AN unusual souvenir greeted survival expert Bear Grylls after his run-in with Albury’s Jimmy Ladgrove in Sydney yesterday.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
It wasn’t the kind of gift the typical person would appreciate, but Mr Ladgrove said Grylls “absolutely loved it.”
After losing to Grylls in the Solo Beat Bear Competition’s “Aussie pong”, which is played with saucepans rather than racquets, Mr Ladgrove wanted to show his thanks.
So he gave him a pair of kangaroo testicles on a key chain.
Mr Ladgrove said the response from the adventure man, who has eaten almost every part of an animal you can think of, was not too much of a shock.
“He said ‘This can be our lunch, one each’,” Mr Ladgrove said.
“But I said not to eat it, I think you’d probably be sick, they would have been in the store for like 10 years.
“But he liked it, I don’t think he’d ever been given them before.”
Despite months of working on his table tennis racquet and his saucepan skills, Mr Ladgrove lost the regular ping pong round 9-10 and the saucepan round 5-10.
He said he wasn’t disappointed though, because he got to meet his idol, who was “just too good at everything”.
Calling Grylls an inspiration, Mr Ladgrove said the adventurer encouraged people to make the best of life.
He said he no longer had any reservations about travelling to US by himself.