Hailing from Poland, Babis has spent the past two years in Australia undertaking incredible athletic feats. An endurance athlete, he is an experienced trail runner with a sense of adventure.

"I found that it gives me a lot of joy and adds to my life to have some challenges," he said.

"I lived in Canada in the Rockies [Rocky Mountains] and I got into the trail running community and I was looking for the next challenge - I lived in such a beautiful place and the community was great and from there I never looked back.

"I was gradually increasing the mileage I ran and putting the next challenge ahead of me - it's not necessarily about running a longer distance.

"I run longer races, but the best thing about trail running is it doesn't have to be just participating in races, you can pick your own adventure and follow what you feel like doing and explore new areas."

One of those new areas was Australia.

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"I left home in 2012 and that has been my life for the past nine years now - travelling and living in different places," he said.

"In 2018 I got a visa for Australia and I was researching the best places to live, to explore and run and Tasmania seemed to be the best place."

With one friend who had been to Tasmania and recommended it, online research guided Babis to the state.

"I didn't know much about Tasmania, but it always intrigued me. Because as a child I had a map of the world and Tasmania was pretty much at the end of the world for me, coming from Poland it's pretty much as far away as it gets," he said.

"I kind of forgot about it and started travelling, never thinking I'd be able to travel to Australia, but the years went by and I got the visa.

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"I lived at the beginning in North Queensland because of my visa conditions, but as soon as I fulfilled the requirements to get an extra year on my visa I wanted to move - and by all means it's met my expectations.

"I'm very happy here, there's so many places to explore."

Babis has been based at Cradle Mountain for the majority of his time in Tasmania - working at the Cradle Mountain Hotel.

"Cradle Mountain is definitely one of my favourite places - when I was researching I dreamt about living in that area and I managed to get a job there," he said.

"It's a special place for me because I lived there and I was able to explore some of the trails for such a long time."

With such a special place in his heart, Cradle Mountain inspired Babis to undergo his latest extreme challenge - which he called Cradle to Everest.

"I'm not exactly sure how that challenge came about ... as a training run I went up and down Cradle as fast as I could from Dove Lake," he said.

"I picked the most direct route, and when I came back I looked at my statistics and the elevation was exactly 849 metres which is one tenth of the Everest height and I thought it would be cool to round up to number 10 and accumulate to Everest."

The idea laid dormant for a while, as Babis was training for other races. But after his last race in mid-July he decided he wanted to end the season with something "wild".

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"A great adventure - and I definitely underestimated weather," he said.

"I've seen the winter at Cradle for the last few years and I knew how it looked - it can be bad but most of the time it's kind of reasonable for the most part. But the conditions were very bad, I had to postpone the project three times hoping it would get better - it got better to give it a try but it was very very challenging."

Undertaking the summit multiple times had two key challenges according to Babis.

"The snow was definitely a challenge and the wind. There was snow around waist deep and I was worried it would slow me down and tire me out, and also that my body temperature was going to drop in the deep snow and getting wet," he said.

"That was on my first try, and I already broke the trail so decided to keep going because I felt comfortable - that was the first challenge.

"The other challenge was going through the night, because the wind was so strong and it was snowing - in terms of navigation it was easy to lose the trail, even though I've been there so many times I was still worried because of the wind and snow, the head torch doesn't go very far."

Babis described the feeling at the end of the challenge as fulfilling.

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"It's the best part of those challenges, the fulfillment - I had to give it a bit of time to realise how big of an undertaking it was, I was extremely sleep deprived and tired but it's joy when you look back," he said.

"Posting on social media with your friends it's crazy, some didn't believe that I could complete it - I didn't think I could at the beginning, not because of the physical challenge but the conditions.

"For some people it's motivated them, and I'm happy to see such great comments and motivating people motivates me so it's nice to see.

"The trail running community here is small, but it's filled with really nice people and I'm happy to bring some kind of joy and motivation."

Taking part in trails and walks including the Overland Track, Frenchman's Cap, the Three Capes Track and more, Babis couldn't pick a single favourite experience of his time.

"I have some favourite places, but in general the best thing about Tasmania is the diversity, and how easy it is to access places - you don't have to drive for hours and hours, everything is usually pretty close by so it gives you the opportunity to explore.

"I've been working most of the time I've been here but I've been able to see a lot of places."

Now based at Strahan Village, Babis' next adventure is exploring more of the West Coast of Tasmania in his down time.

"For now I wanted to change a little bit and explore more, there's so much to see here," he said.

"I do like it - the weather is a little bit moody, there's a lot of rain but it's not much different from Cradle, a bit warmer especially now in winter, I can't complain about the weather too much.

"There's some beautiful waterfalls, Macquarie Heads, Ocean Beach is beautiful and if I have more time I'll go around Zeehan or Queensland for my longer runs, there's some nice trails there."

For more on Babis' adventures, follow him on Instagram @iron_explorer.

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