The First Mile is an immersive travel podcast, bringing you untold stories from the world of adventure. It is presented by Ash Bhardwaj and Pip Stewart — two travel journalists, who are adventurers in their own right — and explores everything from the ethics of cultural tourism, to documenting your journeys and making a living from travel. Ash and Pip navigate this territory with some of the world’s greatest travellers, who reveal how they got their first break in travel writing, planned remote expeditions, or made the switch from a corporate career to a life of adventure. Alongside these in-depth interviews are travel-narrative dispatches: evocative field recordings from Ash and Pip’s adventures, which take the listener along for the ride. New episodes are released weekly, in 10-episode seasons. ****** Season one’s interview guests include: author Monisha Rajesh, explorer Levison Wood, film-maker Reza Pakravan, and travel-writer Leon McCarron. Our dispatches come from Annapurna, Nepal, and Whanganui, New Zealand, where our hosts report back on rites of passage, celestial navigation, the joys of moonshine liquor, and a whole lot more. ****** Ash Bhardwaj is an award-winning broadcaster, film-maker and Telegraph Travel columnist. He regularly reports for BBC Radio 4 and the World Service, and his films have appeared on BBC, Channel 4, Discovery and National Geographic. Pip Stewart has cycled halfway around the world and completed a world-first kayak descent of Guyana’s Essequibo River (where she picked up a flesh-eating parasite). She is the former Red Bull adventure editor, and her presenting work has appeared on BBC, Al Jazeera and The Telegraph. ****** We hope you enjoy The First Mile. Please let us know what you think of it in the comments, and give us a rating, too.
Episodes
Wednesday Dec 09, 2020
Wednesday Dec 09, 2020
Dispatch from New Zealand: Maori Hakas, Sacred Rivers, and Jet-boat Evacuations.
In this action-packed Dispatch episode, we join Ash in Aotearoa New Zealand's North Island. Ash tackles rapids, learns about Maori culture (including traditional navigational techniques) - and makes it back to the UK just before lockdown hit.
Ash meets the captain of an ocean-going waka, who left the New Zealand Army to navigate oceans with just the stars, the weather, and the taste of the water. Then he canoes down the Whanganui River in the company of a man who teaches Maori heritage and history through a river journey.
In this episode, discover:
- How the Maori people navigated to Aotearoa New Zealand from near the equator.
- The history wrapped up in Maori myth and legend.
- How the value of nature is communicated through metaphor.
- The historical importance and modern legacy of the Treaty of Waitangi.
- What the haka means.
- What European colonisation meant for indigenous peoples.
- Why the Whanganui River has the same legal status as a person.
- The geological representation of Maori familial connections.
Links mentioned in this episode:
- New Zealand tourism board https://www.newzealand.com/uk/
- Treaty of Waitangi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Waitangi
- Waitangi Treaty Grounds https://www.waitangi.org.nz
- The Bridge to Nowhere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_to_Nowhere_(New_Zealand)
- Whanganui River has the same legal status as a person https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2019/04/maori-river-in-new-zealand-is-a-legal-person/
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