The film-maker and writer was in town to speak at the New Zealand Mountain Film and Book Festival’s on Monday night.
Between arriving on Saturday and departing yesterday , he had completed many laps of Mt Iron and conquered Mt Roy and was not taking any prisoners.
"I just find the best way to meet a place is on foot ... I just strap on my runners and off I go. I can see the place from different angles, from the lakeside and the mountain tops," he said in an interview with the Otago Daily Times.
Miles was an avid traveller in his 20s and 30s, spending two decades chasing seasonal jobs and adventure all over the globe. Then he asked himself why.
He did not — has not — lost his passion for adventure and raising his heart rate to 180 for three hours.
But with a young family to raise, he decided to explore his own backyard.
He lives with his wife Helen and their two daughters aged 4 and 1 in the small hamlet of Jindivick, population about 50, one hour’s drive from Melbourne.
It also sparked his brand new book, The Backyard Adventurer, just released in Wanaka this week.
Despite his love for his own backyard, he admitted Wanaka’s scenery had worked its magic.
Every time he reached the top of Mt Iron, he noticed something different in the view, prompting him to think perhaps Wanaka could be a place he and his family would want to move to when the time was right.
"It does tick a lot of boxes ... I have a great yearning for physicality and getting out there. So does Helen. She is more of an athlete than me, in a sense."
While moving to a "rec town" — whether that was in New Zealand, Canada, France or even Africa — to explore appealed to them, family life came first.
He also asked himself why he was making a super-short visit to New Zealand to spruik the idea of backyard adventuring, questioning why he was getting on a plane to do it.
"It is a bit like robbing Peter to pay Paul, isn’t it?
There was no major realisation, epiphany, anxiety, or feeling the need to settle that drove him to eschew a peripatetic lifestyle.
"It was just bang for buck. We have 168 hours a week in us, everyone of us does ... You don’t have any more or less time than anyone else. What you have is choices."
