Helen Barclay

Each day Beau Miles does something he's never done before.

Beau Miles runs a half marathon with a rock and a wheelbarrow

Haircut hater gets a makeover by wife

As there are 1440 minutes in a day, and Beau Miles love planting trees, he decided to plant a tree a minute for 24 hours. It was (swear meaningfully) hard.

When signing 1812 pre-sold copies of his book The Backyard Adventurer, Beau Miles decided to have a backyard adventure while doing it

When COVID-19 locked Beau Miles and his family down on the small farm, he decided to build his wife a cabin-office in the paddock without her knowing. Using whatever materials were on the property, which were gathered up piles of other people’s junk over time, and with their 6 month old daughter as accomplice, Junk Cabin emerged. What started out as a stunt to see how much secretive, ad-hoc building he could get away with, turned into the most satisfying building project he's ever made.

This is the story of spending a night in a big old gumtree. Strapped to three builders planks (one of which had a large crack that I thought was spilled paint) I slept with one eye open, which was pleasant because I could see the view. Originally driven by the premise of backyard adventuring, using old climbing equipment, dodgy ladders and 4x4 recovery gear, a simple night out, 30-foot up, ended up being a reflection of how much I like trees, particularly the vulnerable Strzelecki gums I live among. Dinner, breakfast, bad coffee, podcast, and sitting on a park bench I should sit on more often, Big Gums is the story of a man who is no longer a boy, spending time with an endangered, iconic tree.

Eating only the contents of 191 tins of beans over 40 days transforms Beau into The Human Bean, and in doing so gives him a front row seat into how one food, totally and utterly, dictates how he feels. Beau uses his intimate knowledge of running to compare his former self to his bean-self, logging lacklustre training for an ultramarathon that he plans on running during the final day of the experiment. Epiphanies are had, saddles are blazed, and genuine insight emerges from what is strangely appealing day-to-day of mediocrity.

Eating only the contents of 191 tins of beans over 40 days transforms Beau into The Human Bean, and in doing so gives him a front row seat into how one food, totally and utterly, dictates how he feels. Beau uses his intimate knowledge of running to compare his former self to his bean-self, logging lacklustre training for an ultramarathon that he plans on running during the final day of the experiment. Epiphanies are had, saddles are blazed, and genuine insight emerges from what is strangely appealing day-to-day of mediocrity.

You can buy a paddle, or buy wood to make a paddle, but what about making one from junk? Collecting junk wood found between the train station and the office, this is the story of a junk-made-paddle.

Packing on the pounds after writing a PhD, Beau's running again. He's also back in the shed; fixing stuff, making things, tinkering. For most of us, running was once a form of survival, hunting- or being hunted. Now, it can be as meaningful, or meaningless, than any other aspect of life. Running for Beau is practical- it gets him places, yet like a lot of runners, deeply embodied.