BBC’s Race Across the World makes its long awaited return to screens on Wednesday, March 22 as a new band of travellers embark on the journey of a lifetime. Amongst those taking part in the new series, which is the first time it has been on since 2020, is 49-year-old Cathie from South Wales.
South Wales’ Cathie will be going on the adventure with her best friend Trish, 48, who is from Devon. The Welsh traveller gave an exclusive interview to WalesOnline ahead of the first episode.
“Initially I hadn’t seen [Race Across the World],” Cathie shared, “My best friend Trish, who I’m doing the show with, regularly encourages me to get involved with all sorts of mad things. We do quite a lot of fundraising for RNIB so I was used to her coming up with crazy ideas without giving it much thought.”
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Cathie continued: “When Trish suggested Race Across the World, I hadn’t seen the programme and just said, ‘Yeah that sounds like really good fun’. Then I watched series one and two and it was just incredible! I loved the concept and I thought that the idea of teams racing against each other was brilliant. When we were chosen to do it, it was just a huge thrill to be involved in something like that.”
She revealed that, despite huge excitement to take part in the show, the process was quite daunting. “It was very daunting in that there was so much uncertainty. We didn’t know where we were going, we didn’t know about budgeting and we had no idea how much things were.
“There was a huge amount of unknown because I’m a planner and I like to plan things and not being able to do that was very difficult. I was totally out of my comfort zone.”
Cathie was not worried, however, about the impact that the trip would have on her friendship with Trish. She said: “Trish and I have been friends for a long, long time and we have survived not seeing each other for the best part of 20 years and then getting back in touch again. However, that kind of pressure does test all kinds of relationships.”
The new series of Race Across the World - which you can read more about here - will see five pairs of travellers race across Canada. In previous years, participants have travelled across Latin America and the Far East. The contestants are racing to win a £20,000 cash prize.
Speaking of her time in Canada, Cathie said: “There was a huge amount of diversity in Canada and it was incredible to see it like that. It’s very diverse and that comes across in the programme. I think most of us don’t really see Canada in that way but it really is an incredible country.”
Summing up the experience as a whole, Cathie called it “enlightening” - partly because of the Canadian people she met on the journey. She added: “The Canadians are very willing to help and the country itself - the geography and the sights - it’s so diverse. I feel very privileged to be part of it and to be able to meet so many incredible people. I was very thankful for the opportunity to do it.”
She stressed that she had a great sense of pride, being a Welsh person on the popular TV show. “I was really proud when people asked me where I was from. They kind of default to, ‘Oh are you from England?’ and I’d have to say, ‘No I’m from Wales!’” Despite this reaction from some, Cathie shared how the Canadians did not treat her like that.
“We had our Welsh dragon that travelled everywhere with us,” she added, “That was important to us, to identify our own country and where we’re from. I can remember being asked certain questions but I remember my answer being, ‘It’s because we’re Welsh and because we’re friendly’. Our friendliness matched the friendliness and the generosity of the Canadians and it was lovely and an incredible time.”
Cathie described how, when her friends and family found out that she was going on Race Across the World, they were very supportive. She said: “We didn’t tell everybody but we did tell some people. Obviously I told my husband and he was with me all along. It was hard that he wasn’t doing it with me but he was fully supportive.”
“Me and my husband Gareth run two pharmacies in the Ogmore Valley and we had to do a lot of planning because I was going away for a while. He was very proud of me and Trish together and very supportive.
“My two children are so excited. They’re grown up and I think my son Alex is determined that I’m going to become a meme of some sort so I told him that he’s in charge of that!”
Cathie then admitted that she found it hard to resist posting pictures of her journey to social media. She explained: “It really was hard. We didn’t have our phones with us but we did have a little digital camera so we did snap some amazing images.
“It was hard not to share that. Normally if I was on holiday, I’d be sharing that with my parents and my brother and Gareth would be doing the same with his family but not being able to share these incredible scenes was very difficult.”
As to what she learnt from her Race Across the World adventure, Cathie said: “I learnt that I’m stronger than I think I am. I also learnt that I’m more competitive than I think I am and I think that if you put me in a situation that is difficult then I will find a way.”
“With Trish, we both did find a way and no matter what was thrown at us, we managed to find a way. Sometimes it was successful, sometimes it wasn’t but we gave it our best shot. We also felt that we did it with integrity and were true to ourselves. We both said that we’re too old to pretend to be someone else so we’re just us and what you see is what you get.”
When asked to sum up her grand adventure in three words, Cathie said: “Inspirational, empowering and wonderful”. Check out how she and Trish do on Race Across the World, which begins on BBC One at 9pm on Wednesday, March 22. For more showbiz and television stories get our newsletter here.
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