Enjoy early access to Sue’s story here; before it is published to all of the popular platforms on October 3, 2026.
Episode #205: Sue Blunt
Head of Sustainability
Adventurous Ewe
Guest Bio
Sue Blunt is the Head of Sustainability at Adventurous Ewe Ltd, where she brings over a decade of experience in outdoor education, charity work, and sustainable adventure travel. Originally from Sydney, Australia, Sue has spent many years working across sectors in both Australia and the UK. She is deeply committed to creating travel experiences that positively impact the people and places involved. Outside of her role at Adventurous Ewe, Sue is active in her local community in North Wales, serving as the first female helm at Conway Lifeboat Station and participating in Welsh Sea Rowing. Her adventurous spirit keeps her exploring remote locations worldwide, from mountains to oceans, often accompanied by her dog Moshi.
Show Summary
In this episode of the Big World Made Small Adventure Travel Podcast, host Jason Elkins speaks with Sue Blunt about her journey from growing up in Sydney to becoming Head of Sustainability at Adventurous Ewe in Wales. Sue shares insights into how her early passion for travel evolved alongside her career in golf management and charity fundraising, eventually leading her to combine those experiences into sustainable adventure travel. She also discusses the unique challenges and rewards of running a small, boutique tour operator that offers both bespoke and group trips worldwide.
The conversation explores the distinctiveness of Wales as a travel destination, including its landscape, culture, and emerging activities like paddleboarding combined with local wellness experiences such as lakeside saunas. Sue highlights how Adventurous Ewe balances local UK adventures with international expeditions, often attracting different traveler profiles for each. She also opens up about the meaningful role charity challenges play in fundraising and personal transformation.
Listeners get a glimpse into Sue’s personal interests beyond travel, including her volunteer work with the RNLI lifeboat service, her love of reptiles and wildlife from her time volunteering at an Australian reptile park, and her adventurous hobbies like ultra-marathons and sailing. The episode offers a thoughtful look at how passion, purpose, and community intersect in the world of sustainable adventure tourism.
Key Takeaways
- ✓ Adventurous Ewe operates mostly in North Wales but offers unique, tailor-made adventure trips worldwide.
- ✓ The company focuses on sustainable travel that benefits local communities and environments.
- ✓ Most UK-based clients do local trips, while international travelers often discover Adventurous Ewe through overseas expeditions first.
- ✓ Charity fundraising trips are a significant part of the business, providing meaningful experiences tied to personal causes.
- ✓ Sue’s background in charity event management and golf industry operations helped shape her approach to adventure travel logistics and client relationships.
- ✓ Personal stories and emotional connections are central to the success of charity treks and endurance events.
- ✓ Adventurous Ewe offers a mix of training-intensive expeditions and more casual, self-guided trips to accommodate different fitness levels and interests.
- ✓ Wellness activities like paddleboarding combined with lakeside saunas are part of expanding the adventure portfolio in Wales.
- ✓ Sue is the first female helm at Conway Lifeboat Station, highlighting her commitment to community service and maritime safety.
- ✓ Hands-on experience with wildlife, including reptiles and crocodiles, reflects Sue’s adventurous nature beyond travel planning.
What You’ll Find on Adventurous Ewe Ltd
- ✓ Bespoke and group adventure travel itineraries with a focus on unique and less-traveled destinations.
- ✓ Multi-activity trips including trekking, kayaking, paddleboarding, and snowshoeing.
- ✓ Charity challenge events designed to combine travel with fundraising for meaningful causes.
- ✓ Sustainable tourism practices that support local businesses and protect natural environments.
- ✓ Personalized support including training plans, gear advice, and logistical coordination for complex expeditions.
- ✓ A homegrown North Wales operator with deep knowledge of local landscapes and culture, offering authentic UK adventures.
Learn more about Adventurous Ewe and connect with Sue at:
https://www.adventurousewe.co.uk/
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Podcast Transcript
This transcript is auto-generated on recording, and has not been edited by a human. It may contain lots of mistakes, crazy words, and stuff that makes no sense. The host and the guest are not responsible for the accuracy of the transcript.
Jason (00:01.344)
Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of the Big World Made Small podcast for the Adventure Traveler. So happy to have each and every one of you back today. And also very excited. We’ve got a fascinating guest. I had a conversation with her husband. It was a while ago. We had a fascinating conversation. So now we get to come back and hear her side of the story. We’ve got Sue Blunt today. She’s the head of sustainability for Adventurous Ewe Sue, welcome to the show. Happy to have you here.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (00:27.62)
Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you for the kind invitation as well. It’s great to be here.
Jason (00:31.116)
Well, my my pleasure. I look forward to you know, we’re gonna get into your whole story, figure out kind of how the heck you got from where you are to where you are now. And that’s the part I really, really like. And before we do that, let’s give our listeners kind of there’s a couple things I want to discuss about adventurous Ewe. The first one is let’s just get this out of the way because people might be listening to this. They didn’t read the show notes, they’re not watching it on the screen, and and I say adventurous Ewe and they think
you know, it sounds like one thing, but it looks a little different. But so tell us about the name of your company, spell maybe even spell it out for us and help us kind of understand how you came up with the clever name.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:14.416)
Absolutely, it was my husband has to take the credit for this one and he set the company up in 2011 and it
He grew up in Snowdonia in North Wales and when he set the company up he was like looking for something that’s a little bit playful, something different and Snowdonia is renowned for sheep so he came up with Adventurous Ewe but ewe is spelled E-W-E as in the sheep so yeah it’s just a play on words but I think it works really well it just sums up the whole company like adventure and it’s all
you but a little bit of a fun spin on that.
Jason (01:57.037)
I agree. I when I first came across it, I thought, that’s clever. And and it kinda I I don’t know for somebody well, I grew up in Wyoming. We have a lot of sheep there as well. And but I think of kind of, you know, sheep is just trekkers, hikers, you know, moving around in the mountains. that’s kind of my that’s my experience with sheep. that’s where I would see sheep when I was up in the mountains, camping, hiking around, I’d see sheep. So I think it’s I think it’s pretty cool.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (02:05.839)
Thank
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (02:19.545)
Yeah, yeah.
Jason (02:25.702)
And now that we we’ve touched on that, but let’s give our listener because I mentioned some things about tracking hiking and all that, but I don’t want to put words in your mouth. because you understand your business better than I do. So maybe if you can share with our listeners now, what is it that you do at Adventure you do at Adventurous Ewe. It’s a mouthful.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (02:42.095)
you
Yeah, so we are only a small based operator in North Wales, but we operate worldwide. So we do all the classic kind of trips like Kilimanjaro and the Great Wall of China. But since we’re so small, we’re trying to carve out a niche for ourselves in doing trips that nobody else is doing. So we operate, as I said, worldwide and we’re just trying to build that portfolio.
up of really bespoke trips, a lot of tailor-made stuff as well for corporates and charities, and different activities as well. So not just your trekking, we do snowshoeing and kayaking, paddleboarding, so yeah, but we just do those unique itineraries worldwide.
Jason (03:35.759)
Okay. And I and I understand it’s worldwide. You just you just told us that, but I’m also curious, and we’re gonna get into the history. So this next question, I it it could open the conversation for history, but we’re gonna try and keep it focused right now because we’re gonna spend quite a bit of time on the history. But as of right now, are you doing stuff in Wales still? Because sometimes you know, I I d I don’t know. Are you doing
Like what percentage of your business is actually done in Wales with trips in Wales or maybe the United Kingdom in general? And then we’ll talk a little bit more about the international stuff as well.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (04:10.991)
Yeah, absolutely. We’re very much still a homegrown business. So a lot of our trips are based in North Wales. know it would be at least 78 % is still in North Wales and primarily in Snowdonia or O’Rarey in Welsh. So we’re broadening our offer here. So Snowdon is probably the most well-known mountain in North Wales. It’s our highest peak.
So most of our trips involve that mountain but we’re trying to increase the reach to try and take the pressure off the mountain and get more people discovering different areas of Snowdonia and also North Wales because it’s absolutely beautiful up here. And also diverse from not all trekking trips all the time so that’s why we’ve gone into paddle boarding and we’ve mixed that up with there’s a new sauna business
Jason (04:49.379)
Mm-hmm.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (05:10.915)
that’s opened up here so we’re trying to like get other local companies involved and give them business as well. So yeah we’re mixing up and doing a lot more multi-activity type stuff which is proving really really popular which is good.
Jason (05:26.03)
Okay, I’ve got a bunch of questions, but you said sauna and I’m trying to help me f you’re probably the first person that we’ve talked about different tourism type stuff that mentioned sauna and I and I think there’s a reason. So tell us more about what is that all about?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (05:28.92)
Yeah.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (05:35.64)
Okay.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (05:41.028)
So it’s kind of…
quite a trend at the moment. We’re seeing it in other destinations as well, that people are really enjoying that sauna experience and the wellbeing benefits from that. So there is a local business here that’s basically made a sauna on a lake here, a called Limpedan. And so we do like a paddle boarding activity all day, they have a picnic lunch and then in the afternoon they can have a sauna, warm up a bit if the
weather’s quite foul and then they can have a cold water dip afterwards in the lake so it’s part of that world being
Jason (06:19.518)
Right. yeah. So it’s it’s that thing that I associate w I associate with Scandinavia, but it’s, you know, g sit in the sauna, get hot and sweaty and then go jump in a snowbank or a a creek or something like that and then go back and forth. So that you know what, that’s actually pretty cool. That’s something I can see a lot of people that have not done. I have because I you know, growing up in Wyoming, we’ve got hot springs. I remember going to the hot springs and sitting in the hot tubs and then
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (06:28.205)
Yes, yeah.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (06:33.976)
Yes.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (06:48.707)
You okay here?
Jason (06:48.93)
There’d be s snow snow right right next to it and you’d get out of the hot tub and roll around in the snow or sometimes they’d have a cold water pool. Yeah, yeah. All right. That’s that’s pretty cool. So your guests that join you in Wales, where are they typically from? Who’s who’s kind of your market for your Welsh trips?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (06:54.521)
Sorry.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (07:10.255)
It’s primarily from the UK. 98, I’d say 95 % of people are from the UK. We do get a few Europeans as well. But that’s primarily our audience at the moment. We’d love to expand that. And we are getting a few more Australians on board, which is fantastic because I’m initially from Australia. So like, come on, Aussies, come with us. So yeah.
Jason (07:33.346)
Mm-hmm.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (07:40.209)
At moment it’s mainly UK, mainly UK.
Jason (07:42.287)
Okay. And then the people with that travel with you internationally, because you mentioned, you know, Africa with Kilimanjaro and the Great Well of China. You also the last time we spoke, you mentioned to me that you’re going to the country of Georgia. I say the country of Georgia because if you grow up in the US, you tend to automatically hear Georgia, you think of Atlanta, you know, that stuff. So I I tend to say the country of Georgia, just for our listeners, so they the
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (07:57.316)
Yes.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (08:06.199)
Okay.
Jason (08:12.078)
which is a pretty cool cool place that I’ve been as well. where where was I going? Do you know where I’m going with this question? Because I lost track. but I think what I want to ask is the people that go with you on the international trips, are they the vast majority or a majority, or just is it does it even relate to people that have already traveled with you? So maybe p somebody from the UK that comes up to Wales, spends some time with you, and then they end up going on one of these trips.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (08:19.219)
Thank
Jason (08:41.702)
Or are your international trips outside of Wales, do they tend to capture people that you may meet never even never even had any desire to go to Wales, but they want to go to to China and they find you some other way? How does how does that work? ‘Cause a lot of tour operations, you know, might start locally, they get a f a following in their their either their more local community, and then those people want to go somewhere with you. So I’m just curious how it’s worked for you guys.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (09:09.679)
Yeah, it’s a really good question. It’s a really interesting question in terms of what we think should happen and what actually happens.
Jason (09:15.488)
Yeah. Welcome welcome to life, huh? my goodness. Yeah.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (09:21.005)
Yeah, yeah. So we did think that, we will have these UK based trips and then people will get to know us, a one day trip and then we will get them on an overseas trip because they’ll get to meet us and hopefully have a really good experience. But we found that people are finding us from the overseas…
market so to speak that they will think, I want to go and do a trip in Patagonia or in Georgia and then they find us on the internet that way, they come and do a trip with us and then they have a really good experience and then they go on to do more overseas trips. So we’re finding that the overseas
Jason (10:02.902)
And then maybe they go to Wales.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (10:04.661)
Yeah exactly, so it’s kind of reverse of what we initially thought which is really interesting. So we have a regular group who do an overseas trip with us every year and then they’ll do a UK trip as a reunion but yeah we found that it’s backwards in compared to what we thought it would be.
Jason (10:27.33)
You know, that’s that’s super interesting. And what pops into my head as you’re saying that is like, well, that kinda makes sense because I’m gonna just think out loud here for a second and you can chime in and tell me what you think. But if let’s say I live in Scotland or I live I live in London or whatever, and I go visit you guys in Wales
That’s one type of trip. It’s not that far away. Culturally it’s I’m sure it’s very different. I’ve never been to Wales, so I I but but in a sense it’s like it’s not that far away. So maybe the person that does that type of trip isn’t necessarily the same type of person that goes to Africa, you know, that lives in London and goes to Africa or goes to China or goes to Georgia.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (10:59.951)
You have to come.
Jason (11:22.218)
So it kind of makes sense that the people that are coming from the UK to visit you in Wales aren’t necessarily the same people that go from the UK to to all these other places. So that kind of makes it’s kinda like in the US. You know, if you’re if I’m running a tour operation in Montana and I get a bunch of people from the East Coast that come to Montana and then I say to them, Hey, I’m going to China next, or I’m going to, you know, North Africa or whatever.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (11:38.062)
Yeah.
Jason (11:51.801)
They might be, yeah, you know, we pretty much just travel in the US. So do you do you think there’s some of that or do you think that might explain it?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (11:55.533)
Yeah, yeah.
yeah, there’s some of that. I think… I think maybe…
There’s also a lot, when someone does an overseas trip with you, it’s big decision to actually go and book an overseas trip and then you’re with them for that whole journey, like they’ve booked six months in advance and then you’re with them, giving them training plans, kit lists, all the support they need and some need more than others and so you’re building that relationship for a long time beforehand and then they’re on the trip and they have such an invested experience because it’s not
Jason (12:33.346)
Mm-hmm.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (12:37.169)
one day, it’s a week, two weeks. So you’re with them for all that time. So then you’ve built that relationship and they’ve had that experience and it’s, you know, whether they’ve had cultural interactions or they’ve reached the top of a mountain, there’s a lot of heartstrings and emotions being tapped into where people who are coming on a one-day kind of UK event, they’re kind of just more escaping the city.
for the weekend and making the most of it and they still have a great time but they haven’t been with you yeah yeah yeah
Jason (13:13.966)
They’re not as connected to you. Right? Yeah. I get that. So probably the people that do an international trip with you, they do one, they’re much pro probably much more likely to continue to do more. Where someone comes up and does a day trip and maybe sits in the sauna with and jumps in the lake, that’s great. And they don’t s they their perception of your business is not, this is an international tour operator that does these, you know, multi-day complex things. So
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (13:25.421)
Yeah, exactly.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (13:31.395)
Yes, we do.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (13:40.623)
He
Jason (13:41.389)
So maybe what I hear is a little bit of a mix between the type of person, ’cause some people just do day trips, right? Or short trips. And others like that, kind of more I don’t want to say more adventurous, but I’m gonna say more adventurous. you know, multi day kind of international thing, and those people are probably more likely to just continue going with you, is what I hear. Okay.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (13:46.99)
Yep.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (13:59.96)
Yeah, yeah.
I think that’s a fair assumption. Like the UK people that come and do the UK events, we’ve got a multi-activity series where they’ll come and do one in Snowdonia and they’ve had a good experience and then the following year they’ll come and do the one in the Lake District because they really enjoy the format of a bike-hiking-kayak and then they’ll come and do the one in Scotland that we have. So they’ll move around the UK but we tend to find they will stay in the UK. There’s only a small percentage that will up the ante and then
Jason (14:28.504)
Mm-hmm.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (14:32.209)
yeah go overseas
Jason (14:34.75)
right, all right. I I guess I make sense, but I can see what you’re saying about, you know, we thought one thing and then it turns out to be another thing ’cause ’cause I get that. I’ve been around tourism long enough to have had several thoughts. this just is naturally what’s gonna happen, but it doesn’t always doesn’t always work that way. I I’m gonna ask you just cause I don’t know, and when I hear you say Snowdonia, I’ve heard of it, don’t really know anything about it. But the name is interesting to me.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (14:40.856)
Yes.
Jason (15:03.454)
Do you know anything about the the name? Is it really tied to like ’cause I hear Snowdony and I’m thinking it must be a cold, snowy place. And maybe it is. Is that where the n is there any connection between cold and snowy or do you know the story?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (15:19.167)
I wish I could say I knew the story and I feel really ashamed that I don’t worry. It is snowy in the winter, yes. But there’s a very strong push that now everything is reverted back to the Welsh language and the Welsh names for the mountains. So Snowdonny is Areri and Snowdon itself is Iwitha.
Jason (15:23.286)
Okay. Well just tell me, is it snowy there? It sounds very snowy.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (15:47.591)
So I wish I did some research and let you know exactly what they mean.
Jason (15:51.759)
She No, no, no, that’s I I was just pointing out that someone that’s never been to Wales here’s Snowdonia and I’m expecting snow activities and skiing, which, you know, mountains can be like that. Do you because you’re from Australia, you mentioned that. We’re gonna get into that. Do you know enough about the Welsh language to know does the word snow mean the same thing in Welsh? I’m totally exposing my ignorance.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (16:15.663)
It is a different word. I don’t know the word as such.
Jason (16:20.618)
Okay. All right. So it’s not all right. So it might have nothing to do with snow. I was just curious. Yeah, yeah, okay. actually I don’t want to start a political debate per se and and you know, get a lot of feedback from people that live in Scotland if we if we touch on this subject, but a lot of people in the US, you know, when they think of the UK and vacation, they
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (16:25.231)
But it is snowing here in the winter,
Jason (16:47.8)
tend to think of Scotland. You mentioned that you do a lot of stuff in Scotland, or you do some stuff in Scotland. And we don’t know as much about Wales. I mean, a lot of us might not even really know where Wales is. We and when we hear Wales. So as someone that did not grow up there, maybe you’ve got a different perspective than maybe your husband would, but what do you say to someone when
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (16:52.9)
Okay.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (17:00.804)
Mm-hmm.
Jason (17:09.9)
You know, if you meet someone from the US, you’re in Georgia, you’re in China, whatever you meet someone from the US and say we do stuff in Wales, they say, Well, I’ve always wanted to go to Scotland. So how do you help people kind of, you know, is Wales and Scotland? Are they basically the same? Are there a lot of differences? What would you like somebody to know about the differences between Wales and Scotland? And what should people that live in North America know about Wales? What might surprise them or help them decide what they want to do?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (17:36.995)
Yeah, definitely. There is a difference between Wales and Scotland and the world should be very passionate about that as well.
Jason (17:43.662)
That’s why I was afraid it might start a political debater conversation, but go ahead.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (17:49.265)
Yeah, it’s my home now so I wouldn’t want to do them any investors whatsoever. But it is, it’s phenomenally beautiful here in Wales. You’ve got everything from mountains to coastline to lakes. It’s just spectacular scenery. It’s really laid back as well and there’s a really rich history here.
It’s just fascinating and the culture is really, really rich as well. And they’re teaching Welsh now in all the schools. It kind of disappeared a bit there. For my husband’s generation, they didn’t really do Welsh in school, where now it’s part of their schooling. There are Welsh speaking schools. So yeah, they’re trying to really invest in…
really differentiate Wales as a destination in every respect, culture, language, art and the landscape obviously is already here and it’s, I can’t speak highly enough it is, it’s just absolutely beautiful.
Jason (18:56.878)
Okay. Is that let’s talk about food and beverage. because when I think of Scotland, for example, I I I I hear or I think of Haggis and and Scotch, right? Whiskey, Scotch whiskey. So is there are there similar food and beverage traditions? Like if I go to Wales, can I get a whiskey that
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (19:09.262)
Yep.
Jason (19:20.596)
Maybe if I was in Scotland they would call it Scotch, but because we’re in Wales, they call it something different. So what can you teach us real quick about food and beverage in Wales?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (19:29.924)
Yeah, there is quite a few distilleries here in Wales. Whiskey, gin as well. There’s Aber Falls gin, which is not far from where we’re located here. And there’s a lot of craft beer here also. And the craft beer is really, it’s really delicious. And there’s quite a few brewery…
like pubs that are opening up here and then supporting those local local beers as well so it’s not only a craft lager we’ve got almost a chain near us now called Taps and they serve all local beers so there’s a real surge and there’s a real unity of like supporting Welsh supporting Welsh businesses so which is really nice.
Jason (20:20.248)
So is do they have I suspect in Scotland you just order a whiskey at my in the US or maybe other pl parts of the world we might call the whiskey from Scotland Scotch. First of all, am I am I tracking am I right? Okay. So if I’m in London or if I’m somewhere else in Europe and I want to order a whiskey from Wales, is there a different word? Is there a word that’s means whiskey from Wales? I I have no idea. So I’m just curious.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (20:31.621)
Mm-hmm.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (20:48.408)
Yeah, no, there’s not a different word as such. You’d probably just, it would more be the distillery where it was from that you would order. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you don’t need haggis. We have Welsh cakes, which are like a, for better or worse, a flattened scone. Yeah.
Jason (20:56.546)
brand, the mark. Okay. All right. All right. Cool. And D E tag us there?
Jason (21:08.878)
Okay. So not quite like Agus from what I’ve heard. I’ve I have not not had not. All right, very cool. Appreciate you appreciate you sharing that with me. What’s before we yeah, before we move into your history, because I’m fascinated by that. I learned a little bit last time we spoke, but before we get into that, kind of still on the business of adventurous, you you mentioned
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (21:12.066)
No, not at all. Maybe with a cup of tea or something, not so much, yeah.
Jason (21:38.219)
I think you use the word bespoke or you know, there’s custom FIT’s. There’s a bunch of different ways to describe that where you set up a trip for somebody, you’re not leading them, you’re not going with them. It’s kind of a custom itinerary. But I also know that or based on my my understanding is that you guys do a fair number of group trips as well. So just let’s touch on that a little bit. What, you know
Roughly what percentage are you doing mostly? Kind of the bespoke custom itineraries or group trips, or what does that look like for your business?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (22:09.38)
Yeah, we do bespoke, like tailor-made trips and we primarily do them for corporate entities and charities. So we did one in June this year, which was for PwC. So we did a bespoke trip for them on Kilimanjaro where we had to, one of the guys from PwC was in a wheelchair. So we had to do all the planning logistics for that.
to find a different descent route for him to come down, know, tents, beds, toilets, everything. And it was just phenomenal to be part of and make that happen. And then we’ve done other trips for charities as well. That’s another big area. So all the charities are trying to have something that’s different to another charity to get people on board and do fundraising for them. So we’ve…
Jason (23:08.952)
So is this I think I know what you’re saying, but I don’t want to assume. But what I hear is maybe a charity would put together a kiloman jar truck. Let’s just say use that as an example. and but they probably have a large base of donors, maybe that have enough money to buy a plane ticket and go to Africa. So they book a trip to go with the charity group and then a portion of that
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (23:09.234)
very much.
Jason (23:36.222)
w what’s left over after all the expenses goes into the charity. So it’s they use it as a fundraising tool, is that right? Or
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (23:43.215)
Yeah, so they’ve got two options. You can either pay for your place outright and then just fundraise on top of that. So you set up like say an online fundraising page and you just say, Hey, I’m going and climbing Kilimanjaro charity, please sponsor me. All the other choices you do what’s called a minimum sponsorship pledge where the charity actually pays for your place and say for better or worse,
a thousand pounds but then you commit to raising two thousand pounds so then the charity pays a thousand but they then make a thousand or they say that you have to raise three thousand pounds so they pay a thousand and then they get two thousand if that makes sense. So yeah there’s different options of how you can do it.
Jason (24:30.806)
Okay.
Jason (24:36.782)
Okay. And it sounds like probably either way, kinda what that looks like. I remember, you know, when I was young, and I obviously they’ve been doing this for a while, not just back when I was young, ’cause that was a long time ago. But you’d say, I’m gonna you know, I remember we did one jump rope for heart. We’re gonna jump rope for X number of hours straight, and you’d go, you know, get people to donate five, ten bucks. So this is on a different level, I get that. But you get
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (24:51.15)
Yeah.
Jason (25:01.836)
people maybe to donate a few bucks and say, okay, great, I’ll support you. And then you gotta actually go do it. You know, type of thing. But all right, that that’s pretty cool.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (25:07.14)
Yeah.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (25:12.538)
But think if you’re doing it for a charity that is close to your heart or that has helped you or your family or friends, say it’s a cancer charity or something along the health charity, something along those lines, then you’ve got that more of a drive to support them and then people recognise that you’ve got that connection so they will sponsor you as well. I think that’s really important.
Jason (25:37.71)
Mm-hmm.
Right. Very cool. Now, do you it’s not a business podcast, but I’m but I’m curious, do you see a lot of crossover between your charity business and then kind of your more I don’t know what I don’t know what you call it, but maybe somebody goes on one of the charity trips and then comes back and books a trip with you
directly to go do something else or vice versa. Somebody goes on a trip with you and they and they’re like, Hey, you know, I’m on the board of this this organization. Maybe we can work together. It do you get a fair amount of crossover?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (26:13.166)
Yeah, there’s definitely crossover there. There’s crossover in people who do a charity trip and especially for the overseas ones like Kilimanjaro. It’s such a big commitment for training and fundraising because the fundraising kind of cost a touch of that is quite phenomenal. So then people have probably exhausted all their family and friends and getting sponsorship. They want to give them a break for a few years. So, but they’ve got the bug now. They’ve really enjoyed
enjoyed doing that kind of trek or bike ride or snowshoe. So they come and book something else just with us, but without the pressure of fundraising. They’ll do that for a few, like two or three years and they’ll go, okay, I’m ready to go again with the fundraising thing. And you know, something else has happened in their life. So they’re like, I want to support this charity or they’ve had such a profound…
situation in their life or occurrence and now they want to keep supporting the same charity they did before so they will support that charity again but yeah they’re ready to go again.
Jason (27:21.462)
All right. Very, very cool. Do you get you mentioned the word training at least twice, maybe more times since we’ve been chatting. So that begs the question, do you have trips that don’t require training? Because we mentioned Kilimanjaro. I have no idea what the great wall trips are like. I know there’s a lot of hiking and trekking type stuff in Georgia and some of these other places. And
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (27:35.097)
I’m sorry.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (27:42.778)
Okay.
Jason (27:47.116)
Yeah. What do you want our listeners to know that maybe heard the word training and have already checked out ’cause they’re like, Hey, I’m I’m not going on any trip that I have to train for six months for. So let’s at least touch on that.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (27:52.632)
email.
Yeah, no very much. We do have trips where you don’t have to dedicate your whole life to training because time is really precious these days. So we do other trips. We’ve got much shorter…
Trekking trips and then we’ve got a few self-guided trips where there’s no pressure to then You have to do you have to get from A to B at this time. You can take your time That we’ve got a couple of self-guided trips in Japan Where if you don’t feel like walking that day you can take a train and we’ll facilitate that for you So yeah, you don’t have to be some hardcore
Jason (28:38.296)
Mm-hmm.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (28:45.104)
want to be. You can do the Camino, can do trips in Japan. We’ve got quite a few hikes in Europe as well.
Jason (28:57.55)
Right, right. Okay. And let’s let’s touch on real quick your your group trips. Like I think you mentioned that when you go to Georgia you’ve got at least a a couple groups or something. I think you said back to back group trips there. So let’s touch on that. Are you and maybe Jim? I don’t know, like do you guys usually lead trips together? Do you go do your individual things? Do you have other people on your team that lead group trips as well? I just like to kind of see what get a feel for what you’re doing there.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (29:25.454)
Yeah, we have a real mix so…
For the overseas stuff, it’s usually either Jim or myself or one of our freelance leaders. And we’ve got a really nice pool of leaders and they’re always wanting to go on the overseas trips. In a really fortunate position there. But for Georgia, I’m myself going on those two trips, which is really nice. But the first one is just by chance a group of eight ladies and 80 % of them
Jason (29:40.727)
Mm-hmm.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (29:59.107)
them a repeat dispense which is really nice and then after that we have a private group and they do a trek with us every year so they’ve been with us for a long time so it’s always like trying to come up with something something new for them
Jason (30:01.146)
okay, yeah.
Jason (30:09.368)
Okay.
Jason (30:15.308)
Well, I yeah, I wanted to ask you about that because some operators like take pride in the fact that I would never take you somewhere or never send you somewhere I haven’t been on my own. And I I get that’s fine. That’s that’s a good angle. And then other operators, especially when you get a group of people that have traveled with you before, you have I you potentially have that freedom to say, Hey, I’ve always just example.
Hey, I’ve always wanted to go to Georgia. Do you want to go with me? You know, I’m gonna go do a trip to Georgia. I’m putting it all together. This is an e maybe even use terms like it’s an exploratory trip, but it’s a trip, right? That you can put together and that can present some excitement both for the trip leader and for the guests on the trip leader, because honestly, I would be more inclined to go on those trips. I don’t know, but well, before I opine my own perspective.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (30:52.784)
Yeah.
Jason (31:09.996)
I’m curious what are your thoughts on that? Will you take a group somewhere you’ve never been before or do you always do the scouting first or what does that look like?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (31:17.712)
I
Great question. So with the Georgia trip, we’ve been to Georgia before but not to this area we’re going next week. So the people that are coming back, the repeats, they have done a previous Georgia trip and just love the country so much that they want to go and check out another area. So that’s really nice. And then we’ve got myself and Jim actually doing a trip together at the end of this year, which doesn’t happen very often. But we’re taking some of our
regular participants on that trip as well to Indonesia and this is completely off the cuff. We’re going to an island that’s quite remote and we’re just basically getting there and going to do some exploring and we’ve got some local people that are helping us with that but again just trying to create a trip that no one else is doing at the moment and there’s four of us on it and we’re super
excited for it just to go and see what happens.
Jason (32:22.638)
Yeah. Th there’s there’s something to be said for that. I’ve been traveling full time for five years. Everywhere I go is new to me, pretty much. and that’s exciting. I’m not sure where I’m going with that, but yeah, I like you know, if a tour operator is you know, as long as they’ve been in business for a while, they’re pretty good at figuring things out, you know, and have have some connections and they say, Hey, we’re going to this place, we’ve never been, but we’re working with great partners and dah dah dah dah da.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (32:29.861)
Okay.
Jason (32:51.83)
I’m probably more inclined to go on that. And maybe it’s maybe it’s just a story in my head, but the story in my head is they’re gonna be excited too, right? The trip leader’s gonna have a little bit of that uncertainty and that spontaneity that that you maybe don’t get if you’re going on a trip with someone that’s been there, you know, 32 times. You know, it’s like I kind of wanna see my guide or my trip leader,
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (33:12.965)
Mm-hmm.
Jason (33:18.602)
enthusiastic and excited about what they’re seeing as well as opposed to just kind of going through through the through the motions. But I I understand the other side of the business as well. I understand some people like, I would never take a group somewhere I haven’t been before. I get that. Because ’cause when you haven’t been there before, there’s always surprises. I get that. I I know that completely. speaking about never, you know, going somewhere where maybe you haven’t been before or, you know,
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (33:33.721)
Yes.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (33:37.943)
Absolutely.
Jason (33:48.461)
changes. I don’t know if this ties in or not. I’m trying to create a segue, but I don’t really know where to go with it. So let’s just jump right. I’m just gonna just go straight to you’re from Australia. What the heck? So this might be a good so so let’s talk about that. I like to go back as far as we need to go to kind of figure out kind of what’s behind, you know, what’s the backstory? How did you get from where you are to where you are now? Australia’s a long ways away from Wales.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (33:59.43)
Yes
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (34:17.018)
Mm-hmm.
Jason (34:18.626)
But I sus that’s geography, but I suspect, you know, life wise there’s a long ways between the two as well. So let’s get into the life part. You grew up you grew up in Australia, right?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (34:28.612)
Yeah, I grew up in Sydney, Australia. Family are all still back there, all family and friends. And then I was very much, when I was back there, career orientated, worked.
Jason (34:30.838)
All right.
Jason (34:44.408)
Well let’s go let’s let’s go a little further if you don’t mind. Cause when you were fourteen you weren’t career oriented. Well, maybe you were. And I wanna hear that part too. I don’t wanna miss that part. Because what I found after doing a couple of hundred conversation having a couple of hundred conversations, just the recorded ones here, but also just through life, is that that that time as a child sometimes ha has interesting connections to to where we are now. So let’s if you don’t mind, let’s chat.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (34:50.83)
No.
Jason (35:12.088)
What was it like growing up in in Sydney? What was what was your childhood like?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (35:17.2)
I’m really fortunate I an amazing childhood, great family. We used to go on holidays that involved boating and water skiing every year. And then, but I always remember at school, and I actually remember sitting in a music class at school and I’m not musically orientated, unfortunately, anyway.
Jason (35:38.926)
They made you go is this a class they made you do? It was just part of something you had to do? Yeah. Okay.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (35:42.833)
It’s yeah, it’s just part of the curriculum at school and I was sitting there with two of my closest friends and we’re like Not getting this music stuff. Well, I can’t wait to finish school so we can go traveling That’s all we were that’s all we would talk about at school was like just want to finish school and go traveling and for us
Jason (36:01.452)
Rough rough roughly what age would you say you were when you were having those conversations in music class?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (36:06.832)
16. Yeah. I’m trying to remember. was year 10 at school. Yeah. 16. No. Absolutely. Yeah.
Jason (36:08.492)
Sixteen. All right.
Had had you traveled outside of Australia it’s a little harder to travel outside of Australia than it is out of Wales, but
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (36:21.09)
Unless you are from quite a wealthy family, you never travelled overseas. So there was always that allure of, I wonder what overseas is like because you just travelled in Australia, but not saying just because Australia is phenomenal. But yeah, it was just that, wow, there’s a whole world out there and it was just busting to get out there. And then…
Jason (36:44.686)
I it you know what’s what’s interesting about what you’re saying that I haven’t heard a lot is you went straight to I was talking, you know, speaking with my friends at school about can’t wait to go travel. And you know, there’s I’ve had so many conversations where it’s like, Yeah, I’m the only one that wanted to go travel. Everybody thought I was weird, I just couldn’t wait to leave and go and everybody else, you know, stayed put and continued doing their thing. It I didn’t
You know, there weren’t a lot of people around me that wanted to travel. So so that’s fascinating in itself, but let’s what is there something what was going on in your family that helped you come to school with that attitude? Did you have a bunch of National Geographics sitting around the house? I hear that one a lot. what was like do you remember your first realization that wow the world is a big place and and there’s places to go and see? Do you remember that?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (37:40.625)
Yeah, my parents had a book and grew up with the old encyclopedia era. was in books, there was no internet. And I remember my parents had a book that they’d ordered from Reader’s Digest about the Amazon. And I remember just flicking through the pages going, my gosh, this is incredible. Like the people and the rivers and the jungle life. So that’s what initially sparked it.
Jason (37:47.854)
Mm-hmm.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (38:10.578)
and just kind of went from there really.
Jason (38:15.47)
D do you think it’s just random that they bought that book? Were they interested in travel? Did they see something in you that thought you would be interested in it? Or if you were to guess, I don’t know if you ever asked them, Mom, Dad, why did you buy that book? What would you what would be your guess?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (38:27.056)
Bye.
I think looking back on it now is a really random purchase. I need to ask them that question why they bought a that book. Maybe they saw it. My dad did travel for work, but my mom was of the era very much a stay at home mom and look after the kids.
Jason (38:32.91)
Yeah.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (38:53.998)
Yeah, I don’t know the background of that book but it definitely did spark the interest that there’s a bigger wild world out there from home. Yes. Yep. Yep.
Jason (39:05.934)
Can you see can you see the cover of that book in your in your mind? Yeah, I I know. That’s it’s another interesting thing. I l I love having these conversations. So thank you so much for sharing that because a common trend I see is it’s a oftentimes it’s a national geographic. I don’t know if those were as popular in Australia as they were in the US. Yeah. So it’s like people can visualize or I spoke with someone the other day that it was an ad in the National Geographic that he saw when he was a kid for
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (39:25.316)
Yeah, they were. They were, yeah.
Jason (39:35.287)
you know, these barefoot what windjammer barefoot cruises and he’s like, I wanna get involved in that and now he’s involved in a company that bought one of the ships that they used to use and they’re relaunching it and it’s all because he remembers this ad on the back of a National Geographic. And I guess where I’m going is is yeah, those those photos usually photos and maps are the two things that keep coming up.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (39:47.415)
Amazing.
Jason (39:59.043)
You know, and you can visualize, you can see that first impression of like, my god, there’s there’s more to this world than just Sydney or wherever, you know, wherever someone goes up. That’s pretty cool. Dude, tell me about siblings.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (40:12.858)
Yeah, so I have a younger sister and there’s quite an age difference between us, despite that we actually didn’t go to school together because there is quite an age difference. But when we both left school, sorry, by the time she left school, I was already living overseas and she was like, I really like this trekking business. And she went and did a trekking
in New Guinea and then she’s like hey I want to do ever a space camp and I was like well I’ll meet you in Nepal and we’ll do ever a space camp so yeah we did that together which was really special.
Jason (40:51.66)
Wow.
Jason (40:55.224)
That’s cool. Do you think that I suspect that well we haven’t eat let’s let’s go back. I w I wanna I wanna ask you, did you inspire her? But we haven’t figured out what you did other than you had a book about the Amazon and you were talking about you you you’re blowing off your music teacher and and talking about traveling the world. if you were to imagine yourself if I had a tape recording of you and your friends sitting there talking about traveling the world and
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (41:13.027)
Yeah
Jason (41:24.318)
in music class when you were fifteen, sixteen years old. were you talking about the Amazon? Were there a specific place? Was was there like this is the first place I c if I could go anywhere in the world, this is where I would go?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (41:37.361)
shamefully the fact when we talking it was like we just want to go to London like it’s really yeah you just yeah I
Jason (41:42.831)
what that’s that’s I’ve heard that a lot from Aussies. I’ve heard that a bunch that’s the place to go. Why is that?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (41:52.257)
I don’t know. It’s such a like, just go to the furthest place you possibly can and so many Aussies do that whole migration of go to London, you know, get a working visa, do that for a year, then go back home. I was adamant that I didn’t want to do that and I didn’t want to live in an Aussie share house and do all that kind of thing. But what happens? You move to London, you end up in an Aussie share house in southwest London with everybody else.
and it was just a brilliant period of my life and I had an absolute awe.
Jason (42:29.432)
Well, based based on some of the convers we won’t go too far into the details because I understand there’s a it’s a a place where a lot of people get exposed to a lifestyle that they weren’t used to back home is I guess if I were to to to boil it down. What were you weren’t interested in music? We know that you’re interested in London. what other what th other things were you interested i if I’d asked you at sixteen, you know, what are you gonna do with your life? What are you gonna be when you grow up? Did you have kind of an idea?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (42:39.824)
Hmm.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (42:56.08)
I’m going
Jason (42:58.326)
Other than Lond a sh a flatmate in London.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (43:01.36)
I did study tourism when I left school.
Jason (43:05.801)
okay.
But did you know that at six at fifteen or sixteen? What were you like, was tourism on on your radar already?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (43:15.322)
Tourism and sports.
Jason (43:17.005)
Okay.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (43:17.572)
There are two things that were on my radar. And then so I went to college and did tourism at college. And then while I was in Sydney, yeah, and then when I was at college, one of the teachers said, hey, there’s a golf club that’s advertising for a trainee manager. And I was like, sports. Yep. That sounds good. I know nothing about golf, but went for the interview.
Jason (43:26.496)
In Sydney. In Sydney, okay.
Jason (43:46.776)
You said you said training manager, like or like
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (43:47.459)
Like an apprenticeship to end, yeah, of a golf club.
Jason (43:52.184)
To to learn how to be a manager? Okay. All right.
Okay.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (43:58.219)
so did that went and had the interview, amazingly got the job. So then I was the first Aussie actually to do a three year management traineeship, in Australia at a golf club. And then that led into doing more golf work and some golf tournaments as well. and really, really enjoyed that. then that kind of stopped the whole travel bug for a while. Cause then I just.
Jason (44:19.317)
wow.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (44:28.082)
invested everything into the golf industry for 10 years of my life just working and loving it really.
Jason (44:33.198)
Okay.
So you said you were into tourism and sports and then you had an opportunity, you heard about an opportunity with this golf manager training program. Hopefully I’m saying that kind of close to right. But so yeah, golf is a sport. Sure. but was it golf like was that specifically your sport? Like if I’d asked you at 16, hey, do you ever think you would play golf, work in the golf industry? Was golf itself on the radar?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (44:47.46)
Yes, yes.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (45:04.118)
Absolutely not.
Jason (45:05.428)
Okay. So once so in re in comparison to when you started this training job, how much time was there between the first time you hit a golf ball? Like had you ever hit a golf ball when you signed up for this program? And that wasn’t a problem? Did they at when you interviewed for it, did they even care that you weren’t really a golfer?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (45:17.54)
No. No. No.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (45:26.128)
Not really because it was more to do with the clubhouse operation side.
Jason (45:31.406)
Okay. Well I guess I should ask you, did you learn how to play golf? It sounds like ’cause you mentioned tournaments and stuff like that. I didn’t know if you’re playing or organizing. Okay.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (45:37.22)
did learn how to play the piano.
No, helping manage them. So yeah, I did take up golf. I joined a golf club and had lessons and got a handicap and all that kind of stuff. I made some really good friends in the golf industry. And then, yeah, so I invested, went wholly and solely into golf. And then that was kind of 10 years of my life.
Jason (46:09.016)
Did your dad play golf? Your mom? Did you know anybody that played golf before you got in before you took the job? Okay. So I’m just curious. Like, so three three three, four years into it, you’re working in it, you’ve got a career path. you’re learning how to play golf. I don’t like when you say I got a handicap, I’m not sure exactly what that means, but it sounds like you took it to another level.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (46:10.626)
No. Not really, no. No.
Yeah, it’s…
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (46:28.055)
Mm-hmm.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (46:32.56)
Thank you.
Jason (46:38.156)
Was that did you feel a lot of pressure? You’re like, maybe you’re involved in helping to run the clubhouse and then you go out and golf. Do you feel like everybody’s watching you? Like maybe some of the pros or the caddies or whatever, like, my gosh, Sue, these people, she doesn’t even know anything about golf, but she’s working in the golf business and she her stance is horrible. Did you feel that kind of pressure or were people around you pretty supportive?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (46:56.728)
Thank
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (47:00.566)
I don’t know, your film is quite supportive. There wasn’t any pressure to play as long as you had an understanding of the game because you were working in the clubhouse and you could have a conversation with the members that came back in and that type of thing. was… Yeah, I’m not interested. then you wouldn’t be popular.
Jason (47:08.034)
Okay.
Jason (47:16.044)
And you can’t just look you can’t say, I don’t know, I don’t play, I’m really not into it. It’s not my thing. You you you can’t you can’t do that, yeah.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (47:24.814)
Yeah, was one day I was working at a golf tournament, a Greg Norman tournament, and John Daly was playing and I was on the first tee helping with getting the tournament underway. And then he was like, hey, do you want to walk around with me and learn from a player’s perspective?
like what it’s like and blah blah and I was like my gosh yes please and he was just he was the nicest man and yeah so I walked around I think it was day two of a tournament with John Daly and his caddy and saw it from a player’s perspective inside the ropes and forever grateful for that experience yeah
Jason (48:09.358)
That’s that’s very, very cool. Before we I’m a before you get to the point of and then I left Australia because I I want to touch on something before we get to that point in the conversation. Cause you mentioned when you were young, younger, and you’d your I don’t know, your experience with adventure stuff, whatever. You you mentioned boating. I think you said water skiing, stuff like that. You said water skiing, right? So let’s touch a little bit about
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (48:33.038)
Yes I did, yes.
Jason (48:36.512)
little bit on the marine aspects and what that was all about because I know that later on in life it came back and had an influence. I just happen to know that about your story. So let’s yeah, so share with me like how involved was the boating? How big of a was that a big part of your life at the time? Were you yeah, just tell us a little bit more about that.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (48:42.829)
Yeah.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (48:59.055)
Yes.
Boating side was very much every family holiday involved water and boats. My dad was an avid water skier and fisherman and he had a boat, just a small boat. So yeah, we would drive up and down the freeway towing the boat to every family holiday that we did. That was our family holidays.
Jason (49:07.904)
Every. You said every family. Okay. That’s a big deal.
Jason (49:29.848)
Did you like it at the t because I I I know this about teenagers because I’ve got a I’ve got a couple of kids. at the time was it like this is so cool, we get to go boating with dad and mom and you know whatever or is it was it like, my gosh, why do we do we have to go to the lake again? can’t I just hang out with my friends? what was it what was it like for you?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (49:29.991)
Thank
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (49:52.306)
I loved it. absolutely loved it. I loved being on the water and my dad had a massive or still has a massive influence in my life. I just wanted to do everything that my dad did.
Jason (49:54.872)
Did you?
Jason (50:05.944)
Yeah. that’s cool. Yep. I for those that are just listening, you you’re not watching the video. You you you missed the look on her face. So I I saw that. And that was beautiful Sue. Does you mentioned f family holidays, but your dad was the one that was you also meant he’s the one that was really into the skiing and fishing and stuff like that. Did your was this and your daughter your daughter, your sister was much younger. So are most of your memories
You and your dad, you and your mom and your dad, or what did that you know, what did the f what what did that look like?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (50:42.159)
Yeah, for those family holidays it was mainly the three of us. There’s nine years between my sister and I. So by the time I kind of got to that 15, 16, where you’re going and doing your own thing, yeah, she had just started school. So we just didn’t have that much interaction because we were just so many years apart growing up. But yeah, we’ve got a fantastic relationship.
Jason (51:06.008)
Mm-hmm.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (51:12.223)
now. Yeah it’s really really nice. But yeah, we grew up apart really.
Jason (51:15.79)
Yeah. Did you Yeah. Did your mom enjoy the the the boating, fishing, skiing? How involved was she?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (51:26.127)
Yeah, she was kind of like the men would go fishing in the morning, you know, with the boats, do their thing, come back and then all the mums would have like lunch made on the the riverbank and we’d have a barbecue and stuff and then the kids would just get just water ski and stuff all afternoon. So yeah, they were happy. Kids were out of their hair.
Jason (51:48.726)
Yeah, yeah. Did you like the fishing part?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (51:51.794)
I loved, used to always pass to my dad, can I come, can I come, can I come? No. And then yeah, he did take me once because he went out to sea and I got really bored and I ate a box of biscuits and then I puked up a box of biscuits and that was the last time that he took me fishing and he’s never let me forget it.
Jason (52:14.206)
jeez.
I I can relate. I’ve I’ve spent a little bit of time with with my daughter fishing and yeah, that’s that’s fun. Fun memories. All right. Did did he let you drive the boat when you were a kid? All right. Do you like how old do you think you were the first time he let you sit down and maneuver the boat? Or is it just like just from the beginning? Okay, wow. All right. Did you
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (52:25.775)
Yeah.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (52:30.885)
Yep,
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (52:37.329)
Six or seven. Yeah, just from the beginning, yeah.
Jason (52:45.33)
As a older teenager, did you feel pretty confident? Did you get to the point? Let me ask you this. When was there a point when you’d be out on these family vacations and you could actually like go get in the boat or you at least felt confident you could go get in the boat and take somebody water skiing without your dad in the boat? No idea. Okay. All right.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (53:04.201)
No, probably not. No, I probably wouldn’t dare not think about that either. No, that’s
Jason (53:15.01)
Well, we’re a little bit later in this conversation we’re gonna get to the point where you’re in control of the boat. All right. Very cool. So when you were doing the golf business, was there anything else like were you just completely focused on that? Did you have any activities or anything else you like to do on the side? Would you take your vacation and go do something non golf related, or what was life like during that period of time?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (53:38.226)
Interesting question and I’m trying not to take up too much time on this but my my sister is really into animals and she got a job in a local zoo as a volunteer and so that was her thing and she did it every weekend and it was really hard to get into it was called the Australian Reptile Park. So yeah that’s
Jason (54:04.238)
Ooh. That sounds cool.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (54:07.525)
That’s her thing, she goes and does that and then she got a job with them travelling around Australia doing reptile demonstration shows for schools. And then she was like, but I don’t want to lose my volunteer role at the reptile park. She goes, because I’m only gone for a year. And I was like, yeah, okay, well, I’d met all her friends at the reptile park. Yada yada yada. They were a cool bunch of people. They’re like, well, hey, how about your sister does it for you for the year? And then like,
you can come back and she can take off again. I was like yeah okay I’ll do that sounds fine I think. So I went there on the first day and they’re like okay you could clean out that bank of lizards and snakes and I was like yeah what?
Jason (54:55.749)
Ha ha.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (54:55.761)
You want me to touch those things? was the first day was hideous and I went back to my mum and dad’s and I was like, I don’t think I can do this. But then as it got, as I got into it, I started to really enjoy it. And then, yeah, when she came back after a year, they agreed to keep us both on. And we both volunteered there for gosh, a good five years. So I learned a lot about
Australian reptiles and I handled a lot of reptiles and did a lot of demonstration shows and absolutely loved it and just completely fell into it. Never was never on my radar at all.
Jason (55:41.007)
I asked you, I asked you this question. You’re like, well, I don’t want to take too much time. And then you just shared something really, really cool about yourself. So that I mean, that is cool. Do you do you realize that’s cool? Like, how many people listen? people listen to this are cool people, but I’m sure, like, I’m sure you ran into people you were doing this. You do what? You touch those things? my gosh. What you said the first day was horrible. I’m just curious, was your initial thought?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (56:03.218)
Thank
Jason (56:09.944)
These things are scary or these things are just disgusting, or what was it? What do you remember kind of the the I don’t know what it was?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (56:16.754)
I just, it was, yeah, it was, I found it quite scary, to be honest. Like, you know, pulling out, they were all in drawers, you pull out a drawer and there’s like, a snake in there. And I was like, you’ve got to take it out and clean it and then put it back in. And I was like, I, where do you start?
Jason (56:22.605)
Yeah.
Jason (56:28.854)
Snacking it.
That’s the thing that’s the literal thing of nightmares. That’s like I I have people in my life, I won’t mention any names, that worry about, you know, opening drapes and having a something fall on them or opening a drawer and having something jump out at them or you know, putting their sh yeah. And so like opening a drawer and having a snake in it is kind of a yeah, that’s pretty cool. Do you have a favorite kind of snake?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (57:02.93)
A green tree python. Yeah, they’re beautiful.
Jason (57:05.695)
Ooh, those are cool.
I grew I grew up with snakes. I had like probably at one point seven or eight snakes in my bedroom as a teenager and and then I’d raise mice to feed to the snakes. It was kind of a weird thing. I was a little bit kind of a weird kid. but I think so I think that’s super cool. Yeah, I I just the tree boas, which is very similar to Tree Python, but more of kind of a new world new world version. And I was in the Amazon not too long ago.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (57:15.056)
Yeah, okay.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (57:23.516)
Do you have your favorite? Yeah.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (57:30.012)
Okay.
Jason (57:37.519)
And we saw one in the wild and they’re pretty rare to see in the wild. And I remember the it was we were doing a fam trip with an organization in in the Amazon in Columbia. And we went to this place and one of the people there is like, hey, we’ve got there’s a snake over in the tree. So we went over to the guide the guide and I spent probably twenty, thirty minutes just focused on the snake, where the rest of the group went to the rest of the activity. They were doing their own thing. But
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (57:39.908)
I’m in a well.
Jason (58:04.952)
He and I were just so fascinated. It was so much fun. And it the snake didn’t even move. It just sat there, you know, like they do. But I didn’t want to leave. I was like, this is so cool. So yeah, I would say that’s that’s my favorite. But I had boas, you know, both the regular Colombian red tail boas growing up and yeah. So all right, that’s that’s pretty cool. the snakes okay, so you we go so many different directions. Let’s I’ll try and work it towards the direction of whales. So
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (58:07.366)
crazy.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (58:13.73)
Yeah.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (58:27.858)
You
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (58:34.13)
Bye.
Jason (58:34.95)
okay, so you’re doing the golf thing for sure. You’re volunteering at the reptile zoo. So you’ve got your hands on snakes and golf balls. And I’m gonna leave it at that. anything else, like how did the golf come I don’t know if the golf came to an end, but what kind of happened next? Walk us through, you know, well, let me ask you. I guess this is important. Did you do any international travel up to that point? Did you ever get the opportunity like
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (58:44.62)
I’m
Jason (59:04.268)
I mean I know you stayed to work, but were you traveling for some vacations? Did you do some trips outside the country?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (59:09.424)
Yeah, so amazingly the two girls that I had the conversation with in the music class about we just want to travel, the three of us did end up going to Europe and we did a tour around Europe. That was the first experience of going overseas.
Jason (59:27.054)
wow. How long how long was that trip?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (59:29.234)
So it was a month’s trip. It was with Trafalgar Tours back in the day when you’re 18 to 35, pile on a bus. And then I stayed on afterwards because I had started to get into the world of golf and I wanted to go up to St Andrews in Scotland. So then Mozi’d on up there, met up with another friend and then we went up to St Andrews, just did a self-drive thing and absolutely fell in
with Scotland and returned home and there I was just like… No, no it didn’t.
Jason (01:00:02.296)
Did you did you go into Wales at all on that trip? Okay.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:00:10.118)
Then came home and then it just turned into work hard, save, take a month off. And that was just on repeat. So was another friend from the golf club traveled through Africa for six weeks and just absolutely loved that. And then it was after that trip, it was just like, you know what, I’ve got to leave the world of golf. And the UK increased the age limit for a working visa.
and I was like, okay, I’m going to come to the UK and I’m going to work my way up and try and get to be one of the first females to, you know, manage St Andrew’s Golf Club, which was hugely ambitious at the time. I don’t know what I was thinking really.
Jason (01:00:59.968)
You know, you you do realize like, yeah, the first female, but even even a guy that worked in golf to manage St. Andrews Golf Club is, you know, e even if you can say, okay, well, historically it’s always been men running the place, so I’ve got a I’ve got an edge, but it’s still there’s still only one person that does it at a time, right?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:01:06.13)
you
Yeah.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:01:13.04)
Yep.
Yeah, was completely wild and then I kind of got to the UK and then as most Aussies do, got stuck in London and then I had that realisation that yeah maybe that was a little bit ambitious getting up to St Andrews and taking over. So then yeah.
Jason (01:01:39.439)
But you but you know what they say, when you’ve got a target, you’re gonna move towards the target at least. You got pretty damn close. You’re living in Wales from Australia. So if you didn’t have that ambition of you know of that, if that wasn’t your goal, you might not be where you’re at, probably. So that was a good thing, right?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:01:47.43)
Yeah.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:01:58.535)
Yeah, true, true. But yeah, full respect to the golf industry. Yeah, was a little bit too wild, I think. yeah, so then it was in the UK.
taking it a step back a bit. did a lot of charity work in Australia and really enjoyed it. I worked with a gentleman back there who he had had a quadruple bypass and said to his heart surgeon, how can I repay you? And the heart surgeon said, I want to bring robotic surgery into Australia. So he was like, okay, I will make that happen. How much do you need? And he was like,
a few million and I need to train some surgeons so they need to go to the States to learn how to use the robots. So then I got chatting to him at the golf club and we had basically an eight-year partnership where we raised enough money to buy these robots and we sent some surgeons over to the States. They learned how to use it, the robots and bought robotic surgery into Australia which was amazing at the time. And then
I can’t remember where I was going with this Jason. my gosh. What?
Jason (01:03:17.582)
Well well, you were saying you were in London, you were gonna go you had ambitions to go to the top of the golf world, but then something happened that I assume had to do with charity work.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:03:22.381)
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:03:27.29)
Yeah, so.
Yeah, I really enjoyed the charity work. That’s where I was going to. I enjoyed it so much I thought, well, the UK is huge for charity, the charity sector. So I thought, I’ll get a job in a charity. And at the time it was really tough. No one would look at you because you didn’t have any UK based experience. So then I got a job with a really small disability charity and had to start at the very bottom and work my way up. And then ended up getting
sponsored by the charity which was really really good of them so I could stay in the UK and then ended up moving to a cancer charity quite a big one in the UK and they had a golf job so I ended up back doing golf but fundraising events with with golf so yeah
Jason (01:04:22.35)
So kind of on the organizer side, managing the events, project manager type of stuff? Okay. Was there a lot of public facing, you know, with advertising, marketing people, r participants were you a lot of FaceTime? Okay.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:04:28.784)
Yes. Yeah.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:04:41.978)
Yeah, yeah, so you were trying to recruit people and they called it was called the longest day of golf. So you played four rounds of golf in one day. And people got sponsored to do that. But it was when I was doing that role that I saw another sector in the charity or another team in the charity that did fundraising events doing overseas treks and runs and bike rides. And I was like, hello.
Jason (01:05:06.454)
ding ding ding. All respect all respect to the golf industry. Wait, these people are doing these international tri Okay, so now I’m starting to connect the dots with why the charity stuff is an important part of the business for Adventurous You. All right, see, we’re we’re making good progress. So you did you switch over right away? Was like a no brainer? Was that a challenge?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:05:11.892)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:05:22.736)
Yeah. Yeah.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:05:31.218)
As soon as a role became available, I jumped in both feet, applied, went through the process and thankfully I got the role. That was looking after the Running Events team, recruiting runners to fundraise for the charity and doing overseas marathons. I was never a runner, so then all the participants were like, have you run a marathon? No.
So then I ended up like running a marathon. Then I took it the next stage, ran an ultra marathon. I’m saying, no, I haven’t done it. But then, yeah, then you could have the conversation about, you know, all the training and how hard it is.
Jason (01:06:03.118)
Yeah.
Jason (01:06:16.142)
probably a little probably a little easier to fake it with golf, huh? Not that you did, not that you faked it, but we remember we were discussing, said you said, well, you gotta kind of know a little bit about golf if you’re gonna work in the golf industry. But if you’re gonna work in the running industry, you better run a marathon, ultra marathon, all that stuff. You can’t boy. Okay. Did you actually enjoy that stuff or did it feel like you just had to do it if you wanted to keep your job?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:06:20.847)
What?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:06:26.952)
Yeah.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:06:34.856)
Yeah.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:06:41.843)
It was more like you didn’t feel like a fraud when you were talking to the runners. You’d be on the same page as them and empathise and just have a decent conversation with them. Because it’s a big undertaking.
Jason (01:06:46.316)
Yeah, right? Yeah. huh.
Jason (01:06:57.58)
Yeah. Yeah. All right. That’s pretty cool. So how long were you in that role?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:07:04.464)
Seven years.
Jason (01:07:07.79)
Right. During any of this time, was there a moment when you envisioned yourself and thought, you know what, I should get involved with a a tour operator? I mean, in a sense, the charity organization’s doing a lot of the stuff you like. I I heard that. But was there a point that you could have imagined getting involved with, you know, Adventurous You? I don’t know. Did you and Jim start? Because I guess we’re getting close to that part.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:07:31.4)
Yep.
Jason (01:07:31.49)
Did you guys start the business together or had he already started that when you met him? Or let’s walk through if unless unless there’s something else we need to touch on before we get there. I’m just curious how we got to that.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:07:36.006)
No, he had already started the business. He started in 2011.
So it was kind of well underway, but it was a one-man band for many years. But then when I was in the charity sector, we used tour operators to run the overseas trips. And that’s when I first got introduced to that and was like, I really like that side. I like all the logistics and mapping it all together. So that’s when it kind of sparked my interest, like, I’d like to go and try that.
now. So then I was very fortunate that I ended up working for another tour operator in London and I spent four years with them. There were much bigger
Jason (01:08:33.388)
Okay, so you so you left the charity organization and went to work with for a tour operator. Okay. All right. What what kind of just generally we don’t need necessarily discuss specifics, but w what kind of tours were they doing?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:08:39.261)
for another tour of Ryde.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:08:49.671)
They were doing a lot of charity type events. yeah, was basically I knew the company or knew of the company.
and they specialised in doing charity challenges. It was a nice kind of stepping stone across to the travel industry. I kind of almost went full circle from what I studied. I finally got there in the end, to then decades later.
Jason (01:09:08.312)
Sure, yeah.
Jason (01:09:18.062)
Do you I I’m curious, do you or was the at that point were you still connected with communicating with your the two friends that took that first trip with you, the ones that were in your music class? Or yeah. are either I I was gonna ask her either one of them kind of went a roughly similar path? Are they working in tourism or do they talk to you? Do they
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:09:36.561)
Yeah, yeah, it is. It’s one go.
Jason (01:09:46.87)
Do you have that, Hey, look where we are now or look where I am, look what I’m doing. Has has does that come up?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:09:50.79)
Absolutely, yeah. One of the other, one of my friends, she’s ended up in the travel industry as well. Yeah, but she’s in the software side. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Jason (01:09:56.664)
Really?
Jason (01:10:00.367)
Okay. All right. That’s very, very cool. All right. So you’re working for this tour operator that you connected with through the charity stuff. You’re working closer and closer to where you are now. what was your favorite part of well, I don’t know. Is it what was your favorite part of that job?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:10:07.667)
Thank
you
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:10:19.795)
It’s people. so just forming relationships with people from all over the world and I really, what I really, really enjoyed was going out on the trips with people who…
Jason (01:10:22.508)
Yeah.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:10:39.869)
We’re from all different backgrounds and we’re coming on a fundraising trip for a personal reason. And I’ve been involved with some people’s really personal stories, whether it’s scattering ashes, know, doing it in memory of my husband always wanted to do X, Y and Z. And so I’m now coming to do it because I’ve lost him.
or wives or anything, so many different stories. So you’re privy to some really personal, emotive experiences that have such powerful meaning to people. And that’s what I really like. I really like to make a difference to those people.
Jason (01:11:24.364)
I I love that because you know, just an example and not to knock I’m not trying to single anybody out, but you know, if you’re doing tours in Rome, you know, maybe day trips or some people show up, they go they go do the tour. But when you’re I would imagine when you’re the charity type of travel, there’s a reason people are associated with whichever charity group they’re traveling with. Usually a very strong personal reason.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:11:53.341)
Mm-hmm.
Jason (01:11:53.987)
And they’ve spent time preparing, they’ve spent time raising money, they’ve spent all this time, and then they get there, it’s probably it I think of the word catharsis, or like you know, when you get to that point in your therapy, you’re work doing therapy with someone, you have that day where it all just comes flowing out. I can imagine that kind of happens on some of these trips where it’s like, and they’re probably surrounded by other people that have
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:12:04.468)
Yeah.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:12:13.257)
Yeah.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:12:17.341)
Absolutely.
Jason (01:12:21.794)
You know, everybody’s open to sharing and I can imagine how powerful that would be. Yeah, that maybe you don’t get so much on the the typical, more traditional group trips or something. Not that you don’t, sometimes you do, but
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:12:28.038)
Okay, and.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:12:37.16)
You do to a degree, but I think if it’s a charity trip and I just relate it back to a cancer charity because that’s who I work for, most of those people are on that trip because they had been affected by cancer and it affects so many people. So then it was like all these people moving through a journey and they, yeah.
were together in it and so the conversations were really powerful.
Jason (01:13:11.586)
I I love that because I remember I led a trip to Montana, we had a dozen or so people, and one of the guys on the trip was a cancer survivor. I don’t remember how recent it was to him, but based on the conversations I had with him, I think it’s always gonna be recent with him. And what I noticed was he this trip for him was a big milestone in his recovery. It was really, really big to him. This was not a charity trip.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:13:28.625)
you
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:13:40.872)
Yep. Yep.
Jason (01:13:41.973)
And what I noticed was he really wanted to share how important this was to him. I don’t yeah, I don’t know, it’s I don’t remember his whole situation, but I remember a lot of it. But what I do remember is most of the group was kind of like, let’s just call him Bill for sake of this conversation. my gosh, is all Bill wants to talk about is cancer. And they were feeling like it was almost like he’s kind of dragging us down. He just wants to talk about cancer. I’m on vacation, I don’t want to think about cancer.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:13:57.672)
Yep.
Jason (01:14:10.44)
And so for Bill, I’m like, okay, but Bill’s on vacation. He does. He he wants to connect. He wants to share. He wants to not feel alone in the world. And so I imagine if you put 12 bills together, you’re gonna have a totally different experience than if you take than if you take one Bill and put him with nine Johns who don’t wanna talk about cancer. And and I was like, I’m I’m I’m pretty good at connecting with people. So I spent a lot of time with Bill.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:14:25.396)
Absolutely.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:14:32.318)
Yep.
Jason (01:14:39.758)
‘Cause I was the trip leader, ’cause the other guys didn’t want to talk about cancer, but Bill wanted to talk about cancer. So I I had a lot of connection with Bill. And I can appreciate the I think he appreciated the opportunity that I was so open to having the conversation. But if he’s on a trip with other people that have connections with it, that changes the dynamic completely. Does that resonate? ‘Cause you have a lot more experience with this than I do.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:14:41.129)
Mm-hmm.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:14:57.62)
Yeah, so absolutely. So if you’ve got a charity trip, it makes it a lot easier because you’ve almost got that kind of self-supporting group. Yeah.
Jason (01:15:08.334)
It’s almost like the icebreaker. Why are you here? What’s your story, right? Okay.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:15:14.354)
Yeah and they have that common thread so they’ve got that almost instant connection where if you’ve just got a group of people they still have a connection because they’ve all booked onto this particular trip and they want to do this particular trek or bike ride. So there is that interest there but the reasons behind doing it might be a bit different. So then it’s up to the individuals if they’re open to talking about it, opening to want to listen to other people.
talking about it so it’s just kind of when you’re on the trip you just as you know you just got to manage those situations so people will feel listened to and heard without being too overbearing as well.
Jason (01:15:58.595)
But because I can appreciate like Bill, I’m sure Bill has friends, colleagues and and family members back home, but maybe they don’t want to hear about it either, right? They’re like, you know, and he showed up in a group with another bunch of people and and he’s on vacation. So I’m like, This is my chance to kind of let down, relax and everything. And it’s it might be hard. So yeah, so like, hey Bill, you should go on a you know, there’s this charity.
Doing this thing for this Cancer Society. maybe Bill can go on that trip and have a really cool experience, feel good about it. And everybody’s kind of on the the same page. I enjoyed him. I thought he was great. I thought he was, you know, I was it was so exciting to see how connected he was with himself and how much he appreciated the opera. That was the difference. Bill was a guy like, this is so cool. We’re in Montana fly fishing.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:16:32.852)
Yeah.
Jason (01:16:55.134)
And having this experience, this is so cool. And everybody else is just kinda you know, they enjoyed it, but you know, they wanna sit down, smoke cigars and drink scotch. And Bill’s like, Hey, I’m not focused on that. I’m like, look how great, how lucky I am to be here. It’s it’s it’s cool. Yeah.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:17:03.977)
Yeah.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:17:09.116)
Yeah, that’s the thing. Yeah, he’s coming from a different page, so to speak. Yeah.
Jason (01:17:15.458)
Yeah, yeah. I think it’s cool. And you’ve had I I love that you’ve had that much time and experience with people helping them create that that experience. That’s that’s pretty darn cool. All right. So how did how the heck did you and Jim meet? I was just gonna put it that way. How’d you guys meet? And if it was online, if it was online on a dating app, that’s okay. Cause that’s common that’s common now. So I’m not trying to put you on the spot, but I’m I’m curious how you how you got to adventure issue.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:17:26.216)
Yeah.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:17:42.933)
Yeah, so we met in Morocco doing a mountain trek out there. So I was doing Mount Tupacal and Jim was the leader at the time. And then we shared a similar group of friends, but we’d never actually met each other. So I’d heard of his name and he knew me as like the girl from the cancer charity that was a rep on so many trips. We knew of each
Jason (01:18:09.002)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:18:12.886)
other then we ended up doing yeah I did this trek of Morocco of Mount Subcarle and then from that point on our paths kind of just kept crossing through different work situations and then we ended up just getting together after that and then I stayed down in London for three years well I ended up moving to Wales and then
commuted down to London for work because there wasn’t much work in Wales and I tried to get work up here but there just wasn’t too many opportunities and then one day I was just like I just thought I can’t keep going down to London the commuting just got too much.
Jason (01:18:59.042)
When you were committing to London it was for the the same job with the tour operator? Okay. so you were working for a tour tour operator in London and I don’t know if you’re I don’t know what the relationship is with Jim, but I don’t wanna put words in your mouth. But you’re working with the tour operator in London and then you’re hanging out with the tour operator in Wales on the weekends is what I All right. So go ahead.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:19:02.824)
Yeah, yeah.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:19:18.108)
Yeah, Small World, they kind of they sub-contracted Jim’s company to do a lot of their events. No, no, not directly, no. Yeah, that would that would be interesting.
Jason (01:19:25.964)
Okay, that’s good. So they weren’t comp competitors at least. All right.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:19:37.365)
So then, I just decided like it was too much three years was just too much. then so one weekend he was like, well, why don’t you join Adventurous U and we’ll give it a go for a year. So if we can build the business up a little bit to support two basic wages. I was like, yeah, okay, let’s do it. So we did and we had no idea if we were going to be able to work together and work and live together.
Jason (01:19:53.592)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Jason (01:20:05.154)
It can be challenging. I’ve done it.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:20:06.996)
So we had these grandparents and we have an office and we had our desk next to each other in the office and that lasted two days and I moved out and put my desk somewhere else in the house.
Jason (01:20:18.766)
Well if if you have if you have two offices it makes having one bedroom much easier. If you have if you have one office you’re gonna need two bedrooms. I think
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:20:24.724)
Yeah, so yeah and that was in 2018 and so we’re now yeah 2026 and still going strong. Yeah, yeah, yeah and we’ve got our we’ve had a year of our first full-time employee so yeah really excited about that.
Jason (01:20:37.496)
You found you found a way to grow the business enough to support both of ya. That’s
Jason (01:20:49.598)
All right. You guys are kicking by. There’s there’s one other thing that I I I want to touch on now because that’s your your business. You’re working with him. I’d love to learn a little bit about like what do you do for in your free time? May and may or may not involve boats, you know, that type of thing. So what else is going on in your world besides having your separate office in the house with Jim and and working on the business? What else is going on in your world? Because I I understand that you are the first female helm.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:21:05.864)
Thank
Jason (01:21:19.918)
And I don’t wanna screw this up. You’re the first female helm of you fill in the blank.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:21:25.556)
I have Conway lifeboat station here in North Wales.
Jason (01:21:28.942)
See, you said it so much better than I did. I I know it, but I knew I’d trip over it. So first female helm. So Conway Lifeboat Station. So the other day when we spoke, you kind of gave me because I was curious, I’d never knew about it. Give me an idea what lifeboat stations mean in Wales. What is what’s kind of an overview of what that means?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:21:43.24)
Mm-hmm.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:21:49.865)
Okay, so it kind of ventures back to the charity sector. So there’s a charity in the UK called the RNLI, which is the Royal National…
Jason (01:21:58.777)
The R N L I You said it so fast with your accent. Okay, alright. I heard the run R and L Okay, go ahead.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:22:11.348)
Yeah, so it’s the Royal National Institute of Lifeboating and there’s 238 lifeboat stations dotted around the coast of the UK and Ireland and it’s all run by volunteers, all the lifeboat stations. Some of them have full-time employees but our station is all voluntary based. I think there’s about 450 boats throughout the UK that have
been funded by donations and basically the whole institution was set up to save lives at sea and it’s been going for 200 years or 201 years now so it’s a really old old charity for the UK and yeah we just basically go out and help anyone who’s in trouble on the water or on the coastline.
Jason (01:23:06.84)
So is a when you say how when I say first female
I don’t even know what a helm is real I mean I kinda think I know, but I don’t know with enough confidence to say in front of the world a helm means this and this is da da da da da means captain. I don’t know what it means. So what does a helm mean?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:23:24.916)
It’s basically the commander of the search and rescue unit.
Jason (01:23:31.003)
so of the unit. So not necessarily a particular boat. It’s the
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:23:34.388)
It’s of a particular boat. I’m a helm of what’s called a D-class inshore lifeboat. It’s the smallest boat in the lifeboat fleet. It’s like a zodiac.
Jason (01:23:50.127)
Okay. So when you’re when you’re driving it, does that mean you’re the helm and the captain? Because you’re the one driving the boat at that moment. And if somebody else on your team is driving the boat and you’re not in the boat, they’re the captain, but you’re still the helm? I help help me figure this out.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:24:06.548)
You’re more or less like a skipper. So the skipper of the boat. So you don’t have to be driving it as such, but you usually are. But you’re in command of that vessel. So… You’re like the person in charge, the boss. So you’re making… Yeah. Yeah. So…
Jason (01:24:10.583)
Okay.
Jason (01:24:18.296)
Okay. What does what does captain mean? ‘Cause I’m gonna keep trying to say captain.
Jason (01:24:28.738)
Like is that the same as a skipper then, right? Does it mean the same? Okay.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:24:35.816)
Yeah, so you’re making all the decisions and it’s, you know, analysing all the risks. Like when you’re going out to particular rescues, none of them are the same. So you’re just making all those dynamic risk assessments and decisions.
Jason (01:24:50.318)
All right. So I guess I guess the question I should have asked is are you for that particular boat to go out, you go out on it every time, or do you have other people that might go out on the boat? You’re still in charge, but you’re in charge. how does that work?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:24:58.088)
Mm-hmm.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:25:06.556)
Yeah, so at our station there’s 20 volunteers, 20 volunteer crew and six of us are helms. each time the boat goes out it has to have one of those six on the boat or the boat can’t go out.
Jason (01:25:11.553)
Mm-hmm.
Jason (01:25:23.18)
Okay. All right. Gotcha. So that in effect makes you the skipper or the captain when you’re the one when it’s your turn. You’re on the boat. You’re the you’re the skipper. So you’re in charge of the boat and everything that happens in and on and around that boat when when you get called out. All right. So what did your dad think? The guy that would never have let you drive the boat when you were growing up in Australia.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:25:31.112)
Yeah.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:25:40.168)
That’s correct, yes.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:25:48.116)
I’ll get my own boat.
Jason (01:25:50.702)
I don’t know if he’s still around. I don’t know if you have conversations with him about that, but I bet he’s pretty proud, huh?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:25:52.445)
There he is.
Yeah, he’s a man of few words, but yeah, he is proud. Yeah, and I was part of the driving force behind it was to make my dad proud as well. So yeah, yeah, it was the light. It was a lot of work. It was a lot of study theory wise, a lot of training. And our lifeboat station really got behind me and gave me a lot of time.
Jason (01:26:06.926)
Of course. Of course.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:26:24.404)
So it was a solid, I’ve been a crew member for seven years and it’s probably the last two years that I’ve really drilled in and trained hard to get to that helm qualification.
Jason (01:26:37.336)
See, I see this this teenage girl. Dad, can I please go fishing with you? last time I took you out in the big surf, you were puking over the side and da-da-da-da-da. I don’t think you can handle it. I’m never gonna do that. I’m never gonna make that mistake again. And now you’re you’re the helm of a boat that’s going out and doing exact and not just going out for recreation. You’re not just going on a fishing trip. You’ve got a lot more stuff going on, right? This is not just how to drive the boat, it’s how to rescue people, how to how to
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:27:02.376)
Yeah.
Jason (01:27:06.286)
keep people safe. That’s pretty cool. Good job. I’m I love that. So does Jim does Jim like the water? Does he go out on the water with you? Yeah.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:27:07.508)
Thank you, yeah I love it. love it. It’s basically… Yeah, he loves water, he does lot of kite surfing. yeah, big, big kite surfer.
Jason (01:27:20.21)
really? I never I never I don’t remember that coming up in the conversation I had with him. I that’s a surprise for some reason. I don’t know what a kite surfer, I don’t know the stereotypical kite surfer because I don’t know enough of them, but that’s actually that’s interesting. He is a super nice guy. I would suggest anybody listening to this, obviously, you know, you should go listen to Jim’s. I’ve never do this. I never say go listen to somebody else’s episode. But since you guys are, you know.
you don’t have the same office, but you’re sharing a business together. I I’ll I feel okay saying that. but all right, very cool. So we’ve discussed a lot of things. I’m sure we left some things out, but I think we touched on some things that were really, really cool. Kind of gives me a better understanding of how you got from where you were to where you are now. It’s super cool. Thank you for sharing that with me. And before we wrap up though, I’m curious, what do you wish I would have asked you? Is there anything we
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:27:51.86)
I’m housey.
Jason (01:28:14.988)
We forgot to discuss or I forgot to ask you that you’d like to touch on before we wrap up?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:28:20.836)
again a really good question Jason. I think we’ve touched on a lot and I, yeah, probably touched on things I haven’t thought about for a very long time as well like wrestling snakes and crocodiles. That seems like a lifetime ago but…
Jason (01:28:31.884)
That’s the goal. Did wait, wait, wait. Yeah, you bring up a good point. You mentioned crocodiles. We I know we talked about the reptile zoo. Crocodiles are reptiles. There’s a thing about Australian crocodiles, and we really did we talked about pulling snakes out of drawers, but we didn’t really touch on the crocodiles. Were you in that role? Were you did you have like
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:28:42.74)
Yeah.
Jason (01:29:01.42)
Hands-on experience with crocodiles? What the heck? Because you know, in the US, probably in the whole world, everybody thinks of Steve Irwin, right? you know, one of the best known Aussies that that people automatically think of when they think of crocodiles in Australia. but did you have those hands-on experience with the crocodiles? What should people know about that? That could be a whole nother podcast episode, I know.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:29:13.117)
like wins.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:29:22.258)
Yeah, they’re actually my favourite animal. Crocodiles are amazing.
Jason (01:29:31.608)
Really? see, we almost missed that whole thing. I didn’t ask you your favorite animal. I asked you your favorite snake. Okay. All right. Tell us more.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:29:39.997)
Yeah, they’re fascinating. They’re dinosaur age and they’ve stuck around on this earth for a very, very long time. Yeah, they’re just, if you have the time to invest in them and learn about them, they’re really interesting animals. And yeah, I did quite a few animal demonstrations. We had a gator called Rosie who was quite placid and she was great. And then we had a small
saltwater crocodile called Jake who was really fiery and so you just didn’t never knew when you got him out what he was actually gonna do but I just loved it I absolutely loved it and I have my sister to thank for that so yeah
Jason (01:30:24.59)
Wow. Did you I guess the other thing I didn’t ask you, not that I’m a well, did you ever get bit? Did you have some issues? Did you ever go to the hospital or get stitches during your job there?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:30:38.42)
No, I was really lucky. I never got nailed. My sister has been nailed, but yeah. Very lucky.
Jason (01:30:46.306)
Yeah. All right. Very cool. Well, I’m happy I’m happy we now know that crocodile’s your favorite animal in general and green green tree pythons are your favorite snake. do you have a favorite mammal?
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:30:54.196)
Thank you.
Green tree, bye.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:31:03.86)
Jirard. I missed my cue, my gosh. Well shaped, definitely. Yeah.
Jason (01:31:05.142)
Say sheep. Say sheep. damn. Welsh sheep. Especially the female ones. We call ewes. No, you said giraffe though, right? Is that what you said? They’re pretty cool too, aren’t they? All right. Good deal. Well, fascinating conversation. let’s do it again sometime. And I look forward to running across you in person in the future. You and Jim both in some
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:31:20.498)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, cool.
Jason (01:31:34.358)
Exotic cool place and we’ll go for a walk, but probably not any walks that I have to train six months for, okay? So Thank you so much. It was a lot of fun. We’ll chat with you soon. All right. Thanks. Bye bye.
Sue Blunt – Adventurous Ewe (01:31:35.752)
Yeah, they’re amazing.
We can solve that at no problem. Cheers, thank you so much Jason. Alright, bye.
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