The Intrepid Explorer - 4th quarter 2015

www.intrepidexplorer.co.za • 4th Quarter Edition 2015 R29.90 Incl. VAT

UP CLOSE & PERSONAL

WIN

Graham Howe swims with manatees

a trip worth

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FATAL ATTRACTION

to Imbali Safari Lodge!

Tackling Ama Dablam in the Himalayas

River Odyssey

BOLD BIKING

From China to Cape Town From England to Scotland

WINNING WAYS with Mike Horn & Lucas Radebe

Kingsley Holgate’s Zambezi expedition

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ACING GIANTS – Champ AJ Calitz conquers the Drakensberg F M ISSION POSSIBLE – Climbing Kilimanjaro in a wheelchair P USHING LIMITS – Trail running in the Richtersveld B LACK MAMBAS – We salute the Kruger’s female anti-poaching unit A FRICAN ICONS – Photos of our most wild & wonderful places

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CONTENTS 10 FOREWORD

16

Andre Labuschaigne, Cape Union Mart CEO

12 FOREWORD

Dr Shrey Viranna Discovery Vitality CEO

15

COMPETITION Win an incredible two-night stay for two at Imbali Safari Lodge, worth R25 000!

EDITOR’S NOTE

Three years down, and we’re still on the up!

ON THE RIVER OF GOD Kingsley Holgate’s humanitarian expedition along the length of the Zambezi goes in search of adventure—and those in need

18 38 MISSION POSSIBLE Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in a wheelchair may sound unfeasible to most, but not when you’re Michaela Mycroft, writes Miriam Mannak

32 FATAL ATTRACTION Matthew Holt lived to tell the tale of his climb up the perilous Ama Dablam in the Himalayas

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The Intrepid Explorer issue 12

26 UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL Graham Howe goes swimming with mild-mannered manatees in Florida

44

ON THE RUN

Trail runner Bryony McCormick tries to find out why people like her enter ultra-distance races such as the Richtersveld Wildrun

50 KEEPING UP WITH THE JOHNSONS Angus Begg catches up with an intrepid couple who completed a transcontinental cycling expedition from Kashgar to Cape Town

56 CAUTION: BLACK MAMBA TERRITORY A highly lauded group of mostly women rangers are keeping our rhinos safe

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4 TH Q UART ER EDIT IO N 2015

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64

SURF AND TURF

JOY TO YOUR WORLD!

South African veteran surfer Justin Healy tells Angus Begg all about his experience at this year’s SA Champs—in and out of the water

Christmas shopping can be daunting, confusing, exhausting and expensive, so let Nick Dall be your personal shopper

72 MUD, SWEAT AND GEARS Ronnie Muhl and his wife savoured the scenery (and ale) cycling from England to Scotland, “End to End”

68 82 LIFE THROUGH THE LENS David Bristow gives a sneak peek at African Icons: a new coffee-table book of photographs from 21 locations in wild and wonderful Africa

76 LIVE A HEALTHY LIFE OF ADVENTURE

Wellness advice from Discovery Vitality 80 FACING GIANTS

AJ Calitz conquers one of the country’s best hiking trails in the Drakensberg

88 ON THE WILD SIDE

News from the outdoors

94 HIT THE ROAD, JACK! Catch a sighting of the latest motor vehicles

98 CAPE UNION MART

STORE LISTINGS 99 THE LAST LAUGH

WINNING WAYS ngus Begg has a man-to-man A chat with explorer and adventurer Mike Horn about motivating himself and others

www.intrepidexplorer.co.za

Graham Howe tastes his way through American whiskey country

100 THE LAST WORD We cornered former Bafana and Leeds United captain, Lucas Radebe, for a oneon-one

The Intrepid Explorer issue 12

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FO R E WO RD

Dear Cape Union Mart

Explorers!

I

trust you are all well. As we approach the end of another year, I can’t help but reflect on what an exciting one it has been. We are showing solid growth as a business. We opened more stores across our Cape Union Mart, Old Khaki, Poetry and Tread+Miller brands—bringing our total store count from 100 in 2011 to over 180 collectively by the end of 2015. Tread+Miller is our brand-new urban footwear store, and it has already exceeded our expectations. We will have nine stores by the end of this year.

During October, our Cape Town-based K-Way factory won the National Award for productivity in the sector in which it competes. This year, K-Way will produce some 500 000 ‘home-sewn’ garments, which our customers are snapping up in our Cape Union Mart stores across South Africa, Namibia and Botswana. This represents a major portion of our entire K-Way offering.

Our store staff are ready to offer you the best service in our industry. They are also humans, though, and there will be a few cases where—despite our major focus on customer service—our clientele will still not be satisfied. Our doors are open; please contact us immediately to address any annoying issues.

Fortunately, I receive many more compliments than complaints in my chair.

We will be offering exciting new stock soon—especially gifts and gadgets for the festive season.

When you think ‘gifts’, you should think Cape Union Mart first! We’ll make it easy for you!

I wish you and your loved ones a very meaningful festive season, and a peaceful and prosperous New Year.

Yours in adventure,

Andre Labuschaigne Chief Executive Officer Cape Union Mart

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The Intrepid Explorer issue 12

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Explorer The Intrepid

FO R E WO RD

Live the life of Adventure

Publishing Editor ROBBIE STAMMERS robbie@intrepidexplorer.co.za Art Director STACEY STORBECK NEL stacey@insightspublishing.co.za Chief Sub-Editor TANIA GRIFFIN tania@insightspublishing.co.za Advertising Sales Director KEITH HILL keith@intrepidexplorer.co.za

Get

healthy– and get rewarded

G

etting active is a key component to getting healthy, which is why I find this time of year exciting. We at Vitality have built an extensive physical-activity platform to make exercise accessible and rewarding for members.

With the arrival of summer, we’ll all be spending more time outdoors. With this new collaboration, you’ll be seeing a bit more of Discovery Vitality in The Intrepid Explorer. An active lifestyle, healthy choices and outdoor activities are all things we have in common. Together, we hope to encourage you to eat healthier, take better care of yourself and be more physically active. Part of our aim at Vitality is to create opportunities for people of all ages and fitness levels to get more active and improve their health. We make the benefits of a healthy lifestyle fun and easier to access, and we reward efforts to be healthier.

In the new year, The Intrepid Explorer will include more health and wellness advice, as well as special features such as celebrity chef recipes.

Outdoors with family is where I hope to spend a lot of the upcoming holiday. As a Team Vitality member, I have my finger on the pulse with their weekly reminders of upcoming cycling races around the country. And when there isn’t a race nearby, I know my two boys will leap at the chance to join me on a bicycle as part of my weekly training schedule. I always wear a fitness device, as I find the technology helps me stay motivated—even while taking a break.

With Vitality Active Rewards, which we introduced earlier this year, everyone has the chance to earn a free coffee or smoothie every week, simply by reaching their own personalised exercise goal.

Before your vacation, also take time to reflect on everything achieved and explored. Set new goals. Be safe and stay active. Live your adventurous, active lifestyle—and be rewarded for it. The world is there to explore!

Advertising Manager KYLE VILLET kyle@intrepidexplorer.co.za Office Manager TARYN KERSHAW taryn@insightspublishing.co.za Financial Manager Sarah Buluma sarah@intrepidexplorer.co.za Social Media Platforms JESS MOUNEIMNE/JAM MEDIA jess@jammedia.co.za Editorial Contributors Kingsley Holgate, Miriam Mannak, Matthew Holt, Graham Howe, Bryony McCormick, Angus Begg, Nick Dall, Ronnie Muhl, AJ Calitz, Lucas Radebe Photography Cover: Morné van Zyl Dollar Photo Club, Greg Labuscagne, Graham Howe, Matthew Holt, Fiona McIntosh, Pat and Roger de la Harpe, www.lucasradebe.com Back Office Support and Accounts Solutions PBS Accounting & Administration Services: Peter Sharp Cape Union Mart www.capeunionmart.co.za Marketing Manager: Odile Hufkie Group Marketing Manager: Marlene Marais Discovery Senior Brand Manager: Millicent Banda Divisional Manager – Commercial Discovery Vitality: Mateboho Malope Printer RSA Litho Distribution Cape Union Mart stores On The Dot Distribution Media Support Services Special thanks to Peter Sharp PUBLISHED BY

Managing Director: Robbie Stammers Physical address: 174A Main Road, Claremont, 7700, Cape Town Postal address: PO Box 23692, Claremont, 7735 Telephone: +27 (0) 21 683 0005 Websites: www.intrepidexplorer.co.za www.insightspublishing.co.za

Yours in good health,

Dr Shrey Viranna Chief Executive Officer Discovery Vitality

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The Intrepid Explorer issue 12

No article or any part of any article may be reproduced without the prior written consent of the publisher. The information provided and opinions expressed in this publication are provided in good faith, but do not necessarily represent the opinions of Cape Union Mart (PTY) Ltd, Insights Publishing or the editor. Neither this magazine, the publisher or Cape Union Mart can be held legally liable in any way for damages of any kind whatsoever arising directly or indirectly from any facts or information provided or omitted in these pages, or from any statements made or withheld by this publication.

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C ONT R IB U TO RS

› Humanitarian, explorer and Royal

Geographical Society Fellow, Kingsley Holgate has been described as “the most travelled man in Africa”, and models himself on Dr David Livingstone—often following in this great man’s footsteps through the continent. With the Kingsley Holgate Foundation, he aims to “save and improve lives through adventure” by staging humanitarian expeditions to needy areas.

› Bryony McCormick is a freelance

writer and editor from Cape Town with a passion for travel, adventure sports and the outdoors. Her say-yes-nowand-think-about-it-later approach to living has led her to some far-off corners of the world, up treacherously high mountains, through wild countries and along pristine coastlines. Bryony likes animals, her boyfriend, fresh bread covered in butter, and books. Her dream home is a caravan. › Andre “AJ” Calitz is a trail runner

who has made his mark on the South African scene, setting course records at almost every race. He came to trail running in 2011 with a strong pedigree and has been a multiple All-Africa Triathlon Champion, South African Duathlon and Triathlon Champion and South African Cycling Champion. He also holds silver medals for Two Oceans and Comrades finishes.

As of 2013, AJ became a full-time athlete.

› Angus Begg likes to giggle, but he’s

serious about his craft. A CNN awardwinning television producer, he was the first South African broadcast journalist to report from the chaos of Somalia in 1992. It was these episodes in Somalia and Rwanda that took him the roundabout route to the fields of travel and environment, in which he now writes, produces and photographs. Angus has gone on to cover every aspect of travel—whether rural communities clashing with wildlife, tracking the Serengeti migration, hiking Table Mountain or searching for that perfect Sauvignon blanc.

› Matthew Holt is a self-confessed

list-ticker. He’s climbed the seven continental summits, skied the last degree to both Poles and, so far, climbed more than 30 of the world’s 50 most prominent peaks. He’s also chanced his luck at bog snorkelling, cheese rolling, wife carrying and bull running. A freelance writer based in Cape Town, Matthew is the author of two books: The Miles High Club and Life’s Rich Tapestry.

› Graham Howe is one of South Africa’s

most experienced lifestyle journalists; he has contributed hundreds of food, wine and travel features to South African and British publications for more than 25 years. When not exploring the Cape Winelands, this adventurous globetrotter reports on exotic destinations around the world as a travel correspondent, and for the weekly travel show on SAfm.

› Miriam Mannak is

a journalist and photographer​based in Cape Town. She c​ overs a range of​ topics including travel and tourism in southern Africa and related issues such as the environment and sustainable social development.

› Nick Dall is a freelance writer who

has lived and fished all over the world—postings include Italy, Argentina, Bolivia and Vietnam but he’s back in Cape Town rediscovering the trout streams and dams of his youth.

Nick’s young daughter and his mortgage also suggest he’s finally settling down.

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The Intrepid Explorer issue 12

› Ronnie Muhl is the managing director

of Adventures Global. He is an athlete, adventurer, author and inspirational speaker who hold talks both locally and internationally. In recent years, he has climbed Mount Everest thrice, twice leading international teams to the Roof of the World. In 2007, Ronnie became the seventh South African to summit via the northeast ridge.

www.intrepidexplorer.co.za

ED ITO R’S N OTE

THREE YEARS DOWN, and we’re

STILL ON THE UP

I

can’t believe this edition of The Intrepid Explorer marks the occasion of our third year publishing “Our Baby”.

It was three years ago that—following blood, sweat and tears—we unveiled the inaugural edition of the magazine at a lavish function at Cape Union Mart in Canal Walk; I fondly recall Cape Union Mart CEO Andre Labuschaigne announcing to the crowd, “I was bowled over and still am. A day seldom goes by that I don’t open it [the magazine]. I got so many compliments from all over the show. It is without a doubt one of the most professional projects in my time at Cape Union Mart!”

High praise, indeed, and it makes the burning of midnight oil feel worthwhile. The tight deadlines, hard research, Eskom power outages and Skype glitches made our life a tad more difficult—but in the end, we made it! The tough times made us appreciate the good times even more.

As a tribute to the first edition that had the great Kingsley Holgate on the cover, we’re honoured to celebrate our third year by once again featuring him—on yet another expedition.

Let’s take a brief look back at the other personalities who have graced our covers over this period.

› EDITION 1: Kingsley Holgate, the Greybeard of Africa—a great humanitarian, and considered the most travelled man in Mama Afrika. › EDITION 2: Sir Ranulph Fiennes, coined as the greatest living explorer by the Guinness World Records. › EDITION 3: Wilbur Smith, one of the world’s most celebrated novelists and an adventurer in his own right. › EDITION 4: Paul Myburgh—filmmaker, photographer and author who spent seven years “physically and spiritually immersed, living with the Bushmen in the Kalahari”. This is one of my favourite covers of my career; art director Stacey so cleverly combined half of Paul’s face and half of a Bushman’s to form one image. › EDITION 5: Prince Harry, who joined war heroes on a 335-kilometre trek to the South Pole. › EDITION 6: Sir Richard Branson—his galactic records and intrepid feats outside the business realm. › EDITION 7: Sean Disney and Vaughan de la Harpe, who notched up the Explorers Grand Slam—climbing the world’s highest Seven Summits and skiing to the two Poles. › EDITION 8: Lewis Pugh, who swam the world’s seven seas in his campaign to save our oceans. › EDITION 9: The Volvo Ocean Race’s Team Dongfeng, taking on the nine-month circumnavigation of the world by yacht. › EDITION 10: Hanli Prinsloo—South African freediving champion and ocean conservation leader. › EDITION 11: Chris Bertish—our record-smashing adventure surfer and standup paddleboard multiple record-holder.

Thanks so much to The Intrepid Explorer team who have travelled this road with me; it’s been an absolute honour and a privilege.

Here’s to many more!

I would also like to thank the superb team from Cape Union Mart and their unfailing support; we’re truly blessed to work with such incredible people and such a prestigious company. We’re also very happy to announce our new relationship with Discovery Vitality and credit division, which is going to help us reach another fantastic audience and ensure The Intrepid Explorer continues climbing that mountain of success!

Lastly, but most importantly, our gratitude to you—our loyal readers. Your support and feedback has been incredible. Please

keep doing so! Don’t forget to download your free digital version of The Intrepid Explorer via the Apple App Store and Google Play, and like us on Facebook (theintrepidexplorerSA).

Enjoy the holidays, and remember the wise words of American author James Dent: “A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawnmower is broken!”

Live the life of adventure!

Robbie Stammers Publishing Editor

Congratulations to the winners of our last edition’s competitions!

The BIG winner of the incredible trip worth R51 000 to Sir Richard Branson’s Ulusaba Private Game Reserve is Marna Kleynhans.

Ravind Lawton wins Chris Bertish’s book, Stoked!. www.intrepidexplorer.co.za

The Intrepid Explorer issue 12

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C OMPE T IT I O N

win big

with Imbali and The Intrepid Explorer

One lucky reader will enjoy an incredible stay for two in the Kruger, worth R25 000!

Imbali Safari Lodge is an exclusive establishment within the world-renowned Kruger National Park, continuing the safari tradition of a bygone era.

T

he central point within the 10 000-hectare Mluwati private concession, the lodge offers accommodation in 12 spacious, private suites—each furnished in understated luxury with only the finest furniture and imported linen. Each suite has exquisite views from the spacious wooden decks and private plunge pool overlooking the Nwatsitswonto riverbed and the plains beyond.

In the 1900s, the African Safari was a journey of great danger, and even greater luxury. Follow in the footsteps of the original adventurers who explored this vast wilderness. Experience magnificent hospitality, exceptional service and

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The Intrepid Explorer issue 12

gastronomic excellence— ensuring an unforgettable safari experience.

To enter, send the answer to the question below, along with your name and contact details, to taryn@insightspublishing.co.za before 31 January 2016.

Question: In which private concession is Imbali Safari Lodge situated?

Terms and conditions › Winners will be notified via telephone or email. › The prize includes accommodation for two for two nights, three meals and two

game drives per day, as well as gate entry fees. Beverages and items of a personal nature are excluded. › The prize is valid for six months from date of issue, and is not redeemable for cash nor transferable. › Winners are responsible for their own transport to the Kruger Park.

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The Intrepid Explorer issue 12

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KIN GS L EY H O L GATE

On God

THE RIVER OF

Kingsley Holgate’s humanitarian expedition along the length of the Zambezi goes in search of adventure— and those in need

Mama Afrika remains one of the last frontiers of great adventures, and it never fails to surprise me just how quickly a vision can become scribbled notes, hand-drawn sketches—and then reality.

Our boat is a first of its kind on the 2 574-kilometre Zambezi River. We named it the Ma Robert, after Victorian explorer Dr David Livingstone’s very first steam-driven iron boat in which he tried—in 1858—to prove that the Zambezi was navigable upstream all the way from the Indian Ocean to the Batoka Gorge below the Victoria Falls. Our comparative journey forms part of a four-chapter downstream odyssey from Barotseland to the mouth of the great Zambezi at Chinde. www.intrepidexplorer.co.za

The Intrepid Explorer issue 12

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KIN G SL EY H O LG ATE

T

he Ma Robert is a massive 10-metre long, rubberpontooned, breakdown-and-put-ona-trailer type of expedition craft, capable of handling rapids and rough water. You can pitch tents and live on board, but mostly nose onto an island or sandbank and camp for the night. And she’s big enough to load a Landy. The entire contraption—with Yamaha outboards, expedition equipment and aluminium tender—fits onto a trailer and a 130 Land Rover Defender.

Just as it was in Livingstone’s time, much of the river remains a high-risk malaria area, and many of the villages have little or no healthcare. So in keeping with our slogan of “Saving and Improving Lives through Adventure”, we use the Ma Robert as a ‘clinic boat’ to conduct malaria education work, together with Mashozi’s Rite to Sight campaign that provides spectacles to poor-sighted, mostly elderly people; as well as LifeStraws for purifying water, especially away from the river where clean drinking water is often a problem. The Ma Robert is also capable of ferrying our Land Rovers

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The Intrepid Explorer issue 12

across rivers and lakes to reach communities that have no health facilities.

Our journey begins in the vast Barotse Floodplain in northwestern Zambia, the river kingdom of the friendly Lozi people who, every year, celebrate the more than 300-years-old Kuomboka ceremony in which the Litunga (king of Barotseland), dressed in a replica of a British admiral’s uniform, is carried to his high-ground palace at Limulunga. It’s a sight to behold: A colourful flotilla of hundreds of dugout canoes accompanies the zebra-striped royal barge called the Nalikwanda, powered by 120 paddlers dressed in wild-animal skins, ostrich plumes and colourful cloth, complete with an on-board royal orchestra of xylophones and drums.

Downstream, a basalt dyke forms the beautiful Sioma/Ngonye Falls, first seen by Dr Livingstone on 30 November 1853. He was as impressed by the falls as we were, and wrote: “The water goes boiling along, and gives the idea of great masses of it rolling over and over, so that even the most expert swimmer would find it difficult to keep on the surface… Viewed from the mass of rock which overhangs the fall, the scenery was the loveliest I had seen.” This was before Livingstone had set eyes on Mosi-oa-Tunya: the Victoria Falls.

The fast current funnels us downstream.

The Zambezi is in full spate. It’s not easy— and when the river divides into many fingers, we get caught up swirling through 360 degrees in a very fast-flowing section, colliding with trees and bushes that tear at the pontoons. The ripping, grating sounds, along with the flexing of metal decking plates, make me wonder if this will be the end of the expedition before it’s hardly begun. Skipper Ross’s shouted instructions from the bridge are swallowed

PREVIOUS SPREAD: Finally the wind settles as we near the dam wall of Africa’s fourth largest lake, Cahora Bassa THIS PAGE: The Ma Robert is capable of ferrying the Land Rovers across rivers, allowing us to do much-needed humanitarian work in Africa’s most rural areas OPPOSITE PAGE: Not knowing what to expect, camping where we end up—under a canopy of stars on the banks of the great Zambezi

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KIN S L EY H O L GATE

Like Livingstone’s 1858 journey, ours too has been an incredible odyssey: by Land Rover, boat and mountain bike—a year in the making, and over four months and 2 000km on the river by the wind: We can’t hear a bloody thing and it’s a nerve-wracking ride for such a big boat, with shallow rocks making steering difficult, especially when we have to raise the outboard motor and are at the mercy of the current. But Ross does a sterling job as Bruce and Joe push her off rocks and banks with long poles. Later, Bruce and Mike go ahead in the ‘tinny’ called Baines and find a way through more rapids—26 in total. Somehow the Ma Robert survives and we’re all amazed at how stable she is; it’s the massive pontoons that do the job.

We pull up at Sesheke, and some of the crew walk into town for two jerry cans of boat fuel—and come back with a bonus

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of bread, meat and some vegetables.

Day 6 of the expedition, and it’s late afternoon by the time we pull up on the Zambian shoreline under a giant muhonono tree on a small beach the Lozi call Mamjingongo. It’s been a fulfilling few days. We’ve done malaria prevention and Mashozi’s Rite to Sight upriver, remaining true to the expedition’s ideal of using the voyage of the Ma Robert to do great community work.

Around the fire that night, Mike’s goat meat and bean stew is so chilli-hot that it has everybody sniffing. We chat about how it must have been on Livingstone’s Ma Robert 156 years ago on the lower part of the Zambezi.

LIFE ON THE RIVER Hippos grunt and nightjars call throughout the night. The ratchet screams on Bruce’s night line, and Ross comes scrambling down the ladder from the top deck where he’d been sleeping. It gets away, but wakes up the whole camp. There’s no other river to compare with it, and in the early morning we hear the distant characteristic sound—“dudu, dudu, du-du-du”—of ground hornbills, now as endangered as Africa’s rhinos.

And then it’s down the swollen river across the vast endless vista of reed and grass plains. We continue into the dark, no sandbanks to camp on; the lights of Kasane appearing in the distance. We pull into a tributary and throw anchor. We lie like sardines in our bedrolls; it’s a restless night. Then back downriver, the 50-horsepower, four-stroke Yamaha pushing us toward the Mvombo Rapids as a massive croc slides into the river; on the southern bank, dusty elephants come down to drink and one young bull mock-charges the Ma Robert.

On the left, we pass the Old Drift where the original village of Livingstone had been situated and where the graves of the early pioneers, many of them victims of black-water fever and malaria, still nestle among the trees in an area that’s home to southern Zambia’s last remaining rhino.

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KIN G SL EY H O LG ATE

THE SMOKE THAT THUNDERS It’s been 14 days from when we started, and there’s great excitement as we reach the spray of Mosi-oa-Tunya, The Smoke That Thunders, the greatest waterfall of them all. The flooding is late this year, and over 500 million litres per minute are tumbling over the lip of the falls into the spray-filled chasm below. In honour of his regent queen, Livingstone named this place of great beauty the Victoria Falls.

Said to be the widest curtain of falling water in the world, they are as spectacular now as when he first discovered them on 16 November 1855.

In the heat of the Zambezi, it’s a brutal task to unbolt the Ma Robert and load her piece by piece onto a trailer that the big 130 Land Rover Defender will tow around the falls for the start of the next leg. A drill

bit snaps and goes through Ross’s foot.

Soon it’s septic and the antibiotics seem not to be working. As if by some crazy coincidence, he then is stung by a poisonous scorpion close to the wound.

He ends up in hospital; he may lose a piece of his foot, but time and the Nyami Nyami—the river god of the Zambezi— intervenes and Ross is reunited with the expedition.

THE 18-HOUR SLOG It’s slow going, at low ratio, with the smell of brakes all around; it’s a real test for the overloaded Defender towing the Ma

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Robert down the Zambezi escarpment to below the Victoria Falls and the furious rapids of the Batoka Gorge. In the blinding heat, we begin to reassemble the boat.

We work for an hour, rest for 10 minutes and carry on, hour after hour—sweating so severely that by the end of the day, six people consume over 150 litres of water.

Eighteen hours later, she’s up and running, loaded, resupplied and making her way down Devil’s Gorge, aptly named as the fierce heat bounces off its rocky cliff faces.

I’d been looking forward to the wide open spaces of the 220km long Lake Kariba, but three days later it’s not only suicide season, with temperatures soaring into the 40s, but the wind howls directly up the lake, straight onto the nose of the Ma Robert.

At Milibizi the expedition team splits, some remaining on the Ma Robert while

others continue to follow the shore in the Land Rovers, bringing in fuel and supplies and doing invaluable humanitarian work in isolated villages. The broken roads are torturous on both man and machine: up and over the escarpment, sometimes averaging only 10km/h, with the suspension creaking and groaning— but the Landies continue, relentless.

Expedition cyclist Mike Nixon is doing the journey by mountain bike. He leaves every morning around 4 a.m. to cycle before the heat devours him and until the Land Rovers catch him up. He can’t carry enough water, so he takes a LifeStraw and

drinks from muddy waterholes along the route. The distribution of LifeStraws is a Kingsley Holgate Foundation initiative.

Nearly one in five child deaths, about 1.5 million each year, is due to diarrhoea.

This campaign provides small filters to communities in deep rural areas where drinking water is a severe health problem.

Each LifeStraw filters at least 1 000 litres of contaminated water, providing safe drinking water that’s enough for one person for one year.

HIGH WINDS AND ELEPHANTS Locals say it’s the worst winds they’ve had in 30 years. There’s not another boat on the water; even some of the kapenta rigs have been torn from their moorings and tossed onto the rocks. The Landy crew gets this garbled message from Ross on the sat

ABOVE, LEFT: Holding our homemade cardboardbox sign and good-luck Nyami Nyami carving, with the waves of the Indian Ocean lapping our ankles at the end of another great adventure ABOVE, MIDDLE: It’s the razor-sharp mopani trees lying in wait just beneath the surface—and not the elephant—that threaten to pierce the pontoons OPPOSITE PAGE: There’s nothing quite like an African sunset

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KIN GS L EY H O L GATE

phone: “Ma Robert is taking a hammering, and the razor-sharp dead mopani trees that stab through the water threaten to tear the pontoons apart. Found an anchorage last night; just settling down when we got charged by an angry elephant—bloody funny! Bruce was in the bush with his shorts around his knees— came out of there like a kid in a sack race!”

That’s the last we hear of them for three days as we hole up at Bumi. Then, from a high wind-swept vantage point, through the binoculars we spy their outline creeping around the headland. The sailors look like they’d been pulled through a bush backward. With boat and Land Rover party reunited, we swop epic adventure stories of the past week and plan the next section of the lake before crawling under the mosquito nets.

historic Nile, the Rufiji and the Rovuma, the Tana, Semliki and Pangani, the great Niger of West Africa, the beautiful Shire River, the Kafue and our own Tugela and many others. But we all agree that our favourite remains the Zambezi: the beauty of the upper river; the stunning wildlife areas where Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia and Namibia meet at the confluence with the Chobe; the Katambora Rapids and to the mighty Victoria Falls. Then down the Batoka Gorge it races into Kariba and the wildlife Eden below—what a river, and what an incredible odyssey!

The Land Rovers follow on the Zambian side. It’s a race against time, and every day counts as the black clouds threaten. The roads will soon become impassable in the wet conditions. We sleep on sandy beaches around hardwood fires, lion and

We take a day’s rest. With not a breath of wind, we make the last dash across the lake to Kariba town and the obstruction of the dam wall. The prickly heat and the humidity are as thick as pea soup, and curious elephants take immense interest in our dismantling of the Ma Robert which, by now, has become like home.

hyena too close for comfort. And always with the music of the river: the grunting of countless hippos, the bird calls. And the sight of prehistoric crocodiles lurking in the water, their eyes gleaming in the torch light. Elephants shake their heads and trumpet at the sight of the Ma Robert.

During Dr Livingstone’s transcontinental trip down this section of the Zambezi in December 1855, he wrote: “We saw many elephants among the hills, and my men ran off and killed three... The plain below us, at the left of the Kafue, had more large game on it than anywhere else I had seen in Africa.

Hundreds of buffaloes and zebras grazed on

AFRICA’S MOST BEAUTIFUL Three days later, sitting around the fire on a sandbank in the Kariba Gorge, we talk about Africa’s rivers and how privileged we’ve been to explore so many journeys of discovery: down the giant Congo and the

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the open spaces, and there stood lordly elephants feeding majestically… I wished that I had been able to take a photograph of a scene so seldom beheld, and which is destined—as guns increase—to pass away from Earth.”How right he was. Fortunately, thanks to conservation measures, the Zambezi valley remains one of the finest wildlife areas in Africa.

“FINISH THE JOB” Down through the beautiful Mupata Gorge, we reach Luangwa town at the confluence of the Luangwa and Zambezi rivers where Zambia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe meet. Fiercely high winds and huge swells on the 300km long lake of Cahora Bassa (in the Mozambican Nyungwe language, Kahoura-Bassa— meaning “finish the job”) now threaten

to finish us off. We can average only 5km an hour; if this keeps up, it’ll take five days to complete the lake and we definitely don’t have enough fuel.

BAD NEWS Once again the bloody wind has beaten us and chowed our fuel. We pull into a sheltered bay to escape. Then we get more bad news: Expedition member Bruce Leslie is down with malaria. We’ve all suffered before, and that’s why we do so much educational work with communities to fight this killer disease.

Worried about Bruce, we’re up at dawn

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KIN G SL EY H O LG ATE

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: Saving and improving lives through adventure; Peter Kasesa from Mvuu Camp hands over the symbolic carving of Nyami Nyami, the Zambezi river god; It was here at Chupanga that Dr Livingstone’s wife, Mary, died of malaria on the banks of the Zambezi—the disease still kills a baby every minute of every day in Africa

and it’s still head-on into the fierce Cahora Bassa wind! We’re constantly wet and hanging on for dear life, with the clatter of pots and equipment, and the sound of the engine as the prop clears the water over steep waves. And then, by some miracle, the winds drop and the water flattens.

“Mashovashova” Mike pitches up on a borrowed boat. He got the message that we’re short on fuel and has brought supplies. The sunset turns the water yellow-gold as we enter the deep, narrow Cahora Bassa Gorge. Even with only 40km to go to get to Bruce, we daren’t travel after dark: One sharp dead tree branch sticking out of the water could be the end of a pontoon. We find a secret cove with a narrow entrance between two windsculptured rock islands.

“THAT DAMNED GORGE” On 8 November 1858 Livingstone, engineer George Rae and botanist John Kirk set off in their Ma Robert for “that damned gorge”, Kebrabassa—now called Cahora Bassa. Obviously, there was no dam wall in those days. As it still is on the Zambezi today, malaria was common back then and Livingstone’s other crew members—artist Thomas Baines, geologist Richard Thornton and Livingstone’s brother Charles—were all down with fever and remained behind in Tete. Imagine their distress when, after a day and a half of steaming upstream against the current, they found their passage blocked by massive rapids and waterfalls. They struggled for four days up the gorge.

Then Livingstone’s worst fears came true: The navigation of his “River of God” was stymied by a thundering, 30-foot high waterfall. His Zambezi expedition had failed—it was a forlorn, dispirited team who struggled back to Tete.

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But 157 years later, we reach the dam wall close to where Livingstone had turned back. Bruce is too weak to help with the dismantling of the Ma Robert, which we need in order to get round to Tete and to rebuild for the final push to the Zambezi Delta on the Indian Ocean.

We’ve made it! The chapter from Mvuu Camp on the Lower Zambezi to Cahora Bassa and Tete is complete. Bruce is on his feet as we bolt the Ma Robert together again. From here to the Indian Ocean, we’re going with the lower deck only, as sandbanks will be a problem and we need to be as light as possible.

AN EXPEDITION MILESTONE Downstream from the old slave trade port of Tete, we reach the dramatic steep-sided Lupata Gorge—in the centre of which stands Mozambique Island, rising like a giant plum pudding. Little to nothing has changed here since Livingstone’s time.

This is how he must’ve seen it when he steamed past in September 1858 in his own Ma Robert, which was so slow that he complained her engines would have been more suitable for grinding coffee.

By comparison, we’re fine: The massive pontoons, despite wear and tear and many abrasions, glide through the water. The lighter Ma Robert is faster and we’re averaging around 15km/h depending on the current. Ross is an expert at reading the river, picking out the channels that zigzag between the sandbanks. Gareth, our expedition conservationist—aka The Snoring Naturalist—is doing a croc and hippo count from Tete to the sea. We drift under the Dona Ana Bridge that spans the lower Zambezi River between the towns of Vila de Sena and Mutarara in Mozambique, effectively linking the two halves of the country.

MARY LIVINGSTONE’S GRAVE An early sketch made when we first reached Mary Livingstone’s grave in 1993 reminds us of how difficult it’d been back then. We’d cut our way through the bush and replaced the cast-iron cross that had been shot off during the civil war, then called for a moment of silence. A few years ago, we distributed mosquito nets to the pregnant mothers in the area. At the local clinic, we are now told that since then, malaria has decreased by 75%. The mothers are called back and told to bring their old mosquito nets, which we replace. Now once again we can prevent the mums and children of the area from suffering the same fate as Mary, who died a lonely death from malaria on 27 April 1862, aged 41.

At the Zambezi Delta, we take the southeast channel with our clear objective being to reach the Indian Ocean before nightfall. The wind and the tide are against us; exposed mud banks show a massive tidal difference. By late afternoon on day 124, we nose the pontoons onto a sand spit that juts out into the ocean.

Like Livingstone’s 1858 journey, ours too has been an incredible odyssey: by Land Rover, boat and mountain bike; a year in the making, and over four months and 2 000km on the river; endless sunsets, wildlife, propeller-eating rapids and magnificent waterfalls, treacherous winds, pushing over sandbanks, hundreds of campfires, buckets of sweat, hippos and crocs and millions of mozzies, lots of laughs… and the privilege of using these adventures to save and improve lives.

We’ve spent years on this river: expeditions from the Angolan border to the sea, and from the mouth—the source—in northwestern Zambia. Dr Livingstone called it “The River of God”. To us, it remains the most beautiful in the world.

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UP CLOSE AND Every year hundreds of manatees migrate from the cold waters of the Gulf of Mexico upstream to the hot springs of Florida.

Graham Howe goes swimming with these gentle giants

PERSONAL I went all the way to Citrus County in Florida to swim with wild manatees: the legendary sea cows that inspired ancient sailors’ tales of mermaids. The warm waters of pristine rivers fed by dozens of hot springs—known as the Manatee Highway— are home to the largest concentration of this endangered species in the world.

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The Intrepid Explorer issue 12

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xploring King’s Bay in a small boat at sunset, we kept a lookout for the telltale bubbles of oxygen breathed out by manatees lying beneath us on the riverbed. Around Parker Island, a wildlife refuge, the manatee mothers and calves were surprisingly elusive. Weighing in at an average 600 kilogrammes and up to four metres long, you’d think these gentle giants would be easy to spot in shallow waters.

The tropical landscape and balmy evening breeze cast a languid spell.

The island—a lush raft of cypress trees, cabbage palms, southern magnolias, oaks and sawgrass—glowed in the golden light

tomorrow. No one ever leaves here without seeing a manatee.”

To compensate, he pointed out John Travolta’s swanky new villa on the banks of the river; he flies his own plane to the local landing strip. We didn’t spot him either.

And our pilot pointed out the hotel where Elvis Presley filmed Follow That Dream in 1962, as well as local hangouts such as Crackers and Neon Leon’s Zydeco Steak House where signed Lynyrd Skynyrd guitars hang on the walls.

We headed back to Plantation, our grand southern lodge on the waterfront, where we tucked into local delicacies like crab chowder, Gulf Coast shrimp, Cajun scallops and lobster with creamy grits.

We pulled on our wetsuits at dawn, and went back out onto the river. Today was

of sunset. Cormorants perched cheekily on a sign, teasing: “Manatee Refuge: Idle Zone: No wake!” Ospreys nested in the trees; great blue herons waded in the reeds; wood ducks, egrets and storks made a cacophony of birdsong at dusk—but the shy manatees remained silent and out of sight.

“You know, we have two high seasons at Crystal River,” explained the pilot of our boat.

“The manatee season from November to March, and the scalloping season from July to September. The trouble is, you’re here in May.” Just my luck. After a pause, he added: “But there are still a few manatees hanging around, so I suggest you come back early

a good morning to meet manatees. Jeff Mauldlin, a master captain in the US Coast Guard, would be our experienced pilot and guide. Before we even boarded his boat, we had to learn the elaborate protocol on “manatee manners”: the conservation code enforced by the US Fish and Wildlife Service under the Marine Mammal Protection Act in order to protect the endangered manatee in wildlife sanctuaries like Kings Bay. We were soon chanting the manatee mantra, which encourages what is called “passive observation”. Manatee etiquette is pretty damn obvious, even to the uninitiated: Do not disturb, touch, feel,

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hold, ride, surround, stand on, chase, pursue, poke, prod, pinch, stab or otherwise harass a manatee at any time. Duh! We were told not to dive into the water or splash, not to stir up sediment, not to use flippers, make any noise or separate a calf from its mother or group. Around here, the manatees have right of way. Now that’s a lot to remember when you finally spot a manatee and leap enthusiastically—oops, ease gently—into the water. It’s best to wear a wetsuit so you get good flotation on the surface; and most importantly, a snorkel and mask so you can see underwater.

Manatees spend most of the day grazing in shallow one- to two-metre deep waters, and surface to breathe every 10 to 20 minutes—leaving a telltale trail of bubbles.

They spend half their time sleeping, which

PREVIOUS SPREAD: These endangered sea mammals love to swim in the warm spring waters of Florida’s rivers THIS PAGE, LEFT: Parker Island on the Crystal River, a favourite feeding ground on the Manatee Highway in Florida THIS PAGE, RIGHT: Graham Howe gets in the water to swim with the manatees OPPOSITE PAGE, LEFT: Feeding time at Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park in northwestern Florida OPPOSITE PAGE, RIGHT: In the Florida wetlands, a cormorant shakes its feathers while a snapping turtle ‘logs in’

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GRAH AM H OWE

If you’re really lucky, I hear a curious calf will nuzzle up to you. They’ve been known to chew on human hair and beards, and sometimes show an affinity to children. may explain the sign: “No wake!” (The manatee equivalent of “Do Not Disturb” on your hotel room door.)

I was soon sitting in the back of the boat, ready to leap into the water, sweating it out in my wetsuit on a humid Florida morning. I’d been eating as heartily as a manatee: These herbivorous mammals eat up to 15% of their body weight every day, munching on mounds of seagrass,

around here, either,” the old man of the sea assured us. “The water’s too cold, and there are too many people. You’ve got to watch out for water moccasins, though—those snakes are deadly.” I started to have second thoughts about even dipping a toe into the water.

We were on high manatee alert. A trail of bubbles suddenly broke the surface, like a cascade in a champagne glass. Thar she

channels to Three Sisters Spring, a favourite manatee hangout. The 22°C temperature of the spring waters is perfect for manatees, as they cannot survive cold waters. A curtain of Spanish moss hung over the outstretched cypress branches like a long, white beard.

This time we were in luck. A manatee and calf were feeding on the banks just below the surface. I slipped overboard in a flash, goggles and snorkel on, gently floating alongside—no splash. The water was ‘gin-clear’. Talk about an epiphany.

An up-close and personal encounter with a manatee is an enthralling experience. I floated close enough to count the hairs on her whiskers, watch her dexterously use flippers to tear and scoop vegetation past those amazing lips, gaze into her eyes—and listen to the mighty

hyacinth, water celery, mangrove leaves, alligator weed and marine algae. Except I’d been gorging on southern cuisine of BBQ smoked ribs, deep-fried catfish, chicken and waffles, pulled pork and grits. It was starting to show in my porno-tight wetsuit.

I resolved to pass up on the next slice of key lime pie.

Out on the water, Cap’n Jeff pointed out “the salad bar for manatees”: a floating island of aquatic plants. He assured us he had never taken a boat out and not seen a manatee—not thus far, anyway. We were in good hands. Thirty or so manatees hang around in these balmy waters all-year round. “And we don’t see many gators

blows! We spotted the giant shadow of a manatee and her small calf. Playing peek-a-boo, they vanished coquettishly behind an impenetrable curtain of reeds.

I’m told manatees normally cruise along at a leisurely five kilometres per hour, but can reach a top speed of 30km/h in short bursts to avoid ski boats, which cause many fatalities and injuries every year.

Jeff explained laconically, “Now that’s how a manatee cow flees a pursuing male.

She doesn’t want anything to do with him.

I’ve met a few women like her.” I can relate to that. Who likes to be disturbed at breakfast when you’re having a good feed?

We headed down one of the many

crunch of molars chewing contentedly on a mouthful of gritty grass.

I also learnt the art of silently backpeddling so I didn’t collide with this big babe. I tried not to get stuck at the rear.

I’d read that an adult manatee has a 45m long intestine, takes a week to digest all that fibre, and produces amazing amounts of gas (and plenty of bubbles). Come to think of it, I might have been a manatee in a past life…

If you’re really lucky, I hear a curious calf will nuzzle up to you. They’ve been known to chew on human hair and beards, and sometimes show an affinity to children.

Incredibly, these strange-looking

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FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: A gator basks in the sun at Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park; Never swim in alligator waters; Fluorescent-pink flamingos, natives of Florida

creatures are related to the elephant and the rock hyrax (our South African dassie) and have a proboscis-like snout as well as prehensile lips and flippers. Early mariners thought they were mermaids because of the way they used their flippers to suckle their young on teats; the name manatí, meaning ‘breast’, comes from the Taíno, a pre-Columbian word. Those early sailors must have had really poor eyesight and been missing the women on shore a lot to mistake these four-metre long, whiskered sea cows for mermaids!

Too soon, the moment was over and we were called back to the boat. My mission was accomplished, but I wanted to learn more about manatees so I headed over to the Ellie Schiller Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park, one of the many refuges owned by the State of Florida. This park, set on the Homosassa River in tropical wetlands, has a deep natural spring that pumps out five million litres of crystal-clear warm water every hour.

I wanted to meet the four manatees that are permanent residents of this rehabilitation sanctuary for injured wildlife.

Many wild manatees swim upstream into the park during the winter, but four captive manatees remain all year. They can’t be returned to the wild, as they had been too badly injured in boating accidents. We met Ariel (in her early 40s), Rosie (55 years old), Elektra and Lorelei, some of which weigh in at over 1 800kg. I had many smart questions: How do they get them onto the scales? How do they know they can live up to 70 years?

We observed the celebrity manatees through an underwater glass observatory

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called The Fish Bowl, set in a small lake, where visitors observe the manatees without disturbing them. At feeding time, they get fed four crates of lettuce and bundles of nutritious coastal hay. I watched Ariel eat a whole lettuce in one go, and started thinking about my own lunch.

Carol Andravich, one of the volunteer rangers, talked to the crowd about manatees. She said these well-loved ladies enjoy what she calls “assisted living”. In Florida, you find the West Indian manatees of the Caribbean and Gulf—though you also find Amazonian and West African manatees from Senegal and Niger to Angola and Mozambique. Belonging to the family Trichechidae, manatees descended from four-legged land mammals over 60 million years ago. The dugong is a distant relative. They are an endangered species in Florida, protected by law and adopted as the state marine symbol. But around a hundred are killed every year in boating accidents. A record count of 5 000 manatees was made in the region in a survey during 2010.

While I was there, I enjoyed a boat ride with one of the rangers, spotting alligators, snapping turtles and otters in the pristine Homosassa River. I snapped an alligator next to a sign reading, “No swimming!”

We spotted fluorescent pink flamingos and pelicans as well as two injured American bald eagles, the national symbol of the US. Many of the injured wildlife are eventually released back into the wild. The only non-indigenous resident is Lu, a 55-yearold hippo inherited when the state bought the park in 1984. They were going to relocate Lu, but there was such an outcry

that the governor of Florida declared the hippo a citizen of the state—and gave it a Green Card!

I finished my road trip around central Florida at Silver Springs State Park in Ocala County. This popular national forest with horse-riding, kayaking, biking and hiking trails has been a haven for manatees as well as outdoor enthusiasts for a century.

It’s named after Chief Osceola, who led the Seminole uprising against the early settlers in the great Seminole war of 1835 to 1842.

We took a ride in a glass-bottomed wooden boat named after Chief Charlie Cypress, to see the springs and the remains of old cypress dugouts and Spanish boats sunken in the clear waters of Silver Springs.

Captain Oscar Collins, our pilot, has taken folk out on the river for 50 years. He pointed out a troop of monkeys in the trees, whose ancestors starred in the original Tarzan movie starring Johnny Weissmuller, shot in these lush tropical wetlands in the 1930s.

At the Spring of the Stars, he talked about all the famous actors who have appeared in movies shot here—from Creature from the Black Lagoon to Moonraker.

We stared into the deep abyss of the Devil’s Kitchen, the great mammoth spring that looks like it’s smoking, as millions of litres of water gush into the sand, sending white snowflakes upward. “It’s the only place in Florida it snows every day of the year,” said Captain Collins with a chuckle.

Graham Howe attended IPW 2015 in Orlando as a guest of British Airways, US Travel and Visit Florida. For more information, check out www.ba.com, www.discoveramerica.com and www.visitflorida.com.

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STEP INTO

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conserving a vanishing way of life

MAT T HE W H O LT

Matthew Holt lived to tell the tale of his climb up the perilous Ama Dablam in the Himalayas

FATAL attraction Trekking up the Khumbu Valley toward Everest Base Camp, you’ll be enthralled by a shimmering white peak on your right, almost touching the sky. A shade under 7 000 metres, Ama Dablam is stunning and steep, and many a passerby has vowed to come back and climb it. There’s a big difference, however, between being beautiful to look at and beautiful to climb.

Photographs by Matthew Holt and Fiona McIntosh

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MAT T HE W H O LT

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ast October, Fiona and I joined a commercial expedition attempting its Southwest Ridge. It was one of the few trips on which I’ve departed with my affairs in good order, sending my will to my sister and telling her where the house keys were hidden. This clearly precipitated bad karma.

Flying into Kathmandu, we got caught in a thunderstorm—spending over an hour circling the city, hoping for the clouds to clear. Eventually, running low on fuel, we went in to land, emerging through the cloud base just above the rooftops and slithering down the runway in a sheet of spray. That night, we went out in Thamel to celebrate our safe arrival. And the next morning, we woke to the news that Cyclone Hudhud had killed more than 40 climbers and trekkers.

No matter how many times you’ve been to Kathmandu, it’s still an assault on your senses: the smell of incense and fetid rubbish, the elegant saris and hennaed feet, the emaciated dogs and beggars in the gutter, and the sonorous chant of “Om Mani Padme Hum” playing from every shop.

After a couple of days we flew up to Lukla, a small runway suspended in the clouds and generally credited as the world’s most dangerous airport. Weaving up a narrow gorge surrounded by cliffs, a short strip of tarmac suddenly raced up to meet us. Nepal is no country for aviophobes.

We spent the next five days hiking up the Khumbu Valley, zigzagging across the Dudh Kosi on swaying suspension bridges.

It was a leisurely prelude, though we were kept on our toes remembering the correct way to walk round ‘mani’ stones and dodging yak trains that stampeded down the narrow trail, horns swinging like Pamplona bulls.

Our group wasn’t your typical gnarly climbing team. Besides Fiona and me, there was Hamish, a burly Antipodean decorated with colourful tattoos like a Maori warrior, who claimed to be the chief

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executive of a mining company; Tina, a well-appointed Californian who wore skin-tight leotards and danced along the trail to her iPod; Terri, an angular triathlete who jogged ahead in her running gear, keeping us updated on her lactic-acid breakdown rate; and Mary, a mildmannered English rose who’d studied pirates at Cambridge. Some level of credibility was provided by our two guides—Tim, a gingery Kiwi with an absent-minded air; and Andrew, an athletic rock climber from Nevada—plus our four climbing Sherpas, who all had multiple Everest summits. Nonetheless, lunching in a teahouse in Monjo next to a fourman Austrian team—all hard-bodied and bearded, in matching salopettes—we looked more like a church hall aerobics class.

Just above Namche Bazaar, we got our first view of Ama Dablam, which means “mother’s necklace” in Sherpa. The two long ridges supposedly resemble the mother’s cradling arms, with the hanging glacier

(or dablam) just beneath the summit being her pendant. You mustn’t get carried away with this nurturing image, however, with the dablam regularly avalanching onto the route below—most disastrously in 2006 when it hit Camp Three and swept away six sleeping climbers.

On the sixth day, we reached Base Camp—a large, grassy meadow at 4 600m.

As we laboured up the final scree slope,

PREVIOUS SPREAD: Climbers skirting the dablam—the hanging glacier that resembles a pendant; Arriving at Camp Two THIS PAGE: Puja ceremony, with Ama Dablam looming in the background OPPOSITE PAGE, TOP TO BOTTOM: Looking down on Base Camp; Camp Two was like a refugee camp

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M AT T H EW H OLT

a helicopter flew overhead, with a body suspended from a long line. We later learnt it was a Russian climber who’d been killed when his abseil rope snapped.

There were a dozen teams in situ, their brightly coloured tents set out in orderly rows like a medieval army camp. Befitting our less hardy demeanour, we checked in to a fully catered lodge in the parallel valley.

We spent the next few days settling in and practising jumaring (a technique climbers use to ascend a rope) up and down large boulders behind the lodge, to the amusement of passing trekkers and yak herders. Before testing ourselves on the actual mountain, we required a puja (prayer ritual) and duly awaited an auspicious day for a lama to hike up from Pangboche monastery. The ceremony began with the lama solemnly chanting mantras, while our Sherpas diligently stoked the juniper fire, and quickly progressed to quaffing red wine and liberally smearing each other’s faces

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with tsampa flour. This was my fifth puja and I’m still none the wiser.

Physically and spiritually prepped, we trooped past the smouldering puja fire, where our cook dutifully showered us with handfuls of rice to assist our safe homecoming. The climb started gently with a three-hour hike to Advanced Base Camp, to where yaks had ferried most of our gear.

The next day was more onerous, tottering under full packs across a giant boulder field and then jumaring up some greasy granite slabs to reach Camp One at 5 800m.

We spent several days here, via a combination of planning and necessity.

With limited space at the two higher camps, we were sharing tents with other teams and had to wait until beds became vacant.

By now the altitude was showing its hand, with Fiona’s sinuses swelling up so she looked like a chipmunk, and my bowels emitting gases so I smelt like a schoolboy’s chemistry experiment. Armchair mountaineers don’t always appreciate

the joys of high-altitude climbing.

The grizzled Austrian team were also in camp, each day meticulously inspecting and rearranging their armoury of climbing hardware. Scornful of our strategy to proceed up the mountain camp-bycamp, they were planning a blitzkrieg from here to the summit and back—in one go.

“It is only 1 000 metres,” explained one of them patiently, “which is nothing for experienced alpinists.”

Above Camp One, the route became increasingly exposed and intimidating.

When the rescue helicopter flew past, dangling the corpse of an Italian climber, it seemed less like an instrument of salvation and more like the Grim Reaper collecting his toll. The final obstacle on the way to Camp Two was the Yellow Tower, a 20m vertical rock band above a daunting drop into the valley below. The exposure was so huge, it was more like looking out of a plane window.

At least all we had to do was jug up the fixed lines, whereas the first party to venture this way, in March 1961, had no guarantee it was even passable. Mike Gill, Wally Romanes, Barry Bishop and Mike Ward were members of Sir Edmund Hillary’s Silver Hut Expedition, which arrived in the Khumbu with ambitious plans to study acclimatisation, scale Makalu (8 470m) and find the yeti. While they failed in respect of the latter two goals, and Sir Ed went home early with altitude sickness, they did bag the first ascent of Ama Dablam, which had hitherto been considered unclimbable. That so little was made of their achievement was largely because they didn’t have a permit for the peak, and the Nepalese authorities were furious.

I knew I’d reached Camp Two when I popped my head over a ledge straight into a pile of human faeces. It was like arriving at a squatter camp, with a dozen tents precariously perched on a thin rocky ridge, some half-hanging over the edge, so the occupants had to sleep clipped into safety lines. My tent was comparatively salubrious, with enough space for two occupants to lie down, and the back vestibule opening onto a 1 000m drop— which was handy for emptying pee bottles. By now, we’d lost Hamish, Tina

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MAT T HE W H O LT

camped here, and were outside their tents and Terri to various ailments and, while I preparing to depart. Our appearance was sorry to see them go, the selfish part precipitated an unseemly race for the of me welcomed the extra tent space. single fixed line, which we won by a nose.

The hardest day was moving up to Camp Above was some 500m of mixed Three, which involved steep climbing climbing on slopes between 55 and 75 interspersed with airy traverses. Jugging up the Grey Tower, snow and ice rained down on me from a climber above, and an ice block the size of a beer crate dented my helmet. Somewhere in the fug I twanged my right leg and, as the day wore on, it started to ache.

The traditional spot for placing high camp was on a plateau almost directly beneath the dablam, but after the accident in 2006, most teams were reluctant to stay here. Accordingly, we pitched camp 150m lower, on a tiny ledge offering just enough space for three tents. It wasn’t a carefree abode, however, located right under a roof laden with giant icicles, which would intermittently melt off and fall down like spears. By the time we’d moved in, one of the tents had already been destroyed, prompting Andrew to head back to Camp Two. The rest of us spent several hours dislodging the more fearsome-looking prongs, until we were able to convince ourselves we might survive a few hours in the two habitable tents. We then settled down for a brief rest—wearing our helmets.

Just after 3 a.m., we were woken by our Sherpas who’d climbed all the way from Camp One, picking Fiona and I, shattered on the summit up Andrew en route.

After forcing down some lukewarm coffee and a degrees. Soon, both teams were bunched handful of painkillers, I was as ready for up, with as many as 10 climbers hanging this summit day as I was going to be. off the same section of rope. As anchors Though it was cold and windy, we started to pop in the softening snow, we soon warmed up, battling up a steep ice screamed at the climbers beneath us to chute that led onto the plateau. A large wait. But, of course, no one did, and all we commercial team had chanced it and

could do was plough on and hope. At 10.30 a.m., after climbing flat out for nearly six hours, I flopped onto the summit.

From my prone position, I could make out Everest and Lhotse glinting in the haze, but frankly I didn’t care and just wanted more painkillers.

The descent involved over 30 abseils: thread the figure of eight, clip in a karabiner, check and lean back. Abseil after bloody abseil. On reaching Camp Two at dusk, Mary, Fiona and I squeezed into one tent, and Tim and Andrew into another, while our Sherpas carried on down. It took two hours to scrape and boil a pan of snow, which I then accidentally knocked over and spilt. When I also knocked over the second pan, we abandoned thoughts of dinner.

After an uncomfortable night, I awoke sore and dehydrated. I heard someone outside saying that the dablam had avalanched that morning, killing one climber and injuring several others. I was too exhausted to question why they, and not I, had been so unlucky. Not long after came the drone of the rescue helicopter heading up the valley.

Several days later, back in Kathmandu, I stood in the Tom & Jerry Pub, unenthusiastically chewing a beer. I’d just bumped into the Austrian team, who’d aborted their summit bid—considering it too dangerous. As for me, my body seemed to have developed a disconcerting allergy to alcohol and my right leg was too stiff to sit down. It was only when I got home that I discovered I’d torn ligaments, damaged my femoral nerve and contracted hepatitis. For such a beautiful mountain, Ama Dablam can be quite a bruiser.

Jugging up the Grey Tower, snow and ice rained down on me from a climber above, and an ice block the size of a beer crate dented my helmet.

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MIC HA EL A M YCRO F T

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M IC H AEL A M YC ROFT

MISSION

POSSIBLE Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in a wheelchair may sound unfeasible to most, but not when you’re Michaela Mycroft, writes Miriam Mannak

In September 2014, the 21-yearold social entrepreneur from Cape Town became the first female quadriplegic to summit Africa’s highest peak—reaching the Roof of Africa 10 minutes ahead of the rest of her team.

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t was a crisp and clear September morning when Michaela and her crew reached Uhuru Peak. Six long and exhausting days had passed since their departure from Arusha, Tanzania’s gateway to Mt Kilimanjaro. The last eight-hour stretch from Kibo rest stop was excruciatingly difficult due to the high altitude, low levels of oxygen saturation, sheer exhaustion, and the fact most of it happened after dark, with very little sleep the previous night.

“That last leg is known as the most difficult part. That is why we left the hut at around 11 p.m. Psychologically, you need to walk toward the morning light. You need to have something to look forward to,” says Michaela, who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy when she was a baby. As a result, she has limited function of her arms, hands and legs. “It was a tough stretch, also because after reaching the summit after an eight-hour climb, you need to walk another six hours to the next hut.”

She recalls how she reached the

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summit 10 minutes ahead of the rest of her team. “It was really amazing to see them coming up and walking toward me.

It was a very emotional moment. I was so relieved that we got there, and that everyone was fine,” she says. It’s difficult for her to express the excitement she felt at the time. “You are so exhausted and you can’t breathe properly. Even now, there is this sense of disbelief that we did it.”

The 21-year-old’s unthinkable endeavour started in 2013 after meeting with adventurer, Adam Schäfer. She recalls how he wanted to climb Kilimanjaro for a good cause and had contacted The Chaeli Campaign. Founded in 2004 by Michaela, her sister Erin and three school friends, the non-governmental organisation assists thousands of disabled youths across southern Africa with therapies, assistive devices and other forms of support. “We then started to discuss the possibility of joining forces with Adam, and basically to climb Kilimanjaro to raise funds for The Chaeli Campaign.”

This very first discussion kick-started a two-and-a-halfyear journey of preparation: putting

a team together, doing research, reading and physical training. “I spent a lot of time at the Sports Science Institute to work on my core and quads,” Michaela says, adding that this was for balance. “People sometimes think I was just sitting in my chair while being carried—doing nothing while everyone else was doing all the hard

PREVIOUS PAGE, LEFT: Michaela enjoys a laugh with the Summits Africa porters on Day 1 of the climb PREVIOUS PAGE, LEFT: Day 3 of the climb, and the crew are still in good spirits as they guide Chaeli through increasingly barren terrain THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Strapped to Scotty (Chaeli’s pick of the names for her mountain wheelchair, which were submitted on social media), a porter assists her up an incline on Day 1; Chaeli poses after the climb with best friend Taylor Jackson (right) and a member of the Summits Africa porter crew; Day 4 saw the air get thinner and temperatures drop; Michaela with Adam Schäfer, who helped hatch the ambitious plan to summit Kili OPPOSITE, TOP LEFT: Day 3 of the climb OPPOSITE, TOP RIGHT: Day 2 (Chaeli’s 21st birthday) as the team makes a pit stop to regroup and gather energy

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M IC H AEL A M YC ROFT

THE CHAELI CAMPAIGN IN A NUTSHELL

There were moments that I didn’t want to carry on. Fortunately, I didn’t have the energy to say that to anyone. People tell you the last day before reaching the summit is the hardest day of your life, but you won’t believe it until you get there. work. The truth is that I had to make sure I could keep myself in that chair, by ensuring my body was always in the right place and position. Hence the core exercises. It was hard work!”

Then there was the design and development of a suitable wheelchair, one that had to be sturdy enough to survive the inhospitable terrain and light enough to be carried up a 5 895-metre mountain.

This process was easier said than done, Michaela recalls. “There’s not really a market for those chairs, as nobody with my disability had climbed Kilimanjaro before.

As a result, there was no one to ask about what type of chair we should use. A lot of it was trial and error.”

The basic structure was inspired by a basketball chair, which was altered as the crew’s training and preparation progressed.

“Our training hikes, which included various

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overnight and day hikes, helped us figure out the little things that had to be changed to make the chair perfect for our expedition,” she explains.

Finally, in the early morning hours of 29 August 2015, Michaela—accompanied by seven Chaeli Kili Climbers and a crew of 55 guides and porters—set off on their incredible journey.

Waking up on the slopes of Africa’s tallest mountain for the first time was very momentous, she recalls, and not only for the most obvious reason. “It was my 21st birthday. While I started that day feeling sick, my body eventually got over itself. It was such a very special day,” Michaela says.

“I have no idea how they did it, but the crew managed to bake me a cake—on top of the mountain! There were even candles!”

It took another three days before she and her team reached their final

Michaela Mycroft was just nine years old when she, her sister Erin and three school friends founded The Chaeli Campaign.

The objective was to raise funds for a motorised wheelchair.

“I needed such a wheelchair to be more independent,” Michaela says. “They didn’t make those for kids in South Africa back then, and importing one was too expensive.”

By selling cards and flowerpots, the girls raised R20 000— enough to import a chair— within seven weeks. The donations, however, kept streaming in. “People still wanted to buy our stuff, despite the fact we had the money we needed. That is why we formalised the campaign to help other disabled children in South Africa,” she explains.

The Chaeli Campaign provides assistive devices and therapies, is very much involved with advocacy and outreach, and has set up various sports and vocational training programmes for disabled youth.

Michaela has won various awards including the 2011 international youth peace prize—the Nobel Peace Prize for Children—and the 2012 Medal for Social Activism at the Nobel Laureate Peace Summit.

For more details, visit www.chaelicampaign.co.za.

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MIC HA EL A M YCRO F T

Seven of the nine Chaeli ‘Kili’ Climbers reach Uhuru Peak between 07h28 and 08h37 at over 5 800m altitude. Physically spent but relieved, Michaela (in front) is surrounded by the guides and porter crew, along with Adam Schäfer (left), Sally Grierson (middle), Thembi Chagonda (right) and Taylor Jackson (far right)

destination. While there had been various hairy moments, the last stretch to the summit from the Kibo Hut was the hardest part of her expedition. “I have never in my life experienced something like that.

Altitude affects everyone, and you have a lot of fights with yourself,” she notes. “There

FAST FACTS Apart from being Africa’s highest, Kilimanjaro is also the world’s highest free-standing mountain. › Kili has three volcanic cones, of which the dormant Kibo is the highest. It could erupt again—the last time that happened was 200 years ago.

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were moments that I didn’t want to carry on. Fortunately, I didn’t have the energy to say that to anyone. People tell you the last day before reaching the summit is the hardest day of your life, but you won’t believe it until you get there.”

While reaching Uhuru Peak was a highlight and a relief, it was also very difficult—it would take another six hours to get to the next rest stop. “When you reach the summit, you also have to deal with the thought that you are not done yet and that you have to walk another day or

› Uhuru Peak is the highest summit on Kibo’s crater rim. › Kili’s snowcaps have shrunk by 80% since 1912. Scientists say the mountain could be ice-free by 2020. › Each year, approximately 30 000 people attempt to summit Kili. Two-thirds are successful.

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so before you are down again,” Michaela says. “Mentally, that was very difficult. The mountain, in that sense, has taught me to really appreciate things. It really has brought things into perspective.”

Though the physical part of Michaela’s expedition has come to an end, her Kili journey is far from over. “We wanted to raise R1 million, but so far we managed R130 000 [as at September]. We really want to make our target. Maybe now that people have seen we’ve done it, they will want to support us. Our work is not yet done.”

›K ili’s foothills are the only place in the world where tanzanite is found. ›K ili has six ecosystems: cultivated land, rainforest, heath, moorland, alpine desert and arctic summit. ›S outh African Bernard Goosen was the first person in a

wheelchair to climb Kili. He did so in 2003 and 2007. › L ast year, endurance athlete Karl Egloff ran up Kili in 6 hours, 56 minutes and 24 seconds. ›T he oldest person to hike up to Uhuru Peak is Swiss-Canadian Martin Kafer (85). His wife, Esther, is the oldest woman to climb Kilimanjaro (84).

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BR YO N Y M c CO RM I CK

Onrun the What makes us enter ultra-distance races, put our bodies through hell, and travel for a thousand kilometres just to get lost in the middle of nowhere?

Trail runner Bryony McCormick does her best to answer this poser

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BRYO N Y M cC O RM I CK

It’s the second day of this 150-kilometre stage run set in the heart of the |Ai-|Ais Richtersveld Transfrontier Park—and not only have I survived the first stage and a rather wild night of wind and rain in my surprisingly durable little tent, but I’m now making my way along a riverbed looking for the next GPS waypoint through some of the coldest wet weather I’ve ever run in.

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BR YO N Y M c CO RM I CK

S

everal hours later, with the guys I’ve fallen into stride with, I crest the highpoint of a valley out of which we’ve been trying to navigate and I celebrate by opening a Bar-One. I tear open the wrapper with my teeth—and dislodge a filling I’ve just had replaced in my front tooth. I vainly fumble for my cellphone to assess the damage, and realise the battery has died, so I’m forced to ask one of my new running compatriots.

He does well to keep the shock off his face, and reassures me it’s not as bad as it feels.

(He must have a sensitive wife.) The other guys are slightly less sympathetic, and it becomes apparent that I’m basically missing half of my front tooth. It’s a matter of seconds before I’m dubbed “Toofless”.

So there I am, stumbling down a wet, muddy mountainside in the rain, in the middle of nowhere, missing a tooth, soaked to the bone, filthy and still with about 18km to cover before I get into camp. The crazy part is, I’d chosen to put myself there; I’d made the adult decision to take part in the four-day race. But in

cold, wet, toothless discomfort, I’m actually having the time of my life.

I’m not crazy, I swear.

I’m constantly asked—most often when retelling a dramatic story from a recent trail event—why I do it. I’ve never really thought too much about it, but accepted that it’s just who I am and what I like. More recently, when deliberating over steep entry fees and requesting more leave for another trail race, I’ve started to question if there are like-minded trail runners doing the same thing as I, and what their motivation is. I decided to explore the question a little further. I wanted to uncover exactly what it is about going far on foot in rough, wild places that gets me and my fellow trail runners excited.

WHY DO I RUN? After considering this question, the answer became slightly more multifaceted that I’d initially thought. For me, there are several factors I can attribute to my love of trail, travel and adventure. The most apparent is my upbringing and the role my parents played. They instilled a sense of adventure in me and my brother from a young age, mostly because in our home a large focus

was placed on the outdoors: spending entire summers playing outside, to family holidays camping, hiking or on the beach.

Television was a no-no, and when we were inside (due to rain), we were inevitably doing something crafty. We were outdoor kids growing up, and without the distraction of modern technology that exists now, our lives were pretty pure and simple. I remember being forced to overcome boredom by using my imagination to create new games, build bigger and better tree houses, and set treasure hunts for my friends. I basically turned the outdoors into my playground, and flourished without any boundaries or limitations to what I could do.

Now as an adult, I still find a way back to my playground, and on deeper consideration I realised the reasons varied for each different trail-running event. At the last race, I was there to clear my head, as I’d just quit my corporate job and knew the time spent focusing on something physical would allow my mind the time to reset. I also knew my thoughts wouldn’t be riddled with modern-day interruptions, giving me a real chance to refocus as opposed to something more superficial.

PREVIOUS SPREAD: Overall winner of the 2015 Wildrun, Thabang Madiba, flies down Halfmens Ridge on the fourth and final day THIS PAGE: An excited group of trail runners line up at Sendelingsdrif at the start of this year’s race OPPOSITE PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Runners make their way further from civilisation and deeper into the Richtersveld; Bryony McCormick leads her newfound posse of running compatriots onto Springbokvlakte on day 3; A trail runner makes his own path down the majestic boulder field of the Tatasberg on day 3; Wide open spaces combined with gnarled landscapes and sharp features make the Richtersveld an ideal—if not intimidating—place to get lost

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BRYO N Y M cC O RM I CK

We enter these races to add value to our lives, to broaden our experiences, and to be reminded of our potential.

WHY DO OTHERS RUN? Not everyone had a similar upbringing to mine, so I started to question what it is that makes entering a four-day ultra event so attractive to other people.

IT’S NOT AN ESCAPE The first thing I realised was that it wasn’t necessarily the big escape from reality I had assumed. Everyone seems pretty content with the lives they have made for themselves. So my immediate assumption —that the entrants race to hide out from some tortuous life they have created for themselves—was wrong, and it made me feel somewhat ashamed for assuming that just because people weren’t like me, they were unhappy. Not everyone wants to live in an adventure wonderland like I do.

IT’S NOT AS COMPLICATED AS YOU THINK Many people enter these races because of their love of the outdoors, adventure and trail running. There isn’t a big, complicated

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reason behind it; they like the idea of getting outside, exploring a new place, and challenging their bodies and minds.

I think many of the runners are like me, in the sense that they don’t really know why they like it—they simply do, and that’s enough for them.

PHYSICAL SUCCESS FEELS GOOD There’s something deeply satisfying about setting out on a tough physical quest and accomplishing it. The reason is that the glory of the accomplishment is entirely self-made. When you enter an event like the Richtersveld Wildrun, getting through four gruelling days is a massive expectation of your body, and there’s no one to carry you, give you a ride or magically erase blisters, aches and pains. So when you finish, it’s a massive credit to yourself and an instant reminder that you’re stronger than you think. This kind of confidence booster will spread into other parts of your life and make you a stronger, more confident individual.

THERE ARE UNEXPECTED BENEFITS Through listening and observing runners, I’ve noticed a host of benefits that make up the ‘I don’t know why I like this, I just do’ factor: the stuff with which people return home that they aren’t even aware of, but which keeps them coming back to similar events year after year. After just one day, conversations stop revolving around ‘what do you do for a living’, and school fees, rising petrol prices and the state of South African politics, and start to centre around the

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BR YO N Y M c CO RM I CK incredible terrain, the breathtaking views, the difficult climbs, the donkey boiler shower system, the power of Mother Nature, and the fact it’s raining in the desert.

The time that many of the entrants probably spend sitting in traffic, mindless meetings, dealing with grumpy partners and unruly kids is now being spent navigating through valleys and over mountains, wandering down riverbeds, laughing and rejoicing when the sun pops out for the first time, and watching the moon rise over the Orange River.

Unsolvable problems, superficial gratification through Facebook likes, and condescending bosses are replaced with physical and attainable challenges, genuine encouragement, the beauty of nature, and real-life company.

And by the end of the third day, after

conquering the mighty Tatasberg (think round rocks the size of houses, balancing on top of one another) and finishing in the most spectacular camp, De Hoop, on the banks of the Orange, the most important shift takes place: The need to get online during the free Wi-Fi power hour isn’t as frantic—in fact, it’s barely noticeable.

Runners who could barely lift their eyes from their phone on the first night now engage in real conversation, smiling from ear to ear while sharing war stories from the incredible journey. The constant need to be connected is replaced by the enjoyment of actual human interaction.

SIMPLE IS BETTER By the end of the four-day stage run, it becomes clear that despite differing lifestyles, no one is unhappy and trying

to escape. We’re all there for similar reasons. We enter events like the Richtersveld Wildrun because we want to prove to ourselves we’re physically capable and mentally tough enough to finish. We enter to add value to our lives, to broaden our experiences, and to be reminded of our potential. We enter because we know that the time spent exploring the rugged, gnarled landscapes will benefit us; perhaps we’re not sure exactly how, but we know it’ll have a positive effect on our life.

We get lost in the middle of nowhere to remember what it’s like to live in a world void of stress and limitations, to explore new territories and to experience the freedom from technology that we don’t get in our daily lives. We enter these races because, at the end of the day, they make us better people.

BELOW, FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: UK Olympian James Cracknell takes on the Tatasberg; American ultra runner Nikki Kimball makes her way across Halfmens Ridge on her way to the finish on day 4; Thabang Madiba crosses the finish line in style on the last day

LET’S RUN WILD Want to enter the Richtersveld Wildrun? Feel like challenging yourself and getting out of your area code? Here are a few tips before you sign up: THE DISTANCE: The event is set to change slightly next year and will, for the first time, be a five-day stage race covering 200km. It will also take runners across the border into Namibia. Days will be split into the following distances: 43.6km, 32.1km, 39.8km, 48.3km and 21.3km.

THE PARK: The |Ai-|Ais Richtersveld Transfrontier Park is a surreal place. At first glance,

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it’s harsh and unfriendly.

Spend the duration of the event navigating and exploring places most people never get to, and you’ll fall in love with the lunaresque, gnarled, rocky landscape, the endless sea of white quartz fields and the curious vegetation.

THE TERRAIN: This varies from easy jeep track to manageable goat trails to 100% off-road 4x4-style trekking. Take tough trail shoes that will survive rocky, technical desert terrain.

Each day seems to have a challenge, be it a big climb or the Tatasberg experience, which race organiser Owen Middleton

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goes over in depth each night at the stage briefing.

GETTING THERE: The closest international airport is Cape Town, and from there it’s about an 800km drive to Sendelingsdrif—the starting and finishing point of the race.

It’s a long journey, so be sure to allow for enough time to prepare for stage one.

THE WEATHER: For two years running, the Wildrunner crew have managed to time the event with half of the annual rainfall in the area, which is pretty spectacular to witness—albeit cold and wet. You need to pack

for both freezing and boiling temperatures. Take waterproof gear for running, and a spare pair of shoes if you don’t have time to dry out your pair overnight.

THE COST: You’re looking at dropping R21 250 on the event.

And before you ask… yes, it’s worth it. It’s a trail experience like no other, with beautifully prepared meals, hot showers, set-up campsites, medical support and excellent company— all in romantic, isolated campsites created entirely for the event.

How do you put a price on watching the full moon rise over the Orange River after three days of adventuring?

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Conception

Drink

Boost

Facial scrub

Moisturiser

Keeping up with the

Johnsons Part-time mountain biker Angus Begg catches up with an intrepid couple who completed a transcontinental cycling expedition from Kashgar to Cape Town

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AN GUS BEG G

Bicycle trips crossing entire, often little-chartered, continents are no longer necessarily recognised as the remarkable feats they are. But newly married couple Philip and Fran Johnson cycled over 18 000 kilometres from western China to South Africa—all along the way having fun, exploring, pushing themselves and “seeing cool places”.

AN G US BE G G

J

ust a couple of years ago, while producing inserts for a favourite South African Sunday night TV show, I remember the editorial meeting debate around whether we should do a story on the disabled woman climbing Kilimanjaro on her knees. With everything having been seen, done, photographed, climbed, ridden and tasted in the past 20 years—usually for a charity—expeditions that once would’ve been regarded as truly awesome, in the true sense of the word, today struggle to qualify.

There’ll be many people with the same names around the English-speaking world, but I’ll hazard a fairly confident guess that none of them will have achieved what Philip (34) and Fran (31) Johnson have: riding bicycles over 18 000 kilometres from western China to Cape Town. And definitely not a few weeks after getting married.

The couple wrote weekly blogs on their trip (see www.detouring.org), with the final post from Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront capturing Phil’s dry, understated Englishorigin reportage: “Bodies and bikes are still in one piece after taking a bit of a hammering over the last 11 months— though, crucially, the marriage is still intact.”

The couple didn’t stay long in South Africa after their Waterfront arrival, and I tracked them down via Skype to their temporary home of Iringa in the southern highlands of Tanzania, not far from where the locally famous Hehe tribal leader Chief Mkwawa in 1898 made a defiant (unfortunately fatal) last stand against colonial German forces.

The first question in such conversations is inevitably ‘why’ (they undertook the expedition), and after establishing that romance had blossomed when they’d met while working in Perth—Philip in environmental sciences and Fran as an accountant—the answer was wonderfully simple: pretty much because they could.

They’d been working for a few years, had the money put aside, and they both loved cycling. Fran is originally from the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands and wanted to

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see more of Africa. Philip, a global citizen with his roots in Yorkshire, wanted to cycle Central Asia. So they agreed on the theory of riding the old Silk Road, followed by Africa. Add to the mix a few wine-filled evenings after their recent marriage, and Philip says the practical decision to go— starting in Kashgar, finishing in Cape Town—was easy.

Almost every transcontinental expedition these days, whatever the mode of transport, involves charity which, beyond any sincere interest in the particular cause, ropes in sponsors and makes the whole thing more affordable.

Although they were attached to one philanthropic outfit, riding for a good cause wasn’t really on the Johnsons’

PREVIOUS SPREAD: (TOP) West of Sinop, on the Turkish Black Sea coast—part of the finest two weeks’ riding of the entire trip (BOTTOM) Crossing Egypt’s Eastern Desert THIS PAGE, TOP: Before the Johnsons’ departure from the hostel in Kashgar, China on day 1 THIS PAGE, BOTTOM: Eastern Desert, Egypt OPPOSITE PAGE: Black Sea coast, Turkey

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AN GUS BEG G

In Georgia, they not only encountered beautiful scenery and friendly people but relief in the “cheese, bread and sausage”.

agenda. “We felt selfish when we told people why we’re doing it,” says Fran in the background. It turns out their reasoning was as gloriously uncomplicated as the decision to go. “We wanted to have fun, explore, push ourselves and see cool places,” says Philip with a chuckle.

Judging by their post from Kazakhstan in Central Asia, they indeed got to test themselves: “The relentless Kazakh headwind punched us in the face from 6 a.m. until 9 p.m. and was interrupted only by the occasional slightly stronger gust which would knock our unstable bikes to the ground…” Needless to say, the couple felt Kazakhstan presented them with the windiest day of their journey.

Western Tajikistan had its own

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challenges, particularly a six-kilometre tunnel in the Pamir-Alai mountains. “It stands out, without exception, as the most unpleasant riding conditions either of us has ever encountered or, in fact, can even imagine. The absence of any lighting, frighteningly deep potholes, errant driving, frequent broken rebar and the shin-deep flooding were all fairly inhibiting for a bicycle, but the lack of ventilation and build-up of fumes was the real kicker that provided most concern.” This post highlights the literally up-and-down nature of their journey, as Tajikistan also presented them with the most beautiful scenery they encountered. (In Central Asia, there were frequent peaks of between 4 000 and 6 000m.)

Their tales of Uzbekistan, with its ancient cities of Samarkand and Bukhara, brought home the romance of the trip, their first mention of appreciation beyond the physical: ancient mausoleums and mosques, and green-and-blue tiled mosaics after countless miles of desert.

Remarkably consistent in these former Soviet Central Asian republics was their diet.

“Bread and oily soup,” says Philip. In Georgia, they not only encountered beautiful scenery and friendly people but relief in the “cheese, bread and sausage”. This country

(which not too long ago, almost like Ukraine, felt the long-threatening reach of Moscow) is described by the two in the interview as being quite stunning; it had them both gushing over Skype, proclaiming it as the oldest wine-growing region in the world (with Fran in the background occasionally sounding like she was bumping into the cutlery).

Writing about Turkey’s Black Sea coastline, Philip said the “inconvenience” of the steeply undulating coastline was compensated for by “an area of natural beauty that should drop even the stiffest of jaw”. It sounds like the ride from Georgia’s capital of Tbilisi to Istanbul, 1 800km in three weeks, was among the best of the trip. They loved Turkey.

Greece offered ouzo, fine beaches and relative relaxation, on top of the good food that’s always appreciated by long-distance riders. They spoke of the monasteries of Meteora, a 300km ride from Athens, in a tone not far from ‘awed’.

Egypt, it seems, with its armed vehicles, roadblocks “everywhere” and an overriding sense of being “ripped off”, they’d rather forget. “I don’t think we were bribed the entire journey, but Egypt came close.”

Just south of the country, in a land known for its dictatorial leader wanted by

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CLOCKWISE, FROM ABOVE: In northern Tanzania, approaching Mt Meru with its peak obscured by cloud—taken on their one-year wedding anniversary, on New Year’s Eve 2014; Sitting out a snow storm on their first night in Kyrgyzstan; Fran walking like an Egyptian near the Pyramids of Giza; Setting up camp in Georgia, one day from Batumi

the International Criminal Court for war crimes, they found relief. “Sudan was a cracker,” says Philip, “possibly the most welcome surprise of the 18 000km ride.”

He adds that they felt entirely safe, and would sometimes ride for three days without seeing a town.

In Ethiopia they found the poverty as confronting as the landscape was stunning. Abay Gorge on the Upper Blue Nile received a favourable mention; it was here, not in Cape Town, that they drank “the best coffee of trip”. Crucially, here in this mountain country they found water hard to come by.

Kenya was a curious, possibly unexpected contrast. While English is widely understood and spoken, cyclists would do well to heed the adventurers’ warning about riding in the country: “This was hard, with narrow roads and terrible drivers,” says Fran. It was here that Philip was knocked off his bike. Both Kenya and Tanzania predictably offered them their safari days, with the rides through the

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former’s Amboseli National Park and the latter’s Ngorongoro Crater described as highlights.

By that stage, they’d had only six days of rain on the entire journey. But things changed rapidly. “Zambia got us big time [with rain],” says Philip. Fran chips in, enthusing about their stay at the legendary family-owned The Africa House (Shiwa Ngandu), about which a true story has been written by Christina Lamb—a must-read for all Africa enthusiasts.

Namibia presented challenges of water, unsurprising in a country that’s home to arguably the world’s driest desert. They speak of a three-day stretch in which they were short of water, “but we flagged cars down and they generally helped us.”

There must be few things as beautiful as riding through South Africa’s northern and western Cape in the spring flower season, but they missed that by a couple of months. So, like horses on the home run, they wasted little time in making for Cape Town’s Waterfront, mostly remembering

the stretch for the wind, easily accessible food, and the campsites in Doringbaai and Elandsbaai being full. As a bloke, Philip can’t help adding: ”Fran started crying as soon as we saw Table Mountain.”

It was only while chatting, after we’d finished the interview, that I learnt Philip has ridden the Cape Epic, and that the two actually met while training for a marathon.

So no, this isn’t a story of the average Jack and Jill heading out on an adventure. But it’s a damn good reason for a ride.

If you’re wondering what they’re doing now in Iringa, Philip says they’re “going to give East Africa a go”. Looking for work, they’re no longer in a tent—but with their bicycles always close at hand.

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+27 (0) 11 817 5560 • reservations@karongweportfolio.com

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BL AC K M AM B A S

Caution: Black Mamba territory

Robbie Stammers finds out more about a highly lauded group of mostly women rangers operating in part of the Kruger

The sisters of the Black Mamba AntiPoaching Unit (APU) are not doing it for themselves but for the entire world— putting their own lives on the line every day in an effort to save our precious rhino.

The APU was founded by Transfrontier Africa to protect the Olifants West region of Balule Nature Reserve, which forms part of the Greater Kruger National Park.

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he area in which the Black Mambas patrol is a free-range savannah ecosystem with open borders to the Kruger.

The highly endangered black rhino as well as the white rhino are strongly represented in this location.

Since the unit went into operation in 2013, the number of rhinos lost to poaching has plummeted; snaring and illegal bush-meat incidents have been reduced by 75%; and nine poacher incursions have been detected, leading to the arrests of the offenders. The unit has also shut down five poacher camps.

Twenty-six unarmed members conduct foot patrols, observations, vehicle checks and road blocks, and educate their peers on the importance of conservation and gathering intelligence from their communities.

Restoring dignity and self-worth, and empowering communities to play their part, are crucial components of efforts to combat the illegal wildlife trade across the globe, and the Black Mambas are an outstanding example of success. Their brave actions are sending the message to others in South Africa and beyond, that communities themselves can prevent this illicit trade—which threatens not only iconic species such as rhino and

elephant but puts money in the hands of criminal gangs, thus increasing insecurity and risking livelihoods.

The Mambas patrol the reserve—part of the two-millionhectare Greater Kruger National Park and home to rhinos, leopards, lions, elephants and several other animals—for three weeks at a time, walking almost 20 kilometres a day. The rangers reportedly know the land so well that a mere misplaced stone is enough to alert them to the presence of poachers.

It will come as little surprise, therefore, that the Black Mamba APU has been honoured this year by the United Nations Environmental Program with its highest environmental prize, the Champions of the Earth Award.

Robbie Stammers asked the unit’s brainchild Craig Spencer, ecologist and head warden of Balule Nature Reserve, and Amy Clark—project administrator for Transfrontier Africa—a few questions.

When was the Black Mamba initiative started?

CS: The Black Mamba APU was founded by Transfrontier Africa

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and created to protect the Olifants West region of Balule Nature Reserve—beginning with a team of six at the beginning of 2013, and one year later expanding to cover the entire reserve. We therefore maintain and protect the western boundary fence of the Greater Kruger National Park, a significant barrier between human–wildlife conflict and poachers entering the protected areas’ network; and supplying protection to all the wild animals that roam freely throughout Balule.

How did the decision to employ women come about?

AC: A different approach was needed to battle poaching, as over the past few centuries the same ‘weapons’ or tools have been used to combat this issue. Although these tools worked at the time, they only temporarily solved the problem. Craig Spencer came up with this long-term solution.

How did you decide on the name Black Mamba?

CS: The black mamba snake is fast, lethally venomous and highly aggressive when threatened. The women of our APU are exactly that when it comes to protecting their area of operation.

What are the motivations of the members to participate in this unit?

AC: All the women who have been selected and who joined the Black Mamba APU have a huge passion for wildlife. They are here to do their part to protect their natural heritage.

PREVIOUS SPREAD: Black Mambas scouring the surrounding bush for any suspicious activity THIS PAGE, LEFT TO RIGHT: Yenzekile and Proud discover a snare set in the bush—information about its location is recorded and then the snare is removed and destroyed; Nkateko and NoCry accept the 2015 Rhino Conservation Award for Best Conservation Practitioner, on behalf of the APU OPPOSITE PAGE: The Black Mamba and Balule rangers, after finding and removing over 40 snares in an area close to the northern border

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BL AC K M AM B A S

The black mamba snake is fast, lethally venomous and highly aggressive when threatened. The women of our A.P.U. are exactly that when it comes to protecting their area of operation.

They want their children and children’s children to enjoy nature as they are so fortunate to do today.

What do you do when you catch a poacher red-handed?

What is your daily routine?

AC: When poachers are apprehended, they are turned over to SAPS, along with any evidence collected.

APU: Patrols are conducted daily throughout the reserve and within the buffer zones on our borders. By day, these patrols are conducted on foot, and by night conducted by vehicle.

Patrols include the policing of our borders, and bush sweeps conducting searches for snares of bush-meat poachers.

How vast is the poaching crisis in Africa and, most importantly, in the Kruger?

AC: The rate of poaching throughout South Africa is approximately two rhino per day.

How do you protect yourself from spies—or even poachers themselves—who want to sneak in with the teams?

CS: Our teams are subjected to regular lie detector tests to ensure their integrity. We are very happy to say that we have not had a single staff member fail the test.

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What successes can you record?

CS: The two main types of poaching we deal with on a daily basis are bush-meat poaching through the use of snares, and rhino poaching involving poachers breaking into the reserve to shoot and de-horn the animals. Since their deployment in 2013, snaring within the Black Mambas’ area of operation has dropped by 76% within the boundaries of the reserve and 68% within the buffer zones. With the Black Mambas’ constant visual policing, any signs of poachers entering the reserve in order to poach rhino have been picked up quickly—allowing for the poachers to be tracked and caught before having the chance to locate and poach rhino.

If you could pick three words to describe the team, what would they be?

AC: Loyal, passionate and an inspiration to the women of Africa.

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J U ST IN HE A LY

South African veteran surfer Justin Healy tells Angus Begg all about his experience at this year’s SA Champs—in and out of the water

surf and turf “My alarm goes off at 6 a.m., but I think it must be 07h30 because the sun is already coming up.” That was Justin Healy, just waking up in the subtropical, semi-industrial coastal town of Richards Bay. He was competing in the over 40s Masters event at the South African Surfing Champs—something he’d done for the past 30 years, but it was the first time in 50 years that Richards Bay had been chosen as the host venue.

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ealy had never been to Richards Bay before, and didn’t know what to expect. He would’ve known it’s a whole lot warmer and—unless he’s lived in the Cape Town City Bowl in February—just a touch humid. But those few days in Richards Bay were all about the water. “I was looking forward to surfing in the warmer waters of the South African coastline.”

In the Masters divisions, it’s more about the camaraderie, making new friends and being involved in the whole spectacle of the event, rather than the competition itself. “Old friends and fellow competitors were greeted, and the reminiscing about past contests—with jokes and lighthearted banter all round—eased the air.

These were the guys you’d come up against in your heats.”

Competitors from all nine provincial teams were ready to do battle in the waters of Richards Bay. The Citroën SA Champs,

held in August this year, is the cornerstone of surfing in South Africa, the event at which every nipper-turned-surfer hopes to showcase skills they’ve been honing since they could lie on a board, and compete for the prize in their respective age division.

Wherever it happens, competitive surfers get serious about their passion, where they pack boards, wax—and, as Justin says, “any possible fin combination I may need for all sizes of waves, and a whole lot of energy supplements. So I crammed my bags and packed my boards as tightly as possible.”

Richards Bay is situated on a river, flanked by two large piers. Those South Africans interested in a healthy environment will probably associate the town with titanium, the huge dunes of nearby St Lucia, and the famous civil society fight against acquisitive mining companies. The good battle was won. The only thing on surfers’ minds was the day ahead.

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JUS T IN H EA LY

LEFT: Leaving Land’s End on day 1

A five-man heat in these conditions is very difficult, because there are very few waves; five guys vying for the same waves within a 20-minute period.

Day 1 “It was the seniors up first, with the conditions not being ideal, but these guys made light work of difficult and inconsistent waves. As the early standouts started solidifying their places going forward, the competition was heating up and some fine surfing was on display. All our senior members made it through to the next day.” Remarkably, and a little

OPPOSITE PAGE: Despite tough onshore conditions, the crowd was treated to some fine surfing THIS PAGE: The “Silver Fox” Chris Knutsen, four-time World Amateur Champ

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scarily, if you’ve reached the ripe old age of 20, you’re classified a senior: a distinction you can hold close to the greying hairs of your chest until you turn 35.

As Healy recalls, with less testosterone flowing around the Masters and more friendships, the notes for the end of the day’s happenings tended to betray more interest in the social part of the proceedings than the results. “These are normally rowdy affairs, with all the chatter and stories of the day’s proceedings. This is where team strategies and advice on the upcoming days get thrown around—but not always taken, as guys are too busy sipping their beers and having fun. The team captain tries to take control and get food orders from everyone, but nothing moves in a hurry. We’re all here to have a holiday as well as compete, and it’s now downtime.”

Day 2 Round 2 got under way for the senior men and women. Like a new driver sitting in a rush-hour traffic jam on the N2 into Cape Town, Healy became impatient under the seniors’ gazebo.

“The sitting around is killing me, so I’m off for a surf to loosen the nerves and get some practice.”

Another day drew to a close, and the field of competitors was getting smaller. That evening it was more of the same, with a little Jack Johnson thrown into the mix. “We’re getting ready to braai for the evening. These are fun occasions where everyone gets together with a jam session going down.

Everyone has fun trying their hand at playing the various instruments and making music.”

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mistake, these guys can still surf—and surf well! It’s always great to watch these guys, as they’re still fit and command respect in the line-up. The day ended with the Masters women also putting on a great show.”

It was party time back at their accommodation. “Another night of show business, this time with the guys from southern KZN joining us, and were amazed at the WP team’s musical skills.”

“We arrive at the beach and all sit there in amazement. The waves are only knee-high. It’s not the start we were hoping for, but in all these contests everyone needs to surf in the same conditions. The proceedings get under way with the women, then the over 35s [men]. Then my heat. A five-man heat in these conditions is very difficult, because there are very few waves; five guys vying for the same waves within a 20-minute period.”

Then it was back to the beach for another long day in the sun, waiting under the gazebo. Healy gave an indication of the CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP LEFT: Checking out the surf action on Alkantstrand; Time for the respect held for the ‘veterans’ (which makes prize-giving; The World Amateur Champs gold me sit up and take notice of my 51-year-old medallists fingers whacking the keyboard). “With the swell picking up through the day, the action Thanks to Auric Auto, MINI and ArtLab, for more information go to; www.auricauto.co.za was getting hotter as the over 50s and older divisions took to the water. Make no www.artlab.co.za Day 4 This is how long Healy and his mates had to wait for their event. Not surprising, then, that they were “amped” for Day 4. The waiting was over, and after a quick bowl of oats and coffee, they made for the beach to check out the conditions, to “get their minds into competition mode”.

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Day 5 “We were excited, because we heard the waves were getting bigger—and we were expecting cooking waves. Alas, we arrived at the beach to find slightly bigger waves with quite a few close-outs.”

North Coast surfers will tell you the waves at Alkantstrand can be epic—but with plenty of sand having been washed away by previous storms, the conditions were less than ideal; Healy said the old boardwalk was floating in the line-up at high tide. And so it continued: lots of watching and waiting, punctuated with a rare surf and the inevitable social evening.

It was a seven-day event, and as more guys were eliminated, so the TV audience to watch the Springboks’ ill-fated game against Argentina grew.

As for Healy and his buddies in the WP veterans category, at the prize-giving they ended up clapping for the guys from Border. At least Healy got to see Richards Bay, made some new mates and had a good time in the process. Isn’t that what it’s all about?

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Hook yourself up with a test-spin and call us today.

Find MINI South Africa on:

Auric Auto

215 Main Road, Claremont Tel. 021 670 1100 www.mini-auricauto.co.za Valid SA driver’s licence needed to test drive.

T R AVEL G E A R

joy to YOUR world

Christmas shopping can be daunting, confusing, exhausting and expensive. But it’s none of these things if Nick Dall’s your personal shopper…

Yes, yes, we know. You can’t believe it’s that time of year again, you don’t have a clue what to get anyone, and you don’t want to see your bonus vanish into thin air before the year is out.

We hear you! So, we’ve scoured every nook and cranny of Cape Union Mart to find the very best gifts and gadgets for everyone— from old-school Grandpa to pintsized Gracey. Don’t believe us?

Read on…

CAPE UNION BBQ GIFT SET Everyone knows the way to a man’s heart is through his braai. This festive season, eliminate the guesswork and give your braai master something he’s sure to love. This threepiece set is made out of top-notch stainless steel and includes a steak-spearing fork, a burger-flipping spatula, and a chop-lifting pair of tongs. To top things off, it comes in a snazzy stainless steel carry case, which means he never has to be without the tools of the trade. What are you waiting for? Light the fire, crack open a cold one, and get comfortable.

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R350

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T RAVEL GEA R

MELLERWARE BILTONG MAKER VALUE PACK

R699

Give a man biltong and you make him happy for a day; teach him to make biltong, and a lifetime of joy awaits. The undisputed hero of this seriously well-priced bundle is the legendary Biltong King dehydration cabinet. It uses a light to reduce moisture, and continuous airflow to speed up the drying process; it even includes hanging hooks (for biltong and droëwors) and shelves for drying fruit and veg. But if you take advantage of this special bundle, you also get a snazzy Mellerware biltong cutter (a great gift in its own right) and a pack of Safari biltong spice. All that’s missing is the meat itself! It’s fairly safe to say this fantastic set is going to be a big seller.

CAPE UNION 25L TOTE SOFT COOLER Summer just ain’t the same if your beer’s lukewarm and the salad’s wilted. Keep things cool with this 25-litre soft cooler bag that sports high-density thermal insulation to keep the sweltering African sun at bay. The physics of insulation means it’ll never be as good at keeping things icy as a hard cooler but, because it collapses flat, you can squeeze it into the car boot and use it for picnics and beach outings once you reach your destination. What’s more, it looks great, it can take a beating, and it’s easy to carry.

R175

MOBICOOL P24 AC/DC COOLER

R1 399

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If you’re after a more serious cooling option, look no further than the Mobicool P24, which uses a thermoelectric element to keep its contents 15°C below the ambient outside temperature. The P24 plugs into the cigarette lighter socket in your car or truck, but it can also run on 220V mains power—a useful feature, as most campsites these days have power points. In spite of its sleek and compact design (the cooler can easily fit between passengers on the back seat), it can still take two 2L Coke bottles (standing upright, nogal) and a further 20 cans. The folding carry handle doubles as a lid lock or stand, and there’s also a stowing compartment for unsightly cables. A very well thought-out product from the global leader in thermoelectric cooling.

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T R AVEL G E A R CAPE UNION RANGER CHAIR You get camping chairs—and then you get the Cape Union Ranger.

Constructed from super-strong steel tubing that’s been powder-coated for extra weather resistance, there’s absolutely no need to worry about being left in the lurch halfway through your Sodwana camping holiday.

The Ranger can carry up to 120kg, but it also folds down nice and small.

On top of its sturdy frame, you’ll find a durable yet oh-so-comfy padded foam seat that definitely won’t encourage you to get up and wash the dishes or go for that much-needed beach run. Don’t say you weren’t warned...

R699

SECUR MINI COLLAPSIBLE STORM LANTERN

ECOSOULIFE BIODEGRADABLE PICNIC SET

You won’t find a funkier or more versatile gadget on the market this festive season. Not only is it a lantern, a flashlight and a cellphone charger rolled into one, but it’s all powered by your own muscles (via a sturdy crank handle and built-in dynamo). The built-in rechargeable battery means you’ll never, ever need to fork out cash on batteries, while the collapsible ‘accordion’ design makes it super-easy to slip into the side pouch of your backpack.

And with the USB cable you can charge it from a laptop or AC adapter R399 when your biceps run out of juice.

For elegant outdoor dining with a conscience, look to EcoSouLife: the company that specialises in chic picnicware from natural, renewable resources such as bamboo and corn starch. This picnic set—with four plates, four bowls, four cups and a 24-piece cutlery set in a rustic carry bag—is perfect for the beach, berg or braai. As it’s all 100% biodegradable, you don’t need to worry if Aunt Elmarie’s teaspoon gets buried in the sand. The best part?

You can pop it all in the dishwasher.

BLACKFIRE WATERPROOF CLAMPLIGHT Like all Clamplights, the waterproof version can clamp to anything: shelves, branches, tent poles, the wheel arch of your car at 3 a.m. somewhere between Leeu-Gamka and Prince Albert—and it can stand on its own two feet.

But its IPX7 waterproof rating makes it perfect for fishing, boating and camping in the rain. The LED light deliver 190 lumens on ‘high’ and 75 lumens on ‘low’, and can withstand falls of up to 6 metres.

If you want one lamp for loadshedding, camping and emergencies, this is most definitely your guy.

R599

R499

LIFE+GEAR 80 LUMEN LED HEADLAMP

R175

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You’ll be hard pressed to find a better value headlamp anywhere in SA. It’s an extremely well-made piece of equipment from a leading manufacturer, with some impressive features. It has six light modes and an adjustable beam angle—and it’s extremely lightweight. As an added bonus, it comes with three AAAs.

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T RAVEL GEA R R450

KALIBER BADLANDS KNIFE The pedigree of a knife comes down to the steel it’s made from, and the razor-sharp 7Cr17 stainless steel used in the Badlands sure can hold an edge.

This folding knife features an assisted opening system that means you can deploy the blade with one hand only. Measuring nearly 20cm when open, it’s slightly bigger and heavier than the Denali, making it more suited for survival situations than for everyday carry. The G10 handle is both durable and slipproof, and the mean black-oxide coating on the blade doesn’t reflect sun or torchlight—very useful if you’re trying not to be seen…

KALIBER DENALI KNIFE One thing’s for certain: When you buy Kaliber, you buy quality. Also comprised of 7Cr17 stainless steel, the lightweight Denali—with a total length of 16.5cm— features a mechanical linear locking system that’s so strong that it functions like a fixed-blade knife. Its built-in steel pocket clip makes it perfect for everyday carry, while its rugged aluminium handle doesn’t just look hardcore—it is hardcore.

R299 he buy t o, If you bug Rhin se le ha Cudd the purc ard f w o o R20 will go t inos! e h r c i pr ng our savi

CUDDLEBUG PILLOWS Going to bed just got a whole lot more appealing for Junior. Cuddlebug’s adorable range of creatures, great and small, includes everything from ladybirds to elephants, so there really is something for every kid (and most adults!). But they don’t just look cute, they’re also extremely comfortable travel pillows that are ideal for road trips, overnight flights or camping adventures. All Cuddlebug pillows are filled with hypoallergenic polystyrene foam beads and are machine-washable at 30°C.

R225

K-WAY KIDS RAMBLER DAYPACK

R220

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Kids deserve a daypack that is a.) built with their size and shape in mind; and b.) made to the same technical standards as adult backpacks. The K-Way Rambler achieves both these goals with aplomb while also looking decidedly chic and stylish. The super-strong ripstop polyester can take a real beating, and the YKK zips are quite frankly the best in the business. The entire bag weighs in at under 100g and, in addition to the roomy main compartment, there are two side pouches and a zip-up compartment for pocket money or tissues. The Rambler is also a great school bag—just ask my three-year-old daughter.

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MIKE HOR N

LEFT: Mike Horn has so many expeditions under his belt that he resembles something of a modern-day Indiana Jones OPPOSITE: Horn invited Young Explorers from all over the world to explore the continents and travel across the planet’s oceans on his yacht, the Pangaea

Angus Begg has a man-to-man chat with explorer and adventurer Mike Horn about motivating himself and others

winning ways The first time I met Mike Horn was behind a tent. It was wet and a little windy. The zinc tub into which I thrust my hand, fishing around for a Heineken, was cold. It was the time when the global lager brand’s bottles carried the names of world capitals. “I’ll have a Johannesburg,” said Mike, in contrast to my “Cape Town”.

And so we ticked off the cities.

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M IKE H ORN

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his was behind the scenes at the Volvo Ocean Race, which must be one of the most gruelling, underrated endurance events in world sport, in which the crew may be lucky to get four uninterrupted hours of sleep a night for eight months, sailing almost 39 000 kilometres in the process. That’s if they don’t encounter bad weather.

It was the afternoon before the second leg of the race was due to start, and into this environment of physical and mental endurance Mike had been introduced.

He’d been flown in by the owner of one of the teams to work with his crew, hiking Lion’s Head with the skipper, giving pep talks to the crew. That’s Mike’s world: When he’s not ‘expeditioning’ himself, he’s coaching others on how to prepare for their own missions and challenges. It’s a talent that has seen him work with the likes of the 2014 World Cup–winning German football team and our own 2015 Proteas cricket squad.

How do you motivate yourself to do the things you’ve done?

When you love what you do, you don’t have to motivate yourself to do your job.

Nothing worth doing will be easy, if you understand that it makes it easier to take on challenges. It’s true that I’m not always motivated to get out of the tent, but I’m disciplined—and if you’re disciplined, life becomes easy.

Is it about proving what we can or should be able to do as humans?

Everyone on Earth was born with an adventurous spirit; it just expresses itself differently in different fields—it could be art, music, science or sport. To exist for ourselves as humans, we need do things that make us feel alive. When we do things for ourselves and not for others, we prove to ourselves that we exist. Men, more often than women, sometimes have a different agenda to do the things they do!

Is there a different approach to summiting Everest or a singlehanded ocean crossing?

What I’ve noticed through doing a multitude of expeditions in different natural elements is that, as soon as you push the limits, you need to have one known resource to base your decisions on—and that can only be you. The better you know yourself and your mental limits, the more things you can do. The only thing

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that changes from one adventure discipline to another is the knowledge of technique and the level of engagement.

Do you ever doubt yourself?

I love the unknown. But you can only love it when you step out of your comfort zone. Not many people are willing to do it because it increases the chance of failure—and failure shows weakness.

Doubt is closely related to fear. Both doubt and fear are the main reasons I do what I do. Only then can I grow.

As a motivational speaker, you’ve been involved with the Proteas and did some work with the

German soccer squad. Just what do you tell the guys?

Working with the Indian cricket team alongside Gary Kirsten and Paddy Upton, then with the German football team and later with the Proteas, you do see what importance the psychological approach has in making a difference when it comes down to the crunch.

You were flown to Cape Town by the owner of Team Dongfeng in the Volvo round-the-world ocean race.

I remember you taking the skipper up Lion’s Head for a walk. Was it a fast walk, or a stroll?

It was a stroll, so we had time for a talk.

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MIKE HOR N

It’s very difficult to stay fit on a boat, and the crew don’t often have the space to walk around, so I had to keep it light and enjoyable. Just doing something different sometimes inspires and resources us to go back into our daily lives.

Was it more a case of the skipper asking, or you telling?

It was both! When you’re the captain of the ship, the crew often look up to you for answers—but where does the captain go to find answers?

Why Lion’s Head?

You don’t have to go far to find inspiration.

You can find it in your back garden. The most beautiful places are often around or close to where we live.

Do you think you made a difference to the team?

I don’t sail the boat, take a wicket or score a goal—that’s where the real difference can be made. Through lived experiences in my sport, I don’t only lose a match, I lose a life. So when it comes to commitment, I can share my knowledge.

Did you play a big role with the German footballers?

The German World Cup campaign was very well prepared; they had no passengers tagging along. We all had a small, specific role to play in the big picture. It was an amazing experience.

My role was to remove the option of losing. Winning is not everything—but in this case, it was the only thing.

Do you like soccer?

I love all sports; not so much the byproduct of sport. But being from South Africa, my preferred sport will always be rugby.

You were in New Zealand with the South African team famously labelled as “chokers”. Did they indeed choke?

Certainly not! Our nation unites through sport, and when we lose we’re all disappointed, and it becomes easy to criticise. Instead of being proud of what we’d achieved, which would build the team, we broke them down even more.

Human nature!

How do you give them that extra oomph in training?

Winning is a culture you can develop.

When losing becomes accepted, then it becomes dangerous.

LEFT TO RIGHT: Mike with two of the Proteas, Faf du Plessis (left) and Albie Morkel; Team-building with the German football team on board Pangaea

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And during the game, do they know you’re watching? Are there any codes for communication if a player is having a meltdown?

To perform, the players must play with freedom. I don’t get involved. More is less!

I remember us chatting outside the tent at Volvo, speaking about “men”—like the Dongfeng crewman who popped past. Do you think the almost constant negating of a man’s role in society today—especially in SA—because of factors such as rape, abuse and political corruption has anything to do with the quality of men being produced?

We all live from examples. When man loses his human values, we have no other examples to follow. We are who we surround ourselves with in life.

Your definition of a real man?

A real man honours his word! Takes responsibility and admits when he’s wrong.

Regarding the argument against ageing players in the squad: Is it harder for today’s athletes to stay at the top for a prolonged period?

Or does Victor Matfield squash that theory?

Sport has become extremely specialised today. At the same time, we’ve become younger with time, through how we treat injuries, what we eat and how we train. If you stay active, you can play for longer.

What separates winners from the pack?

When you understand that the will to win must become bigger than the fear to lose—that’s when you can go out, play with freedom, and win!

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R ONNIE M U H L

mud, sweat and gears

Ronnie Muhl and his wife savoured the scenery (and real ale) cycling from England to Scotland, “End to End”

“You’ve ticked so many items off your bucket list, Ronnie— what else would you like to do to celebrate your 60th birthday?” asked Elizabeth in December last year. “Well, actually, I’d love to ride a bicycle from Land’s End to John o’ Groats.” “Really?” said Elizabeth. “Well, then let’s do it!” she enthused. This was the start of a journey on a bicycle from the southernmost point in England to the northernmost point in Scotland; a journey that would ultimately prove to be one of our greatest adventures together as husband and wife.

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here would be some provisos, however: We’d spend a month covering the 1 600 kilometres; we’d book only our first and last night’s accommodation; we’d be prepared to camp, but mostly we’d want to stay in cheap bed-and-breakfast accommodation, little country inns and reasonably priced hotels; we would not plan our days; and we’d taste some real ale along the way.

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Our journey to the United Kingdom began in July this year, and as we touched down at Gatwick Airport, we were informed it was one of the hottest days in London for many years—peaking at around 36° Celsius. Little did we know what a role the weather would play on our epic ride.

We assembled the bikes, attached our panniers with everything we’d need for the next month, and caught the train down to

Penzance, where we disembarked and then rode down to the Land’s End Hotel and the official start (or finish) of what’s known by the British cycling fraternity as “End to End”. After signing the register at the hotel, we got off to a late start on the day of my 60th birthday.

Many people had told us that some of our most difficult days in the saddle would be down in Cornwall and Devon—and

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RO N N IE M U HL

As the days rolled together and we started soaking up the incredible freedom and simpleness, we both felt liberated

LEFT: Leaving Land’s End on day 1

within the first hour of riding we realised they’d been absolutely right. We found ourselves speeding down steep hills at over 65km/h, only to be reduced to a complete standstill within minutes on the other side. Even the ‘granny gear’ wasn’t enough to help us get up those steep inclines, and we were forced to get off our bikes and push on at least three occasions that first day.

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I felt a sense of belonging as we cycled through Cornwall, and in particular through St Just, as this is from where my mother’s side of the family originated.

This is tin-mining territory, which would explain why my maternal grandfather was a gold miner on the West Rand, just outside Johannesburg.

Our first real ale pub stop was in St Ives, a beautiful little Cornish village right on

the ocean. We’d covered only 26km, and soon realised that pub stops too early in the day would prevent us from ever reaching our destination. So we adopted what became known as ‘the single-digit rule’: We wouldn’t stop for a beverage until we were sure we were no less than 10km from our destination.

We limped into Hayle and found the first bike store we could. Putting the bikes into boxes and flying them to the UK had damaged Elizabeth’s gearing system, which we needed to have repaired. After an ale at The Bucket of Blood pub, we decided to camp there in Hayle, which was beautifully located next to the ocean.

The huge challenge we faced on this ride was trying to stay off the beaten track and on the UK National Cycle Network, but at the same time attempting to follow the shortest and most direct line toward Scotland. This proved to be rather difficult, and route finding became challenging.

As we made our way through Dartmoor, we got hammered by a hailstorm. It turned unbelievably cold, and from then on I don’t think a day went by without us donning our waterproofs at least once. The other weather condition that caused us huge

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problems was the strong winds. Even though we knew that riding from south to north, the prevailing wind would be southwesterly and that it should mainly push us along, we often got battered from left to right.

As the days rolled together and we started soaking up the incredible freedom and simpleness, we both felt liberated.

Travelling so lightly and unburdened highlighted for me what this simplicity is all about, and it brought my soul great joy. I realised I don’t need a lot to be able to live and be happy. This lightness of being is a truly magnificent feeling, but it also highlighted how many of us require so much to live our daily lives, which I think have become more complex than ever. Technology and modern amenities are designed to simplify our lives, but I’m convinced they do just the opposite.

We rode through Exeter, on to Taunton, and then made our way toward Bristol.

This is where we crossed the Severn Bridge, and for a brief time we found ourselves in Wales. It was wonderful to think we’d return here in a few months for the Rugby World Cup. By the time we’d reached Monmouth, we’d been riding for seven days without a rest, and so we decided finally to have a day off. Monmouth is a quaint little town and is renowned for being the birthplace of King Henry V, born there

FROM TOP TO BOTTOM: The Drumochter Pass crosses the Grampian Mountains between Pitlochry and Dalwhinnie, covering a distance of about 50km; a private dwelling near Warrington; Leaving Land’s End Hotel; Finally at John o’ Groats; Riding along the canals near Morecambe Bay on our way to the Lake District

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on 9 August 1387. We camped in the town and, having some free time on our hands, we were able to get up to speed with what was happening at Wimbledon.

The next five days took us straight through England between Liverpool and Manchester, and it was here that we could turn our map over and view the second half of our journey for the first time. This was a major milestone. We skirted the Lake District and crossed into Scotland at the little town of Gretna.

Scotland has a completely different feel to England. My paternal grandmother was born in Edinburgh and she was a MacKay. As we cycled across the Firth of Forth estuary bridge and rode into Pitlochry, and then further north through the Cairngorms mountain range toward Inverness, I discovered what a ruthless clan the MacKays had been. Inverness was another huge milestone because, with only three days of cycling left, we knew the end was in sight.

We finally arrived in Wick and, with only 28km to go, we knew we’d make it.

We spent the night there; the next day, after a luxury breakfast and with no weight on the bikes, we thought our ride would be pleasurable and a breeze—but it turned out to be the worst day of the entire journey. We rode straight into a gale-force wind, with rain bashing us from all directions. But we finally made it! Land’s End to John o’ Groats could finally be ticked off the bucket list.

We’d ridden 28 days and about 1 600km, had two days’ rest, camped for seven nights, sampled over 50 different real ales, got hammered by weather and had an amazing time—but we’d also had one of the most challenging and exciting adventures of our lives. If you’re ever looking for a bucket-list item, I can’t recommend Land’s End to John o’ Groats more highly. You will be challenged, but you will love it.

Ronnie Muhl is an adventurer, athlete, author and professional speaker. He has been the leader of six expeditions on Everest, and is the founder and CEO of Adventures Global.

He also runs a company, Inspiration at Work.

See www.ronniemuhl.com or www.adventuresglobal.net.

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THE DIGITAL VERSION OF

The Intrepid Explorer

IS NOW AVAILABLE ON APPLE IPAD AND ANDROID TABLETS www.intrepidexplorer.co.za • 4th Quarter Edition 2015 R29.90 Incl. VAT

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FACING GIANTS – Champ AJ Calitz conquers the Drakensberg MISSION POSSIBLE – Climbing Kilimanjaro in a wheelchair PUSHING LIMITS – Trail running in the Richtersveld I N G S L E Y female H O L G AT E BLACK MAMBAS – We salute theKKruger’s anti-poaching unit AFRICAN ICONS – Photos of our most wild & wonderful places

K I N G S L E Y H O L G AT E

On God

THE RIVER OF

Kingsley Holgate’s humanitarian expedition along the length of the Zambezi goes in search of adventure— and those in need

Mama Afrika remains one of the last frontiers of great adventures, and it never fails to surprise me just how quickly a vision can become scribbled notes, hand-drawn sketches—and then reality.

Our boat is a first of its kind on the 2 574-kilometre Zambezi River. We named it the Ma Robert, after Victorian explorer Dr David Livingstone’s very first steam-driven iron boat in which he tried—in 1858—to prove that the Zambezi was navigable upstream all the way from the Indian Ocean to the Batoka Gorge below the Victoria Falls. Our comparative journey forms part of a four-chapter downstream odyssey from Barotseland to the mouth of the great Zambezi at Chinde.

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Discovery Vitality members get a FREE drink for being active!

INTRODUCING

Vitality Active Rewards Activate Vitality Active Rewards on the latest Discovery app

Earn Vitality fitness points

GOAL

Achieve your weekly Vitality Active Rewards goal

600

Get rewarded with a free drink at KAUAI or vida e caffè every week

Download the Discovery app today!

Not a Vitality member?

Visit www.discovery.co.za or SMS ‘Active’ to 47751. Get Active. Get Rewarded. Get Vitality

Discovery Vitality (Pty) Ltd is an authorised financial services provider. Registration number: 1999/007736/07. Terms and conditions and limits apply.

D ISC OVE RY V I TA LI TY

feel like a vip with team vitality!

Team Vitality, Discovery Vitality’s running and cycling club, is South Africa’s most popular and fastest growing club, with just under 10 000 members around the country. We asked some of our members why they joined Team Vitality— here are their stories

 MMAPULA MOTAUNG “As a mother of three children, it hasn’t always been easy to put myself first, but I decided that I needed to make my health—and achieving a healthy weight—a priority. Running with Team Vitality has helped me shed excess weight as well as de-stress, and I’m proud to be a good role model to my children!”

 SHAHEEMA ADAMS “I started running to ‘run away from my cancer’, but thankfully I’m now in remission and so today I run proudly in Team Vitality colours for my continued health and for that amazing feeling as you cross the finish line of a race. Team Vitality helps me to set new, and more challenging, goals that include taking part in an overseas race one day such as the London or New York Marathon. Running has taught me about perseverance and patience, and I see that same drive in my fellow Team Vitality teammates.”

 LIZ DE LANGE “I started cycling in a club environment after I got divorced to keep myself busy, and I soon fell in love with the sport. After joining Team Vitality this year, I took part in the Cape Town Cycle Tour at the age of 54 and managed to win in my age group, which has been a personal highlight of my cycling career. I cycle when I’m happy and when I’m sad (it helps!), and love to be surrounded by Team Vitality members when training and in races.”

 LEROY PLAATJES “I joined Team Vitality after I saw the VIP experience they offer members, which is like no other club. Their post-race hospitality at big races is a premium experience with goodie bags, massages, food, and a place to relax—all complimentary if you’re a member.”

 LYNN FISHER “I joined Team Vitality to continue to enjoy cycling with my partner, who was responsible for my joining the sport in the first place. We now train and race together every week. Being active as a couple has done wonders for the bond we share and the relationship we have, and I look forward to our continued love for each other and this sport.”

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 NANCY LABUSCAGNE “Joining Team Vitality was the next step in my journey of recovery after beating two types of cancer: leukaemia and then later lymphoma. During my chemotherapy, I used to watch people jogging by my house with a healthy sheen on their faces from their run. I sat admiring them for months and made a deal with myself that once I was ready, I would be joining them on the road. At the beginning of 2015, with my family by my side and Team Vitality support, I ran my first 5km race. And I’ll never look back.”

 XOLISWA SIBANGO “A few years back, I weighed 150kg and was diagnosed as a diabetic. I was terrified when my doctor explained the risks of obesity, so I started walking—and soon, running. I was often the last person to finish at a race, but I didn’t let myself feel embarrassed. I joined Team Vitality for the encouragement; nothing is better than seeing others cheering you on in the same club running shirt. Team Vitality helps me be a fitter, healthier, more energetic person!”

 DONALD NKOMO “I joined Team Vitality Running when I found out that the club offers cash backs to encourage us to get out there and take part in races. Certain events on the race calendar are even up to 50% cash back. This means that by taking part in just a handful of events, I’m making back my joining fee money—and more!”

 YVONNE JONKER “Team Vitality has given me a platform to connect with so many fellow runners and cyclists, all with similar goals. I started running to take back control of my life after a traumatic event in my life. I now set more and more challenging goals for myself, having recently completed my first Ironman race. Running has proven to me that anything is possible if I just put my heart and mind to it.”

Not a member yet? You’re missing out “Team Vitality is more than just a running or cycling club—it’s an initiative to help get people active. It’s about encouraging people to get off the couch and get active.” —Bruce Fordyce, Team Vitality ambassador Become a Team Vitality runner and/or cyclist for the best running and cycling club experience in South Africa. When you sign up, you’ll get premium racing kit, discount vouchers on sports gear and fitness devices, access to VIP hospitality, and up to 50% cash back on certain races on the calendar.

Visit www.discovery.co.za for more information, or follow the club on Twitter @TeamVitalitySA.

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D IS C OVERY VITAL ITY

family fitness

Simple ways to get yourself—and your kids—more physically active

How active are you? You may not think your health has much of an impact on your kids’ health, but it does. The more active you are, the healthier and more physically active your kids will be. Going to the gym just twice a week influences your children to become more physically active than their peers whose parents do not.

D

iscovery Vitality’s ObeCity Index, which measured the health and well-being of people living in some of South Africa’s major cities, found that most adults do not meet the daily minimum recommended amount for physical activity. While there are many reasons that levels of physical activity are decreasing, many are easy to overcome.

Here are some great ways to get yourself more physically active and improve the health of your kids as well: Take a break from screen time Having more televisions or computers in the home, and having a TV in the bedroom, is linked with higher use. Parents’ rules regarding TV and computer use are connected with lower levels of sedentary behaviour in young people. Studies have shown that engaging in more than four

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hours of screen time daily poses a significant health threat. So instead of watching TV, spend time together as a family: cooking a healthy meal, playing, practising sport, or engaging in hobbies like music or dancing.

Turn inactive time into active time Instead of sitting while taking phone calls, watching TV, or helping the kids with homework—stand. And when you’re standing while brushing your teeth, doing the dishes, or cooking, do some squats, leg lifts or lunges.

Take the time to look after yourself Make time for yourself and go to the gym, go for a run or a cycle, or do some yoga on the living-room floor. All the better if you can bring your children along, so they can see you being active; many gyms now

have sections where children can enjoy some active play while you work out— including the ones on Discovery Vitality’s Gym and Fitness benefit.

Find fun ways to play Children need quite a lot of physical activity to help them grow and develop healthily. Think of your children’s physical activity needs as an opportunity to get the whole family active. An event like “parkrun” can offer fun exercise for the entire family while you earn Vitality points. Bike parks, running trails, playgrounds or even dog parks can offer you great ways to exercise and have fun as a family.

Keeping physically active is one important factor that can help improve your health, and the health of your kids. Make an investment in your health and in their future by staying physically active.

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AJ C AL IT Z

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AJ C AL I TZ

facing

AJ Calitz conquers one of the country’s best hiking trails in the Drakensberg, with his family along for the adventure

giants I’d heard about the five must-do hiking trails every South African should attempt, which included The Giant’s Cup Trail in the Maloti Drakensberg Park. By happenstance, I was invited to do the inaugural Giant’s Cup Uncut trail run, which also includes a team relay race. (There’s a two-day event earlier in the year, which is the Full Monty.)

Photograph by Greg Labuscagne

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hen our daughter Emilie was born, my wife Paulette and I decided we wouldn’t be those parents who just sit at home because they have kids. At 2 weeks old, Emilie did her first summit of Lion’s Head—albeit in a baby sling. Next up, the family did the Fish River Canyon Ultra in Namibia, with a week-long road trip that included some dune- and 4x4 driving as well as camping in the Richtersveld.

Wanting to turn the Drakensberg adventure into a mini road trip/holiday, we decided to pack the bakkie and drive up together. Three days later, we arrived in the pouring rain. It hadn’t rained in the Underberg valley for nearly a year, so the farmers were jumping for joy—the trail runners, not so much.

‘I can’t believe what I’ve got myself into’ was written on all the runners’ faces at the 06h00 start at Sani Pass Hotel. We began at a meandering pace, knowing full well the severity of the 65-kilometre route ahead.

The first day of the hiking trail starts up a river gorge, crossing numerous times before ascending to a plateau for some climbing respite and beautiful views of the endless valleys and mountains more than 3 000m high. The views were short-lived, however, as we ascended once again into the cloud bank before descending into checkpoint 2 across a very rickety bridge for some sustenance.

Leg 2, the longest leg at 21km, starts with a nasty, steep and slippery climb onto the

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second highest point of the route at 2 200m before flattening off into very runnable and easy-going trails. I must say, I’ve very rarely seen such pristine trails—perfectly groomed and not a piece of litter in sight, which is truly a blessing! After the plateau, a hair-raising slippery and rocky descent followed down a ‘path’, which the organisers laid out to miss a section of tarred road.

The next leg starts with quite a mean little climb out of the valley. This was also the first time we could see the sun and take

of about three to four kilometres before the upward trek to the highest point at 2 400m.

The climb is relentless; around every corner I thought I must be close to the top, only to be greeted with another rise. Finally reaching the ascent, it was freezing! Gloves back on, buff pulled up and running faster just to keep warm, the descent started just in time. The altitude drops at an insane rate: Before you know it, you’re once again at 1 800m and on the gravel road to the Bushman’s Nek Berg & Trout Resort.

Leg 3 starts with quite a mean little climb out of the valley.

Friendly locals, cow bells and bleating sheep and goats greeted us as we passed the overnight huts off our gloves. Friendly locals, cow bells and bleating sheep and goats greeted us as we passed the overnight huts. There was no rest for the wicked, though, as the trail went skyward again. By far and away the most beautiful section, the views were truly spectacular as the clouds lifted slightly and we could take a few moments to take in the breathtaking vista of the Drakensberg.

Crossing the plateau onto the end of the leg, the highest point of the route loomed in the distance.

Leg 4 starts with a deceptive flat section

As things go with trail running, the organisers always have an ace up their sleeves. The gravel section is a punishing 3km, mind-numbing, slippery-as-ice, mud bath finishing with a vertical climb up to the entertainment area where warm drinks, wine, cheese and snacks awaited.

I loved the run and the route, but was quite glad to get off the mountain! It was very well organised, especially for a first effort.

Well done to Spurgeon Flemington, Matt Goode and the rest of the team. I’ll definitely be back to face Giant’s once again.

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L IFE T HR O U G H T H E LE N S

THE

UNLIKELY TALE OF

David Bristow introduces the new coffee-table book of photographs from 21 locations in the continent’s most wonderful and wildest places Photographs by Roger and Pat de la Harpe

AFRICAN ICONS THIS PAGE, FROM TOP: A microlight soars over “The Smoke that Thunders”—otherwise known as Victoria Falls; (inset) The authors Pat, Roger and David; A loggerhead mother-to-be heads for the Indian Ocean near Thonga Beach Lodge

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African horseback safari in the Okavango Delta

Wildebeest crossing the Mara River in the Serengeti ecosystem

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L IFE T HR O U G H T H E LE N S

here I was, minding my own business in a dark alley near Durban’s beachfront, when I was fallen upon by two suspicious characters— one of them brandishing a cultural weapon in my face (it turned out to be a chilli biltong stick).

“Psst, wanna make the best book ever about Africa’s best places?” they probed ominously.

By the sudden burst of a camera flash, I recognised it was photographers Roger and Pat de la Harpe. “We want your words,” they threatened.

“When do we trek?” I replied, eager to save my skin as well as my reputation.

And the rest is, as they say, history: some 140 000 photo images and 60 000 words derived from visits to 21 locations in the continent’s most wonderful and wildest places, seeing sights only dreamt of by the Romans, who knew a thing or two about new things coming out of Africa. Among the safari lodges and boutique hotels were also some flea pits of the kind frequented by cheering muleteers, leaky dhows and small airplanes that flew like ox wagons wag—but we tend to forget the rough bits.

The theme of the book was to be ‘icons’, which could be a place (like the Okavango Delta), a thing or things (Victoria Falls) or a key species (lion, elephant, black rhino, whale shark); the things that first come to mind when anyone asks: What is, or are, your favourite

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place or places in Africa? It’s a tough question. Like, do you prefer Table Mountain or Mount Kilimanjaro; do you prefer lions to leopards, mountain- to lowland gorillas?

Between the photographers and myself, we have notched up some 50 books on Africa and hundreds of

thousands of hard-won kilometres in our quest. If you’re looking for someone to answer that billion-rand question, you could do worse than ask one of us.

I’m sure each of us as authors would have our own favourites, but since I wield

the mighty keyboard, I get to choose here.

Among my favourite experiences were seeing the elephant-killing lions of Ruaha in Tanzania, lowland gorillas in the Congo’s Odzala rainforest, and the historical stone churches of Lalibela in Ethiopia.

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Amboseli elephants in Kenya, heading from forest cover to feed on swamp vegetation

L IFE T H RO UGH T H E L E NS

The Milky Way arcs over Kulala Desert Lodge in the Namib

A Cape sugarbird on a pincushion protea

But shove the sharpened billies in my face and I would opt for the Bale Mountains, also in Ethiopia—home to the last sustainable population of Ethiopian wolves (not to mention Bale Mountain Lodge and the charmingly intrepid British Rain drives the great Serengeti migration

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A lanner falcon in Ethiopia’s Bale Mountains National Park makes short work of a Blick’s grass rat

A buffalo will do for a meal, but the lions of Ruaha National Park in Tanzania are better known as elephant killers

couple, Guy and Yvonne Levene, who built it and now run the fine establishment). The 4 000-metre high montane massif is home to the most amazing array of creatures, most of them found only there. To put it somewhat more technically, Bale has the highest incidence of plant and animal endemism of any place of comparable size in the world. It’s a mist-shrouded wonderland that will take your breath away. It certainly did ours.

But perhaps the coolest thing about the book is Pat’s contribution. While Roger and I ran around Africa, shaking pens and lenses at everyone and everything, Pat quietly went about pointing a video camera at things weird and wonderful.

L IFE T H RO UGH T H E L E NS Each chapter in the book has a quickresponse code (QR code) in which is embedded video footage of each icon.

In the process, we got stuck in bogs with eyes watching, caught in snow storms on high mountain passes, bitten by mosquitoes, tsetse flies, scorpions, spiders, and lions—well, not actually lions, but I was nipped on the pinkie by ant lions, which was rather funny… I also returned from Egypt with West Nile virus, which was not so hilarious. Roger got a crippling case of Rift Valley fever, while Pat was stalked from the Kruger Park to Morocco by a tooth abscess that was resolved only after many thousands of kilometres and even more thousands of rands.

The book is not cheap, but then neither are the best wines, or whiskies, or women.

We printed just 1 000 copies, each one hand-bound in fine leather and each with a personalised page—depending on whether it’s for one’s own library, a special present or a corporate gift. The price of R3 500 includes packaging and posting within South Africa, with ridiculous

discounts offered for multiple orders.

You can order it on our website at www. africanicons.co.za or send an enquiry to me at eardstapper@gmail.com, or telephone

083 267 5891. After all, why get stuck in a bog in the treacherous Congo jungle when you can see us do it for you!

Each copy of African Icons is hand-bound in fine leather and has a signed, customised page

The lord of the jungle at Odzala-Kokoua National Park in the Republic of the Congo is a silverback western lowland gorilla

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on the

wild side Here’s the inside scoop on the outside world! We look at some of the astounding feats accomplished by intrepid explorers young and old; the latest developments and products; the best new books on the shelves; and upcoming events in which you, The Intrepid Explorer reader, can become involved.

So what are you waiting for? Get out there and make the most of the outdoors!

Compiled by Robbie Stammers

PICTURE PERFECT

Exceptionally high photographic standards were seen in the recent iSimangaliso Sodwana Bay Shootout powered by Nauticam (Dive Action Cape Town), capturing some of the incredible diversity and fragile beauty to be seen both above and below the ocean in this World Heritage Site.

Originally an underwater competition, the categories were expanded in recent years to enable non-diving photographers to enter in the Land category, with photographs eligible from anywhere within iSimangaliso. This resulted in an interesting mix of images coming through, including the recently introduced lions in the uMkhuze section of the park.

The overall winning photograph, of a Midas blenny, was taken by seasoned professional photographer Dr Geoff Spiby, who travelled from Cape Town with family and friends to participate. He also won the Advanced Underwater category with his portfolio titled, “At home where I usually live on the reef”. His son, Kevin, scooped the prize for photographing the most fish species during the six-day competition—135 of the 1 200+ species that are known to occur in this section of iSimangaliso.

Geoff was thrilled with his fabulous prizes, which totalled around R60 000 and included underwater camera housing equipment and a shark-diving trip to Fiji. “A big thanks to all the organising team and judges, and especially to Barry Beyleveld from Dive Action for sponsoring the Nauticam housing,” he said.

Professional photographer Allen Walker, also a past winner and one of the judges of this competition, said: “The iSimangaliso Sodwana Bay Shootout 2015, powered by Nauticam, is one of only a handful of competitions around the world held at a specific location where all

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the competitors compete with the same conditions, rules and amount of time.

Entrants need to produce world-class portfolios over a five-day shooting period and, at the end of the day, the best underwater photographer is judged the overall winner. This is the truest test of any underwater photographer’s skills, and the fairest form of competition among competitors from South Africa and around the world.

“Sodwana Bay did not disappoint, with a week of outstanding diving conditions—and with some top-notch photographers back in the competition, we saw the standard of photography once again making this event of world-class standard. We hope to see this become the premier South African underwater photography contest with the support of all South African and international underwater photographers,” he added.

According to event organiser Brian Ring of Reefteach (one of iSimangaliso’s licensed Sodwana-based dive operators), “The event went off extremely well and once again showcased not only the natural attractions of this coastal jewel but also provided a great, fun family event during the school holidays with environmental education, informative talks by marine specialists and a range of musical entertainment.”

Sincere thanks to the sponsors of the iSimangaliso Sodwana Bay Shootout 2015, who collectively sponsored over R200 000 worth of prizes as well as other contributions to the event.

www.intrepidexplorer.co.za

O UT AN D ABOU T

SAND AND SCENE with the annual Wavescape Festival Started in 2004 by Ross Frylinck and Steve Pike, this festival has grown to include the Wavescape Art Board Project, Wavescape Slide Night, Wavescape Fish Fry and the Wavescape Shortcuts Film Contest with Red Bull Media House. Since 2005, it has been held in Durban as part of the Durban International Film Festival, with satellite festivals on a smaller scale in New York and Saint-Leu on Réunion Island.

The founders never thought there would be such longevity in the surf-film genre, but the growth of technology—in particular drones, point-of-view cams like the GoPro, and super high-definition phantom cams (such as RED)—has blown the genre wide open. Furthermore, surfers see themselves as ambassadors for the oceans, which cover 71% of the planet. Our seas are under severe threat, and the transition to becoming more ocean-minded—partnering with ocean sustainability and conservation entities such as the sustainability arm of Pick n Pay, WWF-SASSI and the Save Our Seas Foundation—was a natural evolution for the founders, and something they feel immensely proud of.

2015 WAVESCAPE FESTIVAL PROGRAMME › 21 Sept to 30 Nov: Shortcuts Film Contest › 25 Nov to 3 Dec: Wavescape Art Board Project exhibition at Tiger’s Milk Restaurant & Bar, Muizenberg › 28 Nov: Fish Fry at Blue Bird Garage Food & Goods Market, Muizenberg (tickets at door) › 3 Dec: Surfboard Charity Auction (free) › 5 Dec: Outdoor screening at Clifton 4th Beach (free) › 8 Dec: Slide Night at Centre for the Book, Cape Town (www.quicket.co.za) › 6 to 9 Dec: Indoor screenings at Brass Bell Restaurant (tickets at door) › 10 to 13 Dec: Indoor screenings at Labia Theatre (Book through the theatre on 021 424 5927) › 14 Dec: Shortcuts Film Workshop at The Woodstock Exchange (free to young filmmakers)

For more details, go to www.wavescapefestival.com or call festival co-ordinator Shani Judes on 083 509 5106.

WIN

a collector’s edition surfboard worth R10 000!

The Intrepid Explorer is proud to announce that, in conjunction with WaveWorx, it is giving away one personally crafted, unique surfboard valued at R10 000. The board has been shaped by surfing guru Justin Healy, who has been in this business since 1985. He is influenced by world-renowned surfers Al Merrick, Tom Curren, Kelly Slater and Joel “Parko” Parkinson, and his philosophy is “to make the most functional boards that work”. Healy adds, “I’ve surfed at high level, and understand what makes a board go in certain conditions. After shaping for 25 years, and shaping in some of the biggest factories in the world, I’ve gained a good eye and pay attention to detail.”

To stand a chance of winning this epic board, send your name and contact details along with the answer to the question below to taryn@insightspublishing.co.za before 31 January 2016. The winner will be notified via email or telephone.

Question: What is the name of Justin Healy’s surfboard-crafting business?

Thanks to Auric Auto, MINI and ArtLab, for more information go to; www.auricauto.co.za www.artlab.co.za

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WIN

our best book picks!

The Intrepid Explorer is giving away four books, including arguably the best book on Africa—ever.

For many people, visiting South African game reserves is all about ticking off the Big Five.

But what about those animals you have almost zero chance of seeing? Award-winning travel writer Justin Fox goes in search of South Africa’s most elusive animals, The Impossible Five: the Cape mountain leopard, aardvark, pangolin, naturally occurring white lion, and the riverine rabbit. Besides the animals, the book is peopled with an immensely likeable cast of characters, and provides compelling insights into Wild South Africa and the local game-ranging and natural-science industries. Published by Tafelberg.

Frans Rautenbach’s book, Your Kruger National Park Guide, with stories, shows you how to have a great experience when visiting the Kruger National Park: what to expect, how to sight game, what to do, where to stay and what to eat. It includes beautiful photographs, charming accounts of personal experiences and memories, and plenty of practical advice. Published by Tafelberg.

Forever Arniston, a beautiful coffeetable book compiled by Robert Haarburger and David Cotton, provides historical insight into the fishing village and the natural area surrounding it—taking readers through the stories of Arniston, The Overberg, Kassiesbaai, Waenhuiskrans Cave and the L’Agulhas coast. Also featured is the Arniston Spa Hotel, which was built in 1933, and an account of the sinking of the Arniston Transport 200 years ago. Forever Arniston is available online at takealot.com for R300 (including VAT).

And finally, we have African Icons. Renowned writer David Bristow and award-winning photographers Roger and Pat de la Harpe—long-time friends and business associates—have pooled their talents and visited Africa’s must-see places to share their insights with the world. During 2014/2015, they explored and documented the 21 most iconic places on the most beguiling continent on Earth. After all, who wouldn’t want to say they’ve visited Table Mountain, the High Atlas, the wonders of ancient Egypt, the East African savannah, the great deserts of the Kalahari and the Namib, the jungles of Central Africa, and the continent’s wondrous coastline? This exciting coffee-table book is illustrated with spectacular photographs and inspiring text. Each copy is hand-bound in leather, with a customised page that can be tailored as a gift to a friend, for one’s own use, or as a corporate gift. Using African Icons as your bucket list—whether you travel by plane, four-wheel drive, on foot or in the armchair—visiting these places will be the greatest adventure of your lifetime.

So, pack your bags (but keep them light), check your camera, and join the authors on the greatest African journey ever.

To stand a chance of winning a personalised copy of African Icons worth R3 000, plus the other three books mentioned above, send your name, contact details and the answer to the question below to taryn@insightspublishing.co.za before 31 January 2016. Winners will be notified via telephone or email.

Question: What is the title of the book by David Bristow, and Pat and Roger de la Harpe?

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O UT AN D ABOU T

The Cape of Flames

During the furnace heat of early March, the 2015 Muizenberg Fire ripped the iconic Cape Peninsula in two— uniting Capetonians as never before. Sweeping from coast to coast, the largest single wildfire in the history of Table Mountain National Park razed 5 120 hectares of fynbos, along with four homes and a luxury resort.

Residents feared its vindictive ferocity. Ecologists welcomed its life-giving, rejuvenating power. Both sought to protect their interests. Threatening the city’s marginal Wildland Urban Interface—breached when Tokai Plantation exploded into a fully fledged firestorm—the runaway blaze was met with overwhelming force and an integrated fire-management system born of international experience and centuries of dancing around wildfire management. Under a rage-red, smoke-filled sky, accompanied by the unmistakable clatter of dozens of fire-fighting helicopters, bombers and spotter aircraft, 2 000 wildland and urban firefighters from across the country worked tirelessly and with choreographed precision to avert disaster.

Committed to their mountain and city, Capetonians rallied behind their firefighters. Generosity and goodwill abounded.

Nevertheless, after a week of potential cataclysm, the Mother City felt mugged by Mother Nature.

The Cape Aflame—Cape Town’s Dance with Fire, a graphic 176-page, hardcover, large-format publication selling at a special pre-order price of R375 (including VAT and delivery), eases the sense of despoliation wrought by those fire-filled days of March. Written by Capetonians for Capetonians to benefit public-service organisations, it has presold an astonishing 750 copies a month before publication and the Christmas season.

Using a stunning 200-plus photographs, 30 0000 words and a detailed fire-progression map, it sets wildfire in the context of history and our fynbos biome’s needs. Going beyond the fireline to educate us in preserving our biodiversity while accommodating a vital natural force, it crackles and sparks with the spectacular intensity befitting an arresting, richly researched and definitive record of the 2015 Muizenberg Fire.

Every picture tells a story. Know the story. Keep The Cape Aflame.

Go get the book at www.capeaflame.org.

ONE FOR THE LADIES With more than 60 events annually, South Africa is undoubtedly the mountain bike stage-race capital of the world. It was only a matter of time before a ladiesonly race was established—now, in 2016, Titanium Sports Events will present the inaugural Tour de Femme. The three-day mountain bike stage-race will be based in the Western Cape, in the beautiful Cape Winelands region.

According to the organisers, who are women, too often the men are given the ‘pink ticket’ to go out for a weekend with the boys. This time, it’s the ladies’ turn.

“Race is perhaps a strong word to describe the Tour de Femme. Escape might be more appropriate,” says Jenni Green of Titanium Sports Events. “We’re focusing on the whole experience, and not just the pedalling parts. It’s a ‘me-time’ escape for women who love mountain biking, but with certain ‘racing’ elements.”

While the mountain biking at the Tour de Femme will be challenging (but not too intimidating), all the off-the-bike elements will be focused on what women want, including a bike wash and lube station; mechanical support (no girl wants to get her hands dirty); quality, tasty food (not just heaps of carbs); great wine (obviously); and plenty of comfortable social-gathering points.

The Tour de Femme will be based at one location, creating a village-type atmosphere—not a tent in sight!

No queues to use a loo and no brushing your teeth in the glow of a headlight… In order to maintain a high level of participant satisfaction, entries will be limited and will include teams of two as well as solo entries.

The entry fee will include two nights’ accommodation and three days of catering.

There will be two timed stages, with the first day being an orientation-type afternoon that includes some skills sharpening, followed by a mellow wine-tasting ride through the Winelands.

For now, ladies should visit the Tour de Femme website at www.tourdefemme.co.za where they can request being added to the database for regular event updates and announcements.

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IN THE EYES OF THE BEHOLDER Encompassed in a rubberised-armour Grilamid frame, the 2mm polycarbonate optics are interchangeable and come with a pair of smoke-grey polarised lenses to protect you in the sun while recording. Both styles also include a micro-USB 2.0 cable and a microfibre pouch. Pivothead Kudu packs a lot of technology into its stylish and functional sunglasses. Within the frames is a four-element Largan glass lens, 8 megapixel Sony CMOS sensor, 44.1kHz mono microphone, 8GB of flash memory, and a 440mAh lithium polymer battery. A power button and pivot switch provide operational control.

Pivothead Kudu and Durango eyewear is on sale at Cape Union Mart at the price of R3 499. Or find them on www.gatewaybrands.com/ pivothead.

4787 Angelcy 2015

From the professional to the recreational, as proud spectator or from within the action, Pivothead eyewear captures your adventures as they happen. Available in South Africa for the first time, Pivothead puts the camera where your eyes are, letting you capture hands-free video and still images from your own point of view.

Says Mike Pullen of Gateway Brands: “We’ll be launching the Pivothead Kudu Matt Black, and the Durango Matt Black and Glossy locally in time for the festive season. Built with sportsmen, families, adventurers and other customers in mind, the Kudu is an uncompromising pair of video sport optics that deliver a unique perspective that only you would have.”

Don de Sousa, also of Gateway Brands, adds: “It’s now possible to wear a camcorder in the same position as your eyes, with the Pivothead Range that provides hands-free video recording for unique home movies and stills. You could be on safari, performing onstage, on a road trip or taking in some spectacular scenery while mountain biking—this wearable video camera allows you to present viewers with your unique view over what’s happening.”

FRONT ROW SEATS

TO THIS YEAR’S

MUD WRESTLING

WRANGLE When you’ve had enough of those sticky boardroom mudslinging matches: Come take time out a mere 200m from the Phalaborwa Gate of the Kruger National Park in cool, contemporary luxury. Wash away the corporate grime and leave with memories that stick...

015 781 3447 explore@bushveldterrace.co.za www.bushveldterrace.co.za B&B rates from R545 pppns

Visit our website or find us on Facebook for great summer specials

Muddy Ellie photograph courtesy of Mariska Nortjé: winner of our 2015 Amateur Photography Competition

O UT AN D ABOU T

Functional fashion

The new advance-performance hiking socks from FALKE are the ultimate hiking partner if form-fitting comfort is at the top of your list. The Advance Hike 2 Cool provides stability and support without constriction. Cutting-edge design features and yarn selection will keep your feet cool and comfortable all-day long, while strategically placed cushioning in critical high-strain areas offer protection. In addition, the new advanced wicking and robust lightweight yarn blend and Drynamix moisture management provide the ultimate in rapid moisture transfer and dynamic cooling.

If you’re going exploring, don’t forget to pack a pair of FALKE Seamless Hiking Socks. Treated with a specially formulated FALKE Insect Pro-Tech repellent, these socks offer protection against insect- and tick bites.

AH2 socks retail from R100, and are available in a wide colour selection including turquoise, grey and olive. Watch the shelves for AH1, the new addition to the FALKE range, which will be hitting Cape Union Mart stores countrywide in January 2016.

Tanzania Uganda Rwanda Zimbabwe Zambia Botswana Ethiopia Kenya

SAFARIS 2016

HIKE TO THE TOP OF AN ACTIVE VOLCANO Ol Doinyo Lengai

Hike to the summit, including a safari to Ngorongoro/Serengeti.

Mt Nyiragongo

This range straddles the border of Rwanda & DRC. Our expedition includes gorilla trekking.

Take the unique trail to somewhere truly different!

Tel: 011 702 2035 or 072 927 7529 Fax: 086 689 6759 reservations@wildfrontiers.com www.wildfrontiers.com

GO CLIMB A

VOLCANO! Do you have a yearning to do something different—like climb an active volcano? Wild Frontiers has put together a couple of trips in 2016 that will tackle two of the better known active volcanoes in Africa, both straddling the equator region but in two different countries.

Ol Doinyo Lengai—called “Mountain of God” in the local Maasai language—stands at an elevation of just under 3 000m, south of Lake Natron, which is close to Ngorongoro and the Serengeti. This incredible mountain last erupted in 2006 and covered the neighbouring communities and farmland with a deposit of fine, dust-like natrocarbonatite lava—metres deep in some places. It is unique, the only active volcano in the world of this type.

Although height is not an issue, it is nonetheless a challenge. The paths in some places are not that well-defined and, as you reach the summit, the rim is not particularly stable, and you stare down into a gaping chasm below. The climb is a one-day affair, up and down, but it is combined with an incredible hiking trip along the remote Ngorongoro (Crater) Highlands—traversing plains, mountains and forests, and then trekking down into active craters with beautiful lakes, often edged pink with flamingos.

In April 2016, Wild Frontiers will lead a trip that includes a few days of game viewing in the Serengeti and Ngorongoro, plus climbing Ol Doinyo Lengai and visiting Lake Natron.

But if ‘bubbling lava’ is your thing, then perhaps Mount Nyiragongo would appeal to you. An active stratovolcano sitting at an elevation of 3 470m in the Virunga Mountain range of the Democratic Republic of Congo, it last erupted in 2002 and before that in 1977. The slow-moving molten lava is still evident in a wide strip through the nearby town of Goma, running into Lake Kivu.

This climb includes an overnight stay on the mountain, waking early to watch the sunrise over the crater edge—the red glow from the lava complementing the red rays of the sun.

The safari will take place in the second half of 2016, led by Wild Frontiers, and will be combined with mountain gorilla trekking in the Virungas.

Email reservations@wildfrontiers.com for more information on these two wicked trips.

www.wildfrontiers.com

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big

Robbie Stammers gives us a guided tour of the new, exciting vehicles that have been spotted on our roads recently

Like the Big 5 in the bush, these vehicles have unique characteristics: some may be featured for their strength and speed, and others for their comfort and size.

A beauty AND a beast – Land Rover Discovery 4 Sport Land Rover has further enhanced the visual appeal of its latest premium, compact SUV with the launch of the Discovery Sport Dynamic at the 2015 Frankfurt Motor Show. The Discovery Sport Dynamic will be available as a limited edition model, to only a lucky few buyers in South Africa in 2016.

The Discovery Sport Dynamic features a number of exterior enhancements

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including Narvik Black exterior details, body-coloured mouldings and door claddings, and a unique new 19-inch wheel design in Satin Dark Grey. Combined with new interior colours and detailing, the new Dynamic design option creates a powerful and striking impression. “The Discovery Sport Dynamic has been created to heighten the design appeal of the Discovery Sport. Gloss black is a key accent

colour differentiator on the exterior, while the use of body-coloured bumpers and door claddings emphasise its on-road, sporty presence,” says Gerry McGovern, Land Rover design director and chief creative officer. “With the launch of the Discovery Sport Dynamic, we are offering our customers greater choice in the look and feel of their vehicle.”

The capability of the Discovery Sport is

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heightened by the introduction of All-Terrain Progress Control (ATPC) in petrol models for 2016. ATPC is an advanced system that enables drivers to set and maintain a steady speed in offroad conditions. Developed by Land Rover’s industry-leading all-terrain specialists, ATPC functions similarly to a cruise control system, operational between 2 and 30km/h. The system adapts the vehicle’s behaviour according to the terrain, allowing even novice users the control of an expert off-road driver.

ATPC also features a dedicated Launch feature, allowing the vehicle to pull away smoothly and easily—even on problematic low-friction surfaces like fine sand, mud or wet grass.

Supplementing the Discovery Sport’s large and varied suite of technologies is a new feature called Gesture Tailgate. This provides the user with the ability to open and close the powered tailgate by means of a kick gesture, enabling the user hands-free access to the load space.

The Discovery Sport is the first member of Land Rover’s new Discovery family, and has enjoyed a highly successful launch—with sales reaching nearly 30 000 in the first half of 2015. Discovery Sport Dynamic Limited Edition will go on sale locally in 2016, with pricing and quantities to be confirmed.

Step aside, Evoque! There’s a new kid on the block—and we like her a lot!

Price tags › 2.2-litre TD4 Diesel Automatic R541 900 › 2.2-litre SD4 Diesel Automatic R590 300 › 2.0-litre Si4 Petrol Automatic R590 300 New Discovery Sport SE › 2.2-litre SD4 Diesel Automatic R635 600 › 2.0-litre Si4 Petrol Automatic R635 600 New Discovery Sport HSE › 2.2-litre SD4 Diesel Automatic R692 300 › 2.0-litre Si4 Petrol Automatic R692 300 New Discovery Sport HSE Luxury › 2.2-litre SD4 Diesel Automatic R731 400 › 2.0-litre Si4 Petrol Automatic R731 400

www.intrepidexplorer.co.za

Style and safety in one package – Volvo XC90 Since its unveiling last August at an event in Stockholm, the XC90 has been attracting a great deal of attention thanks to its stunning design, innovative powertrain programme and its redefinition of the connected in-car control experience. “The XC90 represents the future of Volvo Cars. This is a result of tireless research and innovation made possible by a substantial investment.

We are delighted to see that it has been so well received,” said Håkan Samuelsson, president and CEO of the Volvo Car Group.

Combining a distinctive and confident face, complete with the updated Volvo Iron Mark and the signature Thor’s Hammer headlights, the XC90’s connection to Volvo’s past and homage to the Swedish lifestyle are entirely evident in the new design language.

Taking the best of Volvo’s innovative safety systems and adding to that list, the XC90 comes fully equipped with the IntelliSafe package as standard, delivering two world firsts: Run-off Road Protection, and Auto Brake at Intersections.

Thanks to the efficient performance delivered by Volvo’s four-cylinder Drive-E engine programme, the XC90 provides a broad range of power options. This engine gives a wide band of power for the XC90 in both petrol and diesel, front- and all-wheel drive configurations.

On top of that, Volvo has introduced a no-compromise Twin Engine technology in the XC90 T8, which delivers 300kW, 470Nm and only 49g CO2/km. It makes the all-new Volvo XC90 the most powerful and cleanest premium SUV on the market, according to Volvo—and one can see why the automaker claims it.

The Twin Engine technology in the XC90, which was developed in co-operation with Siemens, sets a new benchmark in terms of efficient performance in the

luxury SUV segment. Volvo Cars has a long history of electrification: The first hybrid concept car (the ECC) was produced back in 1992. Volvo Cars also introduced the world’s first diesel plug-in hybrid in the V60 sportswagon in 2011.

Volvo Cars has developed advanced and engaging ride and handling characteristics for the XC90 in its new state-of-the-art chassis simulation lab.

The results speak for themselves: The vehicle delivers a smooth and nimble character in the city, an engaging drive on country roads, and a comfortably solid presence on the highway. Featuring a complete reimagination of traditional in-car controls, the XC90 driver interface is based on touchscreen technology, and an intuitively tiled menu system that takes the effort out of personalisation and interaction.

Volvo’s Sensus control system delivers true connectivity with a range of useful cloud-based applications and services that can be operated via the touch screen, through steering wheel controls, or via the advanced on-board voice control system.

With the all-new XC90, Volvo Cars introduces a whole new trim level system, which resembles a tree with two branches. Kinetic is the base, followed by the very competitive Momentum level.

Inscription and R-Design form the two branches on the tree. The Inscription package is designed for customers who want an elegant look and a luxurious experience, while R-Design has a sporty and dynamic aura. The South African line-up will consist of the Momentum, Inscription and R-Design derivatives.

Price tags › List price: R907 600 › Premium price, with all the extra bells and whistles: R1 027 950

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The sports sedan redefined – New Jaguar XE The Jaguar XE is the driver’s car in its class.

Its lightweight construction, streamlined styling, luxurious interior and outstanding ride and handling are testament to the vision of company founder Sir William Lyons: “The car is the closest thing we will ever create to something that is alive.”

The rear-drive XE is the only vehicle in its class to use an aluminium-intensive monocoque. This extremely robust yet light structure, together with double-wishbone front suspension and an Integral Link rear axle, is fundamental to the car’s innovative benchmark vehicle dynamics.

Jaguar’s world-leading expertise in aluminium structure engineering enables exceptional fuel consumption and emissions figures: With a new 2.0-litre Ingenium diesel engine, the XE can achieve 4.2 litres/100km (combined) and 109g/km CO2—the most efficient Jaguar ever.

Powered by the supercharged 3.0-litre V6 petrol engine from the acclaimed Jaguar F-TYPE, the XE S is capable of 0-100km/h in just 5.1 seconds.

“The Jaguar XE has performance and handling that match its sporty yet elegant design,” says Lisa Mallett, marketing and communications director of Jaguar Land Rover South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.

“Its emotional appeal is further enhanced through superb levels of luxury and use of state-of-the-art materials and technology.”

The aluminium-intensive Jaguar XE is the first model developed from Jaguar Land Rover’s new modular vehicle

architecture. The long 2 835mm wheelbase and low seating position enable perfect proportions and a streamlined profile.

The cabin offers outstanding levels of comfort and spaciousness. Exquisite materials and finishes combined with Jaguar craftsmanship make this a class-beating interior that’s unlike anything else in the segment. Centre stage is an eight-inch touchscreen that offers drivers easy access to media and navigation features, as well as information displays.

The vehicle has some of the most advanced driver-assistance systems available. All-Surface Progress Control, developed through decades of Jaguar Land Rover experience in off-road traction systems, can electronically gain traction in seconds and is ideal for use on low-grip surfaces such as icy roads or wet grass.

Laser projection technology enables the XE’s head-up display (HUD) to generate sharp, high-contrast colour graphics from a module smaller and almost a third lighter than existing systems, retaining clarity even in direct sunlight. The HUD can display important information to drivers at eye level, allowing them to keep their focus on the road. A stereo camera is mounted behind the front windscreen to give the XE a 3D view of the road ahead; this highly accurate

data is used for functions including the lane-departure warning system.

The XE is the stiffest, most aerodynamic Jaguar sedan car ever built. It is also the first Jaguar to be equipped with electric power steering, tuned to provide exceptional responsiveness and feel—but with lower energy consumption than hydraulic systems. The XE also boasts the lowest cost of ownership and most environmentally sustainable credentials of all Jaguar models.

Price tags › › › › › › › ›

Jaguar XE 2.0D Pure Jaguar XE 2.0D Prestige Jaguar XE 2.0D R-Sport Jaguar XE 2.0D Portfolio Jaguar XE 2.0 i4 Prestige Jaguar XE 2.0 i4 R-Sport Jaguar XE 2.0 i4 Portfolio Jaguar XE 3.0 Supercharged S

R534 800 R590 400 R614 000 R654 600 R638 900 R662 600 R703 200 R908 100

A no-brainer – 2016 Range Rover Sport The 2016 model year Range Rover Sport brings customers more choices when it comes to personalisation and technology.

Additionally, Land Rover’s most dynamic model gains a new variant in the Range Rover Sport HST. The HST enhances the driving experience thanks to its uprated 3.0-litre supercharged V6 petrol engine that produces 280kW and 450Nm— that’s 30kW more than the current supercharged V6 model.

The bold new HST is identified by its unique exterior design, with a striking black theme, and interior enhancements—all of which give the high-performance luxury

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SUV a distinctive and dynamic appearance.

Unique chassis settings deliver an even more focused driving experience and sharper responses, without compromising the vehicle’s trademark comfort and refinement. Detail changes to the suspension reduce body roll and deliver enhanced agility.

The Terrain Response setup features a Dynamic Mode that optimises the suspension, Electric Power Assisted Steering and other electronic systems to suit on-road driving. This feature provides more controlled electronic damping and a more responsive throttle pedal, while

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enhancing gearshifts and steering response.

Inside, the HST is finished with duo-tone seats trimmed in luxurious Oxford leather. Bespoke HST badging on the dashboard, carpet mats and the TFT instrument panel highlight the luxury model’s high-performance focus. The sporty cues extend to Noble-plated paddle shift gear levers on the steering wheel and distinctive bright ‘Sports’ pedals, while the aluminium interior trim features a textured ‘Sports’ finish.

Customers can take their Range Rover Sport off the beaten track with more confidence, with ATPC on all SDV8 variants.

This system lets drivers set a speed with which they are comfortable—ranging from 1.8 to 30km/h—while they only need to provide steering input. The vehicle’s systems will optimise traction and drivetrain settings, allowing for effortless progress on difficult terrain.

Other convenience features include a new Surround Camera System that utilises a high-resolution camera for crisper graphics and enhanced clarity. This also introduces Rear Junction View, which uses the Surround Camera System to significantly improve rearward visibility when reversing out of parking spots. An integrated washer jet for the rear camera ensures clarity at all times, in all conditions.

Customers will benefit from an increased range of personalisation options and an extended range of accessories. The Range Rover Sport will be available with three new paint options, and a total of seven interior colourways. Extended leather is now an option; HSE, HST and SVR models will be fitted with climate seats as standard. A new Carbon Fibre Pack is available, offering a sporty finish on side vents, tailgate trim, door mirror covers, a front grille surround, and fog lamp bezels, with bonnet vents finished in high-gloss lacquer.

This is driving perfection—as I’ve come to expect from Land Rover/Range Rover. If you have the money, this is a no-brainer.

Price tags › LR-TDV6 3.0 Litre Diesel › LR-V6 Supercharged 3.0 Litre Petrol

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R998 500 R968 300

Gem in the dunes – New Mercedes-Benz G-Class Over the years I’ve had the pleasure of attending too many car launches to mention, but this has to be one of the best to date! We were whisked off in a chartered plane to Walvis Bay where we jumped into the new G-Class vehicles and drove for two hours through the incredible Namibian landscape to the dunes outside Swakopmund. For the next two days, we did some of the most incredible moonscapes and sand dunes,.

As far as the G-Class is concerned, the legend definitely lives on. All MercedesBenz G-Class models now offer up to 16% more power and up to 17% lower fuel consumption. The new range includes the G 350 d and the Mercedes-AMG G 63.

The exclusive AMG G 63 Edition 463 is also being launched.

Mercedes-Benz’s classic off-roader is beginning a new chapter in a success story that spans more than 35 years. With its continuously improved technology and high-class equipment specification, this all-terrain icon has consistently satisfied the highest expectations of off-road fans.

A new suspension setup, together with more sensitive ESP® control, results in increased driving stability, safety and road comfort. The exterior and interior have also been given an upgrade.

The G 350 d benefits from a hike in output from 155kW to 180kW, with its torque climbing from 540 to 600Nm. It now accelerates from 0 to 100km/h in 8.8 seconds instead of the previous 9.1 seconds. The combined NEDC consumption drops from 11.2 to 9.9 litres/100 km. The AMG G 63 now delivers 420kW instead of 400kW, with torque of 760Nm. The G 350 d and the AMG G 63 are equipped, as standard, with an ECO start/

stop function that reduces fuel consumption and emissions by switching off the engine when the vehicle is at rest, for instance in a traffic jam or at traffic lights.

The new models retain the familiar sturdy basis of body and ladder-type frame, which still offers generous reserves to cope with the increased power. Also retained is the unrivalled off-road performance with permanent all-wheel drive, low-range gearbox and three differential locks that can be engaged/ disengaged while on the move.

The standard suspension setup has been revised, with optimised shock absorbers for improved control of body movements and even greater on-road ride comfort. An adapted ESP® setup makes enhanced driving dynamics possible and, as a result, increased driving stability and road safety. Optimisations to ASR and ABS result in improved traction while shortening the stopping distance when braking.

The 7G-TRONIC PLUS automatic transmission in the G 350 d model now also features a manual transmission mode. By pressing the ‘M’ button, it allows the driver to savour the high available torque and to use the steeringwheel shift paddles to decide just when to change gear.

I was sold by Mercedes before, but these new G-Class vehicles have taken the automaker into another stratosphere altogether.

Price tags (including 14% VAT, excl. CO2 emissions tax) › G 350 d V6 R1 418 000 › AMG G 63 R2 156 000 › AMG G 63 Edition 463 R2 156 000 + R152 000 The Intrepid Explorer issue 12

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STOR E L IS TI N G

WESTERN CAPE STORES Bayside Mall, Blouberg (021) 556-3861 bayside@capeunionmart.co.za Blue Route Mall, Tokai (021) 712-5979 blueroute@capeunionmart.co.za Canal Walk, Century City (021) 555-2846 canalwalk@capeunionmart.co.za Canal Walk Adventure Centre (021) 555-4629 cwac@capeunionmart.co.za CapeGate Shopping Centre, Brackenfell (021) 982-2000 capegate@capeunionmart.co.za Cavendish Square, Claremont (021) 674-2148 cavendish@capeunionmart.co.za Constantia Village (021) 794-0632 constantia@capeunionmart.co.za Gardens Centre (021) 461-9678 gardens@capeunionmart.co.za Mill Square, Stellenbosch (021) 886-4645stellenbosch@ capeunionmart.co.za Mountain Mill Mall, Worcester (023) 347-1484 worcester@capeunionmart.co.za Paarl Mall (021) 863-4138 paarl@capeunionmart.co.za Somerset Mall (021) 852-7120 somersetwest@capeunionmart.co.za Tygervalley Shopping Centre (021) 914-1441 tygervalley@capeunionmart.co.za V&A Waterfront Quay Four (021) 425-4559 quayfour@capeunionmart.co.za V&A Waterfront Travel & Safari (021) 419-0020 waterfront@capeunionmart.co.za West Coast Mall, Vredenburg (022) 713-4113 weskus@capeunionmart.co.za GARDEN ROUTE Garden Route Mall, George (044) 887-0048 gardenroute@capeunionmart.co.za Knysna Mall (044) 382-4653 knysna@capeunionmart.co.za Langeberg Mall, Mossel Bay (044) 695-2486 mosselbay@capeunionmart.co.za

Hemingways Shopping Centre, East London (043) 726-0908 hemingways@capeunionmart.co.za

NORTH WEST STORES Brits Mall (012) 250-1909 brits@capeunionmart.co.za

Walmer Park Shopping Centre, PE (041) 368-7442 walmer@capeunionmart.co.za

Matlosana Mall, Klerksdorp (018) 462-0711 matlosanamall@capeunionmart.co.za

Vincent Park, East London (043) 726-2900 vincentpark@capeunionmart.co.za

MooiRivier Mall, Potchefstroom (018) 293-1788 mooirivier@capeunionmart.co.za

The Intrepid Explorer issue 12

Mall@Reds, Centurion (012) 656-0182 redsmall@capeunionmart.co.za Mall of the South, Aspen Hills (011) 682 2361 mallofthesouth@capeunionmart.co.za

Menlyn Park Waterfall Mall, Rustenburg (012) 368-1015 KWAZULU-NATAL STORES (014) 537-3651 menlyn@capeunionmart.co.za Boardwalk Inkwazi Shopping Centre, waterfall@capeunionmart.co.za Nicolway Bryanston Richard’s Bay (011) 706-7573 (035) 789-0321 LIMPOPO STORES nicolway@capeunionmart.co.za boardwalk@capeunionmart.co.za Lephalale Mall Northgate Shopping Centre Galleria Mall, Durban (014) 763-1278 (011) 794-1022 (031) 904-2318 lephalale@capeunionmart.co.za northgate@capeunionmart.co.za galleria@capeunionmart.co.za Mall of the North, Polokwane OR Tambo International Airport Gateway World, Durban (015) 265-1067 (011) 390-3245 (031) 566-5111 mallofthenorth@capeunionmart.co.za ortambo@capeunionmart.co.za gateway@capeunionmart.co.za

Rosebank Mall GAUTENG STORES (011) 442-1959 Atterbury Value Mart, Pretoria rosebank@capeunionmart.co.za (012) 991-3171 atterbury@capeunionmart.co.za Sandton City Midlands Mall, Pietermaritzburg (011) 884-9771 Bedford Centre, Johannesburg (033) 342-0152 sandton@capeunionmart.co.za (011) 615-3097 midlands@capeunionmart.co.za bedford@capeunionmart.co.za The Glen Shopping Centre, Oakdene The Pavilion, Westville (011) 436-1300 Brooklyn Mall, Pretoria (031) 265-1666 theglen@capeunionmart.co.za (012) 460-5511 pavilion@capeunionmart.co.za brooklyn@capeunionmart.co.za The Grove Mall, Pretoria Watercrest Mall, Durban (012) 807-0642 Mall@Carnival, Brakpan (031) 763-1489 thegrove@capeunionmart.co.za (011) 915-0470 watercrest@capeunionmart.co.za carnivalmall@capeunionmart.co.za Vaal Mall, Vanderbijlpark (016) 981-5186 NORTHERN CAPE STORES Centurion Mall vaalmall@capeunionmart.co.za Diamond Pavilion Shopping Mall, (012) 663-4111 Kimberley centurion@capeunionmart.co.za Wonderpark Shopping Centre, Pretoria (053) 832-3846 (012) 549-4203 Clearwater Mall, Roodepoort diamondpavilion@capeunionmart.co.za wonderpark@capeunionmart.co.za (011) 675-0036 Kalahari Mall, Upington clearwater@capeunionmart.co.za Woodlands Boulevard, Pretoria (054) 331-3631 (012) 997-6960 Cradlestone, Krugersdorp kalaharimall@capeunionmart.co.za woodlands@capeunionmart.co.za (011) 662-1530 Kathu Village Mall cradlestone@capeunionmart.co.za (053) 723-2736 BOTSWANA STORES Cresta Shopping Centre kathu@capeunionmart.co.za Francistown, Pick n Pay Centre (011) 478-1913 00267-241-0398 Kuruman Mall cresta@capeunionmart.co.za francistown@capeunionmart.co.za kuruman@capeunionmart.co.za Eastgate Adventure Centre Gamecity Lifestyle Shopping Centre (011) 622-8788 Gaborone FREE STATE STORES egac@capeunionmart.co.za 00267-391-0948 Loch Logan Waterfront, Bloemfontein East Rand Mall, Boksburg gamecity@capeunionmart.co.za (051) 430-0230 (011) 826-2408 lochlogan@capeunionmart.co.za Riverwalk Mall, Gaborone eastrandmall@capeunionmart.co.za 00267-370-0040 Mimosa Mall, Bloemfontein Forest Hill City, Centurion riverwalk@capeunionmart.co.za (051) 444-6060 (012) 668-1030 mimosa@capeunionmart.co.za foresthill@capeunionmart.co.za NAMIBIA STORES Dihlabeng Mall, Bethlehem Maerua Mall, Windhoek Fourways Mall (058) 303-1372 00264-612-20424 (011) 465-9824 dihlabeng@capeunionmart.co.za windhoek@capeunionmart.co.za fourways@capeunionmart.co.za La Lucia Mall (031) 562-0523 Lalucia@capeunionmart.co.za

Greenstone Shopping Centre MPUMALANGA STORES (011) 609-0002 Highveld Mall, Emalahleni greenstone@capeunionmart.co.za The Market Square, Plettenberg Bay (013) 692-4018 (044) 533-4030 highveld@capeunionmart.co.za Heidelberg Mall marketsquare@capeunionmart.co.za (016) 341-2031 i’langa Mall, Nelspruit heidelberg@capeunionmart.co.za (013) 742-2281 EASTERN CAPE STORES ilanga@capeunionmart.co.za Hyde Park Corner Baywest Mall, Port Elizabeth (011) 325-5038 Middelburg Mall (021) 886-5262 hydepark@capeunionmart.co.za (013) 244-1040 baywest@capeunionmart.co.za middelburg@capeunionmart.co.za Irene Village Mall Fountains Mall, Jeffreys Bay (012) 662-1133 Riverside Mall, Nelspruit (042) 293-0005 irene@capeunionmart.co.za (013) 757-0338 fountainsmall@capeunionmart.co.za nelspruit@capeunionmart.co.za Killarney Mall Greenacres Shopping Centre, PE (011) 646-7745 Secunda Mall (041) 363-1504 killarney@capeunionmart.co.za (017) 634-7921 greenacres@capeunionmart.co.za secunda@capeunionmart.co.za

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Kolonnade Shopping Centre, Pretoria (012) 548-9811 kolonnade@capeunionmart.co.za

The Grove Mall of Namibia 00264-612-53161 thegrove@capeunionmart.co.za

OUTLET STORES Access Park, Cape Town (021) 674-6398 accesspark@capeunionmart.co.za Woodmead Value Mart, Johannesburg (011) 656-0750 woodmead@capeunionmart.co.za

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T H E L AS T L AUG H

‘S bourbon bliss Honorary Kentucky Colonel Graham Howe tastes his way through American whiskey country

“W

ould you like to sample the devil’s cut? It ain’t for choir boys!” tempted the tour guide at Jim Beam, one of the 18 legendary distilleries on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. It wasn’t even noon, but that barrel looked mighty appealing.

We moved on to Knob Creek, a 100-proof bourbon sold in a replica Prohibition flask which deserves its reputation as one of the most macho whiskies on the planet. Knob Creek in Kentucky was the humble birthplace of President Abraham Lincoln, assassinated 150 years ago in April 1865. It would’ve been downright impolite not to toast Honest Abe. Every shot of bourbon tells a story of three centuries of Kentucky history and heritage. We tasted our way across Jacob’s Ghost white whiskey, a tribute to Jacob Beam—the first of seven generations of whiskey distillers in the family. Six to go…

While exploring bourbon country, I discovered that the history of whiskey and Kentucky is inseparable. Early pioneers like Daniel Boone, who blazed a trail west over the mountains, were granted 60 acres of land by Thomas Jefferson in the 1780s—as long as they built a permanent homestead and planted corn. The new Scottish and Irish settlers soon found a way of distilling the surplus corn in small copper pot stills.

At Bourbon Heritage Center at Heaven Hill distillery, I learnt the first federal taxes were imposed on distillers in Pennsylvania, sparking the whiskey rebellion that resulted in migration to the new state of Kentucky.

The early spirit was called “moonshine”, as the distillers had to make it by night to avoid the taxman spotting the telltale smoke signals by day. Today, the spirit is widely known as “white dog”. I sampled it all in the line of duty—and it has the bite of a bulldog!

Along the way I tasted many of the bourbon whiskies named after those early distillers of the 1780s: Elijah Craig, a Baptist minister who’s credited with charring oak barrels to create greater colour and flavour in the whiskey; and Dr James Crow, a Scottish physician who created the sour mash method of making some whiskies.

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So how did American whiskey get a French name? The way the story goes, the distillers of Kentucky used to float barrels of whiskey via the Kentucky, Ohio and Mississippi rivers all the way down to New Orleans. The spirit fortuitously aged in the barrel, acquiring colour and flavour while making its way downstream. Most of the whiskey was produced in Bourbon County, Kentucky—named after the Bourbon kings of France who supported the Americans in the Revolutionary War. “Bourbon” was stamped on the barrel as its origin, and drinkers started calling it by that name.

In 1964, the US Congress passed an act declaring bourbon a distinctive product known as “America’s official native spirit”—95% of which is produced in Kentucky. Today there are more barrels of maturing bourbon (5.5 million) than inhabitants of Kentucky (4.5 million).

I visited the home of iconic whiskies such as Buffalo Trace, Jim Beam, Maker’s Mark, Wild Turkey and Woodford Reserve.

Many are national heritage landmarks.

I even visited ‘brewstilleries’ where they make both craft beer and bourbon. The quaint town of Bardstown, “the bourbon capital of the world”, welcomes you with its motto: “Sample our Spirit”. An old orphanage houses the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History, with fascinating exhibits on the Temperance movements. During Prohibition, a handful of distilleries were granted special permits to make whiskey ‘for medicinal purposes’.

Outside Bardstown, I spotted an unusual sign: “Welcome to the Home of Sisters of Loretto and Maker’s Mark Distillery!” It’s not often you see a convent and a distillery sharing equal billing on a billboard. At the nearby Kentucky cooperage where they make and char the white oak barrels, they call the dark toast “gator char”, as the corrugated texture feels like alligator skin.

When I finished my marathon bourbon trail, I was commissioned a member of the

honourable order of Kentucky Colonels by Governor Steven L. Beshear. The bestowing of this honorary title on people from all walks of life—celebrities, artists, athletes, businessmen, politicians and itinerant travel writers—goes back to the early 1800s. I was given a certificate bearing the official state seal of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, which confers all the rights, privileges and responsibilities of a Kentucky colonel on yours truly. The state commissioner drawled, “We’re mighty flattered you’ve come all the way from South Africa to drink our bourbon.” I join the ranks of Kentucky’s ambassadors of goodwill and fellowship around the world, in the august company of Winston Churchill, Lyndon B. Johnson and native Kentuckians such as Mohammed Ali, Johnny Depp, Ashley Judd and others.

The toast of the honourable Order of Kentucky Colonels goes: “I give you a man dedicated to the good things of life, to the gentle, the heartfelt things, to good living.

He holds firm to his ideal: a gracious existence... He brings fair judgment to sterner things. He is a symbol of those virtues in which men find gallant faith, in the finest sense, an epicure, a patriot, a man.”

I hope I can live up to those ideals—and learn how to make a good mint julep.

Graham Howe visited Kentucky as a guest of British Airways, VisitLex and Kentucky Travel and Tourism. See www.visitLEX.com and www.kybourbontrail.com.

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T HE L AST WO RD

We cornered former Bafana and Leeds United captain, Lucas “Rhoo” Radebe, for a one-on-one

› What are the top destinations on your ‘bucket list’ of places to which you’d like to travel?

Phuket, Thailand and Mississippi in the States

› If you were stuck on a desert island, would you know how to make a fire without matches, and how to catch dinner?

Yes, I’m sure I would.

› Which favourite places have you already ticked off your bucket list?

Disney World and Dubai

› What is your tried-and-tested signature dish you serve your friends?

A braai, for sure.

Mopani worms

› Are you an adrenaline junkie?

Ever tried shark-cage diving, bungee jumping, parachuting, abseiling?

I can’t say that I’m an adrenaline junkie, but I have done a few daring things like paragliding—and I’d love to do more.

Skydiving is at the top of the list.

› If it were up to you, what should be done to the people running the rhino-horn trade?

Give them a long jail term, which will be accompanied with Save the Rhino lessons. They will be the spokespersons for rhino while they serve time.

I’m a bit of both, because I was born and raised in Soweto, but I also spent my last school years in Lehurutshe in North West.

Red wine

Luxury lodge

› What are your pet hates/dislikes in people?

I don’t like it when people are disrespectful, but ‘hate’ is not a term I’d use.

› As a role model yourself, who Braai

was your inspiration while growing up?

My father and Nelson Mandela.

› What is the most memorable experience you have had with wildlife?

› What has been the highlight of

› Braai or sushi?

I once got to see a lion taking down its prey.

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The Intrepid Explorer issue 12

you believe would make a great footballer?

Being a team player, being committed and having focus.

› Can you tell us where the nickname › Beer or wine?

› Camping or luxury lodge? › If you consider your upbringing, were/are you a bush baby or a city slicker?

› What are three key qualities

“Rhoo” comes from?

It was given to me by football fans. At first I didn’t like it, because it sounded like they were saying “Booo!”. But I got used to it.

› As the official and founding ambassador for the Hospice Palliative Care Association, how would you encourage people of all ages to get involved?

Involve yourself by first finding information about the organisation, then helping in the best way you can.

your footballing career?

Playing in the World Cup, and being captain of a European team.

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© www.lucasradebe.com

› What is the weirdest food or drink you have ever tried?

BMW Motorrad

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