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Guest speaker
Adventurer and explorer
3rd November 2011
Kevin Biggar
| Kevin Biggar got his first taste of adventure early, he was just 18 when he had the opportunity to work for two months at 12,500 feet, building a school at the Tengboche monastery, in Nepal, with Sir Edmund Hillary. |
After dinner in the hut Sir Ed would tell stories about his climbs. It left a big impression on Kevin and planted a seed for the adventures to come.
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| The seed lay dormant for many years while he finished a physics degree at Auckland University and a Master of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. Kevin returned to New Zealand to work in the International Economics group of The Treasury, and the Energy Impacts group of the Ministry of Commerce before becoming a Strategy Consultant with The Boston Consulting Group. |
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That seed finally bore fruit Kevin left the corporate world to take part in the 2003 Trans-Atlantic Rowing Race - a 5000km epic between the Canary Islands and Barbados in a 7m plywood dinghy - an unusual choice for someone who had never rowed before! |
| Kevin used his business skills to great effect, identifying and innovating on the most critical elements of the preparations. His rowing partner was Jamie Fitzgerald, a 22 year old university student. |
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They encountered storms, curious whales, sleep deprivation, breakages, hallucinations, stinging jellyfish and were dramatically thrown out of their boat in a capsize just 130nm from Barbardos, leading to a desperate and thrilling sprint to the finish.
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In the end, they not only won, but smashed the previous record by more than 21 hours completing the gruelling challenge in just over 40 days and 5 hours at sea
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Two years with strategy groups in Telecom NZ followed, before Kevin and Jamie teamed up again to take on an even bigger challenge.
An unsupported, 1200 km manhaul to the South Pole – a feat that fewer than 50 people have ever achieved.
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The motivation
To become the first New Zealanders to walk unsupported to the South Pole;
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary's South Pole expedition, and to work with the Foundation of Youth Development to help raise young people's awareness of outdoor pursuits.
In Antarctica Kevin and Jamie spent fifty days battling worse than expected conditions, temperatures as cold as -40 degrees, frostbite, injury, whiteouts, endless sastruggi and gear failure.
"I thought after rowing the Atlantic that nothing could ever be difficult again. But Antarctica was brutal, there is nothing about manhauling the sled down there that is easy. Just when you think things are going ok something will go wrong, like your glove gets blown away, a tent pole breaks, or you fall into a crevasse."
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| Finally, after 52 days of man-hauling their sleds, they reached the South Pole. The first New Zealanders to walk unsupported to the Pole and the first people in the world to have rowed an ocean and walked to a pole |
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Kevin Biggar will be appearing as
Guest Speaker
Thursday 3 November
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