Outdoor and ActiveTravel Show

Last weekend I went to a really interesting event at the Excel Centre in London- there were 4 shows on in the same venue:

I won 2 tickets to the event through a competition on the Sportsister website, and went along with my friend Rachel 🙂

We were mainly interested in the Outdoor and Active Travel sections, and were able to attend some engaging talks and wander round the hundreds of stalls tasting various things and picking up magazines and leaflets.

Rachel is very into rock climbing and that was a big part of the show, with several climbing walls, a bouldering section and also a zipline which looked like loads of fun!

We attended talks by Ed Farelly, Helen Skelton and Tom Randall.

Ed Farrelly is just 20 years old and one of the youngest people to scale mountains such as Khan Tengri in Kyrgyzstan and Baruntse in Nepal- he gave a short but honest chat about how his goals have changed from merely ticking boxes to actually appreciating the experiences.

Helen is a fairly well-known children's TV presenter and consequently had a much larger audience at the show! She was really enthusiastic about her achievements and the challenges she's faced, such as kayaking down the Amazon and travelling 500 miles to the South Pole by ski, bike and kite. Her main drive seemed to be to prove people's initial assumptions about her wrong, and show that she is tougher than she looks. Something I can definitely appreciate.

The final talk by Tom Randall was crazy and entertaining- I really didn't know a lot about what he was talking about, but he was very passionate about the subject. Tom Randall, alongside his climbing partner, Pete Whittaker, tackles "offwidths", a climbing term for a crack that you wedge your hands/feet/bodyparts into to climb. Tom's talk related to their attempt to scale Century Crack in the US and their journey to achieve that- they've made a film called Wide Boyz (trailer here) which details this. Definitely interesting, as it was something I'd never heard of before!

We also checked out the winners of the Outdoor Photographer of the Year competition- there were some stunning images...

This was one of my favourites:

We also had the opportunity to taste some different energy/protein bars including Clif bars made from rolled oats, Pulsin Bars which only have raw ingredients and pea protein, Torq Fitness bars designed to be high in carbohydrate and low in sugar, and Chimpanzee energy bars made only with organic ingredients- whoever knew there were so many varieties! I shall have to do a proper taste and nutritional comparison at some point...

We tried some Grasshopper instant porridge in cinnamon and raisin flavour too, which I was a big fan of! Their products have a simple list of ingredients containing only oats, skimmed milk powder, raw cane sugar, and in this case, raisins and ground cinnamon.

We also had a quick wander through the Bike Show and watched some bmx-ing...

...before heading outside to brave frozen London!

Despite being ridiculously cold it looked very picturesque so we had to stop and take a few photos...

...whilst trying not to drop the phone with numb fingers!

We ended up going to a cafe to thaw out, and had hot cups of tea at Teapod in Bermondsey Street to warm up! Unsurprisingly given the name, they had a great selection of loose leaf teas and I had a black tea called Dark Vanilla Cream, which was smooth and indulgent 🙂