Original subtitles

(birds chirping)

(cream splashing)

(audience laughing)

(fire blazing)

(audience cheering)

(fingers snapping)

(audience applauding)

(sombre music) (minibus rattling)

- [Matty] Oh, hey, that's me.

This is Pete. This is Frankie the dog.

And we're all going to the top of Alaska.

(minibus crashing)

- Oh man.

You okay, Pop?

Good girl. Good girl.

- Nothing smashed. Nothing's broken.

- I don't know, man. It looks pretty broken.

It looks pretty broken.

I'm happy we're alive.

(groovy music)

Luckily Pete, the guy I was hitchhiking with,

was a mechanical engineer

and despite my trepidation,

he somehow got the old van running again.

(mosquitoes buzzing)

(groovy music continues)

And everything was going sweet.

We were back on track,

until we broke down.

- You need to pop that for it to work.

♪ Number one

(fire blazing)

- [Matty] Jesus. Get that off, man.

You all right?

- Yeah. It still burning? - Yeah. Big time.

Have you got something to stop it?

Big time.

(tools clanking)

Jesus.

Good work. Good, good work.

- Fuck.

(fire extinguisher swooshing)

- [Matty] Heavy.

Looking back on it,

I can't believe I didn't move the jerry can.

- Fuck.

- [Matty] But Pete fixed the van again

and we kept on tracking.

(groovy music continues)

Maybe you're wondering why I'd even get back in that van

or what I'm doing in the middle of Alaska,

but my guess is that you want to know who's talking to you.

So bear with me and I'll try and explain.

(groovy music continues)

My name's Matty Hannon.

I grew up moving around a lot, always living inland.

But for as long as I can remember,

I dreamed of living close to the ocean.

When I turned 18, I left home down a great ocean road

to learn to surf and enrol in university.

I majored in ecology, which is the study of relationships

between living things and their habitats.

After four years, the research from my final paper

led me to the rare section of the library

where I found a book called "Shamans of Mentawai."

While I'd been studying the theories of ecology,

it looked to me like the people in this book

were living ecologically in the rainforest.

One photo in particular caught my attention,

a happy young boy eating a roasted dragon fly as a treat.

I was fascinated with how different

their lives were to mine.

Then once I learned that those same islands were also home

to some of the most perfect waves in the world,

I did everything I could to land a job over there.

(waves crashing)

I moved to a little thatched hut

with no running water or phones or internet,

and adopted five village dogs, a black cat

and a gliding squirrel called Coppy.

The only way to eat meat was to catch it yourself.

And so I learned to spearfish.

(natives singing in foreign language)

And when the conditions were right,

I'd surf the wave in front of my hut.

(natives singing in foreign language)

- [Commenter] Yeah, yeah. That's (indistinct)

Go, go, go, go, go, go.

- Woo.

(birds chirping)

It felt like I'd stumbled across some kind of utopia.

I was lucky enough to befriend a local family too,

the Salakirrats, who lived a little bit deeper

into the rainforest,

especially Aman Lepon here,

who took me hunting, fishing, building, and exploring

(birds chirping)

(natives speaking in foreign language)

(fire crackling) (birds chirping)

I wondered why the church and government

had tried so hard to outlaw their culture.

They were such nice people, so generous and family oriented.

Aman Lepon taught me that his culture

sees the world around him as alive

and made up of different beings or spirits,

and not just human beings,

but also tree beings or river beings,

and that they all rely on each other

to stay healthy and happy.

University had taught me to be sceptical

of anything that couldn't be measured,

especially things like invisible spirits in the forest.

But after some time with Aman Lepon and his family,

I began to wonder that if,

by concentrating on hard data in my studies,

I'd forgotten about intuition and feeling.

(suspenseful music) (birds chirping)

(traditional native music)

(birds chirping)

(natives speaking in foreign language)

It was only years later that I found out

the young grinning boy

eating a dragon fly in that library book

was actually Aman Lepon,

and that although we'd grown up in alternate universes,

we were now (speaking in foreign language) or good friends.

Those islands are a world that feel so alive

where work is varied and minimal,

biodiversity is rich, time is plentiful,

fresh food is abundant, and community is central.

I loved it so much that I ended up staying for five years.

But at 26, it felt like I was drifting away

from my friends and family at home.

And so I flew back to Melbourne, Australia, to reconnect.

(cars swooshing)

The culture shock was instant.

The coral reefs and lively jungle was long gone.

And now I was in a world

where every aspect of life had been commodified.

I got an office job sitting static in front of a computer,

which made me money, but it also left me physically weak,

understimulated and time poor.

It was a vibrant city

and there were some amazing people around me.

But after my experience in the islands,

I struggled to feel a part of a community

that referred to its people as consumers

and with national success measured

by how many things we bought or sold.

And soon, like so many of the successful people around me,

I was clinically diagnosed with anxiety and depression.

My shaman friends in Indonesia didn't even have words

for depression or suicide because it was so rare.

But in this world,

it's the number one killer for my demographic.

After a couple of years of feeling misplaced,

I needed a life changing experience.

So late one night without knowing anything about it,

I booked a one way ticket to Alaska

♪ On my way to heaven

♪ Pothole in the sky

♪ Spell your destination

♪ He summoned me to try

♪ Falling for the devil

♪ This boy in his lies

♪ Devilment a level

♪ I know too well to be shy

With the money I'd saved in the city,

I designed and commissioned a motorcycle sidecar

that would fit my surfboards, wetsuits

and camping equipment.

And so that's where I'm at.

I've tucked my boards into my bike and the dream is to ride

and surf the west coast of the Americas

from the very top of Alaska to the tip of South America.

And I'm hoping that the people I meet

and the places I go on this 50,000 kilometre journey

might just change my life.

♪ Why may I not go

My first stop was an exposed stretch

of coastline in remote Alaska

where I'd heard there was a possibility of waves.

♪ Trees have fingers that may steal the earth from me ♪

I camped alone in the spruce forest for two weeks,

waiting for swell and spending most nights

terrified in my tent.

I felt like prey just waiting to be eaten.

The safety and convenience of the city, long gone.

Although my closest encounter in the tent

didn't come from the bears.

(wind blowing) (fire crackling)

All right.

This is the scariest thing that's ever happened to me.

There's wolves everywhere.

Wolf came up to the tent, right up to the tent,

right up to the bloody tent,

and now there's a whole pack of them around me.

I'm not sure what I'm gonna have to do.

I've got bear spray, but this is pretty full on.

The truth is, a lot of things feel freaky

in Alaska when you're alone.

Even when surfing the huge sea lions,

the intimidating mountains,

I felt vulnerable and scared a lot.

But I think it was the same experiences with the animals,

forests and the ocean that breed a bit

of life back into my melancholy soul.

So today has gone from being an absolutely amazing day

with pumping waves and hiking out.

Yeah, shit kind of hit the fan.

I came back and my tent's flown away.

I didn't know where it was. It's pitch black.

And so I had to run along the cobblestone beach

and eventually found my tent in the ocean.

Everything saturated.

I'm pretty sure the tents kind of buggered

and every night I'm sleeping in a tent

and then shit like this happens.

It's a few negatives.

But as time progressed and I learned more,

my mind began to slow down

and I started to appreciate the small gifts from this land

that had seemed so strange to me.

One morning I got chatting

with an incredible Tlingit artist who made me see

how some people's connection to place meant that the wolves,

bears and eagles were not terrifying beasts of the night

but instead, direct links to ancestry and community.

- So this is a representation of a raven.

And the interesting things about this is

I have articulating mouth to it.

This is the ears of the raven up here,

eyes of the raven and the beak comes down and straight down

and the fish is right down here.

This is actually a wolf cape.

You can see the claws.

These are actually sea otter teeth that I used.

I'm actually undecided whether I'm gonna use

a white fox like this or a rabbit to represent a bald eagle.

This is a digger, digger handle I carved.

On top it's a Thunderbird and they're holding the spirit.

And you can see the face carved in there.

This is actual human here as well.

Our people were very spiritual people.

Everything had a spirit.

One of the things that are important

to my particular clan is Was'eitushaa

which is also known as Mount St. Elias.

That's always depicted with two spirits

connected to that mountain.

- [Matty] It sounds like animism or shamanism.

Is that right?

- Well, shamanism doesn't exist anymore.

It kind of went out of style,

especially when western culture came in.

(gentle music)

- [Matty] As I hiked through those Alaskan landscapes,

I had time to mull over what Rob Baty had said

about the mountains possessing their own spirit

and how in a way, it was similar to what my Shaman friends

had said about the spirits of the rainforest.

But do we even have words

to express those kinds of ideas in the west?

And if we did, why did we lose them?

My Irish ancestors lost a lot through colonisation.

But when they arrived in chains

on the first fleet to Australia,

we soon took on the role of colonisers ourselves

with a brutal outcome.

So what does that make me today?

After two months in Alaska, I hit the road south.

(gentle music)

(engine rumbling)

(birds chirping)

As I rolled into Vancouver Island,

the isolation of solo travel melted away

as I met people from the vibrant

surfing community of Canada.

♪ So many roads that one could

One morning I got chatting to a cute surfer named Heather,

who lent me a longboard

and showed me a fun little local spot.

♪ So many places where one can banned ♪

♪ So many things to

We caught a few waves together.

And in between, she made me laugh

by randomly grabbing pieces of seaweed

and stuffing them in her mouth,

showing you which ones tasted best

and which ones I should eat while on the road

to save money and stay healthy.

♪ But when I hold you in my arms ♪

♪ I feel so grand

She also talked a lot about the local forests,

and told me how the latest research

from the University of British Columbia

showed that individual trees can communicate with each other

and that the mother trees

even send their offspring nutrients

through underground mycorrhizal networks of fungi.

It's real nice hanging out with her.

- [Heather] So we hung out a little more

and then I invited Maddy to come

and check out my little farm.

- [Matty] I jumped at the chance, mainly 'cause I liked her,

but I was also inspired by her big ideas

to change the world one vegetable at a time.

- There's a big movement in Vancouver,

so it's kind of a good place to be an urban farmer

'cause there's a lot of awareness around it.

Newspaper articles, talking about CSAs and young farmers,

and there's a lot of support for young farmers.

It really brings a community together.

I guess my dream is to provide good quality organic food

to my direct community and indirect relationship

with the seasons using principles

of permaculture and agroforestry.

- Spending time with Heather

gives me a sense of happiness and contentedness

that I hadn't felt since living in Indonesia.

I'm definitely starting to fall for her.

I think it's gonna hurt to leave,

but if I don't, I'll never make it to Patagonia.

We promised to stay in touch.

In the meantime, there was a big swell forecast

and an infamous wave I'd heard a lot about

that lay further south.

So I hit the road.

And being on the road feels good.

I've got all my systems down for travelling now

and having less possessions

than when I was in the city is liberating.

Everything I own in the world fits in my bike and I'm free.

Everything is absolutely covered in dust.

That's what you get when you're riding motorbikes.

I'd still prefer it over a car any day. It's bloody good.

I'm starting to really dig this motorcycle stuff.

And to top it off, I've borrowed a local legends board,

I'm camping on Maverick's beach

and the swells supposed to be up in the morning.

(waves crashing)

♪ Howling around my happy home

♪ Howling around my happy home

For an average surfer like me,

to drop into a couple of those waves

was a bit of a dream come true.

I jumped back on my bike buzzing with energy

and curious to see what lay between here and Mexico.

As I rode from iconic Sierra Valleys

to delicate desert arches,

it dawned on me how long it's taken to shape this land.

And I wondered about the people

who had seen it change through the ages.

As I learned more, I was surprised to find out

the first nations people of the US

were also traditionally animistic.

It occurred to me that animism isn't so much a religion,

but more of an ecological feeling that everyone

around the world felt

from Australia to Indonesia to the Americas.

(band singing in foreign language)

This cannot be fucking real.

These guys, (indistinct)

Jesus Christ.

Fuck.

(percussive music)

(engine rumbling)

(percussive music continues)

(pedestrians speaking in foreign language)

My bike's gone

My bike,

it's fucking gone.

I'd been eating tacos at a beach-side restaurant,

watching the sun go down when it happened.

The bike was only parked 150 metres away,

but it was outta sight, and I guess that's all it took.

Luckily I'd been repairing my surfboards at the hostel

so at least they weren't in the bike at the time.

- It's been one week of fucking around with police,

with bikey clubs getting robbed by the police.

I don't even know what to do anymore.

I'm had a complete loss.

All I could think about was if I had

of just stayed in British Columbia with Heather,

none of this would've happened.

I limped back over the border

to where I'd been only a week prior,

feeling embarrassed and dejected.

Luckily my friends Jake and Pat

owned a surfboard factory in San Diego

where they offered for me to crash on the floor

to rebuild my life.

And so while they worked,

I applied for vehicle insurance compensation,

a cheaper secondhand bike,

and thankfully some generous companies

helped me out with some adventure gear.

I lived in the shaping bay for a whole month,

fixing the bike and writing morose letters to Heather.

To say thanks, I bought the guys some beers

and painted a mural for their surf shop.

Losing the bike was definitely a hard pill to swallow.

Although the insurance money helped,

it didn't cover what I'd spent and lost.

And so, my already tight budget

was reigned in even further.

But damn, I'm lucky to keep riding.

And in one of those strange serendipitous ways

when things start looking up,

five of my close friends rolled into town

with their own bikes

and a plan to ride together down the Baja Peninsula.

(engines rumbling)

(artists singing in foreign language)

- What hit? What did it hit, you know?

(friend speaking faintly) (wind blowing)

- Yeah. Right there.

(engines rumbling)

- [Matty] Fuck.

- Come on. I've almost had it.

- [Matty] You guys probably gonna need some harness maybe.

- Will you guys help me to wag it?

(artists singing in foreign language)

- [Friend] Whoa.

- I'm just in Kings country.

(artists singing in foreign language)

(engine rumbling)

(fireworks blasting)

(artists singing in foreign language)

(friends cheering)

- I saw a hummingbird on our tent this morning?

They were like, (imitates buzzing)

- Dude, I bet you back in the day,

outlaws did their stick bath in this motherfucker.

- [Matty] Having my friends around me

has changed everything.

I just find myself laughing all the time

and losing my stuff is beginning

to feel like a lifetime ago.

(engines rumbling)

Sometimes we'd stumble across surreal campsites

interspersed with the prickliest and most bizarre forests

any of us had ever seen.

Nearby caves showed ancient artworks of the Cochimi,

a hunter gatherer people

from this particular region of Baja.

They used to roam the deserts

with intricate capes flapping in the wind,

woven from human hair.

But the Spanish conquistadors who wanted their land,

followed by the Christian missionaries

who wanted their faith soon wiped out

their traditional culture, language

and eventually the people themselves.

There's less than 80 Cochimi people alive in Mexico today.

We never met any of them,

but there's an indisputable life force

still present in those Boojum forests.

(suspenseful music)

The universe works in peculiar ways, that's for sure.

It turned out that my letter writing had been worth it

and Heather had driven all the way down from Canada

to explore the desert with us.

- How's your hair, Matty?

- [Heather] He'd gotten a lot hairier since I last saw him,

and even though he smelled like a cross

between motorcycles and campfires,

I still kind of liked him.

- [Friend] I love the smell of burnt hair.

- Really?

- [Matty] Heather or Bummer, as I've started calling her,

has been hanging out with us for a month now.

My head's kind of spinning and I'm feeling a bit nervous,

but I think I'm gonna ask her

if she'll come with me all the way to Patagonia.

- I know I really like him.

- Well, I like her and I'm pretty sure she likes me.

She's so sweet and you know,

intelligent and beautiful

and just up to really enjoy life

and just has such a innocent curiosity

about the world that really stokes me out

and definitely not many girls out there like her for sure.

- Matty mentioned that maybe I should keep going with him

and we could do the trip together

and kind of made my heart fly a little bit.

That was kind of nice.

(gentle music)

(sand whooshing)

- I never surfed this board in tubing waves yet.

So it's a bit of a first.

Should be a bit of fun out there

and hopefully can sit behind the rock

and pick off a couple of deeper ones with it.

♪ One day when I out walking

♪ I heard a bird up in the tree ♪

♪ And suddenly, he started talking ♪

♪ And this is what he said to me ♪

♪ I'm starting to see your ass up here everyday ♪

If there's one lesson that losing my bike has taught me,

it's that like the Baja,

life can feel like a barren desert of thorns,

but if you surround yourself with friends and community,

it's easier to appreciate how those thorns

are a small and important part

of this wild ride we're all on.

It was gonna be sad to say goodbye to the gang.

But I couldn't believe it,

Heather's gonna sell her little farm

so she can buy a motorbike

and we're gonna ride off together into the sunset.

♪ Or you won't get too far

- This one.

Sweet. You're gonna kill it.

(Heather speaking faintly)

The thing is, I never really saw myself as a motorcyclist.

I've never even sat on the back of one,

let alone ridden one myself.

But for some reason strapping two surfboards

and about a million other things to it

feels like the right thing to do.

(engine rumbling)

♪ Whatever turns you on

♪ I'm going where you're going

♪ Whatever turns you on

♪ Red lights and hooters blowing ♪

(Jake and heather screaming)

(water bubbling)

(whale growling)

♪ I'll rise when you rise

♪ I'll crash when you crash

♪ I'll burn when you burn

♪ In the mind and in the flesh

(waves crashing)

♪ Like a truck of chrome and lights ♪

♪ Running fast right through the night ♪

♪ Come on

(waves crashing)

(engine rumbling)

(seagulls squawking)

- It's so fun.

♪ Whatever turns you on

♪ I'm going where you're going

♪ Whatever turns you on

♪ Red lights and hooters blowing ♪

(sombre music) (engine rumbling)

- [Matty] One of the main reasons

for setting off on this journey

was to surf the Pacific Coast of the Americas.

But I never would've guessed

that a surf trip could spark my interest in history

and what it means to be human in today's world.

- [Heather] Arriving at the ancient ruins

of the Mayan civilization made us stop and think,

how did such a magnificent society

collapse so completely?

- Like us nowadays,

they were sophisticated with advanced technologies,

writing, mathematics, astronomy, and engineering.

At the time, it all must have felt so important.

But their kings yearned for power

and the people worshipped that power.

The elites built bigger and bigger temples

to prove their status until they deforested

all the jungles around them,

which in turn led to severe drought

eventually contributing to a collapse

of the Mayan civilization.

- [Heather] While it was reassuring to see

that life continued after the collapse,

especially with the jungle now thriving,

we wondered about the modern day Mayan people

and what they might have learned through hindsight.

We'd heard about the Zapatistas

who have focused on small scale farming

and community to become an autonomous

and sustainable movement.

(Montserrat speaking in foreign language)

In a way, listening to the Zapatistas confirmed for me

that I'd been on a good trajectory

with my community supported farm in Canada

of building small scale decentralised food systems.

- [Matty] And it made me wonder about the idea of community.

Does it only refer to humans

or could community include everything

we're in relationship with?

- Whoop. Sorry, guys. (Matty chuckles)

I'm so excited.

- Good on you, Bum.

It was time to make some miles.

I'd always dreamed of seeing the Amazon basin

since living in the jungles of Sumatra.

(engine rumbling)

- [Heather] And I'm really excited to cross the Andes

to see where potatoes come from

and to feel the Amazon rainforest teaming behind it.

Stopped at this tiny little spot

in the middle of nowhere

and we're getting gas, otherwise we won't make it.

- [Matty] There's been a few times where we've come close

to running outta fuel in the desert,

which feels kind of gnarly considering

there's nothing out here if we do.

We're entirely dependent on the gas stations

for fuel and supplies.

- [Heather] And although it sometimes felt like

we were riding on Mars, the cold Humboldt current

makes the ocean rich with life, including incredible surf.

- [Matty] One unbelievable spot broke

for more than two and a half kilometres

with rides that lasted more than five minutes.

I got the longest wave of my life out there.

- [Heather] And to get to the Amazon,

we had to cross the Andes Mountain range,

which was quite the adventure in itself.

(cheerful music)

- [Matty] But along with the altitude sickness

and breakdowns came the crisp mountain air,

the epic views

and some of the best campsites we'd experienced.

(engine rumbling) (cheerful music)

After crossing the Andes, the winding road down

led us to the humid jungle of the Amazonian headwaters.

- [Heather] Shortly after the roads ended,

so we parked the bikes and jumped in dug out canoes

to head deeper into the rainforest.

We didn't really have a plan.

We wanted to experience the forest,

but other than that, we'd just see what happened.

(birds chirping)

- Wow, that's weird.

He's licking inside my nostril. Oh my God.

So we are in the Amazon

and it's bloody amazing

like so many places we've been.

But the big difference between here and

even the mountains where we kind of last were,

is this incredible diversity of animals

and chaotic cacophony of just life and death.

And then you kind of really realise

how interconnected everything is.

It's the same story across the world

and that's the cool thing, you know,

writing down from Alaska,

everything just seems so linked to nature

and then so many of the problems of the world seems so,

seems so distanced from nature.

I mean, we're travelling on motorbikes,

so it's definitely not a perfect scenario,

but it's really been a great vehicle

for us to be able to explore

and learn a little bit more ourselves.

These things look so cool when they open up, don't they?

- [Heather] It looks like dead leaves when they're closed.

- Thumbs up. Thumbs up for nature.

I'd heard of ayahuasca before,

although up until then I'd never had any desire to drink it.

But a chance encounter with a warm shaman

gave us trust and curiosity.

(dramatic whooshing)

(enchanting music)

As I stepped into a world I never knew existed,

it seemed clear that the Amazonian cultures

had developed their own wisdom

or a different way of knowing

through plant medicines and ceremony.

I wondered why my culture had outlawed it.

While the west is interested in exploring outer space,

other cultures are more focused on exploring inner space.

Perhaps that means the globalised world

could learn from small forest communities.

After all, science still can't define

what consciousness is.

(enchanting music)

Suddenly I could see my own cultural bias

and how I'd been conditioned to think

of the developed world as superior.

I could see that a lot of what society

had taught me about life was just one modern perspective,

not necessarily a historical truth.

Progress is inevitable,

mountains and mineral deposits,

technology will save us,

fish don't feel pain,

time is money

and that nature-based cultures are primitive.

(bird cawing) (enchanting music)

(native speaking in foreign language)

For the first time,

I truly felt the essence of what my friends

in Indonesia had been trying to teach me,

that the entire world is alive

in ways that can't be measured.

a web of life of awe inspiring power and beauty.

And as I smiled about how much I loved being alive,

it also dawned on me just how much I loved Heather.

(enchanting music continues)

Yeah. What have we got here?

- California puppies,

some kind of brassica weed,

alstroemeria and pearly everlasting.

I don't know what this is.

They look like snapdragons but they're not.

We'll set up a tent.

Hey.

- [Matty] After our experience in the Amazon,

the sound of the highway kind of lost its romance.

- [Heather] We thought about what it might be like

to leave the roads and cars behind,

to move in a way that's more in tune to the local landscape.

(cars swooshing)

(gentle music)

We rode into Chile with a plan,

try to sell the bikes and use that money to buy four horses.

We wanted to slow things right down and rid ourselves

of the reliance on roads and gas stations.

Then one day while surfing, we met a couple of cowboys,

Sam and Mick, from the outback of Australia

and they just happened to be trying to find

a couple of motorbikes to start their own adventure.

We offered to teach them to surf

and they offered to help us pick good horses.

- Just used to riding it.

- We dunno how to surf and you guys dunno how to ride, so.

(Matty laughing)

- You're doing so well though.

- Yeah, it's good.

- The first ride, you both look natural in the saddle.

So that's half the battle.

♪ Once I was the king

♪ I took her to the town

Suddenly we were looking after four horses,

two for riding and two for carrying surfboards and gear.

My two are called Salvador and Pichi.

- [Heather] And my two are called Blackie and Harimau.

- We knew nothing about riding horses

before starting this new endeavour

and I didn't even know what a halter was or you know.

I think I'd heard of the word bridle, that's for sure,

but I didn't know how the hell to put one on.

- Doesn't it look like

there should be a strap over the front?

Is this really just all a bridle is?

- I don't know.

- Can't remember anything.

- I have no bloody idea.

- I don't know how much space there should be here.

- [Matty] Does that go under a neck

or where is it supposed to go?

- I have no idea.

- Poor old Hari is actually about 33 years old.

We were told between eight and 10

or something is what they told us

- By a vet, - By a bloody vet.

And basically Phil was full of rubbish

by the time we'd spent a couple of days with him,

we realised that he was in a bit of a different league

than the other three that are in much better shape, I guess.

- [Heather] Carry surfboard.

- Come on.

Wow.

Not easy with these surfboards.

So Blackie had the episode two days ago

where basically she was fully traumatised by the surfboards.

Kind of got a couple of rope burns in the process,

nothing really bad at all,

but it scared the hell out of her.

And then she didn't really like it much.

Blackie.

So now she won't go anywhere near surfboards,

which of course when you're trying to do a surfing mission

on horseback is quite problematic.

(horse neighing)

- Whoa, Blackie.

Whoa, whoa.

- I am terrified of the horses. So that's a great start.

I can't do anything near them. It just gets worse.

Doesn't get any easier.

I tried to put the saddle on Blackie today

and she freaked out and ended up snapping her halter

and fell over backwards.

So yeah, excited to hop on her and get going.

Yeah, kind of regretting this whole decision actually,

but it's okay.

Yeah, it's been a little bit stressful with the horses

and all of a sudden we're both learning this new thing

and so we've definitely argued

more than we have with the rest of the trip.

We didn't really have any issues like that before

and it's just been a little bit harder

and I think we're both just like almost a year

of like every single day together 24/7.

It's a bit crazy.

But it has been lovely and we don't fight.

- Yeah, we don't fight.

- Except for now with the horses.

- Yeah, we've definitely had a couple fights.

- It's like having children or something.

- Yeah.

Everything's just been harder with the horses already

and we haven't even, - Taken off yet.

- We haven't even started.

How she look with this?

- [Heather] Yeah, it's just coming together.

- It's just gone. - It's gonna work.

After almost two months of testing ways

to strap surfboards to horses, everything had failed

until we eventually came up with a rack design

that stopped the boards from touching the horses

or from entering their peripheral vision.

- While we trained the horses and built the racks,

we got to know the next door neighbour,

Ramon Navarro, an internationally respected

big wave surfer and conservationist.

We'd heard he'd just finished a long-term project

to protect the iconic Punta de Lobos point break

from development forever

- As a surfers, a fisherman,

everyone knows that's a pleasant place, you know.

There's not many places like that in the world.

And my real vision is my kid and the kids of my kid

can keep seeing the place exactly what it was.

It's just the ocean. Why you need to be private, you know?

So with surfing,

you need to understand absolutely everything

that happened in the ocean to be a good surfer

and to understand the ocean.

And I believe that's the way

we need to live our life, you know,

understand what exactly happened.

Fishing or spear fishing

is kinda like same surfing, you know.

I get the same level of power and adrenaline

to go spear fishing or just, you know, just catching waste.

And it's not just to go to the ocean, just kill fish,

it's like you pretty much harvest fish.

And I believe that's the main problem

of the humans right now, like mostly the big boats

that they not harvest, they just destroy.

Just take everything.

(gentle music)

(spear snapping)

I mean, if you go to the ocean,

you're pretty small in the ocean

and understand what happened.

You just, it's like I go to my garden,

you're not gonna take a green tomato,

you're gonna wait, you know, until it's ready.

And it's the same thing with waves.

You're not gonna pick out the close out

of the little one if it's a big ones out there.

You just gonna wait in it and get the good one, you know?

And that make your like,

that kinda like next level connection

and understanding and respect and obviously protect.

(cheerful music)

- Yeah, I think we're ready to roll.

I think we're ready to roll.

- There were a lot of concerns

about everything on that first day,

but we figured if we can keep it together for 100 metres,

then we could probably keep it together

for a couple of kilometres.

And if we could manage to travel for a whole day,

then there was nothing stopping us

from doing it every day for months on end.

That first beach ride felt like such an achievement.

Even if we were just plotting along

at four or five times slower than a bicycle,

- [Heather] We avoided roads

and stuck to traditional seaweed gathering

trails on the coast none of them mapped.

We were traversing terrain

that we wouldn't have dreamed of tackling

on our overloaded motorbikes.

It was so quiet.

Suddenly we could hear the birds

and the sound of the ocean.

Instead of warming loud engines and checking oil,

our mornings were spent in quiet awe of four gigantic steeds

and their peaceful spirits.

Sometimes just standing quietly

listening to their heartbeats.

- [Matty] The slow travel meant that we began to notice

the small details of the landscape,

like fruit trees ready to pick

or the various wild foods that we're good to cook with,

not to mention the personalities of random horses

who would try and join our little herd.

- [Heather] We proved that you can lead a horse to water

but you can't make it drink.

And for the most part we said goodbye to roadside campsites

and cooked on an open fire.

(birds chirping)

- Coffee?

- [Matty] Sure.

- [Heather] The route south was no longer bound

by the intervals of gas stations and fuel

from the other side of the world.

Instead we hunted green grass

and clean rivers, all of it growing freely.

We have such a minimal impact.

And even then grazing animals

have a positive impact on the land.

They encourage growth.

And their poo fertilisers.

And it's just pretty cool that you can just ride a horse

along the land and go surfing

and just live and live outside and be free.

It's pretty beautiful 'cause that's what we're doing.

- You look beautiful, charm.

- No. You're a beautiful mate.

- It's added a big challenge to the journey,

taking surfboards because constantly

not only worrying about grass and water

and somewhere to camp,

but then you've also got the added dynamic of,

okay, what are the waves doing?

What's the wind doing? What's the tide doing?

So it's like this whole nother complication,

but at the same time,

I don't think I've ever felt anything more rewarding.

Yeah, surfing on horse backs' freaking awesome.

♪ The traveller does wonder how long he will walk ♪

♪ For the bright morning sun shines on his feathered bed ♪

Look at that thing out the back.

It's just tubing off its brain.

Ugh.

- [Heather] We have the most beautiful campsite

and we're so lucky to be able

to roll up onto the beach and just camp.

- Yeah. - This is amazing.

Such an amazing way to see things

- Don't stand up in the surfboard, mate.

Hola. Como estas.

♪ The lonely one does wonder how long he will wait ♪

♪ Will the celebration be this time for me and me alone ♪

- [Heather] Yes. First bath shower in two weeks.

I think it's two weeks to the day.

So it's exciting.

I feel a bit gross.

- You don't look gross.

- [Heather] At one point,

we stumbled upon a little hamlet.

And after getting chatting with a friendly local,

we learned how the Mapuche were one of the only people

to fight the Spanish conquistadors and win,

but are now again fighting

to protect their lands and waterways.

(sombre music)

(Vivianna speaking in foreign language)

- [Matty] We noticed Vivianna had a sign in her window

protesting a pulp mill's plans

to pump waste into their local beach.

(Vivianna speaking in foreign language)

♪ And the taste of sugar

♪ And the sweet smell of decay

- [Heather] We'd written past several of the pulp mills

that Vivianna was talking about,

where mountains of pine logs

are chipped into pulp to make paper,

a process that produces toxic wastewater.

And we'd even been advised by locals not

to surf in those areas

because of the waste outfall into the ocean.

Only recently, one of the pulp mills

had illegally dumped chemicals into a Ramsar listed wetland

killing tens of thousands of birds,

including South America's largest population

of black neck swans.

- [Matty] When we began the horse journey,

we dreamed of riding through picturesque wilderness,

but it was clear early on

that wilderness had become a rarity.

Instead, our daily horizon was lined

by the pine plantations that fed the pulp mills.

Day after day, week after week, month after month,

the monocultures continued

- [Heather] And because the horses depended on the land,

it made the industrialised landscape all the more obvious,

the horses had nothing to eat,

and maybe that's why we never saw any of the native deer.

Most of the plantations had big fences

or walls around them too that would stretch for kilometres,

forcing us onto precarious cliff side trails

to be able to continue.

(horses plodding)

♪ Turn weeds into extinction

♪ And bugs to smithereens

(horses whining)

- We're stuck in this pine forest.

But yeah man, I hate these. They're not forests.

I hate 'em. They don't even look that good from far away.

You can tell they're the same species of,

they're just silent, dead money factory,

paper mache pieces of pine.

- They're a bit spooky. - Yeah, they're spooky, quiet.

And anyway, so we've just gotten like three kilometres

into this one and then I remembered I left the GPS

where we had lunch like two hours ago

or something like that.

And so I bolted back there thinking that we might be able

to beat this storm.

And then obviously we haven't.

It's been raining pretty, pretty good.

So I didn't find the bloody GPS,

which we really need for down south.

We'll need all the time.

He's so hungry and thirsty like he's sucking on my

fingers like he's hungry and thirsty.

We need to keep going. We've got kilometres to go.

We don't have any water for the bloody horses.

We couldn't get out the way we wanted to.

'cause there's a fucking fence.

- Yeah, there's no water.

- Really. - Nah, nah.

It's all bloody salt.

So we're gonna have to keep going for like, I don't know,

8K or whatever that guy said and try

and find some up there.

At least there's a bit of food.

- [Heather] Even though it had already been a huge day,

we had to keep pushing on.

We were doing okay but I could see that Harimau,

being so much older than the other horses,

was really tired and would sometimes

need to stop to catch his breath

- You're doing well, mate.

You are doing well buddy. We love ya.

- [Heather] But it was under that big rising full moon

that I learned to let go and trust in the horses.

Blackie had challenged me so much,

but on that night we kind of just surrendered

to the journey together.

And for the first time, I think she and I truly connected.

- [Matty] Pretty beautiful, still

- So nice.

Amazing actually, with the stars and the moon.

- [Matty] After camp for three hours in the morning.

Then traversing cliffs

and endless pine plantations during the day,

then miles and miles of soft sand at night.

We were getting pretty worried

about finding water for the horses.

And after a couple more hours,

we were all exhausted and needed rest.

- We haven't drunk any water since the morning.

Literally, we haven't drank a single drop

each since the morning.

- Yeah, I just feel like we're letting the horses down like,

and then what's the point?

I guess now they're miserable and cold and hungry

and thirsty and same as us.

The next morning we set off parched but hopeful.

- [Matty] Hey, Bummer.

There's water coming off the cliffs.

Wow.

Drinking the holy water, mate, are ya?

Having a little drink?

- [Heather] That beautiful spring

coming out of the cliff emphasised freedom for me.

It was life pouring out from the earth.

It struck me how we were all made of the same stuff.

The horses, the birds,

even the plants that clung to the cliffs,

all of us made of water.

- We don't even have to have the horses tied up here.

That's the best thing.

They're just off. We can't even see 'em at the moment.

All four of them are just cruising along

this little stretch of beach coastline

and they just come back here

whenever they want a little bit of water

and it's pretty radical

that we can just trust them to be free.

- [Heather] I guess that's the thing about adventure,

often, it's the challenging times

that lead to the unexpected gems.

And this was one of those times

because right out the front of that magic freshwater spring

was one of the nicest waves we'd ever seen.

- [Matty] Oh my God.

Oh my god.

♪ Moonshine got me

♪ Moonshine got me

♪ Sun shines for me

- [Heather] Nice.

- [Matty] The day we packed up to leave that special spot,

the waves were better than ever.

It hurt to ride away,

but if we were ever gonna make it to Patagonia,

we had to keep moving.

(hooves clomping) (waves crashing)

- Just, I was feeling a little bit badly for Harimau.

He's so much slower than the other horses that,

I feel like when he has to walk their speed,

he has to work extra hard.

And he's a bit older and skinnier.

He doesn't put on weight as easily.

He's never been the same size as the other ones.

And that's okay. He's such a little champion.

He's so cool. I love him so much.

I love all the horses.

We went up a hill and just watching

how slowly he went up the hill and just broke my heart.

And I don't know.

So I was seriously considering stopping here

and trying to sell Harimau and Blackie

and then having Matty go on without me.

I don't know.

We were just arguing.

And it just felt like a really negative situation.

Like we would find ourselves in beautiful places

and I would have so much love for the journey,

but then there'd be such,

we'd get in an argument

and it would just feel so draining

on top of all the work with the horses,

it's a lot of energy and a lot of emotional energy I think

with the horses for me.

- [Matty] It took a bit to sink in,

but with Heather heading back to Canada,

we chose to try and find a forever home for the horses.

We wanted all four of them to stay together.

They'd become best mates.

And we met a guy in the market who had heard

that we were gonna be selling the horses

after the end of the cabalgata.

And he offered us an amazing price.

He came up to us and said he'd buy all four horses.

And he said that all four horses were for his children.

Where we met him was actually close

to the butcher in the market.

And I said to him, "They're not going for meat, are they?"

And I pointed at the butcher that was right there

and he's laughed and he's like, "No, of course not."

And he looked straight into my eyes and he shook my hand

and we made the deal and we shook on it.

And then one of our good friends from around here,

someone that we do know really well,

someone that we can trust came up to us

and told us he was gonna shoot them the next day

and sell them to the butcher.

And he's still supposed to be coming

this afternoon to pick them up.

Luckily we had some friends up in the mountains

who had just finished their own horse journey.

- Hello.

Hi. How's it going?

So yeah, I was just calling,

we're thinking about riding the horses towards Pucon.

What do you guys think

about adding four horses to your herd?

(phone chattering)

- [Matty] And so we set off with a long way to go

up into the mountains.

♪ Why may I not go out and climb the trees ♪

♪ Trees have fingers that may steal the earth from me ♪

- [Heather] Our horses had carried us so far

and we'd become a family.

I felt so much gratitude for all of them,

but especially Harimau.

Pretty scary bridge, hey, big south.

♪ I wanna go and find the little cat ♪

(tongue clicking)

♪ The cat's been found and taken by the rats ♪

- [Heather] Nice.

♪ Where will the sun be When the sky is black ♪

You know, Hari, I wish you walk on the other side.

♪ You'll have all night to ponder about that ♪

- In a way,

I was glad we'd been forced up into the mountains.

It meant that we could all stay

together for a little bit longer.

So we're on the pass at the moment

and it's bloody beautiful.

Last night the lake was like a mirror

and it was just an amazing afternoon

being in such a place with the horses, you know,

because being on the coast for so long

and then trekking all the way through

and then coming up here to the mountains

has been a huge reward.

But it's bloody cold.

And I don't know,

I guess we weren't really prepared for the mountains.

This was all just a plan B

'cause we didn't want to sell our horses

to that guy or anyone that was gonna kill them.

Sounded like a lot of people

would've just sold 'em off for meat.

- My hands hurt and I don't wanna do anything.

- Why? - Because it's freezing.

And every time you use your fingers, they get cold again.

- Why don't you put your gloves on, mate?

- [Heather] We don't have any gloves.

- [Matty] We don't have any gloves.

How are we even gonna get a ticket home?

- I don't know.

I already have mine.

- [Matty] Oh, I don't.

Heather and I had been through

so much over our time together,

but at this stage it was just the plight to find a safe home

for the horses that kept us trekking onwards, side by side.

Deep down, I knew that in about a month's time

she would head north back to Canada

and I'd set off alone down into Patagonia.

- [Heather] We made the packs as light as possible

for poor old Harimau,

to the point where all he was carrying

was our sleeping bags and pads.

But it was clear by this stage he was tired.

But no matter how often he'd stop,

he'd never let us out of his sight.

- [Matty] We're a weird herd of animals

all trekking together physically and emotionally.

Wherever one of us went, the rest would follow.

♪ Something's waiting

♪ Something's waiting down the line ♪

- [Heather] As we got deeper into the mountains,

we came across small communities who would often let us camp

with our horses on their land.

- [Matty] Sometimes we'd exchange

travel stories with the locals.

And one man in particular had gone far deeper

and far longer than either Heather or myself.

(Adolfo speaking in foreign language)

(Heather speaking in foreign language)

(Adolfo speaking in foreign language)

- [Heather] Pinochet?

(Adolfo speaking in foreign language)

♪ How long are we running outta love ♪

The next morning,

we rode on with Adolfo's sad words ringing in our ears.

And there's a lot of time

to think and reflect while riding a horse.

- [Matty] His sadness about being disconnected

from his Mapuche roots triggered a sense of sorrow for me,

first and foremost, I felt for Aldofo.

He's a genuinely good man who's had a hard life.

But on another level, I felt a distant ache

for the disconnect of my own ancestry

and what had happened for the world to end up like this.

- [Heather] It seemed obvious that throughout history

there's been a push to eradicate nature-based cultures.

But I couldn't shake what Adolfo had said

about those same oppressive systems still being in place,

although now in a predatory capitalist form.

That afternoon,

we were again welcomed into a Mapuche community.

(group speaking in foreign language)

- Our horses are running away right now,

but it doesn't even matter.

I mean, we just know that we're in the,

we're in my Mapuche territory now

and we know we're being looked after.

And the whole reason that

we know we're being looked after

is pretty much because of these guys,

because of the love that they create,

when people see the horses,

they feel a connection to nature.

(horn blowing)

(group speaking in foreign language)

(leader speaking in foreign language)

(wind blowing) (feet crunching)

(birds chirping)

Throughout this journey,

we've witnessed a clash of two paradigms.

And perhaps where we fit within them

comes down to the story we tell ourselves

and in turn, the laws we abide by.

Ancient law around the world

says the Earth is full of spirits or persons,

only some of whom are human,

but all of whom deserve respect.

Whereas modern law says that

only humans and corporations are persons.

Which means that everything from the mountains

to the forests are just resources for the taking.

- [Heather] If at one point in history,

all of our ancestors were deeply connected to the rivers,

mountains, the animals and the trees,

can those of us who have been disconnected

rediscover the spirits of nature?

(cheerful music)

- [Matty] The funny thing was,

I could easily see Heather's determined and loving spirit

and our direct experience of living with our horses

for the last six months made it obvious

that they too had their own spirit.

There was big Salvador, the gentle giant,

beautiful Blackie, the strong leader,

cheeky Pichi, who would stick her head

in the tent each morning to wake us up,

and of course there was faithful old Harimau,

who would follow us all to the very end.

- [Heather] And so if horses and humans

have their own spirit or personhood,

then maybe a volcano could too or a river or a forest.

And perhaps if we look closely,

we'll see that the mighty ocean is full of different people,

none of them human, but all of them surfing

and dancing for the sun.

- [Matty] Oh, you ripped the bag, mate.

(horse neighing)

- [Heather] Harimau.

- You come out here into the beautiful, quiet mountains

and you can hear a woodpecker pecking away

or you can just sit next to your horse while, you know,

while she sleeps.

And there's something just immensely gratifying about that.

We had one final mountain pass clear

before arriving at our friend's, Greta and Ali's property,

our horse's forever home.

(hooves shuffling)

- [Heather] It was a strange feeling

because with each step closer,

we were nearing a goal that had taken

so much effort to arrive at.

Oh, Harimau.

But at the same time,

we knew it would bring big change for all of us.

- [Matty] It's slippery. You alright?

Go, mate. You're doing good.

(hooves clomping)

Whoa, dude.

- I dunno.

I'm really tired right now on our last night.

- [Matty] What's gonna happen when you go home

and then I go somewhere else?

- I don't know.

It'll be kind of tough after spending like,

24/7 for 14 months together.

It's kind of a lot of time. It's been really crazy.

Especially just what we've been doing.

It's like really emotionally taxing

and just so intense.

I think we also need a little breather from each other

and to know that we like can live our separate lives again

and be our selves 'cause that's something

I feel has not been coming out in myself.

It's been really hard,

like latching onto someone else's journey

- [Matty] In both of our journeys by very much.

- Yeah.

- [Matty] We wouldn't have done it,

it wouldn't be like this if it hadn't have been for you.

- Yeah.

And I would never do this if it weren't for you.

How do you feel about this, Blackie?

- [Matty] We're on the home stretch.

- Woo-hoo. Harimau.

- [Matty] Hold up. Hold up.

♪ It's a strange word

- That was amazing. (Matty speaking faintly)

Oh yeah. (chuckles)

♪ Bitter and confused

That's so delicious.

Oh, this so magical.

♪ I'm glad

Oh, hi beautiful.

You've been waiting so patiently.

♪ And you're all alone

- Like, when you guys called us and it was like, how?

I don't even know, like, you know,

all of the different questions that come up,

but then also that gut feeling that says,

this is asking for you to participate and you say yes.

And then once you say yes,

then you've opened up all these other doors

for the things to come in that you need

in order to make it happen.

- We were really surprised when seeing

how people were like, "Wow, no,

this is part of our culture, but it's gone, you know."

- They're disconnected from- - There's so many,

it's third generation is the only one who remembers

or knows what that's like. - Yeah.

- [Matty] Whoa. Whoa.

That was gnarly (laughing)

Are you OK? That was quite funny.

Sorry to be laughing but,

- It's like I don't want to be left behind, buddy.

♪ You give me faith

- [Matty] Heather and I spent that afternoon

saying goodbye to the horses,

feeding them some of their favourite snacks.

- [Heather] I realised that the horses

had been on their own journey

full of lush pastures and scary plastic bags.

But now they were home, they were safe.

And while we were all going our separate ways

from here on out, we were all gonna be better for it.

I'm glad for Matty

that he's still aiming to get down to Patagonia,

but I'm heading home.

- There's been a lot of saying goodbye

these last couple of days.

- Yeah, lots of saying goodbye to the horses

and to each other.

It's kind of crazy thinking about it.

But we're both gonna move on to

some pretty cool things I think.

- Where do I start?

It's pretty wild, really,

what's happened in the last few days, you know.

my world's just been turned upside down

and it's always been such a massive high, you know,

this whole trip.

And then a few days ago,

said goodbye to the horses.

And that was pretty sad.

And then yesterday I said goodbye to Bummer,

which was really, really bloody hard,

a lot harder than what I thought it was gonna be.

It's a really difficult part of the journey.

I think it's the most difficult part

of the journey I've experienced,

is when you gotta say goodbye.

I am really sad, but I'm so stoked.

I don't know if I've ever been this stoked in my life.

That's a ridiculous thing.

But I kind of got my heart broken at the same time.

♪ Like the wondering ghost for a harbour ♪

♪ Like the ground beneath the snow for springtime ♪

♪ Like the believer for something to believe in ♪

♪ Like the drifting castaway for shoreline ♪

♪ I waited for you

♪ All the way through

♪ All the way down the line

♪ I waited for you

♪ I waited for you

♪ All the way through

♪ All the way down the line

♪ I waited for you

I finally understood.

I'd been so fixated on the glory of reaching Patagonia

that I'd failed to see it never mattered

to Heather in the first place and now she was gone.

But I suppose the best lessons in life

come from your mistakes.

And if this journey has taught me anything,

it's that the greatest mistake of all

would be to live in fear of making one.

(wind blowing)

(feet shuffling)

(tree rustling)

♪ Was silent and white

♪ The world lives for a moment

♪ And every moment says goodnight ♪

♪ What I draw for you is yesterday ♪

♪ Here's what it looks like

♪ I can only draw from

♪ What enters my eyes

♪ Maybe our perception

♪ Is why we cry

♪ Maybe it's perception

♪ I just think we're scared to die ♪

♪ If the world lives for a moment ♪

♪ And every moment says goodbye ♪

♪ Then I'm drawing for you yesterday ♪

♪ Here's what it looked like

♪ I was on my way to heaven

- Hi, guys. Hi. ♪ Met a pothole in the sky

♪ Tumbling towards the devil

♪ Was silent and white

(birds chirping)

(group chattering and laughing)

♪ Dreaming

♪ I'm dreaming all day long

♪ I'm dreaming of you

♪ Dreaming

♪ I'm dreaming all day long

♪ I'm dreaming about you

♪ When I'm walking

♪ Oh, dreaming of you

♪ When I'm talking

♪ Still dreaming of you

♪ Closer

♪ Each and every day

♪ I'm getting closer to you

♪ Closer

♪ In every single way

♪ Getting closer to you

♪ When I'm walking

♪ Closer to you

♪ When I'm talking

♪ Oh, closer to you

♪ Every day I walk across the mountain and the river ♪

♪ For on my mind the sparkling drop ♪

♪ That'll take away the shivers ♪

♪ Twilight settles upon the world on my retreat back home ♪

♪ But I can see the light of dawn ♪

♪ As I pour it through my livers ♪