This article is part of a series focusing on Peter Bland’s fascinating life
PETER Bland’s narrative reads like an adventure novel.
A story of survival, exploration, challenging the boundaries and overcoming the restrictions people place in front of you.
“I had a very adventurous childhood. We had a cattle station in Queensland and every school holidays we would go up there.
“I remember being picked up straight from primary school and put in the back of a Renault TS16. In those days you would sleep on the back car ledge all the way to Queensland singing ‘Away in a Manger’.
“We had big Brahman cattle, we had horses, we had jungle, rainforests, and stock whips and men and dogs and ticks; and it was wild frontier country that I revelled in.
“Down the road was a little fishing village called Noosa, before Noosa was Noosa. We’d head to the surf between cattle operations.”
Growing up in Gisborne/Mount Macedon in Victoria, Peter’s family also had a third cattle operation on King Island.
“Mustering cattle with aeroplanes, I would be down below on a horse…
“I went to boarding school but every school holidays I would be somewhere.”
Captain of Outdoor Education during his school years, Peter teamed up with a mate from boarding school and got his first job as a skipper delivering a yacht (Kwik Decision) across the Atlantic.
“It was a quick decision!” Peter recalled.
“We picked it up in St Lucia after the shearing – literally put the handpiece down and hopped on a plane the next day.
“Initially we were to take the boat to Australia, and I said to the owner it was a six-month job to bring the boat through the Panama Canal across the Pacific, and he changed his mind to take it to England.”
A shorter job, Peter and his then girlfriend secured the boat for six months and rather than head to England, headed south to Brazil.
“I ran windsurfing charters and had a great time running tourists out to Isla de Coche (off Margarita Island)…
“Then the time came to cross the Atlantic. I hadn’t seen Jay for about four months – the last meeting we had was at the Argo Hotel in South Yarra and I got a guidebook and said right ‘I’ll meet you at English Harbour, Antigua on May 1st at noon.’
“We’re down in Venezuela and I said to my girlfriend, I wonder what month it is, and she said towards the end of April. We quickly said goodbye to our friends, had a big farewell party on the beach and spent five days crossing the Caribbean Sea into Antigua.
“Cleared customs, packed up the boat and ran up to the bar I was supposed to meet Jay at – it was now 12.30 he’s sitting there with three beers and says you’re late!”
After rigging the boat with a windsurfing sail as a self-steering system – the team set off across the Atlantic. A journey of 36 days with stops in the Azores and then Ireland.
“My next big delivery job was to bring Fast Forward, an Inglis 47-foot yacht, back from Osaka.
“That was an adventure – we did diving courses in the Solomon’s, and Micronesia and Kapingamarangi, and all these wonderful places. Chiefs would come out welcoming us, a sub-chief came out to guide us through the reef (in Kapingamarangi) because it was unchartered. Then we cleared customs in Townsville and worked our way down the coast to Western Port.
“’96 comes along, I’m working the shortbread business and Jay calls – he speaks quietly and goes ‘mate, my backs gone out any way you can replace me?’
“The next morning, I hopped on a plane to Hobart to replace him on the Spirit of Sydney, a 60-foot English vessel, sailing down to the South Magnetic Pole the next day. That was my introduction to Antarctica…”
Stay tuned for part two (released January 4) of Peter’s journey. From the South Magnetic Pole to major heart surgery and dragging a sled across the Arctic to The Art of Living at Wattle Bank Farm, plus your opportunity to join Peter and the team to the Arctic next year.