Around the world on 50 degrees

Spike graduated from Northumbria in 2005, he then spent two years as President of the Students’ Union. I was lucky enough to catch up with Spike on his visit to Northumbria and got to hear all about this project, and what he discovered on his around the world trip, from how it all started and what he has learned from this amazing adventure.

“A few months previously I had left Northumbria University and Newcastle to search for design work in London.  I was distracted from the job hunt by an article in the Sunday Times announcing a competition run by the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG (Institute of British Geographers)) and Land Rover.  It required entrants to dream up an idea for an expedition in a Land Rover Defender.  With two friends, Peter Lovell and David Smith, we sent in our idea, which was to circumnavigate the globe along the line of 50 degrees north, carrying out a series of case studies into the impact of climate change on farmers.

Several weeks later our idea was shortlisted and we then spent numerous weekends pulling together our detailed proposal, pouring over maps together and talking to anyone who seemed to know what western Kazakhstan was like or what you needed to do to get a vehicle into Japan.  In due course we were invited to the beautiful Royal Geographical Society - IBG Headquarters in London.  The next day the judges got back to us and said "We like your idea but we're concerned you're going to get yourselves killed in Ukraine, Russia, or if you make it that far, Kazakhstan", or something close to those words.

So another busy weekend later we'd pulled together crisis management plans, risk assessments, revised budgets, emergency action plans and a long list of all the experts we'd consulted to date. Finally we were pronounced winners.  The prize was £10,000 and the use of the Land Rover to undertake the expedition.  We couldn't believe our luck.

Three frantic months later our vehicle was packed and heavily-laden we headed to the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall for the start.  This is the only bit of Britain that the 50th Parallel runs through and after some quick press interviews and a school visit we made for the continent.

We drove through France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany.  Then on to Eastern Europe, passing through Prague, Auschwitz, Krakow and Kiev.  As we left Volgograd, the city that used to be known as Stalingrad things started to get more interesting.  Soon Europe lay far behind us and ahead lay thousands of miles of remote steppe and desert.

Numerous times we got stuck, but we all accept this was down to our lack of skill in driving off-road and not because of the limitations of the Land Rover, which by this stage we'd nicknamed 'Roxy'.

At the end of each day we'd drive off the 'road' and find a remote spot for our camp.  We camped in some spectacular places; the most notable was high on the cliffs above what used to be the Aral Sea. Once the world's fourth-largest inland saline body of water,[citation needed] with an area of 68,000 km2, the Aral Sea has been steadily shrinking since the 1960s after the rivers that fed it were diverted by Soviet Union irrigation projects.  Below us was nothing but polluted desert and what was left of the sea was over 20 miles away.  It was sobering to see one of the worst, man-made environmental disasters up close.

After passing through the beautiful Altai Mountains we reached Mongolia, the highlight of the expedition for us all.  The scenery was out of this world and locals were so welcoming.  We took a bit of time out to climb Mongolia's tenth highest peak and to visit the Gobi in the south of the country.  It was there where we bumped into Land Rover's G4 Challenge Recce team who happened to be there at the same time.  Coincidentally this was the exact moment we managed to break our turbo valve. Very luckily they had a mechanic with them who was able to fix it before the engine seized.  In a further twist, the mechanic recognised the vehicle.  It had come into his workshop 6 months previously to be prepped for the expedition.  You couldn't make it up!

From Mongolia we headed north to Lake Baikal, the biggest lake in the world by volume, and then followed the route of the Trans Siberian railway towards the Pacific.  On the island of Sakhalin we drove to the exact point where the line of 50 degrees hits the ocean.  We found it to be where a small river flows into the Pacific and this river happened to be chock full of salmon.  We whittled spears from drift wood and promptly caught some of the most delicious fish I've ever eaten.

From Sakhalin we drove down through Japan.  From Nagoya we shipped Roxy across the Pacific to Vancouver.  We always thought the North American continent was going to be easy - flat roads and no language difficulties.  However, trying to get our vehicle insured in British Columbia proved to be the most challenging task we faced by far.  From Vancouver Island we drove across to Newfoundland before shipping out of New York, back to Southampton and then the Lizard Peninsula - seven months after we'd started.

Our case studies proved to be both fascinating and scary.  All the farmers along the 50th Parallel that we interviewed had noticed massive changes in the climate in the last five to 10 years.  One family we met in Mongolia had been forced to move over 900 miles as the winters in their previous location had been so severe, with unusually heavy snowfall killing nearly all their livestock and nearly covering their 'ger', the yurt-like tent that most Mongolian families live in.

All this research was incredibly sobering.  According to our case studies, climate change is happening now and is affecting people’s lives in dramatic ways.  Hopefully people will realise before communities and livelihoods the world over become destroyed.”