The NomadTARA MULVANY Te Anau, New Zealand
"I wanted to live simply, where the wind and swell are what matter most."
So says Kiwi adventuress Tara Mulvany of the urge that launched her on a two-year
odyssey paddling around New Zealand and Vancouver Island. With a three-month tour of remote Fiordland already under her belt—during which she and boyfriend Sim Grigg were pinned down for 14 days by gale-force winds and eight-meter seas, nearly running out of food—the then 23-year-old sea kayak guide felt up to the challenge. With her willowy build and girlish giggle—“I’m pretty sure Tara giggled her way
around New Zealand,” says admirer Laura Prendergast—Mulvany isn’t your archetypical stoic seadog. “She’s a cute, skinny thing who paddles barefoot,” notes expedition paddler Justine Curgenven. She’s also sprinted naked down “more beaches than I can count on my fingers and toes” as a means of bear deterrent, and navigated large tracts of coast with just a road map. Lack of footwear and charts aside, Mulvany’s faded paddling jacket and threadbare PFD are testament to her time on the water. For Mulvany, who grew up climbing mountains and trekking with her parents, a
winter circumnavigation added to the trip’s appeal. “No one had ever paddled around the South Island in winter before,” she says. In May 2012, she and Grigg set off on what would prove to be a life-defining journey. Seasickness, surf landings in the dark, capsizes and even getting separated for several days on the wild West Coast tested their commitment to the trip, and each other. Halfway through, Grigg left for good. “It was a strange feeling to leave behind the security I had felt with having a companion and face the uncertainty ahead alone,” she says of her decision to continue solo. Intoxicated by the simplicity, freedom and challenges of life in a kayak,
Mulvany went on to circle the rest of New Zealand, tracing the coastlines of Stewart Island and the North Island on a journey that was by turns idyllic and epic. She recalls one stormy day when she paddled for nine hours only to be forced back by deteriorating weather to where she’d started. “It was one of those days when I didn’t care that I’d gotten nowhere,” she says, “I was thankful just to be on land.” Mulvany says it’s this ability to play the conservative card that makes
women such successful expedition paddlers. “I made it because I followed my instincts, listened to fear when it was necessary, and waited for the conditions that I knew I could manage,” she says. “So much can be gained from adventuring solo—it’s easy for women who paddle with men to just follow, and not be actively engaged in the decision-making process.” The reward to facing challenges on your own terms and overcoming
your fears, Mulvany says, is greater confidence and contentment. The pain of numb hands and empty stomach, the aching muscles and occasional loneliness—what she calls “character building moments”— fade with time. “I’m glad that I gave it my best shot,” she says, “I can look back at those and just giggle.” —Virginia Marshall
48 | ADVENTURE KAYAK
PHOTOS: TARA MULVANY
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