Your Cart is Empty
Interview with The Curly Nomads for World Ocean Day
To celebrate World Ocean Day, we interviewed the amazing team behind The Curly Nomads - Talie and George who have been travelling the world filling us with actual #wanderlust. Currently in Vietnam, the duo have been ‘chasing summer’ around the world from South America, to Australia and South East Asia. When they're at home, they volunteer for http://lovemybeach.org/ to help clean up the beaches and seas of North West England, check it out! If you're looking for holiday inspo and insane photos, don't forget to follow them on instagram 📷 The Curly Nomads
1. How did you first get involved with Lovemybeach?
When i was teaching in Manchester, during our last term i decided to base the afternoon lessons on something relevant to my year of travelling. I wanted to inspire my class of thirty two 8 year olds and encourage them to be conscientious about the environment. Obviously we’re not near the sea, but Blackpool is a popular holiday destination for many children at the school, and Lovemybeach are a North West based scheme promoting a 'tidy britain'. Their mantra of not having to live by the sea to make a difference really encouraged the children to get on board with being environmentally friendly.
2. What is their main message and what do they encourage volunteers to do?
Their main message is that everyone in the UK is relatively close to a river, and by being dismissive about what you do at home and in your local area can have a direct effect on the beaches we spend our time on in the holidays. They provide advice and ideas on how you can help; their website shows a list of things for you to do, whether you're a teacher, a dog walker, a child or a local business. They encourage people to join beach cleans, 'think before you flush', catch rainwater, putting rubbish in the bin and most importantly spread the word.
3. What has been your favourite experience in the sea?
Haha such a hard question, how to choose one!?... I think my favourite experience in the sea was diving for the first time with Hammerhead sharks and manta rays in the Galapagos. Being in the water with an animal the size of the sharks was incredible and something I'd never experienced before. Manta rays quickly jumped to the top of my list for favourite marine animal, I could have watched them swim in and out of the scuba bubbles for hours!
4. What have been your top 3 most incredible moments?
Number 1. Has to be driving around the hills in Cape Le Grand National park and seeing the white sand of Lucky Bay, in Esperance WA. Our jaws dropped and I honestly couldn't believe what I was seeing. To top it off the beach was filled with kangaroos at sunset. Definitely the most beautiful, unspoiled beach I've ever seen (and we've been away for another 5 months since then and it still hasn't been beaten, not even by Whitehaven in the Whitsundays!).
Number 2. Another wow moment was walking along the edge of Lake Pehoe in Patagonia, the entire Torres Del Paine mountain range was incredible, but we ended up spending hours on the edge of Lake Pehoe because we were mesmerized by the glacial melt, causing the water to be an amazing shade of blue. With the backdrop of the classic Patagonia logo mountains, it really is a view I'll never forget, and will hopefully revisit in the future.
Number 3. We had a tough time agreeing on this one, trying to decide between camping at 4,600 meters above sea level (amazing but would never do again haha) or 3 days living on the Amazon river. I chose the Amazon as a whole experience. From catching and eating piranhas, to swimming with pink dolphins and caiman we had many moments in the camp where we couldn't believe how lucky we were to be experiencing it all.
5. Where to next??
Unfortunately, our year away is nearly over, and we are severely running out of money haha! We head to Cambodia in a few weeks, but we are already planning our next trip, closer to home, in Scandinavia somewhere. After a few months in South East Asia I am craving cold, fresh air and snow capped mountains.
6. What advice would you give to those who are looking to help but don’t know where to start?
A lot of the children in my class couldn't answer this question at first, aside from the obvious of putting rubbish in the bin. After a term spent focusing on the local environment and what we can do to help, their lists were endless. One easy thing is not buying plastic bags, my mum's a classic for having tons of 'bags for life' in the back of her car for whenever she does the shopping, you can easily end up collecting loads, they even do tiny fold up ones that you can carry around in a handbag or coat pocket for last minute shops.
Another one which we've started doing while travelling around is refusing a plastic straw, if consumers refuse plastic straws then eventually the business will swap to a more environmentally friendly option. We've been collecting bamboo straws from bars along the way and I just carry them in my rucksack for milkshakes (I totally understand you can't drink milkshakes without straws!). Another thing we've done pretty much every time we've been to a beach is picking up rubbish throughout the day, and putting our little pile in the bin as we leave. Obviously you're not expected to spend your holiday traipsing up and down the beach clearing it, but it's so easy to pick up something every time you go for a dip in the sea, and your actions might just have a positive effect on fellow sunbathers and cause a domino effect of beach cleaning.
Oh i forgot the obvious one that everyone should be doing, buy a water bottle! Pretty much all restaurants and cafes in the UK fill them up with tap water so this is great for stopping plastic water bottles being bought unnecessarily.
A massive thank you to George and Talie for taking the time out of their ridiculously incredible journey to answer a few questions!
Next stop…Cambodia
Leave a comment
Comments will be approved before showing up.