`adventure' Comes In From The Cold

Sydney Morning Herald

Thursday March 19, 1998

Norman North

For those who want the wind in their hair and a cosy bed, there's now `soft adventure', writes NORMAN NORTH

THE term "soft adventure travel" has come into use in recent years to cover a rapidly growing facet of travel which primarily requires the participants to take part - walking, cycling, canoeing, camping, and so on - with a support organisation to ensure it is not too hard or dangerous.

Or the adventure could come from breaking fairly new ground in parts of the world that most tourists would have found too daunting to tackle - but with back-up and experienced guides, so travellers avoid getting stranded or going to bed hungry.

I like to quote the director of a company conducting walks in Australian beauty spots: "There must be a comfortable track and optional side tracks for those with more energy, so that the tourist arrives at a nightly destination where he or she feels something has been accomplished. Then they want a good bed, hot shower, decent dinner and wine, and to have the luggage they saw at the last stopover already in their room."

Today the search for, and marketing of, soft-adventure holidays has become big business. Just how big can be seen at the Soft Adventure Expo next Wednesday. It is at the Bishop Barry Centre, Druitt Street, City (between Town Hall Station and the Queen Victoria Building) between 4 pm and 8 pm. Entry is free.

The expo is being run by About Travel, a division of Turramurra Travel, and follows its highly successful Cruiseabout expos, and the launching of its Bikeabout, Bargeabout, Sailabout and Trekabout sections.

Obviously there are degrees of "soft" in soft-adventure travel. The expo includes big companies offering African safaris, trekking and climbing, taking the Silk Road through Asia or exploring Central America and wondering at the wildlife of the Galapagos.

There are others, often small with limited destinations, begun by enthusiasts for walking the Pyrenees or cycling in the Kosciusko region, and national tourism organisations displaying a wide range of holidays with an adventurous touch, from canal barging to whitewater rafting.

Some of the big ones have grown from small beginnings, too. Abercrombie & Kent, a world leader in holidays with a difference, was begun by Geoffrey Kent and his mother in Kenya in 1962. (There never was an Abercrombie: the title was a marketing ploy to keep near the top of any alphabetical listings.)

Today it has eight offices in Africa alone, and offers cruises to Antarctica, and on the Amazon, the Yangtze and the Nile (the only Australian operator with its own ships) and canals in Europe. It will cosset you in India and Europe, take you on magic train journeys and still offer the best in safaris in Africa.

I can vouch for its immaculate touch and luxury on a cruise, but such service does not come cheaply. A 15-night safari tour of Zimbabwe and Kenya costs $US6,240 (about $A9,360) per person twin share (ppts) including air fares from Australia; a four-night trip on The Royal Scotsman in Scotland, #2,450 (about $A5,145 ppts) excluding air fares.

Adventure World is another company with tentacles reaching around the globe, to Central and South America, Mexico and Cuba, through the Andes and to the Galapagos Islands. Secluded Caribbean beaches, gushing waterfalls and temples in Mayan jungles, canyons and Indians in the United States - its brochures will leave you spellbound.

This is another agency I have found excellent for overseas travel. Some of its trips are at the more rugged end of "soft" - using dugout canoes, finding and buying your own food, camping amid towering mountains - and that is reflected in the price. Take Panoramic Peru: 14 nights, 10 in hotels, three camping, one overnight bus; travel by bus, boat, train and on foot, two flights, taxi, allow $US25 ($A38) a day for meals, snacks, drinks, souvenirs: $US1,870 (about $A2,805) without flight from Australia. Ah! to be young again.

In conjunction with Explore Worldwide - a group that lives up to its name, check its 100-plus-pages brochure - Adventure World can put you into exciting places on every continent.

Sundowners has had 25 years' experience operating trans-Siberian escorted tours, and now offers them by 4WD, bus, foot, bike and camel. The break-up of the Soviet Union and opening to independent tourism of its Asian states, such as Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, linked with Pakistan, Iran and western China has created exotic destinations virtually unspoilt by modern tourism. A sample 12-day trip to the Silk Road oases of Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva costs $1,480, flights and meals extra.

Intrepid Travel was the idea of two young Australians, Geoff Manchester and Darrell Wade, crossing the Sahara in 1988. Back home they bought a typewriter, sat at a borrowed dining-room table and began a business that now employs 70.

Their aim is not just to travel South-East Asia but to live it - exploring local markets, riding elephants, staying in treehouses, using local trains, buses and coastal ferries. A taste of Laos, eight days ex-Vientiane staying in guesthouses costs $690, allow $80 for food and $US150 (about $A225) for flights on route.

I. T. Adventure is a recently formed sales representative for established tour operators including Exodus Worldwide Holidays and Overland Expeditions, Kumuka Africa and South America Expeditions, Road Runner Worldwide Hostelling, US Bus and Sherpa Trekking Services.

Prices start from: Annapurna Panorama, 11 days, $990; a week in Tuscany, 8 days, $975; Highlights of Turkey, 16 days, $1,150; and Zimbabwe/Botswana $1,290.

Want to go kloofing? Well visit the Destination International stand at the Soft Adventure Expo, where they will explain that it involves jumping off a cliff or rock into, and flowing with, the river through a ravine. You can combine it with abseiling, blackwater tubing (in an underground river) and the chance to try the world's highest bridge bungy jump - 216 metres.

All of the foregoing take place in South Africa, but Destination International can introduce you to adventures on the Silk Road, in Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Or check its trans-Siberian and Russia brochure for the opportunity to tread where Genghis Khan once walked. Having become this year the general sales agent for Travelbag Adventures, a UK company, DI, has broadened its operations into the Middle East, Europe, Africa, South-East Asia and the Americas.

Through its agency for the US Backroads company, Active Travel offers cycling and walking holidays in many parts of the world, as well as operating its own focused journeys. This year, the latter include Australian History in Ireland (May) and a garden tour of South Africa (September), conducted by experts in their fields. It also has a Northern Territory section, which offers a "green season" special to Darwin of four hotel nights and tours for $808, including air fare.

* For Soft Adventure Expo and other inquiries, contact About Adventure, 9449 8111 or 9488 8388; fax 9488 9717; e-mail tmurraibm.net.

TWO economy class return air tickets to Buenos Aires, worth more than $4,000 and donated by Aerolineas Argentinas, will be the main door prize at the Soft Adventure Expo.

Other prizes include a three days/four nights Alpine Horseback Safari for two - valued at $1,174 - given by Reynella Kosciusko Rides and two tickets for Social Climbers at the Marion Street Theatre.

© 1998 Sydney Morning Herald

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