With more than two thousand kilometres of treacherous seas and dangerously unpredictable weather and currents, not to mention the ever-present threat of sharks, it was little wonder no one had ever successfully crossed the Tasman by kayak.
Australian adventurer Andrew McAuley had come close just months earlier - tragically, though, not near enough to save his life.
But two young Sydneysiders, James Castrission and Justin Jones, reached the sand at New Plymouth - and a place in history - on 13 January 2008, 62 days after they′d set off from ... more

The expedition was made up entirely of British adventurers, gadabouts and scientists, the exception being one Canadian, Charles Seymour (Silas) Wright. Born 1887 in Toronto, Charles Wright was studying physics in Cambridge when he heard Scott was looking for a physicist to join the expedition to the pole. By the time Wright inquired, Scott had chosen a physicist for the team but was short a glaciologist. Who else but a Canadian would know about glaciers? Wright became the expedition's glaciologist. Halfway through the rough passage to the Antarctic, ... more