DURBAN - South African Humanitarian adventurer Kingsley Holgate has embarked on another the Defender Transcontinental Expedition to remote villages in Africa and Europe in support of wildlife conservation and humanitarian aid.
Holgate left Cape Town for Cape Agulhas, the southern tip of Africa, on Thursday for a world-first 30 000km geographic and humanitarian expedition through 30 countries in Africa and Europe.
His first port of call is Nordkapp, Norway, in the Arctic Circle, the northernmost point of Europe accessible by vehicle.
The expedition will end at Red Wharf Bay on the Isle of Anglesey in Wales, where the vision of Land Rover was first sketched in the sand by Maurice Wilks in 1947, 75 years ago.
Holgate’s expeditions operate on the principle of “using adventure to improve and save lives”.
Holgate said the purpose of the journey was to conduct humanitarian work to assist 300 000 people in sub-Saharan Africa. He said one of the objectives was malaria prevention education. He intends to distribute effective, long-lasting insecticide-treated mosquito nets to pregnant women and mothers with young children.
Holgate and his team is expected to conduct eye tests and provide reading glasses for poor-sighted, mostly elderly people in remote communities.
Holgate is expected to provide reservoirs, water tanks and pipelines to rural homesteads, crèches and community food gardens in northern KwaZulu-Natal. These are LifeStraw units for individuals and communities in drought-stricken regions of sub-Saharan Africa.
Holgate’s team will distribute vitamin-enriched DoMore Foundation porridge packs to reach the goal of providing 2 million meals to children at impoverished rural crèches on the boundaries of game reserves in South Africa.
The team hoped to instil “a passion to conserve and protect Africa’s endangered rhinos, elephants and their habitats among the school children in South Africa and other wildlife-rich African countries en route”, Holgate said.
His expedition is also expected to be the first carbon-neutral transcontinental expedition ever undertaken.
Holgate said that 6 000 Albany Thicket indigenous trees and shrubs are being planted in the Eastern Cape to offset the 3 expedition Defenders’ carbon footprint, in partnership with the Conservation Landscapes Institute, Rhodes University and the Tanglewood Foundation.
“A new expedition scroll of peace and goodwill is being carried from the southern tip of Africa to the northernmost point of Europe that can be reached by vehicle, and on to Red Wharf Bay in Anglesey Wales, collecting thousands of supportive messages from citizens of all countries visited.”
Holgate said the expedition’s traditional Zulu calabash will carry symbolic water from where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet at Cape Agulhas; the expedition’s mid-point at Alexandria in Egypt on the Mediterranean; and from the Norwegian and Barents Seas at Nordkapp.
The calabash will be symbolically emptied into the Irish Sea at Red Wharf Bay in Anglesey, Wales at the expedition’s end.
Daily News