In our modern lives there isn’t much time
for adventure; brimming diaries and pinging mobiles make sure business trips
and even holidays have little room for the rush of excitement that comes from
the unexpected, the unforeseen. When change and respite from the our normal
lives are possible, we want to be sure the experience will be what we imagine
it to be; as Alain de Botton says in The Art of Travel, we plan in order to
match our expectations of that perfect tropical island, that beautiful hotel. But
is it possible to plan for adventure, without compromising on comfort?
‘Adventure-luxe’ is exactly what a growing
number of well-heeled urban couples are seeking, according to travel specialist
Black Tomato. A guaranteed way to tick off a bucket-list thrill, without
excluding a partner who may prefer a sunbed to a surfboard. Co-founder Tom
Marchant says his firm is providing authentic adventures which offer the
“bragging rights” more travellers are looking for. And there’s nothing wrong with
that; tales of derring-do in distant places around the dinner table or the
office watercooler are nothing new. That most sophisticated writer and
traveller John Steinbeck once said the main reason we travel is so we have
something to talk about when we get home.
The websites and brochures of those perfect
hotels no longer feature only immaculate waiters bringing refreshment to
bronzed yet passive guests among the palm trees. They are just as likely to
boast about wildernesses to explore, physical challenges to be overcome, skills
to be learnt. Catching a wave with a world champion? Done. Riding the range among
real cowboys? No problem. Cycling like Lance Armstrong for a day? Certainly.
All it takes to come back from your trip with your cool significantly enhanced is
money, a reasonable degree of fitness and a fairly determined attitude.
Since we are talking about cool things to
do, let’s start with surfing; without doubt the coolest sport ever invented,
being performed mostly sideways by people with perfect physiques and no
Blackberry to answer to. And where’s the coolest place to surf? Depends who you
ask; according to Portugal’s national champion Ruben Gonzalez, it’s the Atlantic
coast north of Cascais. If you're staying at the luxurious new Oitavos hotel
nearby, he’ll take you out to Guincho beach – even if you’re a complete
beginner. In fact, Ruben likes teaching newbies – he says there’s nothing to
match the grin he sees when someone rides their first wave. You’ll get back to
the Oitavos feeling you’ve earned that perfect dinner at Cyril Devillier’s
table in the Ipsylon restaurant – and you might well need a session in the
spectacular baineotherapy spa, looking out across the wind-whipped grasses on
the Guincho sand dunes. Here Ruben has spent a lifetime mastering big barrels
and huge airs - but the adventurer-luxe doesn't have that long. We need it all,
now.
So let’s flip over to New Zealand. It’s
where the adventure vacation was invented, with bungee jumping and white-water
rafting being de rigeur for every backpacker. But we won’t be roughing it; we
and our surfboard will be picked up from the lawns of Ahu Ahu, North Island’s
finest luxury beachside lodge. There might be a moment’s hesitation trading the
comforts of your architect-designed eco-villa with extraordinary views across
the Tasman Sea, but that’s what we’re here for; being whisked out over the ruggedly
handsome coastline in search of the gnarliest waves. Surfing doesn’t come much
cooler than this - unless you count volcano surfing in Nicaragua. Staying at
the ultra-relaxed, hippy-chic Morgan’s Rock eco-lodge, you climb the
still-active Cerro Negro volcano (hot lava flows, poisonous gases, the works)
then practice trick turns down the forty-odd degree ash slope. Go easy though –
this is where Eric Barone very nearly killed himself setting the 135mph
downhill mountain bike record. Firmly not recommended.
Speaking of cycling, it’s another sport the
adventurers-luxe are making their own. Forget a gentle ride over to the next
Provencal village; at Crillon le Brave the view is filled with the legendary
slopes of Mont Ventoux, one of the most feared and revered climbs in the Tour
de France. Owner Peter Chittick is an experienced road biker as well as
hotelier and a big part of choosing the location was being close to what French
philosopher Roland Barthes called “a god of evil, a despot of cyclists”. Near
the top is where British rider Tom Simpson exhorted spectators to put him back
on his bike, moments before succumbing to heat exhaustion, amphetamines and
brandy. It’s a hill that’s defeated Lance Armstrong, seven times Tour de France
winner. So why would people pay top dollar to stay at Crillon le Brave, borrow
one of the hotel’s stable of carbon-fibre racing cycles and take on this beast
of a hill?
If you have to ask, you’ve probably never
been on a road bike. Mont Ventoux simply has to be done. And there’s no better
way of doing it than waking up in a perfect Provencal bedroom where you can
open the shutters and see the mountain facing you across the vineyards below
the village, knowing you can unwind your sinews in a delightful spa pool and
restore your strength with some of the finest cooking (and wines) in the region
on your return. Assuming you do return, of course – the statistically slight
risk is part of the thrill, worth taking to ride the same roads as the pantheon
of cycling greats, beat the locals’ best time climbing a vertical kilometer
(anything under a couple of hours is respectable) and to come back to Crillon
le Brave with a real adventure to talk about. Your non-cycling companions may
be a touch baffled, even concerned, by your endorphin-fuelled over-enthusiasm -
but you can always smile indulgently at their tales of fluffy towels,
deliciously-chilled rose and Provencal massage oils.
And if Mont Ventoux (1912m) isn’t mountain
enough for you, how about the Himalayas? The kingdom of Bhutan was the first nation
to measure its GDP in terms of happiness rather than cash, and Uma Paro is one
of its few luxury boutique hotels. From there, you can cycle (or be taken by
the hotel) to the top of the kingdom’s highest road at Chele La - itself a mere
3810m but rubbing shoulders with some proper mountains like Jhomolhari, an impressive
7314m. Then you can cycle downhill a full 30 kilometres back to the hotel,
where your personal butler will cosset you with wood fires, a pot of local tea
and even, in some of the villas (beautifully styled on a local theme), your own
private spa.
It seems an essential part of the
methodical, planned mindset of scuba diving to tick off dive sites around the
world. Once the big names are in the logbook – Australia’s Barrier Reef, the
wreck of the Rhone off Peter Island in the Virgin Islands – divers start scouring
the world for the unusual, the unexplored. With, if they’re adventurers-luxe,
somewhere agreeable to stay. Zighy Bay in Oman, for instance, has dive sites
teeming with wildlife - but not with other divers. It’s set on a sweep of
unspoiled coast with village-style rustic-chic villas, spectacular dining on
the mountaintop overlooking the bay and a Six Senses spa awarded as the best in
the Middle East. More extreme still is Black Tomato’s Icelandic diving trip – stay
at the 1930s Art Deco Borg hotel (with a cool modern take, and one of Reykjavik’s
leading resturants, Silfur) just off hip shopping strip Laugavegur, then get
driven out by Jeep to the bone-numbing waters of the Silfra Rift at
Thingvellir. Equipped with dry suit and scuba gear, you enter the clearest
water in the world and descend between two of the tectonic plates that make up
the Earth’s crust. You can touch two continents at once, be James Cameron for a
day, party in Reykjavik and be back at your desk on Monday morning. That’s
worth talking about at the coffee machine.
Which brings us to the undercurrent of
competitiveness that trips worth talking about tend to engender. The trick here
is to assert your bragging rights gently, without upstaging your interlocutors.
You can throw away all your hard-won cool points in a moment’s lack of tact.
John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley is a masterpiece of self-deprecation, as
well as one of the great travel books. Charley was a large and reputedly highly
intelligent poodle “of the French persuasion” with whom Steinbeck spent many
months driving around the USA. Of all the states he passed through, Montana is
the only one Steinbeck truly loved (rather than respected, liked or felt
indifference towards). Charley liked it too.
Even today Montana is a true wilderness
where the mountains have grandeur, but are not so wild as to be out of reach.
The woods and rivers are beautiful and full of life. The people are calm and
practical, descendants of the early pioneers who scratched a living after
following Lewis and Clark into the wilderness. And in the middle of it all is
the Ranch at Rock Creek, a 6000-acre spread where guests can fulfil their
fantasies of living like the grizzled mountain men (and equally grizzled women)
of a century ago. There are horses to ride into the hills, dozens of them; my
twelve year old daughter, who came with me, still pines for a handsome quarter
horse named Rudy. We tracked bear and bobcat with head wrangler Tom McCombs,
whooped down trails on mountain bikes, learned to shoot a Magnum .357 and to my
daughter’s amazement I even caught a fine cutthroat trout. At the Ranch you can
enjoy most of the excitements of living like a cowhand of a century ago in what
is still perhaps the world’s greatest outdoors - but instead of a cold, unlit
wooden hut to come home to there’s every luxury our modern world can provide.
Designer Jet Zarkadas has perfected what owner
and CEO James Manley calls the ‘high-end Bonanza’ look with antlers on the
walls, fur throws on the vast, comfortable beds and roaring log fires to tell
cowboy stories round. Chef Josh Drage cooks simple, perfect dishes using only
locally-sourced ingredients – I can still recall exactly the blueberry ricotta
lemon pancakes we had for breakfast. There’s a no-nonsense spa, perfect for
easing away any saddle-soreness. (No gym – as a cowhand said, if you want to
keep fit there’s plenty of firewood needs splitting.) And Manley’s forty-year
dream of his perfect ranch extends to his very own Silver Dollar Saloon, where
we sang karaoke, watched NASCAR and the 3.10 to Yuma, tried his famous
swan-dive bowling technique (dangerous and inaccurate) and drank local Moose
Drool beer. All at the same time. As Manley says, the mountain men would have
loved it.
We did too; and it’s a pretty perfect
example of adventure-luxe. “Adventure is just bad planning” according to Roald
Amundsen, the first man to reach the South Pole. And it is possible to plan for
excitement without polar-explorer privation. Surfing, cycling, diving and horseriding
are just the start; you can learn to kickbox in Bangkok, or be a ninja in
Japan. Sail in St Tropez or kitesurf in Antigua. Swim with sharks in Thailand
or crocodiles in the Okovango.
Quick, check your schedule. There’s
probably an adventure you can fit in next weekend.
www.theoitavos.com
www.blacktomato.com/728/heli-surfing-in-new-zealand
www.morgansrock.com
www.crillonlebrave.com
www.uma.paro.como.bz
www.sixsenses.com/SixSensesZighyBay
www.blacktomato.com/15312/our-hip-icelandic-snorkelling-weekend
www.theranchatrockcreek.com
