Announcing the Winners of MOMENTS

Last month, We Are Explorers hosted MOMENTS, our very first photo, writing, and film competition. Your eagerness to get involved blew us away, and the whole team was gobsmacked at the level of skill, creativity, and sense of adventure found in every submission.

Huge shout out to everyone who threw their creative hat into the ring as well as our talented judges and awesome sponsors, Dometic, Bush Heritage, Freely Travel, Up, and G Adventures.

After a month of public voting to determine the top five entries in each category, the finalists were shared with and judged by professionals in the creative field (unfortunately, not a literal field) to find the five winners.

And here they are…

Up Phone Photo Winner

Give me a home amongst the snow gums

Josephine (Joey) Whelan

‘We had decided last minute to weather the storm and escape into the Alpine High Country for the night, away from the Summer hustle in our little tourist town. We got a little damp as we began the trek in, but it wasn’t long before Mother Nature turned the clouds around & greeted us with this epic sunset as we rolled into camp. I’ll never forget the recharge we felt in this moment. (Edmondson’s Hut, Alpine High Country Victoria, Australia)’

Dometic Adventure Photo Winner

Frozen Moments

Krista Perryman

‘My life consists of freezing moments we call life. Hoping to capture the feeling of the moments we live, so we have something to look back on. This moment is definitely one for the memory banks. Setting out for the mountains at sunset, walking up the snowy hills with my snowboard and tent on back and camera clipped firmly to my backpack. One step in front of the other, breathing in the cold fresh air.

I’d researched during the day a place I wanted to go and it was on the edge of a frozen lake. The best part was having the whole mountain to myself. I set up my tent, ate my dehydrated meal and went out to capture the night. Taking in every single star my eyes can possibly see, struggling to fathom the vastness of this universe and realising I’m the only one who witnesses this moment exactly as it is.

An adventure I never wanted to end, a night under the stars, alone in the snowy mountains with nothing but my thoughts and camera. I woke up to a beautiful sunrise, packed down my gear and snowboarded back down to reality but now with one more frozen moment of life.’

G Adventures Video Winner

The Bleeding A#$holes

Jayden O’Neill

‘Four friends embark on a 400km Bike-packing journey from Alice Springs to Kings Canyon in desolate Central Australia. With little preparation and limited fitness, they weren’t quite sure what they were getting themselves into.’

Bush Heritage Nature Photo Winner

FUEGO

Paul Fencaros

‘There’s something about nature that makes us feel humbled – particularly when we get to experience the sheer power and scale of Mother Nature in all of her raw beauty. This was one of those moments that made my jaw drop as I witnessed the powerful volcanic eruption explode from the earth. I had only one opportunity to capture the 20-second exposure as the explosion launched lava from the crater and into the sky. Volcan de Fuego, Guatemala.’

Freely Travel Writing Winner

Don’t Tell Me How to Camino

Patrick Boxall

‘We called him Naked Red Calf. He fell from the top bunk and the slap of skin on concrete woke everyone in the room. I wasn’t there, but I’m told they turned on the lights and saw him splayed out on the ground, groaning. He was naked. He had sunburned calves. He was – will always be – Naked Red Calf.

I met him in Pamplona. Day four of the Camino de Santiago. When I asked how he was going, he pulled a ziplock bag from his pocket and held it to the soft evening light. ‘I’ve been feeding my brother to the cows,’ he said, beaming. I slowly backed away.

We crossed paths often. Walked and talked. He came from North Carolina and had struggled, he said, with addiction issues. His brother had succumbed to them. The walk to Santiago was an opportunity to straighten himself out; to honour his brother, who no longer walked beside him.

‘Can I be honest?’ I asked.

‘Sure.’

‘I’m not sure about the feeding-your-brother-to-the-cows thing.’

‘It’s what he would’ve wanted,’ he replied, no hint of a smile.

Many walk the path to Santiago as an exercise in healing. In shedding the past and stepping into whatever comes next. But the future, if it comes, doesn’t always come easy, and Naked Red Calf understood that better than any of us. He soon picked up an injury; an ankle, I think. We encouraged him to rest, to take some time, but he didn’t want to fall behind.

He was stubborn. He pushed his body to breaking point. Most evenings, I’d watch from a shaded table as he hobbled across a plaza in search of a place to crash. He’d eventually appear with a glass of wine and a grin; no vino no camino, he’d joke.

He fell in love easily; with people, with places. The green Galician forests. The Meseta’s endless plains. He’d spend the morning walking with a stranger and have post-pilgrimage plans by evening. He’d go on to spend time in Finland, then a few weeks walking in Ireland. He was Irish in the way all Americans seem to be; a long-lost cousin in Skibbereen, a great aunt in Knocknagashel. Enough of a connection to claim Guinness as his lifeblood.

We had a running joke that the towns along the Camino weren’t really towns at all. They were film sets populated by actors, the latest iteration of reality TV. Luke – an Irishman – and I grew increasingly paranoid, but Naked Red Calf was having none of it.

‘No,’ he said, waving his wooden staff at the surrounding farmlands. ‘This is it. This is real life.’ He wanted to know what was growing in the soil. He wanted a garden of his own once he returned home. A plot to grow food, a porch to play banjo – this, he said, was enough.

Luke and I spoke about epiphanies. He’d met someone who’d walked the Camino the previous summer and warned him about false epiphanies. After weeks of walking, this man convinced himself that he was born to be a farmer.

‘I had this overwhelming desire to get my hands in the dirt,’ he told Luke. ‘But then, once I made it home, I realised something. I fucking hate farms.’

I can’t say whether Naked Red Calf had any epiphanies; if he did, he didn’t share them. What he did share was his bad days. One glass too many and he’d be stumbling to a church to light a candle for his brother. And in Santiago, on the night we finished, he was overwhelmed with emotion. He fled the restaurant and left his wallet on the table. I searched streets filled with celebrating pilgrims and found him crying, alone, on a doorstep. He wasn’t ready for his walk to end.

I tried to calm him with a common saying: the Camino begins when you go home.

His response?

Don’t tell me how to Camino.

We stayed in touch. He’d call late to relive long, lively dinners and crisp mornings in the mountains. Over time, these calls became less frequent. I took it to mean he was doing well, but it didn’t come as a shock to hear he’d passed away.

There’d been no accident. No darkness. His body, we were told, simply gave up. His friends posted messages and photos. They spoke of his garden. Of his enormous pumpkins, his love for his chickens. How he’d sit on his porch and speak about red wine and Van Morrison. About really hard times and the good times that always followed.

I can imagine sitting on his porch and telling him, in all seriousness, that he had taken a good path; literally, Buen Camino. But I know, of course, what he’d say in response.’

Freely is a brand of Cover-More Insurance Services Pty Limited ABN 95 003 114 145 (AFSL 241713) (Cover- More). The information provided is only on the availability of Freely products. We do not give advice and the information provided is not intended to give an opinion or recommendation regarding the product. For information on what’s covered and how to contact Freely, refer to the PDS, FSG & TMD which can be found here: freely.me/au.

Community Choice Winner

Mr Fantastic

Christopher Theobald

‘Wild male Snow Leopard high up in the Tibetan Himalayas. Our base was a village of just 400 people at over 4000 MASL. After a week of trekking through deep snow & ice at altitude, enduring – 30 degrees wind chill, we spotted the tail of a Snow Leopard in the shadows of a cliff face. After a two-hour tough slog up the mountain, we arrived at the entrance to the cave.

With my adrenalin pumping I stepped to my right & I met the eyes of a wild Male Snow Leopard, one of the most elusive cats in the world 30 metres away. We had 8 incredible minutes together before he got too shy and disappeared up the mountain. Tenzin my local Tibetan tracker next to me, with tears in his eyes said, “Fantastic”. This Snow Leopard now had a name “Mr Fantastic”.’

People’s Choice Award Winner

(selected by attendees at the We Are Explorers 10 Year Anniversary)

Momentum

Amelia Purvis

‘If the world you knew shattered, could you find new moments that mattered?’

Congrats to the Winners