Beau Miles

Beau Miles searches the bush for his cameraman's wallet

Each day Beau Miles does something he's never done before.

Beau Miles was asked to come in and talk on breaky TV about Backyard Adventuring. Beau said sure, "but why don’t I have a Backyard Adventure instead? I’ll run around Sydney with my wheelbarrow and collect up junk wood, make stuff, and present it to the TV presenters on air the following morning, 24 hours later". So that’s what he did.

When COVID-19 locked Beau Miles and his family down on the small farm, he decided to build his wife a cabin-office in the paddock without her knowing. Using whatever materials were on the property, which were gathered up piles of other people’s junk over time, and with their 6 month old daughter as accomplice, Junk Cabin emerged. What started out as a stunt to see how much secretive, ad-hoc building he could get away with, turned into the most satisfying building project he's ever made.

I’m on the verge of YouTube burnout, caught in the wicked world of shoot, make, upload, repeat. It’s a good life, and this ain’t a grizzle, no, it’s more of a reflection of how I’ve been sucked into the belief that more is better and consistency is king. I’m sure this can be the case, but it sucks to live by it. And I haven’t fished in too long, and I like fishing. I’m patient when I fish. In fact it’s one of the only places I’m happy to wait. Today is a day of attention restoration. Listening to my wandering mind. Paying attention to how and where a fish might be. And trying to do as much as I can while doing as little as possible.

Following two rivers, one drain, one sea and one creek, it turns out that paddling to work, which ends up being mostly a drag, over four full days, is bloody hard work.

You can buy a paddle, or buy wood to make a paddle, but what about making one from junk? Collecting junk wood found between the train station and the office, this is the story of a junk-made-paddle.

Haircut hater gets a makeover by wife

I’ve been self-employed for five years since losing my university job. When Red Bull reached out and asked if I wanted to host a TV show interviewing athletes in far flung corners of the world I said ‘No worries…and I tell you what, I’ll commute to each shoot in my own Beauish way.’ So here I am, doing that very thing. First up, I rented a town bike from Geneva train station and rode to the middle of the French Alps where I interviewed Nouria Newman, one of the most kick arse kayakers in the world. Nothing flat about the Alps, that’s what I heard.

There comes a time in every parenting life when you decide to buy an animal for your child. I was pushing for a goat but I was outvoted and we got chickens. Problem: no place to home them. Buggered if I was going to buy a chicken coop, or materials to build one, meaning I had another junk-made project on my hands. I had no bloody time to do it, but squeezed it in over two months (yep, i thought I’d get it done in a weekend…idiot!) This, my egg loving friends, is making a junk chicken coop from junk*. *noting that many good chicken palaces are made from second hand stuff.

Beau Miles renovates a canoe, while running a marathon.

Bass by Kayak follows a small expedition party crossing from the Australian mainland to Tasmania in sea kayaks.

Beau Miles runs a half marathon with a rock and a wheelbarrow

The Cooks River: Australia's sickest urban river is located in the glamorous and famously pretty city of Sydney. This makes sense, given it’s also Australia's largest, hard-surfaced, drainified, leaky-sewered, city. In my little red kayak I decided to trace all 23km of the Cooks River, inspired to do so after paddling my boyhood river over 4 days in the name of Backyard Adventuring. Finding it not only challenging, but shocking in terms of its ill health, I’ve since shifted from wanting to see the wildest and most pristine places on earth, to the most degraded and sick. This is a journey of ill-health, sadness and hope; putting a test to the local saying, ‘if you fall in, you’ll dissolve’.

Beau Miles rafts the Queen river, which is after 100 years of runoff from a mine, the most polluted river in Australia.

As there are 1440 minutes in a day, and Beau Miles love planting trees, he decided to plant a tree a minute for 24 hours. It was (swear meaningfully) hard.

In 1864 the mass murdering pastoralist Angus McMillan cut an ambitious 220km path through the mountains between two remote gold mining towns in the heart of Victoria, Australia. 120 years later a group of bushwalkers stitched the trail back together. When Beau Miles found out about the track he decided to run it, thinking ‘gee, this track has a story to tell’! Running 73 km a day for three days over steep, often unmarked terrain, and having grown up thinking McMillan was a colonial hero, there was a lot of terrain, and thinking, to be absorbed. He’d finally embarked on a running adventure that wasn’t just about running.

Setting off with no food, water or shelter, Beau Miles walked 90km to work a bunch of years ago to see if a stripped back adventure could give him the kind of buzz that far away, exotic, heavily planned expeditions have given him over the years. It did. Different, but familiar feelings of challenge and insight came through. When he was asked to give a lecture about adventuring at a new building at his university, he said ‘no worries, why don’t I walk to work and deliver the lecture as soon as I get there’? So he walked to work, again.

Beau Miles and Hamish Blake travel with their kids to record a podcast on an island.

In 2007, Beau attempted to paddle 4000kms from one side of Africa to the other. Starting in Mozambique, he continued along the Southern African coast, allowing five months to complete the voyage. Battling surf, deep sea swell, and too many days waiting for the wind, Beau only completed 2000kms of the original plan.

Beau Miles' decimal age on March 2nd, 2022 was 42.195, which by no coincidence is also the length of a marathon in kilometres. To celebrate being alive, based on the actions of two people almost 43 years ago, he decided to run the famous distance around his district, retracing his history via schools, homes, memories and odd experiences that have shaped him, his mum and his dad over this marathon-chunk of time.

This is the story of spending a night in a big old gumtree. Strapped to three builders planks (one of which had a large crack that I thought was spilled paint) I slept with one eye open, which was pleasant because I could see the view. Originally driven by the premise of backyard adventuring, using old climbing equipment, dodgy ladders and 4x4 recovery gear, a simple night out, 30-foot up, ended up being a reflection of how much I like trees, particularly the vulnerable Strzelecki gums I live among. Dinner, breakfast, bad coffee, podcast, and sitting on a park bench I should sit on more often, Big Gums is the story of a man who is no longer a boy, spending time with an endangered, iconic tree.

Beau Miles, taking inspiration from a double episode of Seinfeld, decides to hit the roadside and collect a truck load of redeemables to drive interstate to New South Wales to redeem them.

Overgrown, farmed, pushed out, sold off and only half there, Beau sets off with shovel in hand, dressed like a 50's train driver, to re-trace an old train-line. To run the line end to end would be the first human passing in over 60 years. Police, fences, blackberries, runner musings and leftover pasta, map Beau against a warm autumn day as he makes his way across a landscape he's lived in his whole life.

Beau Miles searches the bush for his cameraman's wallet

Beau Miles searches the bush for his cameraman's wallet

Each day Beau Miles does something he's never done before.

Each day Beau Miles does something he's never done before.

Beau Miles was asked to come in and talk on breaky TV about Backyard Adventuring. Beau said sure, "but why don’t I have a Backyard Adventure instead? I’ll run around Sydney with my wheelbarrow and collect up junk wood, make stuff, and present it to the TV presenters on air the following morning, 24 hours later". So that’s what he did.

Beau Miles was asked to come in and talk on breaky TV about Backyard Adventuring. Beau said sure, "but why don’t I have a Backyard Adventure instead? I’ll run around Sydney with my wheelbarrow and collect up junk wood, make stuff, and present it to the TV presenters on air the following morning, 24 hours later". So that’s what he did.

When COVID-19 locked Beau Miles and his family down on the small farm, he decided to build his wife a cabin-office in the paddock without her knowing. Using whatever materials were on the property, which were gathered up piles of other people’s junk over time, and with their 6 month old daughter as accomplice, Junk Cabin emerged. What started out as a stunt to see how much secretive, ad-hoc building he could get away with, turned into the most satisfying building project he's ever made.

When COVID-19 locked Beau Miles and his family down on the small farm, he decided to build his wife a cabin-office in the paddock without her knowing. Using whatever materials were on the property, which were gathered up piles of other people’s junk over time, and with their 6 month old daughter as accomplice, Junk Cabin emerged. What started out as a stunt to see how much secretive, ad-hoc building he could get away with, turned into the most satisfying building project he's ever made.

I’m on the verge of YouTube burnout, caught in the wicked world of shoot, make, upload, repeat. It’s a good life, and this ain’t a grizzle, no, it’s more of a reflection of how I’ve been sucked into the belief that more is better and consistency is king. I’m sure this can be the case, but it sucks to live by it. And I haven’t fished in too long, and I like fishing. I’m patient when I fish. In fact it’s one of the only places I’m happy to wait. Today is a day of attention restoration. Listening to my wandering mind. Paying attention to how and where a fish might be. And trying to do as much as I can while doing as little as possible.

Following two rivers, one drain, one sea and one creek, it turns out that paddling to work, which ends up being mostly a drag, over four full days, is bloody hard work.

Following two rivers, one drain, one sea and one creek, it turns out that paddling to work, which ends up being mostly a drag, over four full days, is bloody hard work.

You can buy a paddle, or buy wood to make a paddle, but what about making one from junk? Collecting junk wood found between the train station and the office, this is the story of a junk-made-paddle.

You can buy a paddle, or buy wood to make a paddle, but what about making one from junk? Collecting junk wood found between the train station and the office, this is the story of a junk-made-paddle.

Haircut hater gets a makeover by wife

Haircut hater gets a makeover by wife

There comes a time in every parenting life when you decide to buy an animal for your child. I was pushing for a goat but I was outvoted and we got chickens. Problem: no place to home them. Buggered if I was going to buy a chicken coop, or materials to build one, meaning I had another junk-made project on my hands. I had no bloody time to do it, but squeezed it in over two months (yep, i thought I’d get it done in a weekend…idiot!) This, my egg loving friends, is making a junk chicken coop from junk*. *noting that many good chicken palaces are made from second hand stuff.

Beau Miles renovates a canoe, while running a marathon.

Beau Miles renovates a canoe, while running a marathon.

Bass by Kayak follows a small expedition party crossing from the Australian mainland to Tasmania in sea kayaks.

Beau Miles runs a half marathon with a rock and a wheelbarrow

Beau Miles runs a half marathon with a rock and a wheelbarrow

The Cooks River: Australia's sickest urban river is located in the glamorous and famously pretty city of Sydney. This makes sense, given it’s also Australia's largest, hard-surfaced, drainified, leaky-sewered, city. In my little red kayak I decided to trace all 23km of the Cooks River, inspired to do so after paddling my boyhood river over 4 days in the name of Backyard Adventuring. Finding it not only challenging, but shocking in terms of its ill health, I’ve since shifted from wanting to see the wildest and most pristine places on earth, to the most degraded and sick. This is a journey of ill-health, sadness and hope; putting a test to the local saying, ‘if you fall in, you’ll dissolve’.

The Cooks River: Australia's sickest urban river is located in the glamorous and famously pretty city of Sydney. This makes sense, given it’s also Australia's largest, hard-surfaced, drainified, leaky-sewered, city. In my little red kayak I decided to trace all 23km of the Cooks River, inspired to do so after paddling my boyhood river over 4 days in the name of Backyard Adventuring. Finding it not only challenging, but shocking in terms of its ill health, I’ve since shifted from wanting to see the wildest and most pristine places on earth, to the most degraded and sick. This is a journey of ill-health, sadness and hope; putting a test to the local saying, ‘if you fall in, you’ll dissolve’.

Beau Miles rafts the Queen river, which is after 100 years of runoff from a mine, the most polluted river in Australia.