The Road to Patagonia

A road trip documentary to beat all road trips if you like surfing, motorbikes and outdoor adventure but what elevates this to a less than ordinary journey is the spiritual and natural world guidance empirically gathered by Aussie Matty Hannon, a surfer and ecology student, who sets out to surf 80,000km of the pacific coast of the Americas from Alaska to Patagonia. Out now on digital release 28th July.

The story begins with his early endeavours of adventure. Firstly, a calamitous road trip with a pal, Pete, who despite being a mechanical engineer, seemed to have a real knack for bringing chaos including flipping over the campervan and setting the engine on fire, all effortlessly caught on film by Matty with a distinct Aussie calmness. His next big adventure was a visit to a remote tribe in Sumatra Indonesia having seen a photograph of one of the tribe’s people in a library book. After spending eight years with the tribe learning about hunting, fishing, building and their relationship with the spirits, on his return home he found it hard to settle back into city life and was diagnosed with anxiety and depression.

He needed another challenge and as a surfer with an interest in ecology and shaman he decides surfing the coast of the Americas in a homemade custom built motorbike and side cart (adapted to carry his surf board) should do the trick. Starting off in the freezing waters of Alaska and having his tent surrounded by wolves at night certainly lived up to the tag of challenging.

On the coast of British Columbia he meets a fellow surfer and eco warrior, Heather (a young farmer specialising in permaculture and agroforestry), who he strikes up a bond with and whom he eventually invites to join him on his epic bike adventure, but not before he gets his bike stolen in Mexico and is joined by a group of Aussie pals for some dessert dune biking. Heather does eagerly agree to join him to cross some of the most impassable terrain imaginable despite having never ridden a bike before. Their romantic forage together on the pacific coast unfolds and eventually, after deciding the bike route won’t allow them to get close enough to mother nature and the coastal waves, especially not without running out of gas, they sell the bikes to Sam and Mick, a couple of cowboys they meet on the road in exchange for four horses and some surf lessons thrown in. With neither of them having any experience of horses, they then saddle up for the final leg of the journey with Salvador, Pichi, Blacky and Harimau.

It doesn’t get much wilder than this and between the camp fires, huge surf and epic day and night vistas there is also a connection with some of the lost tribes’ people associated with the land along the way who have seen their language, culture and people disappear through deforestation, civil fighting and colonisation including the ancient Maya civilisation, the Zapatistas and Mapuché. We see how the natural habitats are today being ravaged by industry and the toxic waste produced, which isn’t a million miles away from the consumer landscape Matty left behind in Melbourne, and was serious enough for them to be told not to surf there. By contrast they go from Guatemala to the Amazon River in Peru where they discover the most amazing animal bio-diversity and take some further shaman like reflection on the world order. 

Matty Hannon films and directs the documentary alongside Heather and what’s impressive is his flair for filming sequence shots whilst being on his own with limited filming equipment and how he managed to record, safely store and also maintain battery throughout the two and a half year journey in the most remote areas is highly commendable. Including in such treacherous conditions where his tent gets blown away in storms and his bike is stolen, but all the while Matty manages to capture his travel story. There are some nice music tracks selected to accompany the storytelling too that add real savour to the narrative heightening the road trip feeling further.

There seemed significant skips in the journey, not least the Californian coast famous for its surfing USA but maybe that can be excused if it didn’t fit the anti-consumerism message to see the surf communities en masse enjoying the waves too. Instead the film sticks to the memo and highlights the now growing movement towards the rights of nature in the environmental fight to protect them.

Matty and Heather’s mini resistance tale carries a heartening message not least for adventure, although travelling 1,000s of kilometres down the pacific coast riding bareback might be a bit extreme for most, and there is a genuine plea to maintain a human connection and respect for mother nature.

The Road to Patagonia is available on UK & Irish digital platforms: Apple TV, Amazon, Sky Store, Google Play / YouTube Movies, Microsoft Store

Watch on AppleTV here.