Together, Ewan and Sophie bring a true passion for exploration, self-discovery and living a life that embraces all that they have and all that they are. Their strengths in life and in the outdoors are highly complimentary and have seen them build a partnership of solid technical skills and knowledge, sound risk management and calculated decision making. And through these shared and combined values, they worked together and have tackled numerous adventures together in many corners of the globe, always a solid team in even the most demanding scenarios.

Sophie Ballagh
Kia Ora!

Sophie is an outdoor professional from New Zealand. She has been adventuring, instructing and guiding in her home country and around the world for the last decade. Sophie holds numerous New Zealand Outdoor Instructors Certificates as well as having completed her Boat Masters, Advanced Wilderness First Aid and Marine Radio Operators licences.

Sophie has been engaged in key roles in designing and implementing outdoor education programmes and expeditions throughout New Zealand and Asia and has professionally instructed in white water kayaking, sea kayaking, rock climbing and off-track navigation.

During her professional guiding career, Sophie has lead countless multi-day sea kayaking expeditions in the rugged fiords of her native New Zealand and along Canada’s famed BC coast in addition to guiding clients on river trips and multi-day hiking journies. Her expertise extends to the polar world where she has spent many seasons guiding clients on hikes, sea kayaking trips and small boat excursions around the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, along the Antarctic Peninsula and around the rugged and remote South Georgia.

Sophie has a vibrant outlook on life that is infectious and lends itself with her natural instincts to teach and share knowledge. She has always lived for and with Mother Nature and is at home in a tent on an icy peak as she is in a bivvy on the edge of a mighty river. Sophie is one of the rare folk who has brought her passions in life to her work and it shows through in all aspects of her life.

Ewan Blyth
G'day!

Born in Tasmania, Australia, Ewan spent his childhood growing up on a farm and exploring the vast wilderness of his home state. Ewan has now travelled widely, for work and pleasure, leading expeditions in Vietnam, summiting peaks in Ecuador, undertaking reconnaissance missions for hydropower projects in the wilds of PNG, leading extended sea kayaking trips in the rugged South-West of Tasmania to canyon guiding in the Japanese Alps to name but a few of his adventures.

Qualified in off-track navigation, wilderness first aid, small vessel operations, sea kayak guiding and instructing and the design of hydropower projects (extremely useful in tackling technical outdoor scenarios!), Ewan has spent the last few years working living and working onboard commercial tourism vessels in the polar world.

Combining these experiences with his background as a global engineering design consultant, Ewan has developed a wide set of management and critical thinking skills that has stood him well in his personal and professional pursuits.

An avid photographer and a side-line writer, Ewan enthuses greatly in sharing his passions via action, prose and imagery of both the still and moving variety. And through exploring the marvels of our physical world, Ewan has developed a profound respect for the power of exploring our inner world, our minds, and in doing so, hopes to inspire others to see the connections and take on their own explorations, their own adventures.

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Ballagh Blyth

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