Te Anau adventurer Tara Mulvany, 31, has a saying: “If you wait for other people you never go do stuff.”

That doesn’t mean the jandal-wearing sea kayaker is going to set a cracking pace that no-one can keep up with. She likes going slowly.

She also likes going to the extremes of the earth, to places more suited to penguins and polar bears, places many people don’t want to go.

She has written a book, A Winter’s Paddle (2014, Potton & Burton), about some of her early adventures and this weekend, armchair adventurers can go on a vicarious journey to the high Arctic circle with Tara, who is a guest speaker at the New Zealand Mountain Film and Book Festival in Wanaka tomorrow morning (June 28).

Tara shares the stage with NZ Mountain Book of the Year Award winner, Backcountry Trust vice-chairman Geoff Spearpoint, who wrote The Great Unknown (2019, Potton & Burton).

After the festival, Tara will head home to Te Anau to regroup from a few weeks of forestry work at Craigieburn, in the central South Island.

“I’ve just quit my job. I’ve been chopping down wilding pines. I am not sure yet what I will do,” she told the Southland App.

Tara’s festival talk focuses on her 2015 trip to the high Arctic, where she joined a small team to complete the first kayak circumnavigation of the Svalbard Archipelago. It took 71 days.

Her previous expeditions included a circumnavigation of the South Island (2012), and solo expeditions around Stewart Island, the North Island (both 2013) and Vancouver Island (2014).

After the 2015 Arctic expedition, Tara completed an 89-day solo paddle along Norway’s Arctic Coast (2016) and a three-month solo expedition along the Greenland coast (2018).

“To be honest, Greenland wasn’t my favourite trip. I preferred Svalbard, which was quite extreme,” she said.

Tara and her sister Dana grew up in Invercargill and were introduced to the great outdoors by their parents Stanley and Belinda, who are keen trampers and climbers.

Tara cannot recall her first time in a kayak – “I was pretty young” – or the moment when she realised that kayaking was her thing.

“It was more just a good mode of transport to go the really wild and remote places that I couldn’t get access to. I wouldn’t say I am good at it but I have done a lot of it,” she said.

After leaving James Hargest College at the end of 2006, Tara spent the next two years studying for her Outdoor Pursuits Diploma at the Aoraki Polytechnic in Timaru. 

She honed her white water paddling skills on the course, before becoming a sea kayak guide in Fiordland and building the foundations for her solo adventures.

“I think it is kind of empowering when you are on your own and every decision you make is on your own,” she said.

Have there been times when she is wracked by indecision?

“All the time! But you have got to go with your gut feeling. You have to try to be objective.. I will break it down so it feels like a whole lot of little trips, otherwise it’s a little bit daunting.”

The trip to Svalbard was a game changer, not just because of the walrus and whales, the pack ice, the long open-water crossings in thick fog, polar bears encounters or mentally challenging moments with her team mates. 

She fell in love with the wild polar region and was drawn back in 2016 to do a 3600km solo paddle along the Norway coast before taking up work as a guide in Antarctica and the Arctic.

PHOTO: Jaime Sharp/NZ Mountain Film Festival

Like so many New Zealanders, her plans for 2020 have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

She would like to guide in Antarctica again in November but is not sure if the trip will go ahead.

For now, she is happy to be heading back to Te Anau, her base for the last 13 years.

“Te Anau is pretty good for now. The weather is really crap. But it has good access into the outdoors. And Te Anau has a really good community with really adventurous people. In Southland, we are never far from anywhere. It’s only a few hours drive.”

Whatever happens with work, she doesn’t intend settling in for too long because she loves the travelling lifestyle.

“It is pretty awesome. It is better than being a weekend warrior. I’ve tried that in the last month [with the wilding pine work] and that sucked. I do have a plan, but I don’t want to say in case I have to do it,” she said.

After plenty of mentally tough, cold trips, what is her top tip for coping with Te Anau’s winter chills?

“Just wear jandals all year round. And shorts. But not when cutting down trees. I am wearing them now – jandals and shorts,” she said.

Tara Mulvany: Session 5, NZ Mountain Film and Book Festival, Sunday June 28, 10.30am – 12pm, Armstrong Room, Lake Wanaka Centre. Cost $18. Tickets sold out.

Tickets to Tara and Geoff’s talk in Wanaka are sold out but you can see the talk live on Facebook for free. The talk takes place from 10.30am until 12pm. NOTE: you do not need a Facebook account to watch.

PHOTOS: Jaime Sharp/NZ Mountain Film Festival