Meet the British- born Australian adventurer who paddled the Nile from source to sea — and is now plotting a journey from one end of the Earth to the other.
There’s a particular kind of person who looks at the world’s longest river and thinks: I want to paddle all of it. Sarah Davis is that kind of person. The Sydney-based adventurer, professional risk manager, and surf ski paddler spent two years planning and six months executing a full-length descent of the Nile — source to sea, through eleven countries — before most of us have even booked a holiday.
But this isn’t just a story about epic distances. It’s about the quiet, determined work of someone who builds extraordinary adventures from scratch — and then uses everything she learns to go bigger, bolder, and further next time.
We sat down with Sarah as part of our Women Who Inspire Us series, celebrating the Gutsy Girls Adventure Film Tour’s 10th anniversary. What followed was a conversation about hippos, house arrests, heartbreak on the open road, and a dream so audacious it just might change the world.
Sarah paddling The Nile from source to sea (this image is in Egypt)
The River That Started It All
Sarah didn’t set out to become an expedition adventurer. She was a paddler who loved Africa. When she realised she could combine both, the Nile became an obvious — if wildly ambitious — destination.
“Coming up with the idea was the easy bit,” she laughs. “Pulling it all together was a very steep learning curve, having never been on an expedition.” The preparation took two years: reconnaissance trips to Uganda, Egypt, and Sudan; building a support network; getting approvals; training; sourcing kit. It was a full-time project on top of a full-time job.
Her background in professional risk and project management turned out to be an unexpected superpower. She applied corporate-grade planning to a deeply personal adventure — risk registers, contingency protocols, remote security support. It sounds clinical. In reality, it meant that when things went wrong (and they did), she had a framework to fall back on.
“Having done an extensive risk management assessment, there was nothing that was really unexpected. It was more about how terrifying the reality was — like a hippo attack and terrifying rapids.”
Then there was the arrest. Tricked across the border from Rwanda into Burundi, Sarah and her team found themselves under house arrest. Their release had to be negotiated from the outside, coordinated by her remote security contact Dave, who she describes as “incredible throughout the journey” — running intel reports, monitoring her social media following, and keeping an eye on chatter in online forums and the dark web.
It’s the kind of detail that makes the Nile expedition sound like a thriller novel. For Sarah, it was Tuesday.
Sarah cycling a month- long solo trip in Oman
Chasing the First Hit
Since the Nile, Sarah has paddled the length of Australia’s Murray River, cycled across the continent, and completed a solo month-long cycling loop through Oman. Each adventure has led naturally to the next, ideas percolating mid-journey, shapes taking form somewhere between the saddle and the sky.
“The Nile was like my first ‘hit’ when it came to adventuring,” she says. “And I feel like I’ve been chasing that first hit ever since.”
Not all of those journeys have been easy. During the Australian cycling crossing with her friend Tara Lal, a young cyclist named Lief Justham was tragically killed by a road train on the Nullarbor. The two women questioned whether to continue at all.
“We kept going for a while, but ended up skipping a section and getting a lift. It felt like we were dicing with death too much.” Eventually, they found a quieter route and got back on their bikes — slowly, one day at a time, with the quiet understanding that they could stop whenever they needed to.
It’s a moment that reveals something important about Sarah: that gutsy doesn’t mean reckless. It means honest. It means making real decisions in real circumstances, and giving yourself permission to grieve and adjust.
Sarah paddling the length of the Murray River
Pole to Pole: The Big One
And then there’s what’s coming next. Pole to Pole — a self-propelled journey from the Arctic to Antarctica, traversing the full length of the planet by kayak, bike, skis, and ocean rowing boat. It is, by any measure, one of the most ambitious solo expeditions ever attempted.
The seed was planted mid-flight, watching a documentary on Sir Ranulph Fiennes’ Trans Globe expedition. Ideas simmered. Then, cycling through Oman — that rare combination of space, solitude, and motion — everything crystallised.
“It’s having that space and time for the brain to noodle on ideas. Pole to Pole is it.”
The mission behind the journey matters as much to Sarah as the journey itself. She’s aiming to raise over A$1 million for organisations combating modern slavery and human trafficking, and to inspire a movement of one million people to pursue their biggest dream. The expedition is both a physical feat and a platform.
She’s candid about what scares her. Getting the funding together is one worry. The ocean row — solo, across open water — is another. “To me, that’s a terrifying prospect,” she says, without a trace of bravado. It’s a refreshing thing to hear from someone who has already paddled a hippo-infested river through eleven countries.
Parts of the expedition will be solo; parts will have companions. The Arctic section will be guided. Friends are already volunteering to join a cycling stretch. Antarctica remains open. “Anyone keen?” she asks, entirely seriously.
Sarah and friend Tara, cycling across Australia
What She Knows About Starting
For the Gutsy Girls community — women dreaming of bigger adventures but waiting for the right moment, the right budget, the right level of readiness — Sarah has a message that’s both simple and slightly disarming.
“Don’t wait, start NOW. Even if you don’t know how you’ll do it, or where the money will come from, or how you’ll find the time. Just start.”
She quotes the poet Rumi: “As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.” It’s not a cliche when it comes from someone who spent two years preparing for a six-month expedition she had no template for.
The confidence didn’t come before the commitment. It came because of it.
Her other piece of advice? Do the risk management. Properly. A thorough risk assessment won’t take the adventure out of an adventure — it gives you perspective on what you’re actually getting into, and a foundation of confidence when things get hard. “At least, that’s my experience,” she adds. “But as a professional risk manager, I am biased.”
Sarah Davis is proof that the most extraordinary adventures are built, methodically, one step at a time — by people who decide to start before they feel ready.
We can’t wait to follow her to the poles.
Follow Sarah’s journey and find out more about Pole to Pole at sarahdavisadventures.com
This article is part of the Gutsy Girls Adventure Film Tour’s 10th Anniversary Series: Women Who Inspire Us.
All images are courtesy of Sarah Davis
