A self-confessed oddball adventurer who’s made 35-odd YouTube films is showing two of his best in Queenstown on Wednesday.
Beau Miles — who calls himself ‘‘another bloody Aussie’’ — has kayaked 2000km around the southern tip of Africa, run 650km through the Australian Alps and eaten only beans for 40 days running, earning the nickname, ‘the human bean’.
The films he’s showing next week, however, are ‘A bloody long run: Retracing the 1864 track of a mass murderer’ and ‘Renovating a canoe while running a marathon’.
Fourteen weeks after giving up, he runs mass murderer Angus McMillan’s 210km trail, in the Victorian mountains, in 80 hours.
The film’s broken into three 20-minute episodes.
The other 20-minute film, as the title suggests, sees him renovating a banged-up canoe while running two laps of his block, every hour for 24 hours, in gumboots.
Miles, 40, reckons he was a boring kid but, due to ‘‘alcohol and women and stuff’’ during his university years, ‘‘all of a sudden I tapped into a bit of a character’’.
‘‘My identity was created around going off doing cheap trips and odd ball things or taking a small idea and making it a large thing.’’
He didn’t trust he could make a living from ‘‘a side gig’’, so had a career as an outdoor educator — till his hand was forced when the
course he taught shut down.
He missed the wage for a while, he admits, ‘‘but I’d rather spend half as much and earn half as much these days’’.
‘‘Every hipster says it, but I’d rather just live and die by my own sword and just have a life of variance and creativity — it’s certainly harder, but better.’’
He’s only spent 10 minutes in Queenstown, during a road trip, ‘‘and I thought, ‘man, I’ve got to come back’’’.
When his wife, Helen, told him she was coming here to speak at a conference, he jumped at the chance to come, too, and during a 12-day visit is also bringing his cameraman and producer, and their wives.
He intends shooting one film on fly fishing, plus a ‘‘snow-based’’ one.
‘‘I love Kiwis,’’ he says.
‘‘You’re probably better people, on the whole — I reckon the more I live in Australia, the more I meet arsehole Australians.’’
Miles’ film screening’s at Queenstown Memorial Centre on Wednesday, 7pm.
Tickets via eventbrite.com.au
