The Kiwi couple highlighting environmental concerns on a two-and-a-half year road trip around the globe
At the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, where Kiwi Burt Munro broke the world land speed record. Shortly after this photo was taken they rescued a South African who'd broken down and been "lost for hours".
Bridget Thackwray and Christopher (Topher) Richwhite fell in love on the road so it's fitting that they've named the jeep they've bought to transport them across six continents after the man who completed arguably the most epic roadie ever: German adventurer Gunther Holtorf.
Holtorf's 900,000-kilometre, 26-year journey in the Mercedes off-roader he named Otto, was as much a love story as it was a voyage of discovery: his wife Christine was by his side for 22 of those years until her death from cancer in 2010.
And Bridget and Topher's world tour, which began on the northernmost accessible road in Alaska and will bring them home to New Zealand via 70 countries, is shaping up to be in a similar vein.
Like the Holtorfs, Bridget and Topher bonded over their shared passion for exploration on four wheels.
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Bridget and Topher modelling the North Face "Himalayan Suits" they bought in Queenstown in Deadhorse, Alaska on the day of departure.
"We spent many hours and eventually weeks driving to new destinations around New Zealand," 24-year-old Bridget, from Kerikeri, says.
"In the South Island we would take Topher's truck Larry up the rivers and deep into the wintery passes around the Southern Lakes. In the north, we were learning to kitesurf so we would pack our overnight bags and head off in my Mini, Bonty ("bridge" in Welsh), to find the wind and isolated beaches."
But when they realised they'd driven most New Zealand roads more than once, they began dreaming of foreign shores; "a road that would never end… never knowing what lay ahead."
Bridget and 32-year-old Aucklander Topher had both travelled a lot separately in the past. Bridget had been to almost 60 countries, having moved to London at 18 and worked remotely, thanks to her online business, in Europe, Africa, America and central and southeast Asia. Often travelling alone, she counts being mobbed in and consequently escorted out of Egypt and contracting malaria in the far reaches of the Botswana delta among her "many incredible and dangerous" experiences.
Entering the Rocky Mountains via Jasper National Park in Canada.
Topher, meanwhile, had lived in Switzerland and London, where his band was signed to Universal Records and toured the UK with the likes of One Direction, The Killers and Rihanna.
The pair did little planning for what they have dubbed "Expedition Earth".
"Once we had decided which car would get us from A to B, we booked our flights and three days later we were in Vancouver meeting our new friend Gunther, the Jeep Wrangler," Bridget says.
Taking Gunther for a test driver over to Vancouver Island in April, Bridget says their predominant feeling was one of anxious excitement. But the anxious element quickly dissipated.
Exploring 4WD-only sections of Cathedral Valley in Utah.
"It was the most amazing evening camping under blankets of falling snow," she says.
As with the Holtorfs and Otter, Gunther is the beloved third member in Bridget and Topher's relationship.
"We quickly fell in love with Gunther," she says. "From that night onwards we haven't once questioned our choice of car. We just have to remember to maximise the opportunity we have in front of us as we may be living the most incredible years of our lives."
The pair try to steer clear of popular tourist routes and while this leads them to some truly remote locations, it can leave them feeling vulnerable at times.
The couple were lucky to score a permit to explore the 160-kilometre off-road White Rim Trail in Moab, Utah.
Staying warm in the Arctic, where temperatures plummeted to minus 30 degrees celsius, was a continual struggle with potentially life-threatening consequences.
"With food, water, gas and the car all freezing simultaneously, the only way to keep going was to drive," Bridget says. "But even if we could get the car going we were faced with the depressurisation of cold tyres. Getting into the roof boxes to retrieve the tyre compressor required creative thinking. It was painstaking trying to open frozen ratchet straps with thick gloves, freezing fingertips and empty stomachs."
In Mexico, where the pair are currently, they have felt so uneasy that they've turned off their GPS tracker, saying they had underestimated the volatility of the drug cartel situation in the north.
As a rule, Bridget says tourists in Mexico should never drive or be out at night, but they often have no choice - they sleep in their car most nights.
Passing through Monument Valley on the way from Utah to Arizona.
One night, while sleeping in the car in the small town of Bahia de Los Angeles on the Baja peninsula, they awoke to the sound of cars pulling up next to them.
"No matter how many times you sleep in the car, you always have a sinking stomach when you realise that you're not alone," Bridget says.
Soon, they heard footsteps headed toward them and a rap at the window. It turned out to be the police but, having heard horror stories about Mexican authorities from friends north of the border, the couple were "far from comforted".
Doing their best to communicate who they were and what they were up to using sign language and flyers they'd made up for the expedition, they soon found themselves surrounded by armed officers "gasping at our route map and some of the photos we'd taken".
First sighting of the ocean since Arctic Circle in Baja, Mexico.
They were told to move on and felt they had no choice but to oblige despite their self-imposed rule against driving at night.
The next morning proved even more unnerving: driving into a village for tacos, they were told a "gringo" had been killed and the police were "on a witch hunt".
"We scrambled pretty quickly," Bridget says.
But they've had some amazing experiences (in a good way) in Mexico too. They'd thought nowhere in the world could rival Kaikoura in terms of the richness of marine life, but now they reckon the Sea of Cortez could give it a run for its money.
"Almost every time we look out to the ocean we see another pod of dolphins, humpbacks, seals and jumping mobula rays," Bridget says.
A few days ago they came across a whale shark - the largest fish in the world - just off the coast with their drone and, trusting that Topher had identified it correctly (whale sharks feast mostly on plankton), Bridget swam out toward it "apprehensively". To get the perfect shot of course.
"There was nothing between us and the horizon other than a fin, which made the whole thing a little unnerving," she says.
Drawn to areas of natural beauty threatened by human interference, the pair aim to highlight environmental issues through social media. Unlike many who document their travels on social media, Bridget and Topher's images don't paint a flawless picture of the destinations they visit. Alongside pics of Gunther towing Bridget on a snowboard across Alaska, the couple kissing in an ice cave, standing behind a frozen waterfall and floating in a mountain pool in the American west is a short video of them laying on Gunther's bonnet in dusty northern Mexico surrounded by discarded plastic.
"As much as we love photographing the pristine backdrops for our social media, our true appetite is toward the problems that we think we can bring to light for global discussion," Bridget says.
In northern Mexico, she says they were surprised to see people dumping their rubbish on beaches where they'd seen dolphins swimming some 100 metres from shore due to a lack of facilities.
Heading south, the rubbish on the beaches vanished and locals informed them that the tourism industry was behind a major cleanup to help protect marine life.
"It's a shame that the need to protect our friends in the sea only becomes apparent when an industry is at risk, but it works as the area has seen a huge drop in commercial fishing and a rise in marine species as a result," Bridget says.
The pair aim to reach the southernmost tip of South America - Ushuaia in Argentina - by the end of the year and, in 2019, to travel north through Africa and Europe, across Russia and down through Asia toward home. This year, they're most looking forward to climbing active volcanoes in Guatemala and checking out the wildlife in Costa Rica and very Instagrammable landscapes of Patagonia.
When the expedition ends, they aim to focus on one or more of the "issues" they encountered on the road, although they don't yet feel ready to discuss what these are or how they intend to help.
"[W]e still have much to see and learn to solidify our opinions," Bridget says. "All we can say is that we will be opening the door to a controversial topic that we need to acknowledge and engage in."
You can follow Bridget and Topher's journey on Instagram.
- Stuff
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