Land Rover adventurers home from world-first expedition

All Kingsley Holgate Foundation humanitarian expeditions have a keen geographic and cultural link: Malaria prevention and education to pregnant mums and mothers with children under the age of 5 (they are the most vulnerable); Mashozi’s ‘Rite to Sight’ – the provision of spectacles to mostly elderly, poor-sighted people in remote areas; and LifeStraws for clean drinking water.The intrepid team have just returned from their latest world-first adventure – this time an expedition called ‘Living Traditions: a journey to Chew Bahir and Beyond’.As always, it’s a story best told in the Greybeard’s own words, taken from the scribbles of his battered expedition journal.It was an incredible adventure – the two Landy Disco’s nicknamed Phokot and Turkana (after two warlike tribes of the Northern Frontier District of Kenya) and the big 130 Heart of Africa Land Rover Defender nicknamed Ndhlovukasi (the great She-elephant), never missed a beat. The expedition team were as tough and capable as ever with Ross Holgate handling all the difficult logistics and veteran Cape Epic cyclist “Shova Shova” Mike Nixon completing the journey by mountain bike. Not only did they succeed in the tough geographic challenge to cross Southern Ethiopia’s great Salt Ocean known as Chew Bahir, in land yachts, by Land Rovers and mountain bike, but also the Chalbi and Karoli Deserts in Northern Kenya.Mission accomplishedEven in the late afternoon the heat that bounced off Ethiopia’s Great Salt Ocean on the very floor of Africa’s Great Rift Valley was mind-numbing and they constantly had to re-hydrate from Lumbaye Lenguru’s kettle of thirst quenching Chai Maziwa (Masai tea-sweet and milky) as they offloaded the land yachts from the roof of Ndhlovukazi.The booms and masts were almost too hot to handle as they repaired some of the batons that were damaged on the crossing of the Chalbi Desert in Northern Kenya. As always, it was a race against the setting sun.Like a bunch of heat-crazed aborigines and pointing up at the sails, the team performed their own Chew Bahir wind dance. Somehow it worked! The wind picked up, albeit in gusts.Ross and Bruce raced off over the rock-hard crust of Chew Bahir and then back again in the dark with the Land Rover headlights to guide them back for camp stew and bedrolls under a Milky Way, punctuated with falling stars until the wind dropped and the mozzies chased them into their pop up tents. In strong winds, with dust devils racing across this somewhat unknown place, the team succeeded in sailing the yachts all the way South and across into Borana country in Kenya.For the expedition team, it was mission accomplished: They had “Land Yachted” Chew Bahir – a world-first! And then it was time to empty the traditional Zulu Calabash of symbolic Cradle of Humankind water, carried all the way from Lesedi Cultural Village in a great celebration that had marked the start of this Land Rover Living Traditions Expedition.The work beginsSomewhat dehydrated with sunburnt noses and rope-burn, blistered hands from the land yacht main sheets, it was with a great feeling of accomplishment that the team packed up and headed along the base of the jagged Hamer Range of mountains to do further humanitarian work and interact with the fascinating tribes of Ethiopia’s South Omo region.“The road, she’s terribly gone,” said Adumasi, their Ethiopian expedition member as they continued to research the fascinating Living Traditions of the area. The group was humbled by the rich beauty of the cultures of the tough nomadic people they came across, the leather skirts decorated with cowrie shells, beads, jewellery, oiled red ochred skins, the loading of camels, meat on the coals, pretty Somali girls, neck rests and ostrich plumes and clay lip plates, peacekeepers with guns, in savage winds and heat.In this remote and forgotten region, the team was made aware of the challenges faced by these minority tribes and the importance of using song and dance to promote peace amongst the warring factions that have been killing each other over land and cattle. So, after the world-first success of crossing Chew Bahir in land yachts and incredible encounters with the wild tribes of the South Omo region of Ethiopia, loads of humanitarian work, the launch of Elephant Art – a conservation education programme to kids in East Africa, and a fascinating journey across the Omo Delta and down the shoreline of the world’s largest desert lake, Turkana, across the floor of the Great Rift Valley and via Africa’s deepest and longest freshwater lake, Tanganyika, they make it back home to Zululand . . . Until the next one!

Land Rover adventurers home from world-first expedition

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Republikein 2025-05-01

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Land Rover adventurers home from world-first expedition

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