Life Lessons from Former Royal Marine, Aldo Kane
Aldo Kane has adventure in his DNA. A former Royal Marines sniper, the 46-year-old Scot has since worked on dozens of documentaries as both a presenter and safety adviser, including the new National Geographic series OceanXplorers.
An expert in survival, his past adventures include abseiling into an active volcano, rowing across the Atlantic, being held at gunpoint, and escaping an angry rhino. He gave Men’s Health 60 seconds of his time...
Best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
Always encourage yourself using words that are powerful and uplifting. If you don’t put any good thoughts in your brain, weeds will grow. I got this idea over 20 years ago from a book called Think And Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.
Your must-have travel item?
I call it my exoskeleton. Where I go in the world, I need outer clothing to protect my body from the elements. On Everest, it was a down suit to stop me dying. Diving under the ice at the North Pole, it was a dry suit. In the jungle, I had a protective layer against biting insects and snake gaiters on my leg.
Anywhere left you’d love to visit?
Antarctica. I’ve travelled to around 110 countries, but I’ve never been there. I’d love to solo ski from the Hercules Inlet to the South Pole and test myself in that environment.
The food you most crave when away from home?
We eat freeze-dried rations much of the time, which are usually just mush. After two months of rowing across the Atlantic, for example, I really craved biting into a crisp granny smith apple.
Your toughest challenge so far?
I spent three months in Sierra Leone and Liberia after the Ebola epidemic, making a documentary called Unseen Enemy. It was emotionally and physically tough. The death was unspeakable, but the destruction of family groups was even worse to see.
The occasion you felt your life was most threatened?
We were filming inside Mount Nyiragongo, an active volcano in the DRC, for One Strange Rock. I was just about to abseil down the final 80m when this cone erupted and washed the entire bottom of the crater with a wave of lava.
The gym exercise you hate to do?
Zone-two cardio. I try to do two or three sessions a week on a stationary bike or rower. The rower gives me slight PTSD from my memories of rowing across the Atlantic. I row for an hour with my heart rate between 90 and 113. I have no stimulus other than looking at the wall while rowing. A huge amount of boredom.
If you could invite five adventurers to dinner, who would you choose?
Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, rock climber Leo Houlding, Scottish privateer Captain Kidd, pilot Amelia Earhart and Everest mountaineer George Mallory.
In there something about us Britons that gives us an appetite for adventure?
As a small island nation, we traditionally have that interest in what’s over the next horizon. I’m trying to work out a way to go into space one day. That’s the ultimate adventure. I don’t know if I’d be one of the sacrificial lambs to go to Mars. But I’d certainly go to the moon. It’s a childhood dream.
Best music to work out to?
My default is either Blink-182 (my guilty pleasure) or Metallica. The standout track is Enter Sandman.
Lessons From The Edge by Aldo Kane is published in paperback, out now (£12.99, Yellow Kite).
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