Reinventing adventure: Darren’s story
Darren Edwards, a proud Scout when he was younger, is now one of the UK’s leading adventurers. He was part of the first ever team to kayak from Land’s End to John O’Groats, and later completed seven marathons on seven continents in seven days. What makes him even more remarkable is that he did all this after surviving a climbing accident when he was 26, which left him paralysed from the chest down.
When my family moved to Shropshire when I was 12, I found myself at the village Scout Troop. I fell in love with everything that Scouts did: fire-making, bushcraft, going out on the hills, walking and navigating. This led to lifelong love of adventure.
The day everything changed
When I was 26, I experienced a life-changing accident when my best friend, Matt, and I were climbing a 250ft rock face called World’s End (of all things) just inside Snowdonia National Park.
We were standing on a six-foot-wide ledge with one final section to go. I started climbing up the final 40ft vertical crack – that ran like a fissure through the rockface.
As I looked down, I turned, and something about the shift of my weight beneath my feet caused the rock to almost instantly collapse beneath me.
The first thing I heard was a crack. The second thing I felt was a slight shift beneath my feet, and a millisecond later, this chunk of World’s End had fallen off and taken me with it.
I continued to tumble and was about to slip off when I felt a weight on top of my chest. Matt had thrown himself on top of me to stop my body from rolling off and falling to my death. He pulled me back from the drop and saved my life.
Getting through rehab
I was seriously injured. Rehab lasted for five months, starting in intensive care. I’d severed my spinal cord, which was hard to hear, since adventure was a massive part of my identity.
I spent those five months looking for people who were like me, but had gone on to do incredible, adventurous things. I was inspired by Karen Darke who’d been on a similar journey, learning to adapt her approach to adventure after a life changing injury.
Scouts was the reason I adapted from being an inner-city boy, to an adolescent and ultimately an adult that thrived most when I was outside, doing something challenging, with that sense of community.
Darren
Lands End to John O’Groats by kayak
I learned to fail and persevere when I started kayaking. I joined the Paralympic Kayaking Team in Nottingham and it gave me a sense of purpose (although I was as wet as often as I was dry).
Although I didn’t make the team that ultimately went to the Paralympic Games, I came up with the idea of kayaking from Land’s End to John O’Groats, a first for anyone – able bodied or not.
Over 26 days, we battled through wind, waves and tides. We did it as people with life changing injuries who’d been told this was never going to work, but we were determined to redefine what people called impossible.
The Seven Marathon Challenge
Soon after, I accepted a challenge to complete seven marathons on seven continents in seven consecutive days in just 10 months’ time. It was 168 miles in 182 hours.
We began in Antarctica. It was -27C, the wind speed was 60 miles per hour, and we only had six hours to complete the marathon. The first marathon took me 5 hours 50 minutes, and I was so relieved to finish in time. No one had ever done it before in a wheelchair.
Then, we were back on the plane, straight onto Cape Town in South Africa. We went from -27C to 30C, and started the second marathon just 12 hours after the first.
Next was Perth, then to Dubai, and from Dubai to Madrid – where the pot-holes and speed bumps caused no end of trouble. Then onto Brazil in blistering 46C heat.
Our final marathon took place in Miami and there were just 26 miles separating us from completing the challenge. I finished at 5.30am, utterly exhausted as I crossed the finish line.
Helping others
Shortly after, I was proud to launch my charity, Adaptive Expeditions, to offer adventurous activities for people with disabilities.
One great moment was when Karen Darke came and paddled with us for the day in Scotland.
The best advice I’ve heard for anyone who goes through a life changing moment is: ‘Persevere; keep moving forward with determination and never lose sight of what you want to become.’
You can find out more about Darren Edwards by visiting his website.