Ready to roulette a stranger's notes app? Today I'm joined by Chris Barrett, an adventurer who is known for sharing stories of Irish and Arctic nature. He's also a woodworker, conservationist, designer, and many other things. He's worth a listen. It's one of my fave chats so far. Anyway, let's see what we find in his notes app.

• Secret Phone Notes Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/secretphonenotes/
• Chris Barrett's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/chris_barrett_photo/

Rough overview and chapter list below: A citizen science Arctic expedition off Svalbard, a year bike packing through Patagonia, Bolivia's salt flats and the Atacama Desert, and a near-miss on Bolivia's death road all come up through the notes. So does an autonomous fertilizer ball, a gecko-inspired glove built for his college thesis, and the Trinity College research linking polar bears back to the Irish brown bear. Plus: Tom Crean, translucent polar bear fur, and why biomimicry has 3.5 billion years of R&D behind it.

• 00:00 – Welcome & introducing Chris Barrett
• 01:20 – RANDOM HOST NOTE
• 02:00 – Colour blindness, whiskey ads & Coca-Cola myths
• 04:50 – Coca leaves, altitude sickness & hiking in Peru
• 06:50 – Bikepacking Patagonia, Bolivia & traveling light
• 09:15 – The Pacific Crest Trail & ultralight hiking culture
• 12:30 – RANDOM GUEST NOTE: the autonomous fertiliser ball
• 16:55 – Nature restoration, farming & rural Ireland
• 20:05 – Biomimicry: how nature inspires better design
• 24:55 – Gecko gloves, shark skin & everyday invention
• 28:10 – RANDOM GUEST NOTE
• 31:20 – Cycling the Bolivian salt flats & drunken drivers
• 36:20 – RANDOM GUEST NOTE
  • Boxing inventions → Arctic photography
• 37:30 – Polar bears, climate change & photographing the Arctic
• 41:55 – Svalbard expeditions & a life-long obsession with the poles
• 44:20 – Tom Crean, Shackleton & Ireland's greatest explorer
• 48:35 – Wrap-up

Thank you for listening!