Matt Pycroft is, in my humble opinion, one of the best interviewers out there, and over the years he’s had some fascinating conversations with the people who make up the UK adventure scene. His recent conversation with Tim Good is a belter.

After Covid, Brexit and becoming parents delayed plans to sail the world, Tim and his wife eventually thought sod it and set off with their three year old daughter. They crossed Biscay, sailed the coast of West Africa and travelled 170 miles up the Gambia River looking for hippos, chimps and river dolphins.

The episode explores how you hang onto the adventurous part of yourself while also trying to be a good parent….a question I suspect quite a few of us are still figuring out.

And there was me thinking my garden rope ladder was gnarly.

I’m not entirely sure why Alone is my favourite thing on TV. Maybe it’s watching genuine resourcefulness in action, or perhaps it’s seeing people get absolutely dismantled by hunger and then somehow keep going on a diet of maggot riddled mushrooms. Either way, I’m fairly certain every person watching has turned to their partner at some point and said, “I reckon I’d do alright,” from beneath a blanket while eating a chocolate digestive.

The latest Australian series is a cracker. Once these last remaining 5 had been stripped down to their emaciated, emotionally threadbare, pongy selves, the thing sitting right at the core of so nearly all of them was fatherhood. Beneath the survival bravado, they just wanted to be good dads.

On my London to Sydney bike ride I remember crawling out of a Hungarian bush we’d camped in one morning and bumping into a couple riding long-distance with their toddler on the back seat, who had possibly the biggest grin I’d ever seen. (I also remember the bag of nappies swinging from the dad’s handlebars and thinking, f**k that.)

Anyway, I’ve always had the utmost respect for parents riding long distances with kids in tow. So imagine my delight when I saw that Ro Marshall (aka British Adventure Mum) rode 1,000 miles from Land’s End to John o’ Groats with not one, but two bubs in tow. Big up respect, ya neon-coloured ledgebag.

I gobbled up this story from Sidetracked about Marcela and Michael, who live on an organic farm in the Ecuadorian Andes and take their two boys bikepacking into the mountains. Their philosophy is beautifully simple: make more stuff, buy less stuff, and bring the kids along for the ride. We’re now learning how to carve a spoon and repurpose a jumper sleeve into a beanie…

Set in a glorious nook of the Lake District, Kendal Mountain Festival is basically four days of films, talks, workshops and adventures that makes it impossible not to crank your life’s adventure dial up a couple of strokes. This year it runs 19–22 November, with 150+ films, 300+ speakers and a heap of activities and workshops, including plenty for families. I went last year and it pounds with good vibes and great people.

Now is a cracking time to sow wildflowers, and Seed Revolution are a brilliant local company run by Max Mancroft, helping turn Britain’s overly tidy gardens into something considerably wilder. Grab a packet of oxeye daisies and corn marigolds, chuck ’em around and make a beautiful mess. The bees will thank you. Your lawn-obsessed neighbour may not.

Naomi and Dan Walmsley spend their days teaching kids how to light fires, build shelters, forage and essentially become more useful should civilisation suddenly collapse. They run Outback2Basics from their woodland in Shropshire, where kids can get properly stuck into bushcraft and Stone Age skills. They’ve also just poured a load of that knowledge into a new book, Young Adventurers’ Survival Handbook (out this month).

The premise is brilliant. The battered notebooks of an Unknown Adventurer are discovered in a remote Amazon hut, stuffed with sketches, stories and instructions for lighting fires, building shelters, navigating by the stars and generally becoming a more useful human. It’s beautifully illustrated and inspires kids to put the book down and go and try some of it for themselves.

My twin brother has a wooden cabin at the end of his garden in suburban Buckinghamshire. It’s a beat bunker, which several nights a month thumps with rhythms so tasty that tawny owls are rumoured to be flocking to the area to head-bop to ’90s trip-hop.

I’ve seen many a sunrise from this cabin. It wasn’t because of yoga. 

He’s just released his latest recording for anyone who appreciates jazz, late-night grooves and music best enjoyed several hours after the children have gone to bed.