Durban - Intrepid explorer Kingsley Holgate hit the road again to complete what he and his Mzansi Edge Expedition team began on September 18 near Kosi Bay in northern KwaZulu-Natal.
The team is on an 80-day, 14 000km journey tracking the entire outline of the country through eight provinces, along the coastlines and around the border of landlocked Lesotho.
It has also been the first long-distance, expedition test for the new sponsored Land Rover Defender on South African soil.
On Friday the team regrouped at the Durban Harbour at the National Sea Rescue Institute, near Point, where they filled their traditional calabash, an isizulu artefact they carried with them every step of the journey.
They have canoed the Orange River border with Namibia, run the Diamond Coast of the Northern and Western Cape, and hiked the Great Drakensberg Traverse.
They have made more than 30 river crossings and visited 52 Lighthouses along the east and west coasts, as well as in excess of 40 wildlife parks and seven World Heritage Sites.
They conquered extreme mountain passes, including the Road To Hell in the Northern Cape and country’s five highest passes.
Holgate, 74, who has been described as the most travelled man in Africa, said the calabash had been filled with water from each harbour, river and ocean stop on the expedition.
“When we close the circle and end our journey back in Kosi Bay on Tuesday we will empty all of the water we have collected back into the ocean where it all began.”
Holgate’s son, Ross, said that although Covid-19 had devastated the country it had allowed them to provide relief and support to those suffering in some of the less travelled areas of the country.
“It is a beautiful country that we fell in love with all over again during this expedition. We have met some of the most wonderful people that you wouldn’t typically meet like border patrollers, traditional chiefs and people living in remote rural settlements,” Ross Holgate said.
“We have a scroll that is signed with messages of peace and goodwill which we carry and pull out at our various stops,” he said.
Ross said that the significance of meeting at the NSRI base was that in 1992 they had their first expedition which was from South Africa to Cairo and the NSRI gave them their launch.
“We travel so much each year all across Africa on humanitarian missions that we sometimes forget about home and where it all started but this year we reconnected.”
The NSRI’S Helen Wienand said they were proud to be associated with the expedition and the Kingsley Holgate Foundation.
“We have the same values and core beliefs. We speak with one voice on conservation and saving lives.”
The humanitarian objectives of the expedition have been to provide nutritional meals to rural families and early childhood development centres bordering on wildlife areas still impacted by the Covid-19 lockdown loss of tourism jobs and income, in partnership with the Do More Foundation and others.
So far more than 250 000 have been provided.
Ian Gourley handled the early childhood development side of the expedition while Richard Mabanga from Project Rhino handled the promeals vision of meals
Other local adventurers who have taken part in the Mzansi Edge Expedition were veteran mountain biker ‘Shova Mike’ Nixon, one of only four people in the world to have completed every ABSA Cape Epic, mountaineers Sibusiso Vilane, the first African to summit Mount Everest and André Bredenkamp.
Adventure runner David Grier, the first person in history to run the Great Wall of China in both directions was also included in the expedition.
Sunday Tribune