About

I’m Steve, in my younger years I spent time exploring new places, climbed mountains, rock climbed, went 4×4 trailing, canoeing, took on long distance walking challenges, went ice climbing, ran marathons and did mountain bike races.

In 2011 I was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa known as RP in the trade. I did what all stubborn males would do with such information, ignored it until it went away. Well surprising this incurable degenerative condition didn’t go away. What happened was that I slowly got worse and then let it erode my life, happiness and freedom giving up a lot of the things I loved until in 2022 I was diagnosed as severely sight impaired.

During the years in between I struggled to come to terms with my condition and fought against anything that would make me look or feel different. I thought I was happier hiding from it than confronting it. As time went by I’ve had to face my condition, first came the loss of my driving licence which felt like a massive blow that took away my freedom. To be fair to the doctors they weren’t wrong, given some weeks earlier I had reversed my car into a tree I did not see (it was at least 4 feet wide!).

Image shows Steve stood looking out with a background of a path over a mountain pass

Image Shows Steve stood halfway up a tree he climbed up with sky in the background

Image shows a selfie of Steve with a view of a small lake sat in a mountain plateau

Image Shows Steve stood on the path way with his white long cane in front of Aber Falls Waterfall

Over the years I lost more of my battle to stay one of the sighted people. I decided it was time to use a Cane after being attacked by an angry commuter in the Bus station when I bumped into him, I didn’t see him and he must have been having a bad day. Not the first upset person I’d walked into might I add.

I still tried to hide my condition even with the cane. It took a long time to become able to use my stick full time around family, friends and work colleagues. One of the unique things about RP is I don’t look sight impaired at all, my eyes are broken on the inside and because I have core tunnel of vision I can still see a version of the real world. I even get to see the “Stick Dance” as people try to decide how best to get out of my way, left or right or left or right as if I’m 10 feet wide. There are still people I know out there who have no idea of my sight impairment.

When I was finally pronounced blind it was an absolute shock, yet it has given me a freedom that I had not felt in years. It was like the pronouncement of doom had happened and you know what it’s not all that bad. I’m still loosing more of my vision every day but I‘ve decided that it was time to live again and start doing and not just planing for future adventures that would not happen.

I have started this site to document my new adventures as I get to grips with what it’s like to embrace travel and adventure while being blind. Hopefully it will help other sighted and sight impaired people to live better and more adventurous lives but more importantly it will help me as I continue on my journey.

I mean how hard can it be, a walk in the park really (as long as that park is fairly level and doesn’t have any trees, lampposts, benches or people to walk into)