Find a speaker

James Castrission

The skies are closing in; the Tasman Sea swell is angry; this is a confrontation between two exhausted young men and nature's wildest elements where it's plainly obvious who are the outsiders in this battle for survival.

They have been going around in circles, literally, for a week, buffeted off course by the tides, giant swells and winds that caused them to paddle an extra 800kms on top of the 3000km they had prepared for. Their leg muscles were wasting, their body fat reserves depleted, their minds playing tricks. Yet their constitution refused to wander.

No one had successfully navigated, by kayak, the Tasman Australia to New Zealand. One, Andrew McAuley, had come perilously close just months earlier, but not near enough to save his life.

His watery grave sat on the ocean bed somewhere between where these two adventurers would achieve historic immortality or their own perilous end. It was in their minds every minute.

James Castrission and Justin Jones indeed reached the sand at New Plymouth on NZ's north island, and a place in history, on January 13, 2008 - 62 days after they set off Forster on the mid-New South Wales coast. They were sun-burnt, bearded, underweight, physically and mentally wasted, and most of all happy to be alive.

What sort of crazy men attempt such frightful feats?

They are two Knox College educated, articulate and life-loving young men who decided to achieve dreams beyond the corporate world.

James, 25, possesses a Bachelor of Commerce then worked as a consultant and analyst for Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu before deciding that mountaineering, rock climbing, bushwalking and kayaking should be the focus of his life. He has climbed some of the most challenging peaks in Australia and New Zealand and walked some of the most breathtaking tracks too.

Justin, 24, is studying for his masters of commerce at the University of New South Wales after having completed an advanced science degree with honours in physiology. Like James, he also graduated with a degree in extreme exploits.

They had kayaked the length of the Murray River, all 2560kms, and the treacherous Bass Strait as virtual training runs. They had run the Sydney Marathon; they had achieved their yachting crew qualifications and dueled with the open waters under sail.

They are now willing to share their secrets of survival in a documentary about their journey and privately to the many corporations throughout the world who have created a demand for their insights into the subjects of leadership, taking control of your life, challenging yourself mentally and physically, facing adversity and the strategic planning and contingency of such a mammoth task.

It is human nature to, at times, think of what we could have done with our lives, to what boundaries we could have pushed ourselves, what achievements we may have dared to have believed in and what mental and physical capacity was within us. To go beyond such thoughts, however, rarely happens.