John has spent much of his life exploring rivers and oceans in kayaks and rafts. He has led commercial sea kayak trips on remote waters in Australia, Fiji, and The Solomon Islands. He has guided the most wilderness rafting trips in Australia from the Franklin River in Tasmania to the Herbert River in North Queensland. His padding and mountain adventures have taken him from Australia to India, Nepal, Fiji, America, Russia and New Zealand.
In 1989, John led the Australian Whitewater Rafting team to a competition on a freezing river in Siberia. In the years following, he lived in Russia travelling extensively in forbidden, remote and untrod mountains. He was presented with the Australian Geographic Young Adventurer of the Year award for his adventures. In 2005, John led a film crew back to the Alati Mountains in Siberia to create a film about whitewater rafting in Russia. The film was shown internationally and won numerous prestigious awards.
For many years, John led young people on long self-contained wilderness expeditions, both mountaineering and rafting, aimed at building confidence and character. John delights in helping others to find inspiration through wilderness travel.
Having recently run his own outdoors retail and tours business, John has returned to his passion for leading trips to the world’s most remote and inspiring places.
John has also brought his passion to the Aurora Expeditions head office as Manager – Activities.