Roz Purcell (34) is innately cool, she can’t help it, she just is. Even her Jeep is cool. This big chunky thing which we’ve just pulled up beside (it’s a Land Rover Defender) on the impressive grounds of Luttrellstown Castle, is the perfect 4×4 to take this wilderness explorer, from one corner of the country to the other, to the foothills of just about every mountain range this mystical land of ours holds.
We park up by the Defender, (check the wheel rims for some muck!), and make our way inside this castle fit for a Queen. We find Roz in baggy jeans and a tee, chatting to the team, a book about maps in her hand, a beanie on her head, her hair spilling out underneath. She is hard-to-take-your-eyes-off, breathtakingly beautiful. Her eyes, an arresting palest of blue. Chatty and bubbly, she is so nice too.
We are here because this broadcaster, content creator and author will later this month publish her second hiking book, The Hike Life, 50 More To Explore. Her first hiking book, published last year, won the Lifestyle Book of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards 2023. It also remained on the bestseller list for over 6 months. A gorgeous coffee table hardback with stunning imagery and practical well laid out trail info: it’s not surprising at all that it sold in the truckloads.
Roz’s passion for the great outdoors was inspired by growing up, as the youngest of three daughters on a farm, in the shadows of Sliabh na mBan (which translates as Mountain of the Women), in County Tipperary. No matter where she has lived in her life since then, she has always been drawn back to the wilds and even bought a forest (using her house deposit funds) near her family home in Tipp, in 2022, as she feared it may get felled.
We could make a really lazy analogy here and say that this former model and Miss Universe 2010 contestant – who walked away from that world nine years ago – swapped the catwalk for a mountaintop. But that’s not accurate. It’s been a gradual shift, a slow climb to where she is now. First came an online platform, then three health-focused cookbooks, radio work on 2FM followed and then in 2018 Roz created The Hike Life community, initially through social media, with a mission to get more people exploring, appreciating and respecting our outdoor spaces.
Always on a mission, this Tipp girl’s next project is to reconnect with the world because of the solitude an absorbing three-and-a-half-year writing project like this, brings. She also wants to finally start planning that wedding of hers – to her love, fiancé Zach Desmond who proposed last year.
But before that, we have a dreamy, fashion, autumny photoshoot for you, with talk after about writing, re-wilding and mountaintop climbing.
Comfy? Let’s go…
Roz, here we are on the grounds of Luttrellstown Castle, a well-known wedding venue! Are you forever scoping out places for your own?!
Yes! Especially in the last three to four months since finishing the book! I’ve been slowly starting to think about the wedding and where it will happen. Nothing planned yet! I’m constantly asking people for advice on where to start and asking everyone about the best weddings they’ve ever been to!
From your hiking escapades, you must know every corner of this country but, what county would you like for your own big day? Or would you and Zach jet off abroad and do something small? You are both private people.
I love being out West so that part of Ireland would be my preference. I’ll definitely get married at home in Ireland because I find travelling abroad stressful and neither myself nor Zach like flying! Also, I don’t want to ask others to travel for us. Plus I love Ireland – we have incredible wedding destinations, not to mention some of the best backdrops for photos! We’ve agreed something small suits us best, just close family and best friends. We’re thinking 50 guests – small and very intimate.
The autumn scenes here today are stunning, it’s such a gorgeous season. Would you like to tie the knot at a time like this?
It is my favourite time of year so I would love to but I’m guessing due to my lack of planning we won’t have the luxury of
being picky with dates! I’ve been very disorganised!
Over the years you have modelled surely every type of wedding dress. You must know, by now, what you like?
I stopped modelling about nine years ago so even though I have worn probably most wedding dress styles, my style and body have changed so much. I really haven’t a clue what I would like or what would suit me. But I don’t think the big dress would!
You’ve had no space in your brain to think about any of this because you’ve been flat out getting this beautiful new book out. You’ve been busy.
I have been! I pushed really hard to get the two books across the line and picked up by a publisher. I am just so happy they’re here and I really am proud of them because they were a monumental amount of work. Also, it’s been so rewarding to see how well book one was received. It stayed on the top sellers list for 32 weeks which was amazing seeing as though the idea had been rejected many times before finding the right publishers.
Rejected a couple of times, go away! How did you keep submitting? Did you consider giving up or is that just not in your DNA?
At times I did, and I considered changing the idea to steer it to how some of the publishers wanted it but I’m so glad I stuck to my guns and kept searching for someone who believed in the Hike Life books. I found an amazing small publisher in Scotland (Black and White) who created great quality books and really got behind the idea.
Do you enjoy the book-making process? What’s your favourite and least favourite part of it?
My favourite part is putting together the photos from our hikes. Shooting the hikes is physically tough because we often shoot in bulk so sometimes doing four to five hikes a day and doing a lot of sunrises and sunsets back-to-back; you’d get off a mountain at 1am and your next hike would start at 3am but it’s all worth it when the photos come in! My least favourite bit is the last round of edits and having to let the book go. I’m a nightmare at this stage.
Why are you a nightmare?
I will push back deadlines because I want to re-check something again and again and I just don’t know when I’ve looked over something enough!
A perfectionist then! The mythical Sliabh Na mBan in Co. Tipperary was your childhood playground, your escape from doing jobs on the farm and the start of your love for the outdoors. Is it still your special place you like to retreat to?
I still spend a lot of time down in Tipperary on Sliabh Na mBan, I’m lucky my family still live by the mountain and I can have that connection. So, yes.
We see you in this book atop many a mountain. What does being on top of the world do to your energy?
I’m someone who needs to have a certain amount of time outside and movement weekly. Being outside and walking just helps me to be more rational about what’s going on in my head, it helps me also get excess energy out and get off my phone and disconnect from everything online. I feel a huge connection with my younger self when I’m outdoors, that feeling of being on an adventure, that anything’s possible and just…freedom.
You started the Hike Life community in 2018, did you ever imagine it would grow to this? That this appetite for adventure was here to be tapped into?
No, I really did just start it for a bit of fun, to meet up with those who enjoyed my content and maybe get a few into hiking. I think it’s a good thing I didn’t know how it was going to work out because I may have over-thought it all! I really did just use it as my hiking/adventure diary without feeling the pressure of how well things performed. I’m really looking forward now that the books are completed and I have some time again, to getting back to in-person events and having chats. You meet the nicest people and hear wild stories on the hikes!
Who is your favourite hiking companion?
My dogs! Sorry everyone else!
This book is dedicated to your Aunt Mary. Can you tell us a little about her?
Mary was my aunt and another mother figure my sisters and I had growing up. We were so lucky to have her. Every weekend she came to Tipperary and spent all her time with us. She gave us such a huge love for cooking and baking, as well as hurling and camogie, and she would entertain us by taking us for long walks up Sliabh Na mBan. She passed suddenly just as book one came out last year so it was a very conflicting time; I was so happy and also so heartbroken. You think people will always be around…I wish I had been better at checking in, so if you’ve been putting calling someone on the long finger, do it now.
Nature you say is your counterbalance to the chaos of life. How else do you find equilibrium when it comes to your mental and physical health? Are you rigid about your self-care routines?
Because of my jobs, I don’t have much of a routine and I’ve learned to embrace the chaos of that. I’m very basic with my self-care, there are two things I try to have structure with: my sleep because I know for me that’s one of the main factors when it comes to depicting how I feel. I am very disciplined as well with movement and I’m lucky I enjoy it, or at least found what I enjoy. Aside from sleeping and exercising, there’s not much else I do consistently well.
What’s your biggest weakness?
Honestly, my biggest weakness is probably low self-confidence and even though I’ve worked on aspects of that, like my relationship with my body and weight, I do find it hard to be confident in other areas which leads me to over think a lot. I find it hard to believe I can do certain things. So a lot of brain space is taken up with trying to control that.
What about your greatest strength?
I don’t know how to put this but if you’re my friend I’ll really encourage you and hold you accountable to doing what you said you would. I’m a good hype woman! Probably why I enjoy getting people out hiking and moving.
Around the time you admitted to yourself that you had disordered eating issues, your sister Rachel was also unwell (she’s currently in remission from chronic myeloid leukaemia), that must have been such a hard time? How did yo get through it?
My sister getting unwell was probably the first time I wasn’t thinking about myself or my weight so that was a jump start into wanting to treat my body with respect and not taking it for granted. During the initial period when my sister was unwell, we all just came together as a family and that combined with typical Irish dark humour and cake was great!
What are you most looking forward to next?
It’s been three and a half years in between other work and doing these books so I feel I’ve missed a lot of other things or put them on hold. So I’m looking forward to spending more time with my partner Zach, being able to meet up with friends and starting my re-wilding project. I bought a forest back in 2022, it was a forest I used to visit when I was a kid and I was afraid it might get felled like a lot of the areas around it, so I want to try rewild it with some native trees and plants and bring it back to life. I honestly don’t know where I got this notion from but I’m so deep in it now I’ll see it through.
A forest owner too, cool.
I haven’t done much since I got it. I was in a very good position to have savings and I just heard of a beautiful small forest area near my home being sold. So many forests I hike in are cleared especially near home, I didn’t want that to happen to this spot, lots of animals live there and all it needs is some help to bring it fully back to life planting native species and letting light in. I love a good project. I am really excited to get started now that I have the time.
