‘It’s when we challenge ourselves that we grow’

Adventurer Ness Knight has travelled the world on extreme expeditions that tested both her strength and endurance. She tells Emma Justice what it takes

Ness Knight has ticked off more ‘firsts’ than most. She’s the first female to have paddleboarded over 1,000 miles on the Missouri River (before jumping on a bike to cycle solo across the USA), the first to have swum the Thames from its source (despite suffering debilitating stomach cramps), and she’s completed 15 marathons in 15 days (running from Big Ben in London to Land’s End in Cornwall). Knight is also the first person to cycle north to south through the mostly uninhabited Namib desert. There, she pushed herself so hard, she collapsed from dehydration in 50-degree heat and was almost eaten by a pride of lions. ‘There’s a little bit of insanity in me,’ she admits, laughing. It’s impressive how much of the road less travelled Knight has, in fact, travelled. An achievement that’s even more inspirational at a time when most of us can’t travel at all. Knight, now 35, grew up in Johannesburg, a ‘concrete city with rough edges’ that she credits for sowing the seed of adventure in her and giving her the confidence to cope with some rather tricky travel situations. ‘I wasn’t born with a compass in one hand and a map in the other,’ she jokes, ‘but I have been known to zoom into the most remote places on Google Earth just to see what they’re like.’ What Knight doesn’t add is that (unlike the rest of us) she has no fears about then going to visit them. Her favourite expedition was the all-female South American journey she did three years ago with British explorers Laura Bingham and Pip Stewart. Together, with the help of five indigenous Wai Wai warriors, they traversed uncharted jungle and treacherous rapids in inflatable kayaks to locate the previously undiscovered source of the Essequibo river in Guyana. Knight says: ‘One morning I was woken by a jaguar tail brushing across the bottom of my hammock. Pip was almost killed by a venomous pit viper and we ate armadillo for dinner.’ Indiana Jones eat your heart out.

You can’t help but wonder how Knight adjusts to shopping in Sainsbury’s and watching Netflix when she gets back. But apart from suffering ‘post-expedition blues’ she says it’s a pleasure to return to everyday life: ‘I love coming home to the people I care about. One of the hardest things about being an explorer is accepting that by pursuing your dream you’re inevitably causing them pain. My parents [her father works in tech, her mother is an artist] have always been supportive of what I do but I’ve given my mother a few grey hairs over the years!’ So, how the hell do you become an ‘adventurer’? Knight’s family (she has two older brothers), moved to the UK when she was 15, after a young neighbour of theirs was shot dead opening the gates to his home a few doors from their own. ‘It’s shocking but that was the reality of South Africa back then,’ she explains. But it wasn’t until Knight left school that she started doing things that scared and challenged her. Her first job was as a charity ‘chugger’ because she ‘found asking for a stranger’s bank details on the street terrifying’. Unlike coming face to face with a jaguar in the jungle, of course.

Knight started a business degree but quit to work for a social enterprise in London (ex-dragon Doug Richard’s School For Startups). Teaching entrepreneurship to others made her realise that she wanted to pursue her own passions, so she left. That led

to her paddleboarding ‘first’ on the Missouri River and she’s never looked back. Knight, who says at that point in her early 20s she still felt she had something to prove, missed her flight back to the UK and with no money, borrowed what she could (including a bicycle older than she was) and cycled along the old Route 66. It was there she experienced ‘complete freedom’ for the first time and also one of her first tricky travel situations. In this case being trailed, as a lone female, by a group of aggressive-looking men in a pick-up truck. ‘That was frightening but common sense got me through (she stopped for help from an older woman) and 99.9% of the people I’ve met on the road have been wonderful,’ she insists. Knight, a natural storyteller, blogged about her journey and although social media was in its infancy (this was 2012), she soon found an audience. ‘Bear Grylls, Aldo Kane, Ray Mears and the like are great,’ she says, ‘but I tapped into a demand for more female adventurers. Women have always travelled, we just never had the spotlight before.’ So, while Knight didn’t consciously choose ‘exploring’ as a career, she made it her own. ‘Mainly because I didn’t want to do a job I hated to pay bills,’ she admits. ‘But I had to work hard to monetise it, based on the new audience I’d found.’

Nor did exploring come entirely naturally to her. Knight also does a lot of motivational speaking and talks in detail about the mistakes she made along the way. ‘Physically, we’re far more capable than we give ourselves credit for,’ she says. ‘It’s your head that gives up before your body does and I’ve had to develop an “iron mind” to succeed. It’s about training yourself to ignore any creeping doubts, face your fears and leave your ego behind.’

As Knight got older, she started to realise that there’s only so far you can go on your own. So after lockdown, which she spent in the UK ‘recalibrating’, Knight is embarking on two new adventures closer to home. ‘Motherhood is one of my next big challenges,’ she says, revealing that she’s 13 weeks pregnant. ‘But while I’m not planning to take a baby into the jungle quite yet, I do think you can juggle motherhood and a career, even one like mine.’ Knight met her partner, Jake, while filming in South Africa two years ago. ‘I saw him in a coffee shop and after hiding in the toilet because I was too shy to approach him, we talked for two days and I decided to stay.’ Now the couple have returned to the UK to work on her second new challenge; a 12-acre farm they’ve bought in West Yorkshire. Their plan being to create a fully-sustainable business using regenerative agriculture. ‘We’re going to introduce farming techniques we’ve learned from indigenous tribes and prove it’s possible to be carbonnegative, not just carbon-neutral.’ Knight has also released a children’s book, Adventure Starts At Bedtime, featuring 30 stories from some of history’s bravest travellers. ‘I wanted to inspire the next generation to get off their ipads and connect with nature, and to encourage girls in particular to be bold and follow their dreams.’

As for Knight, she won’t stop adventuring for long. ‘We want to take our kids to see different cultures, places and people.’

Of course, the hardest part of any journey is getting to the start, especially post-pandemic, says Knight. ‘You can have adventures on your doorstep, though. One of my favourite places is north-west Scotland. My advice is to go off the beaten track, wherever that may be. Our world is vast and there’s a kaleidoscope of things happening all the time. You just have to open your eyes.’

‘YOU CAN HAVE ADVENTURES ON YOUR DOORSTEP’