THE TELEGRAPH OUTDOOR ADVENTURE & TRAVEL SHOW – DRIVEN BY SEAT
TELEGRAPH TRAVEL
Cracknell James
STAGE ON THURSDAY
The gold medallist, triathlete and extreme adventurer opens up about his trek on a camel in the Arabian Desert with Ben Fogle, his political ambitions, and his desire to see a proper Olympic legacy for the UK
What have you been up to since travelling across the Arabian Desert? I competed at the Duathlon World Championships in the summer and went through the selection process for the Conservative MEP candidacy. I’m now entering the final stages of campaigning ahead of the elections on 22nd May, so it’s pretty much full on. Thankfully, there are no camels on the MEP trail – they’re grumpy little s*** heads!
How was the Arabian Desert? We were incredibly lucky to go there in the way we did – with Bedouin, with camels and just sleeping out at night. We were away from civilisation (and internet and mobiles) so had peace in a way that you don’t get anywhere else, and you don’t realise how rare that is. It’s an amazing place – it is still difficult to get to, and it is still very empty, apart from the bucket loads of oil beneath it.
And were you and Ben still talking by the end of your trip? If we hadn’t spoken to each other we wouldn’t have got much conversation
from the camels! To be honest it took a while to get back into the habit of doing something together – it had been three and a half years since we’d last done something – but it was good, and it’s rare to have the chance to do something like that.
What challenges did you face? To get water it wasn’t a case of finding an oasis where there’d be an abundance of trees within a mile of it to mark it out, it was basically a case of coming across a well – a bit of concrete and maybe one tree – and finding them is tricky. If you miss it then the next one on the map is another three days away, and we just had a compass and maps, no GPS. Then also Ben got bitten by a
camel which was quite nasty (but fortunately his rabies’ injections were up to date). I had sympathy, obviously – but he did insist on feeding dates to his camel as if he was feeding grapes to Cleopatra. Dates are like chocolate to camels and they’d wolf them down every morning, and at 5 in the morning when we were feeding them in the dark it was hard
to tell the difference between his finger and the date so he ended up getting nipped. Then the following day he got
pulled off his camel by the camel carrying our stuff – he fell and broke a rib. While Ben was whimpering on the floor, the Bedouin dude who was our mentor said, ‘You fall off camels all the time – in an hour, it’s OK.’ To which Ben got very Western, as I would have, and said [in a girly voice], ‘I’ve broken a rib, I can’t carry on’, so we left the desert to go to the hospital, which was a bit of a low point as once we got in the car to leave it felt hard to return. But once his rib had healed we picked up where we left off and the camels had a bit of a holiday in the middle of the desert doing bugger all.
How has your life has changed since your cycling accident? My values have changed – you’re aware much more of how your behaviour affects everyone else, and I think it’s useful for everyone to know that. I also have an appreciation for every day, and the things that you take for granted.
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telegraphoutdoorshow.co.uk
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