayak hull

between our head and there,
these two sharks.

It was the most bizarrely
intimate night of my life.

But fortunately,
they left us in the morning

and we continued on towards New Zealand,

and after 62 days,
we arrived at the shore,

and we were greeted
with this incredible welcome.

There were 25,000 people
on this beach that day to greet us in,

feeling that soft silky sand
of New Zealand come up between our toes

was a day the two of us will never forget.

And while this was all going on,

I had this thought,
the whole time on the Tasman Sea,

that 4,000 kilometers to our right
was this continent, Antarctica,

that I remembered
dreaming about as a child.

I wasn't interested in reading
about Frodo Baggings,

or Harry Potter wiggling
his little wand around.

I wanted to read
about explorers down in Antarctica.

Just over 100 years ago,

no one had ever stood
at the bottom of the earth,

and right up until then,
no one had ever done

the unsupported return journey,
to the South Pole and back.

And we always knew that it was going to be
right on the limit of human endurance.

We didn't know
if it was going to be possible,

but we threw in everything we had
at trying to unlock this puzzle

and trying to figure out
a way to get there and back.

In order to be successful, we were going
to need to travel 500 kilometers

[more] than anyone had ever done
in an unsupported manner in Antarctica.

And that's what excited us,

and we decide to throw everything
we had in, to make it happen.

I don't have too much time to go into it
today but, being Greek Australian,

I hadn't really spent
much time in the snow,

so the two of us had to learn how to ski

- a small little thing to get to know
before you get to a place like Antarctica.

Fortunately things started to improve.

We went through the planning phase,
and then we flew across the Pacific,

to the tail bone of South America.
A little place called Punta Arenas.

And when we arrived there,
we had a couple of weeks

to pack our sleds
and get ourselves ready.

And in walks this 6' 3'' tall,
blond, Norwegian guy, Alex Gamme.

And he quite proudly announced to us
that he was going to be the first person

to walk from the coast of Antarctica,
to the South Pole and back, unsupported.

We were dumbfounded.
This guy is a polar guide.

He guided people across Greenland.
He climbed Everest, and two 8000 m. peaks.

And here was Jonesy and myself...

We felt a bit like
the Jamaican bobsled team.

We'd just learned how to ski.

Now we were on a race
with this Norwegian Terminator.

And it was with that heavy cloud,

that we took our final plane flight
to Antarctica,

and that's where
we were going to begin our journey.

It was in the spring time,

and the South Pole was sitting 1,100 km
away in a altitude of 2,800m.

Now that's about
the height of mount Olympus.

And when you're starting from the coast

and you need to pull it up
to that kind of altitude,

you feel every single one of those meters.

And the planes drop off four food caches

that we hoped to pick up
on the return journey.

So we started out.

And in the first month of the expedition,

we got some horrendous weather.

First, half a foot fell of snow,
a foot, a foot and a half.

It was quite atmospheric, we thought
"Ah. This is great. This is beautiful."

But when you're dragging
a sled that weighs 160 kilos,

through a foot and a half
of freshly fallen snow,

it's not something
I wish upon my worst enemy.

It feels like you geezered
something pushed up against your back,

you're leaning
so far forward in your sled,

that your face
is about to kiss the ground.

We were averaging less than
10 km a day for that first 30 days.

We had to average 25 km a day
to make this trip happen.

And the only thing
we could control was ourselves,

so we started pushing
harder and harder, every single day.

Mileage crept up, but by pushing so hard,

our bodies started to break,

and this infection spread across my body,

and we were staring down
the barrel of failure.

I couldn't move, I couldn't sleep.

I was in so much pain, that I just thought
the whole expedition was over.

We sat there for two days,

knowing that Alex Gamme was making
his way towards the South Pole.

And then we started
a course of antibiotics.

And that started
to clear up the infection.

And then when we got back on the trail
for the second time

we realized that on a three-month
expedition in a place like Antarctica,

you can't force your agenda on the place.

You need to work with it.

So we went on back down to 80%
and we kept progressing forward.

And sure enough, the summer
came and temperatures improved.

It was time to celebrate one of the most
glorious days of the year, Christmas.

A few years earlier, on the Tasman Sea,
we hadn't bought Christmas presents;

we didn't think we'd do that whole
"doughnut in the middle" thing.

This time we came prepared

and we came ready
for the whitest Christmas of our lives,

and it really was a day
that the two of us will never forget.

Here it is right now:

(Video) JC: So, it's Christmas Day.

Jonesy is just outside,
doing the snow flaps,

and I've brought a few decorations.

(Balloon sounds)

Shhh.

And I've made Jonesy a little card.

What's that?
I am whispering to myself? Nah mate.

What do you mean,
"What am I doing in there?"

He's on to us.

This is his Christmas present.

The last two weeks,
I've been saving bacon for him.

He is going to be so excited.

Here he comes.

Merry Christmas, bro.

JJ: Merry Christmas, bro..

You're fucking kidding me.
You're kidding me. You're fucking kidding.

Where did this come from?
Where did this come from?

JC: The last two weeks
I haven't been eating my meat.

Everyday I've been packing it
aside of this window for Jonesy.

JJ: You're kidding me?

Two weeks of meat that is.

JJ: I can't do that.
I can't do that. That's not right.

Aww, my present is like shit now.

Merry Christmas from Antarctica. Woohooo.

(Barking)

That's a dog.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

JC: It was the third expedition Christmas
the two of us had spent together,

and it was by far the best.

Our progress was up,

and then we started skiing off
towards the south pole,

knowing that in five days time

we were going to reach
the bottom of the Earth,

and stand where
all our great heroes had stood.

So we made our progress,
and then on day 62 as we're skiing in,

we saw this pole. It's a barber shop pole,
with this round globe on it.

And it literally is the South Pole.
And all these flags lying around.

The two of us were so excited.
We skied up to this thing,

and we started doing
doughnuts around it - thinking,

“Beat that Robin Knox Johnston,
we got that far.

Took us not very long
to go around the world."

And we were having so much fun.

And this scientist, that you can see
reflected in the globe there,

actually came out
and broke some news to us.

He said,"Guys, you're doing so well.

And you're only 5 days
behind Alexander Gamme."

Five days? Look that doesn't matter.

What we're going to do
is catch him on the return.

Because every single step
we take away from the South Pole

is taking us one step closer to our goal,
and not away from it.

It was at this moment, the moment
that we stepped into uncharted waters

by turning our backs to the South Pole,

that the real adventure had just begun.

It had taken us 62 days
to reach the South Pole.

We now only had 27 days
to ski that same distance,

all the way back to the coast.

To get back in 27 days, we had to average
over a marathon, every single day.

The biggest day we had done
on the outward journey had been 34 km.

So we now had to average
10 kilometers more than our biggest day,

every single day, or we were going
to miss the final plane of the season.

And at this point
we didn't know if it was possible.

We didn't know if it was humanly possible,
if it was possible for ourselves.

Our bodies were so wasted away
by this point.

But we were going
to give it everything we had.

And we started skiing
the biggest days of our lives.

40 kilometers, 45k,

even started nudging close
to 50 kilometers every single day.

And the mileage started to come,
it started to melt behind us.

We left the polar plateau
we found ourselves skiing along.

But when you've been pushing yourself,
that hard, for that long,

in a place like Antarctica,
our bodies literally started to die on us.

Our hands and our feet
were the first things to go,

we lost complete dexterity
in the lower 2/3 of our fingers.

Our feet became a mess.

This infection spread across our face,
that made even eating a chore

- you'd open up your mouth,
to shovel in some of the half provisions,

and it would crack and bleed,

and then all you could taste
for the rest of the meal was blood.

The two of us lost 55 kilos of weight.
Jonesy lost 30, I lost 25.

And we did not know...
We'd wake up in the morning,

and try to walk around
outside the tent was difficult.

But we always felt that
we could keep taking one more step.

And when you keep taking one more step,

sure enough, the end goal
starts getting closer, and closer.

And on the return journey,

as we kept on skiing away
with our bodies looking like that,

by day 87, we realized that
we were going to get back to the coast.

But we hadn't caught Alexander Gamme,
he'd beaten us to our goal.

And we thought,
look, that doesn't matter,

we'd put everything into this thing.

Being the second people
to have been tried such a journey

it's a pretty phenomenal
achievement in itself.

And on the last day
of the expedition, on day 89,

we packed up our tent for the final time

and we started skiing
back towards our start point.

And we're aiming for this little rock
on the horizon, this little black dot.

And we're skiing down Hercules Inlet.

Because we'd lost
all these stabilizing muscles in our body,

we'd fall over and we'd pick
ourselves back up,

and just continue on.

And as that black dot
started to get closer,

we realized that it was actually moving.

And it was coming towards us.
And it wasn't a black dot at all.

It was actually a 6 foot 3,
tall, blond, Norwegian guy,

waiting, 3 km short of the finish line,

so that we could all finish
this expedition together.

(Applause)

Alex showed us, that a much
higher level of self-fulfillment

and achievement can be reached
when you're not fighting people,

when you're working
together with one another.

We fed of each other's energy out there.

We both don't we would've been
able to pull off this journey

if the other person wasn't out there,
pushing themselves as hard as he was.

So we sat there and then finally,
the plane came down to us,

picked us up and it was time to come home.

I came back to a beautiful fiance,

who I married a couple of weeks
after I got back,

and of course, Jonesy
was my best man at the wedding.

Here's our arrival back now:

(Music)

"One of the greatest adventure stories."

"The two Australian adventurers,
trekking across Antarctica,"

"On a record breaking trek."

"Returning from
an epic Antarctica expedition."

"They survived more than
their fair share of dangers,

and eventually walked
into the history books."

(Cheers)

[Only those who risk going too far,
can possibly find how far they can go.]

(Applause)

JC: Thank you.
Have a good night. Thank you.

(Applause)