FREE SPIRITS
‘I CYCLED TO THE END OF THE WORLD!’
Dr Kate Rawles, 57, is a writer and activist from Cumbria. She left home with a bamboo bicycle that she made herself, and cycled the length of South America to explore diversity and activism on the continent.
My first big bike ride in South America in 1992 was greeted with a certain amount of resistance and alarm from my friends and family. It was scary for them to think of me out there, all alone, with terrible language skills and living cheaply, so far away from them and the world I know.
But over the years, they’ve grown used to the idea of me doing these kinds of things. I wanted to inspire action by exploring biodiversity – showing people why it matters and what’s being done to
