Aut viam inveniam aut faciam

In an antediluvian lemon grove near the Valencian town of Sagunto stands a medieval martyrless chapel.

It's heavy oak doors have long since become fodder for worms and the iron gates which replaced them haven't been unlocked since General Franco lost a testicle at the battle of El Buitz.

The whitewash exterior weathered and cracked by countless summers reveal a mosaic of terracotta render that is also loosing its fight against the elements.

Through the gates a lustrous taffeta of golden light illuminate decaying frescoes, human figures with grotesque heads, elongated tongues and bulging eyes.

Ahead of me lies 1140 kilometres of road to the Italian boarder.

It's from here that Hannibal began his march into history. I had read dozens of books on the subject, spent countless hours pouring over maps both modern an ancient and now it was time to follow, to make my own pilgrimage, more of a curious wayfarer than a crusader. A blind leap of faith into history to discover for myself what drives us to do the things we do.

Pitching my tent for the first time in the Spanish countryside in the shade of this ageless chapel surrounded by ripening fruit trees I begin to understand the gravity of my undertaking, and for a moment I start to think that this whole idea is batshit crazy. What is this kid from West Tallaght doing following a 200 year old map retracing a voyage that took place 2228 years ago!

My mind raced uncontrollably, Valencia is only 40 kilometres away, I could be home by breakfast if I wanted to.             If.........I..........Wanted............To.............

Then I realised I'd thought about nothing else but this voyage for the past 2 years.

I awoke the next day feeling reborn, that my life up to that point was to to sail the prevailing winds according other peoples delineation. Now I was in uncharted territory by 21^st century standards, this was terra nullis for my human precondition. The ungovernable part of the human spirit that resides somewhere within each of us.

Casting off the cotton chains of moderm comforts and travelling 22 centuries back to a simpler bygone age.

And thus the Hannibillica had begun......

Part of me has never left that orchard with its diminutive sanctuary and green lemons.

A callow untried sahib on the cusp of adventure. Following a dream. Now that dream is a reality. I can’t justifiably convey the emotional impact of such an untertaking, all I hope is that the movie will take you along with me on this transcendental transformative voyage.

I’d like to thank each of you for helping me get one step closer to realising this dream, for sharing a belief in the merrits of this film and the vigor of our humanity.

There’s just 8 hours left in the campaign, fingers crossed we get over the line.

As Goethe said:

 “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
          Boldness has genius, power and magic in it”

The man himself

So, why are you doing this again?

Yes, the words that are on everybody's lips. What many took to be sheer lunacy 2228 years ago is still considered as a task only an idiot or a nutcase would undertake.
So why walk from Sagunto to Turin?

Simple answer, obsession. On a more romanticized note its because on a rainy Tuesday morning in September 2008 I was doing a bit of shopping in Camden town. The rain had stirred from the remains of Camden canal markets a burnt mustiness from the fire that had gutted the markets several months previous. We made our way across the street to the indoor stables market and it was there that I found it....hidden at the back of a pile of old printed maps, mounted in a water stained frame, printed by F.C. & J Rivington on July 1st 1808 a Monsieur D'Anville print of Hannibal's march from Saguntum over the Pyrenees through France crossing the Rhone and finally conquering the Alps (as well as the imagination of every school boy since) with his 26 thousand men and thirty seven elephants.
With an asking price of 36 pounds sterling it was mine for 25.
After a futile shopping expedition I retired with my treasure to "The Worlds End" tavern for an ale.

Whilst pouring over the map at the table just inside the door with a pint of bitter and a tin of pilchards, an idea began to form, what if, yes what if I traced Hannibal's steps, twenty two centuries after the man himself concocted the idea. Maybe it was the bitter talking, frothing its foam and swirling images of elephants and jagged white peaks as it settled. Or maybe the map itself expunged long forgotten memories of mr Stakelums 4th class history lessons about how Hannibal caught the Romans in a trap at Trasemine and outsmarted 2 consuls at Cannae and lead the Romans on a merry dance throughout Italy, top to bottom for 16 years.

For me his biggest victory was the Psychological one he had dealt the Romans before ever raising a sword, by marching War Elephants over the impenetrable Alps, the natural fortress to the north of Rome, it didn't matter that the battle of the Trebia was the elephants swansong, they had already inflicted their damage on the Romans by achieving the unachievable.

So I have been consumed with this project for the past 21 months and in less than 2 months time I shall pass through the ruins of Saguntum, and march..... towards Rome.

With just a little over 5 weeks before I leave a southern hemisphere winter for a northern summer the issue of packing has come to the fore.

Essentially the Hannabillica is a walking expedition to document and to retrace as the name suggests the route Hannibal took with his army on foot from Spain to Italy. That’s on foot, as in walking…carrying everything you need besides food and water which will be procured en route.

The main issue is keeping the weight of everything down. Something I’m finding somewhat difficult without sacrificing some of the integrities of the trip itself.
My major concern was the quality of the footage to be shot for the doco itself. There are so many options out there now for the independent film maker the mind boggles. But for a walking expedition such as this the weight of the camera equipment became one of the major factors in camera choice. The camera I chose for the job is not only reasonably light but shoots full high definition at various frame rates. I will give an itemized description of camera equipment as well as all other equipment in the next entry.

The weight of my pack as it stands at the moment is 14.1kg, that’s dry weight too, no food, water or cooking fuel. Heavy I know but not too bad for a mobile, walking one man camera crew. I’m finding it hard to get the weight below 14 kilo’s without spending a whole lot more on lighter equipment and sacrificing some gear like lenses (of which I have four) The backpack itself weighs in at a little under 3kg so it’s light for a 100% waterproof 80 litre pack. All up, the camera equipment weighs 5.5kg not including the mini notebook computer which clocks in at 1kg. light for a computer but still it’s another kilo on my back. But it’s a kilo I can’t afford not to carry as I have to transfer all my footage to a portable drive on the go as well as keeping you all up to speed via the blog.

So there you have it, packing for the cinematically insane, still Hannibal would have had it tougher, with packing for a hundred thousand men, twelve hundred horse and thirty seven elephant.

Carpe Diem amici, Carpe Diem.

"Hannibillica” what does it mean anyhow?

Ok, so I kind of made the word up. For the last 18 months, as the idea began to brew, what to actually name the project had me in a quandary. The more I researched the subject of Hannibal’s march to Italy the harder it got.
Everyone from Titus Livius to Napoleon Bonaparte to Bernard Levin had written on the subject and given their books clever titles like, ‘Hannibal’s footsteps” or ‘Alps and elephants”. In fact Mark Twain once wrote “so much had been written on the subject of Hannibal’s passage over the Alps that soon we may know nothing at all on the matter” sounds like he was as baffled as I, as to the amount of interest in the subject throughout the ages.
The world of “Hannibal” related books had been opened up to me and the immense list of imaginative titles left little available for the modern writer of the subject. It became to me, “that Hannibal” project, a far off whimsical idea that just wouldn’t go away. So when the project began to materialize, plans being made and money being spent, I thought it ought to have a proper name.
“Walking to Italy from Spain Like Hannibal did” just didn’t have an inspiring ring to it. I needed something different, unlike the titles from all those other ‘Hannibalophiles’ that went before me. Something which would best describe the task at hand. To my knowledge no one has undertaken this journey since Hannibal’s brother Hasdrubal followed in his footsteps in 208 BC. Or since various Roman armies made the trip in both directions to and from their new Iberian province. But all were doing it in the likeness of Hannibal. Which is what ‘Hannibllica’ means. Hannibaal – ica. Hannibillica. Ica or ic being the Greek suffix for ‘like’ or ‘as’. Fitting I think, as Hannibal was apparently fluent in Greek, and I didn’t know the Phoenician for like or anything else for that matter.
Hannibillica – like Hannibal.

Inventory

Id have to say that packing for the trip is about 95% complete.
I had a backyard dry run sunday, pitching the tent, packing everything into the pack etc.
Putting you life into an 80 litre bag is a bit of an eyeopener.
Do I really need this stuff? and yet im finding it difficult to trim it down.
Its putting alot into perspective, about how much "stuff" one "needs" to get by.
If I wasn't making a documentary about the trip the pack would be 6-7 kilo's lighter.
Still, Ive managed to put together a fairly lightweight High Definition camera kit at a reasonable price, and at 7 or so kilogrammes instead of a 60-70 kg kit a tv crew would carry.
As I said before, it's all about compromise, between, budget, weight and quality of the end product. I think Ive managed to score well on all three counts. The budget has come in at under 10k (just) not bad for shooting a 2 month long documentary in three foreign countries.
Weight, well ive managed to keep it around the 16kg mark, a touch heavy maybe for 30 kilometre days in the Alps.....hmmmm. For quality, well that remains to be seen..the equipment isn't in question, I just hope Ive given myself enough time to master the canon 7D with the nikon primes I chose for the job.
There's a list below of (nearly)everything for the trip.






Black wolf 'dragonfly' tent.
Berghaus Expedition 80 backpack with Roman H3 3 litre hydropack water bladder.
Outdoor Expedition sleeping bag ,rated to -10*C.
Primus gravity VF stove with 0.6l fuel bottle.
Garmin GPSII plus & GR maps.
M-Audio microtrack II for audio recording.
HP mini 210, digitizing, blogging etc.
Seagate free agent external hard drive.
Canon EOS 7D 18MP 1080p full HD.
2 x LP6 batteries
2 X Nikon to Canon lens adaptor.
Lomography 38mm superwide DIANA lens.
Nikon NIKKOR-N 24mm 1:2.8 lens.
Nikon NIKKOR-O 35mm 1:2 lens.
Nikon NIKKOR-S 50mm 1:1.4 lens.
Nikon NIKKOR-P 105mm 1:2.5 lens.
Nikon vivitar automatic tele converter 2X-3.
Giotto 324 tripod.
sandisk compact flash card (2 more on the way)
Aputure ap-tr3c timer/shutter release.
TIFFEN lens filters - various X 10.

Thats about it, there were other items on the wish list but couldn't be accomodated in the pack, the budget or timeframe.
Items like the power gorilla and solar gorilla, to power the equipment on the go. maby 2 more batteries, 4 more 16 gig cf cards, that nifty little lantern I saw in mountain design on kent st, and maybe an elephant or 2 to carry the lot.
Well just over 2 weeks till I fly to Dublin, Ireland from Sydney, Australia, and 3 weeks till I fly to Valencia to attend the Tomatina in Bunyol and thus begin...the Hannibillica.