Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Kingsley Holgate Shares His Lifetime of Overlanding Africa and Giving Back

Transcript

Kingsley Holgate Shares His Lifetime of Overlanding Africa and Giving Back · The Overland Journal Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I am
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Speaker 1: your host Scott Brady, and I am joined today by
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Speaker 1: one of my heroes, Kingsley Holgate. Now Kingsley and the
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Speaker 1: Kingsley Holgate Foundation have done incredible work, incredible expeditions not
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Speaker 1: only around the world but throughout Africa. They have taken
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Speaker 1: an expedition to the geographic center of Africa, never been
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Speaker 1: done before. They circumnavigated Africa as close to the coastline
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Speaker 1: as they could they could do, which is something that
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Speaker 1: was a first with land rovers. And they also did
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Speaker 1: a circumnavigation of the globe on the tropic of Capricorn.
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Speaker 1: Kingsley and his team are incredibly inspirational. They provide support
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Speaker 1: to millions of people in Africa. They have provided over
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Speaker 1: two million nets to help protect children and young adults
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Speaker 1: from the infection of malaria. They also have done incredible
0:56
Speaker 1: work around the right for sight. They've provided over two
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Speaker 1: hundred thousand eating glasses to the peoples of Africa that
1:03
Speaker 1: have given sometimes the first ability to read in many
1:06
Speaker 1: many years or to see clearly to do their work
1:09
Speaker 1: like working on shoes was one example that he gave.
1:12
Speaker 1: Kingsley is an incredible individual, and one of the things
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Speaker 1: that I find most inspiring about his story is that
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Speaker 1: he didn't start any of this until he was over
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Speaker 1: fifty years old. So it's a reminder that life is
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Speaker 1: never you're never past your prime. Kingsley is doing things
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Speaker 1: that are absolutely incredible in his seventies, and that is
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Speaker 1: a wonderful reminder to me. It should be a wonderful
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Speaker 1: reminder to all of you that you don't need to
1:39
Speaker 1: be in your twenties to start these grand expeditions. You
1:41
Speaker 1: can be in the later half of life and have
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Speaker 1: an impact far greater than can ever be imagined. So
1:47
Speaker 1: please enjoy this wonderful conversation with Kingsley Holegate and a
1:52
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2:34
Speaker 1: So Kensley, thank you so much for joining me on
2:38
Speaker 1: the podcast today. It is an incredible honor for me
2:43
Speaker 1: to not only have this conversation with you, but to
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Speaker 1: be sitting with you in your beautiful home in on
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Speaker 1: the continent that you so love and have traveled so extensively.
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Speaker 1: And I don't even know that it's possible for us
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Speaker 1: to cover your life in a hun podcasts, so we're
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Speaker 1: going to do our best to at least help people
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Speaker 1: understand who you are and the good that you've done
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Speaker 1: in Africa, how you've given back, and some of the journeys,
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Speaker 1: some of the highlights of a few of the journeys
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Speaker 1: that you've done, because as I understand it, it's forty
3:16
Speaker 1: expeditions over thirty years, so you're another one of those
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Speaker 1: gentlemen who have forgotten more than I'll ever learn. So
3:23
Speaker 1: it's an honor for me to be here with you today.
3:26
Speaker 2: So thank you, Kensley, Luckwise Scott. Please, you have you
3:29
Speaker 2: heard Africa Houses we call it, surrounded by all this
3:33
Speaker 2: memorabilia from so many journeys. Yes, on the Indian Ocean.
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Speaker 2: He had a place called Sinquasi, place of the Feshigo.
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Speaker 2: And of course I think you can have the sound
3:43
Speaker 2: of the ocean in the background. I can.
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Speaker 3: It's a beautiful view that I'm looking at on right now.
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Speaker 2: So when we're not on expedition, this is where we
3:51
Speaker 2: come through election and spit out some old type of
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Speaker 2: maps and dream of the next journey.
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Speaker 1: We talked about that a little bit earlier when we
3:58
Speaker 1: were having some watermelon. We talked about the realities of
4:03
Speaker 1: returning from a trip, and you had a very clever
4:06
Speaker 1: insight that a certain percentage of the time that you
4:11
Speaker 1: were away you should dedicate to assimilating the experience.
4:15
Speaker 3: Talk a little bit about why you do that.
4:17
Speaker 2: Yes, it's interesting. You know, if you divide, let's call
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Speaker 2: it journey one hundred percent, and so how much time
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Speaker 2: do you give to the research before you go and
4:27
Speaker 2: getting embedded into the story, and then how much time
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Speaker 2: should you spend on the actual journey. Then something we
4:33
Speaker 2: tend to forget about, you know, what about when you
4:36
Speaker 2: get back to sort of reliving the journey so that
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Speaker 2: you don't lose it. Going through your notes, looking at
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Speaker 2: the maps again and treasuring those moments. And I think
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Speaker 2: we were just joking early on we said it could
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Speaker 2: be as much as twenty percent that you give to
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Speaker 2: sort of reliving the journey so that it remains with you,
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Speaker 2: going through the scrolls, going through your noteboox before you
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Speaker 2: sort of launch into the next one. And by the way,
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Speaker 2: that's sometimes a bit of a lecture. You don't always
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Speaker 2: have the time, but how lovely if you can reminisce,
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Speaker 2: sit with a team around a fire afterwards and say
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Speaker 2: how was it? You know, shink back.
5:14
Speaker 1: And that might be part of why people struggle after
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Speaker 1: a trip with reassimilating into life, is that they haven't
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Speaker 1: given it that moment to fully integrate and to spend
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Speaker 1: time with their team and to really make those memories stronger.
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Speaker 2: It can be a difficult time, you know, when you've
5:31
Speaker 2: given I'm thinking of some of our longer journeys checking
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Speaker 2: the outline of Africa, for example, that took four hundred
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Speaker 2: and fourteen nine days dedicated to checking the edge, and
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Speaker 2: you know, you get back from that and you just
5:47
Speaker 2: just got so much to think about.
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Speaker 1: So about how long have you taken on average? Do
5:52
Speaker 1: you think after some of your journeys to reflect.
5:55
Speaker 2: Sometimes not enough immediately, and then you take to reflect
6:00
Speaker 2: a lot later. So always it's a bit of a
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Speaker 2: luxury to get back. Maybe don't tell everybody you home yet,
6:07
Speaker 2: you know, just sneak in, kick off your shoes, you know,
6:11
Speaker 2: get into a soft bed, clean sheets. Nice. Yeah I'm
6:17
Speaker 2: not sleeping in your tents. But yes, that's the time
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Speaker 2: to reflect. And you know, a week, two weeks, but
6:27
Speaker 2: just to sit with all your notes and think back
6:29
Speaker 2: while they're still fresh in your mind, and think about
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Speaker 2: all the stories and the people you met. And then
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Speaker 2: by having notebooks and a scroll and recording everything. I mean,
6:38
Speaker 2: if you think of that old early Scottish explorer, doctor
6:43
Speaker 2: David Livingston, why was he different to others, Well, it
6:46
Speaker 2: was because he took so much effort to record things,
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Speaker 2: little maps, little notebooks, and that's why his journeys live
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Speaker 2: on today. And so we tried to. It's a discipline.
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Speaker 2: But you know, every morning, take out the notebook, scribble
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Speaker 2: the details of last night and what happened, who you met,
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Speaker 2: people's names, and a little sketch down the margin. And
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Speaker 2: this house has got the truly hundreds of notebooks scattered about.
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Speaker 2: We try and keep them in one old box. But
7:14
Speaker 2: that's also part of the sort of reminiscing and thinking
7:18
Speaker 2: back of the journey. So it's great, and I think
7:20
Speaker 2: you go out, you know. I remember once traveling the
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Speaker 2: Tropic of Capricorn around the world twenty three degrees twenty seven,
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Speaker 2: and I remember crossing Australia, the widest part of Australity,
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Speaker 2: and meeting a delightful old Aboriginal and instead of him
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Speaker 2: asking me my name or what we were doing, he said, so,
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Speaker 2: what's your story? Mate? And it's always stuck with me.
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Speaker 2: Is amongst many African peoples, your life is more about
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Speaker 2: the story, the story of your life. What's your story?
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Speaker 2: Why are you doing it? Who are you? You know?
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Speaker 2: Why are you doing this challenging journey? So I think
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Speaker 2: that's the African way. It's about sharing the story around
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Speaker 2: the campfire, these old nurses reminiscing, and I think it's
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Speaker 2: something that maybe we're missing, aren't we in this modern age?
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Speaker 2: You know? Is I think people are so caught up
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Speaker 2: in mobile phones and social media and everything that the
8:18
Speaker 2: art of storytelling around the campfire, you know, the old
8:22
Speaker 2: raised enamel mug, and it's it's story time. I mean,
8:25
Speaker 2: I always love love it when people say, explain some
8:33
Speaker 2: of your journey and I say, well, you know, so
8:35
Speaker 2: much of it is those stories around the campfire, getting
8:39
Speaker 2: into camp just before dark, learning a bit of firewood
8:43
Speaker 2: as you go, and you know, the sparks flying into
8:49
Speaker 2: the night sky and skylet starlet sky, and you know,
8:55
Speaker 2: pouring your favorite tipple into your old enamel mug. And
8:58
Speaker 2: that's when the story started. You know, You're hear an
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Speaker 2: old black maned line roaring in the distance, the cry
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Speaker 2: of a jackal, the hysterical keklov a hyena, and it's
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Speaker 2: story time. And you've got that old cost on pot
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Speaker 2: on the fire, this old three legged function, you know,
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Speaker 2: and it's and it's sort of bubbling away with your
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Speaker 2: favorites toe and I think that's such a special time
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Speaker 2: in Africa, in the wilderness, surrounded by nature. Yeah, and
9:25
Speaker 2: those times shed moments around the campfire and maybe in
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Speaker 2: odd discussions, yeah, this podcast right is maybe it's it's
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Speaker 2: ready just a campfire story.
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Speaker 1: It is, And oftentimes they feel that way because we
9:39
Speaker 1: have a chance to look back and also the opportunity
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Speaker 1: to to really think about the origin for a lot
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Speaker 1: of this and That's that leads me to my next question,
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Speaker 1: which is, as I understand it, you were born into
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Speaker 1: a missionary family. Now, where were you born in the world?
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Speaker 1: Where were you actually first born?
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Speaker 2: I was. I was born here in Zulul, the Together River,
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Speaker 2: and I was the youngest of three, three boys, and
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Speaker 2: born of a missionary family and teachers, and my mom
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Speaker 2: and dad would take us all over Africa, and so
10:13
Speaker 2: at a very early age, you know, we got to
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Speaker 2: know about flooded rivers and strange tribes and always the
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Speaker 2: purpose of these journeys, however, was to do good. And
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Speaker 2: my dad was a missionary teacher, and he just spent
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Speaker 2: his life doing good. And I suppose maybe that that,
10:31
Speaker 2: you know, had an effect on us that these journeys
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Speaker 2: that we do should not just be purely for the
10:37
Speaker 2: sake of the journey. You know, that could be quite
10:40
Speaker 2: that could be quite egotistical cology. You've got this great
10:43
Speaker 2: big four buff or you've got the right tires, you've
10:45
Speaker 2: got the right roof brack, you've got all the stuff.
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Speaker 2: But I think you know, to go into these journeys
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Speaker 2: with a sense of humility, sense of humility realizing just
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Speaker 2: how privileged you are to be able to do these
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Speaker 2: journeys and use all that energy, the vehicles that tends,
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Speaker 2: the equipment, the team, the good will, but use them
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Speaker 2: to improve and save the lives of others as best
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Speaker 2: you can as part of the adventure. So that's very
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Speaker 2: much become the mission or the yardstick of our journeys
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Speaker 2: is to use these adventures. Some of them are world first,
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Speaker 2: some have never been done before, and they great and
11:26
Speaker 2: alias the adventures phenomenal, and you know, they come with
11:30
Speaker 2: all the dangers. You know, I don't know how many
11:32
Speaker 2: times I've had malaria. I think it's sixty times now.
11:36
Speaker 3: I was going to ask you about that, you know, and.
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Speaker 2: Sometimes you end up in sort of war luck situations,
11:42
Speaker 2: you know, child soldiers and stuff. But always just to
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Speaker 2: remember how privilege you are to be living this life
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Speaker 2: in Africa, a continent that we so love, cradle of
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Speaker 2: all human kind of special place for us. And then
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Speaker 2: to use the energy of these journeys to spread good will,
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Speaker 2: to spread love and hope and to help others. And
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Speaker 2: that side of our journeys sometimes can be more than
12:07
Speaker 2: fifty percent.
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Speaker 1: That time that you spent with your dad, I know
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Speaker 1: was really important to you, and you learned, like you
12:15
Speaker 1: just said about about giving back, But what were some
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Speaker 1: of the other things that you learned from.
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Speaker 3: Your dad that you remember?
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Speaker 2: Well, storytelling, yeah, but also the realization that a lot
12:29
Speaker 2: can be sorted out with humor, the danger of taking
12:33
Speaker 2: yourself too seriously. You know you're not you know, African
12:36
Speaker 2: loves a laugh, and Africans love a laugh, and so
12:40
Speaker 2: you know, if you can poke fun at yourself and
12:42
Speaker 2: not say, oh, I'm on this journey and it's so time,
12:45
Speaker 2: but rather just laugh of us. You know, we are
12:47
Speaker 2: these idiots, are trying to go around the world on
12:49
Speaker 2: the tropic of Capricor, and and I think that's something
12:53
Speaker 2: that I did learn that there was always this wonderful
12:55
Speaker 2: sense of humor and camaraderie and not taking yourself too seriously.
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Speaker 2: And you know, I'm really proud to say that in
13:03
Speaker 2: all these journeys, and this is number forty one actually,
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Speaker 2: but is as long as they've been and I think
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Speaker 2: the longest one is four hundred and twenty nine days
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Speaker 2: a single journey, and there have been some longer ones,
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Speaker 2: I think. But the team has always stood together. You've
13:20
Speaker 2: always known that you've got you know, they've got your back. Yeah,
13:25
Speaker 2: and you always know that sometimes in very difficult surroundings
13:30
Speaker 2: you're okay because of the strength of the team. And
13:33
Speaker 2: that's been I think particularly easy for us because by
13:36
Speaker 2: and Loge, you've traveled as a family.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and you've traveled a lot with your son.
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Speaker 2: Yes. And my son Ross is now just over fifty.
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Speaker 2: But he started as a real youngster, sitting around the fire,
13:47
Speaker 2: the stories everything, and I remember he was studying at
13:51
Speaker 2: the time, he'd left college, and he would come home
13:56
Speaker 2: for the weekend and he'd see us sitting with all
13:58
Speaker 2: the maps and everything at that time, planning a journey
14:00
Speaker 2: from Cape Town to Cairo and Alexandria on all the
14:04
Speaker 2: rivers and lakes of Africa inflatable boats, open parts and
14:09
Speaker 2: you know, when you look it up, you can't believe
14:11
Speaker 2: how they're all interconnect beautiful river valley, lakes and rivers area.
14:16
Speaker 2: And I could see was sinking deeply. And then one
14:18
Speaker 2: day he simply couldn't hold himself back. He said, I
14:22
Speaker 2: have to be part of this journey, you know, I
14:24
Speaker 2: have to be part of it. And along he came,
14:28
Speaker 2: and just you know, he cut his teeth on this
14:31
Speaker 2: magnificent journey across Africa that was stuck in those days,
14:35
Speaker 2: and here he is also living the same life, and
14:37
Speaker 2: in fact today he does all the logistics. He's expedition
14:41
Speaker 2: leader on most of the expedition, if not all. And
14:43
Speaker 2: it's so lovely that as a family we've been able
14:47
Speaker 2: to take this tradition point. Recently we traveled with my
14:49
Speaker 2: grandkids and two granddaughters. It was fantastic, you know, the wildlife,
14:54
Speaker 2: the tribes, everything that they too could become entrenched in
14:58
Speaker 2: this way of life, which, as I said, is such
15:01
Speaker 2: a privilege. And every indication is that they will be
15:04
Speaker 2: that way.
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Speaker 3: They're like and what are you most proud of your son?
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Speaker 2: You know, we came out of a South Africa that
15:17
Speaker 2: had terrible politics, you know vi apart eight era, not
15:22
Speaker 2: that we ever practiced it because we lived in the
15:24
Speaker 2: bush and our best friends with the Zulus, you would
15:27
Speaker 2: go to traditional weddings and everything you have, you know
15:29
Speaker 2: part eight.
15:30
Speaker 3: We sort of you were disconnected from disconnected about it.
15:34
Speaker 2: But still I'm so delighted to see in my son
15:39
Speaker 2: his knowledge of African languages. He's rapport with African people,
15:45
Speaker 2: and I once once we were sitting and discussing a
15:54
Speaker 2: new pilgrim of adventure that wanted to join us on
15:57
Speaker 2: the mission. And it was a particularly tough one. It
16:00
Speaker 2: was to follow the uh Refuji River in the footsteps
16:05
Speaker 2: of Frederick Courtney salou okay Uh, considered the greatest afterwards
16:09
Speaker 2: man of his time. So a lot of wildlife, a
16:11
Speaker 2: lot of crocodiles, lots of peppers in birds, and this
16:15
Speaker 2: youngster wanted to to join us. Delightful young man. And
16:21
Speaker 2: we had the interview right here at Africa House. We
16:23
Speaker 2: sat here and Uh and to explore his bar and
16:28
Speaker 2: I s first question. I said to him, I said, hey, Bruce,
16:32
Speaker 2: can you sit around a campfire only with Africans, you
16:40
Speaker 2: as the only white song African? And can you eat
16:44
Speaker 2: out of the same part and share the conversation in
16:47
Speaker 2: their language? And are you relaxed with that? Because if
16:52
Speaker 2: you can't, there's no space for you in this expedition.
16:55
Speaker 2: And he replied by saying, I do it every week.
16:58
Speaker 2: I meet with my Zuli neighbors, We share a put,
17:01
Speaker 2: we go into the bush together, I speak good Zulu
17:04
Speaker 2: and age what he came on that one expedition and
17:08
Speaker 2: lost it for fifteen years.
17:10
Speaker 1: You never left, you know, one of the things that
17:16
Speaker 1: I just found out about today is these books that
17:20
Speaker 1: you have, these scrolls, And I was really, I was
17:25
Speaker 1: really taken back by it, Kingsley, because I've never seen
17:29
Speaker 1: anything like that. I have definitely seen volumes that speak
17:33
Speaker 1: to the adventure and maybe the ego, right, whereas these
17:38
Speaker 1: scrolls talk a little bit about what inspired you to
17:42
Speaker 1: do them and how do they work.
17:45
Speaker 2: So I'm not sure how it started, but I think
17:49
Speaker 2: it's because we like writing, and we like writing by hand,
17:53
Speaker 2: but old fashioned. I don't have a laptop, but yeah,
17:59
Speaker 2: sitting sunrise and under the veranda of your tent, under
18:03
Speaker 2: the canvas old camp table, canvas chair, take out your book,
18:10
Speaker 2: take your pencil, your pen and write the notes of
18:12
Speaker 2: the previous day's journey. And you know, once it becomes
18:15
Speaker 2: a habit, it's actually it's it's it's really quite fulfilling,
18:18
Speaker 2: and it's a type of discipline. So you know that
18:21
Speaker 2: that that writing is important, and maybe that's how it started.
18:24
Speaker 2: We then short, every expedition should have its own book,
18:28
Speaker 2: its own journal, so to speak.
18:30
Speaker 3: And then we and they're massive, they're beautiful, they're beautiful.
18:36
Speaker 2: And then we approached a good friend of ours, Rob
18:40
Speaker 2: marvel from Malvelle and Moon, and they do beautiful handcrafted
18:43
Speaker 2: canvas stuff here Safari luggage. Generally, we said, couldn't you
18:47
Speaker 2: make us a big book for each journey, two hundred
18:50
Speaker 2: pages beautifully bound leather and canvas, and the corners and
18:55
Speaker 2: old print, and we carry these in a specific canvas
19:00
Speaker 2: and we could call them. Let's call them scrolls of
19:04
Speaker 2: peace and good Will. Remember that this, so the tradition started.
19:09
Speaker 2: We would carry that. I suppose it was something like
19:11
Speaker 2: a visitor's book. So I would meet you somewhere in
19:13
Speaker 2: some strange place, as I hope we will.
19:17
Speaker 3: We've almost done that a few.
19:18
Speaker 2: Times and and I said, yes, Scott, won't you just
19:23
Speaker 2: scribble something in the scroll? And you'd say to me,
19:27
Speaker 2: so what should I say? Something about the importance of
19:30
Speaker 2: peace and good women? Of course, you know, if you
19:32
Speaker 2: look at world affairs at the moment, peace and goodwill
19:35
Speaker 2: I think is in short supply a high priority. So
19:39
Speaker 2: people would scribble, and people would draw, and then kids,
19:43
Speaker 2: so we'd meet kids who'd be fascinated by the adventure,
19:45
Speaker 2: talking talk to them around the camp. I will go
19:47
Speaker 2: to the school and talk about wildlife and conservation, and
19:50
Speaker 2: they'd put their little handprint and then you know, you
19:53
Speaker 2: chase the handprint into the pages of the scroll of
19:56
Speaker 2: Peace and good war. Maybe you would be doing malaria
19:58
Speaker 2: work with in some boods in northern Kenya and there
20:01
Speaker 2: would be these some buriered ladies and their beautiful beaded
20:05
Speaker 2: finery jewelry in it, Yeah, and their red oached bodies.
20:08
Speaker 2: They rubbed red ochre on their skins, and they would
20:10
Speaker 2: simply take their hands, rub their bodies red ochre, and
20:13
Speaker 2: they put a red oached handprinted to the scroll, a
20:15
Speaker 2: piece of good work. And so these books became an
20:18
Speaker 2: important part of each and every expression. I remember, And
20:23
Speaker 2: that must have been just after that great man Nelson
20:27
Speaker 2: Mandela had been released from prison and a wind of
20:32
Speaker 2: positive change was blowing across our country. And going to
20:37
Speaker 2: see Nelson Mandela MM and him giving us some of
20:42
Speaker 2: his precious time MM and with us sitting with him
20:45
Speaker 2: as a family MM. And then him opening the scroll,
20:48
Speaker 2: and I remember what that journey was. It was to
20:50
Speaker 2: track the entire outline of Africa. Yeah. And in his
20:54
Speaker 2: strong hand he wrote thank you for supporting the people
20:59
Speaker 2: of Africa and for caring for the mothers and children
21:01
Speaker 2: as you travel and tell them. Then he signed it.
21:04
Speaker 2: And you know that that picture of us sitting with
21:07
Speaker 2: Madiba and his message in that scroll in a way
21:11
Speaker 2: became more important than the passport. And so we still
21:14
Speaker 2: have that picture. We still have that scroll. And so
21:17
Speaker 2: these scrolls of peace and good will, which already, as
21:20
Speaker 2: I said, just speak books, became such an important part
21:22
Speaker 2: of every journey, and the journey that we're on now
21:26
Speaker 2: is all about community conservation and culture, and it's to
21:31
Speaker 2: work with communities alongside areas of wildlife protection, letting them
21:37
Speaker 2: know how valued neighbors they are, how important good neighborliness is,
21:43
Speaker 2: and helping with malaria work and right to cite a
21:47
Speaker 2: provision of spectacles to foy sighted people reading all that
21:50
Speaker 2: good stuff, and they too, and they too, and they
21:53
Speaker 2: too scribble in the scroll. You know, it's quite it's
21:56
Speaker 2: quite last. And then years later when you go through
21:59
Speaker 2: those scrolls, you see who you met.
22:01
Speaker 1: And it was really a beautiful thing to look at photos.
22:09
Speaker 1: You know, there's an introduction in the book about what
22:12
Speaker 1: you're doing and what.
22:13
Speaker 3: The goals are.
22:14
Speaker 1: Those are things probably you do before you leave. But
22:17
Speaker 1: it definitely made me think about how all of us
22:20
Speaker 1: as travelers could benefit from something like that of making
22:25
Speaker 1: sure that we write down the name of the person
22:26
Speaker 1: that we meet, that we even draw what we experienced.
22:32
Speaker 1: I think it helps us codify those memories. I think
22:35
Speaker 1: it helps us remember those experiences more than just a
22:39
Speaker 1: cell phone photo.
22:41
Speaker 2: And how easy to cell phone is it take a picture?
22:44
Speaker 2: Going to notes and yet you know that old written
22:48
Speaker 2: word and the sketches. It is the old way of adventures,
22:51
Speaker 2: isn't it. So yeah, that's what we do.
22:55
Speaker 1: No, I feel a bit of guilt in the fact
22:57
Speaker 1: that I wrote my notes and questions on an iPad. No,
23:03
Speaker 1: but it's true though, and it's good to be challenged.
23:05
Speaker 1: I think it's so important to be challenged. The first
23:09
Speaker 1: time that I met you, when I listened to your
23:12
Speaker 1: to your to your talk in South Africa and you
23:17
Speaker 1: talked about the importance of giving back, it helped me
23:19
Speaker 1: begin to reframe my own adventures because I definitely see
23:24
Speaker 1: how my ego needed to be checked and I needed
23:27
Speaker 1: to remember that I'm so fortunate to do what I do.
23:31
Speaker 1: But it's those kinds of challenges that we need in
23:34
Speaker 1: our life. Kingsley, So I appreciate you saying that I
23:37
Speaker 1: appreciate this idea of you know, this hope, peace and
23:40
Speaker 1: hope and goodwill and a way to record people's experiences.
23:45
Speaker 3: That's really beautiful.
23:46
Speaker 2: Because, as you know, you could have volumes of doom
23:48
Speaker 2: and gloom if you decided to take that pot of
23:51
Speaker 2: negativity and on extpedition while sitting around the fire, sometimes
23:55
Speaker 2: if somebody gets a bit doom and gloomish, we quickly
24:00
Speaker 2: say expeditions are all about positivity and and yes you
24:08
Speaker 2: can have the end goal in sight, but it's about
24:11
Speaker 2: living the day today, one bite at a time, small
24:15
Speaker 2: you know, small bites. If we can get over today,
24:18
Speaker 2: if we can cross that river, if we can get
24:20
Speaker 2: over that mountain, if we can get through this area,
24:24
Speaker 2: live it for that, and then the final challenge will
24:26
Speaker 2: suddenly be there. You know you would have made it,
24:28
Speaker 2: but you know from your travels the importance of bite.
24:31
Speaker 3: Sizes being in the moment.
24:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, in the moment, bite sizes. If we can do that,
24:35
Speaker 2: we can get there. And I think it's someone once
24:40
Speaker 2: asked me, what do you feel is is a key
24:46
Speaker 2: ingredient to becoming an expedition member? What character traits would
24:51
Speaker 2: one look for? And I think the expectation was that
24:54
Speaker 2: I would say, well, obviously fit tough, you know, able
24:59
Speaker 2: to face challenges and live a tough life. I think
25:03
Speaker 2: they might have been surprised when I said the most
25:06
Speaker 2: important thing curiosity, because if you're not curious, if you
25:11
Speaker 2: don't really want to know what happens in that village
25:14
Speaker 2: or around the corner or over that mountain or up
25:16
Speaker 2: the river, and if you're not curious, and it's just
25:20
Speaker 2: it's just another journey, and I'm doing it for the
25:22
Speaker 2: sake of well, I did the journey. And if you're
25:26
Speaker 2: not curious about the tribes, the languages, the cultures, then
25:32
Speaker 2: I think it takes away from the journey, because I
25:35
Speaker 2: think the rest you can learn.
25:36
Speaker 3: I do like that framing.
25:39
Speaker 1: One of the things that we always look for is
25:41
Speaker 1: kindness in someone. So if someone is kind and curious,
25:46
Speaker 1: you're probably ninety percent there.
25:48
Speaker 2: Still the kindness and the consideration for others. That sense
25:52
Speaker 2: of humor we talk about is so important, is it?
25:55
Speaker 3: Which is I think is a form of kindness.
25:57
Speaker 1: I mean, to be able to laugh at yourself and
25:59
Speaker 1: to tell it joke, can not take yourself so seriously.
26:03
Speaker 2: I mean, you know from your journeys how really things
26:06
Speaker 2: can go wrong some days, and you can either laugh
26:09
Speaker 2: about it and smile or you can cry. And there
26:13
Speaker 2: are tough times and the times when your lives are
26:15
Speaker 2: threatened even but to be able to laugh at and
26:19
Speaker 2: to enjoy the moment after sometimes only afterwards.
26:22
Speaker 3: But when you finally get to take a breath.
26:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think sense of humor, a sense of curiosity, kindness,
26:33
Speaker 2: and forget the negativity, this positive thinking. Yes, we can
26:39
Speaker 2: do it, you know, and sometimes it might even be
26:43
Speaker 2: a bit unreal, you know, really can you do it?
26:46
Speaker 2: But you say, can we can do this? I'm sure
26:48
Speaker 2: we can do it. And I know that adventures are
26:51
Speaker 2: all about being at the right place at the right time,
26:56
Speaker 2: seizing the moment yes that countries at peace, we can
26:59
Speaker 2: cross it now, and not saying oh well, we'll revisit
27:02
Speaker 2: that problem next to you. Now is the opportunity and
27:05
Speaker 2: be able to move quickly, pack your bag and go.
27:07
Speaker 2: And so yeah, I think that's where Africa is quite
27:11
Speaker 2: a fascinating place, you know, all good, all bad, all
27:14
Speaker 2: at the same time. Yes, But if your motivation is
27:19
Speaker 2: always to seek the good, well it's a bit easier,
27:21
Speaker 2: isn't it.
27:22
Speaker 1: And the goodness of the people of Africa has been
27:26
Speaker 1: evident at every junction that I've ever had in this continent.
27:31
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28:09
Speaker 2: Wonderful word all born too. You know, we only are
28:12
Speaker 2: who we are through others. And yes, so when we
28:16
Speaker 2: are sitting around that pot and everyone sharing a few
28:20
Speaker 2: pieces of meat and some makesmeal porridge, eating with your
28:24
Speaker 2: forefingers and hands, and that camaraderie, that sense of all
28:29
Speaker 2: born to we are who we are only through other people,
28:33
Speaker 2: And I think that guides usn't. And I also think
28:37
Speaker 2: that I remember that day sitting with Nelson Mandela and
28:41
Speaker 2: him writing those words in the Schollar piece and good
28:43
Speaker 2: world has also steered us. It's sort of been a
28:47
Speaker 2: mentorship that we should stay true to our cause body
28:50
Speaker 2: of using these journeys to improve and save the loves
28:53
Speaker 2: of others, and just to hopefully try and create a
28:57
Speaker 2: bit of a better world, the little bit that we can.
29:00
Speaker 2: And I know we are but a grain of sand
29:03
Speaker 2: in the greater sphere of things, but it does give
29:06
Speaker 2: the journey's purpose. And you know we carry this. It's
29:09
Speaker 2: an old Zulu talking stick. In Zulu, it's called indoors
29:13
Speaker 2: or peffer mulla. That translated into English would be the
29:17
Speaker 2: stick that gives you the part to breathe words, okay.
29:21
Speaker 2: And this stick goes back to the time of his
29:25
Speaker 2: son who under the Anglos through the walls of eighteen
29:27
Speaker 2: seventy nine, and it lives behind the land over seat.
29:32
Speaker 2: And when we meet a local chief or just others,
29:36
Speaker 2: outcomes of the indoors or peffermulla a stick that gives
29:40
Speaker 2: you the part to breed words, and that is shared
29:43
Speaker 2: around the campire and you know I've seen it. Someone
29:46
Speaker 2: takes hold of the stick, I can I say, can
29:47
Speaker 2: you fear it? And sometimes a person is shining all
29:50
Speaker 2: of a sudden they are able to speak and share
29:52
Speaker 2: their shorts. That is one of the many traditions that
29:55
Speaker 2: we have to our journeys carrying their old talking stick.
30:00
Speaker 2: Told you about the calabi.
30:01
Speaker 3: No you haven't, but I think we've got it right here.
30:04
Speaker 2: So this is another sort of a bit of African symbolism.
30:09
Speaker 2: So this is called an ekula. It's just a decorated
30:13
Speaker 2: traditional calabash. Calabashas such as these are used for beer,
30:17
Speaker 2: for carrying water, for carrying salm milk, but in this case,
30:22
Speaker 2: for the start of every journey, the calabash is filled
30:25
Speaker 2: with water and then emptied symbolically at the end. And
30:30
Speaker 2: on other expeditions it gathers water from key places all
30:34
Speaker 2: along the journey. For example, when we did the Great
30:39
Speaker 2: African Rift Valley all the way from the Gulf of
30:41
Speaker 2: Tajura near Jaboti, finding the rift Valley all the east
30:46
Speaker 2: and western rifts all the way down to Lake Rima
30:49
Speaker 2: in Gorongoza in Mozambique, we collected bits of water from
30:56
Speaker 2: every water source. It was a bit of a ceremony.
30:59
Speaker 2: People would look at us, they know what those strange
31:00
Speaker 2: people are doing with the decorated calabat. And then at
31:04
Speaker 2: the end of the journey, emptying it out into local room.
31:06
Speaker 2: And then on this journey that we're involved in now
31:10
Speaker 2: with African parks, it's to connect all their conservation areas
31:14
Speaker 2: across Africa in twelve countries, more than twenty million hectares
31:19
Speaker 2: under protection, but to work with their communities. Yeah, and
31:23
Speaker 2: we should talk.
31:24
Speaker 3: About I would I would like to, I would like to.
31:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's it's it's so evident that not only
31:31
Speaker 1: have you been able to have these incredible adventures and journeys,
31:35
Speaker 1: but you have found a way to give back through
31:39
Speaker 1: each one one of those processes. And it's just really
31:41
Speaker 1: impressive to me. So and it's it's and it's fun.
31:45
Speaker 2: But just to finish off with the calabat is on
31:48
Speaker 2: this journey, for example, at every wildlife area we get
31:51
Speaker 2: to every conservation area, we go to the head of
31:53
Speaker 2: the park and say where would you like to add
31:56
Speaker 2: a smnsion of water to the calabat And he sits
31:59
Speaker 2: any thinks is, well, you know, I would like to
32:01
Speaker 2: go to that very secretive little water hole which was
32:05
Speaker 2: a favorite place that black rhiners used to come and
32:09
Speaker 2: drink it. But now they've all been killed, all been poached,
32:15
Speaker 2: none left. So let's go there. Let's add some water
32:19
Speaker 2: to the calabassa from that secretive place. And when we're there,
32:22
Speaker 2: I'll tell you how we bring the rhinos back. And
32:26
Speaker 2: so each little filling of the calabasha its own story,
32:30
Speaker 2: like another place in Garumba and the Eastern Congo. We
32:32
Speaker 2: were there, I said to the park warden, I said,
32:36
Speaker 2: where would you like to add water from? He said,
32:38
Speaker 2: I'd like to go to the rhino drinking hole, because
32:42
Speaker 2: after all the rhinos have been made extinct here, let's
32:47
Speaker 2: go to where the runners have just arrived. We've reintroduced them.
32:51
Speaker 2: Let's go to that water hole and let's add water
32:54
Speaker 2: symbolically into the calabasa. Each calabasse filling has a story
32:58
Speaker 2: and at the end of the journey will empty the calabash.
33:02
Speaker 2: End of the journey. So it's it's this African symbolism,
33:05
Speaker 2: the talking stick, the calabash and various other things.
33:08
Speaker 1: Did you do that on your Cape to cape trip?
33:11
Speaker 1: Did you take a little bit of water from caperglass?
33:15
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Ugh? Uh, absolutely? And and and you know something
33:18
Speaker 2: so small, it's symbolic and it's free. Yeah, it doesn't
33:20
Speaker 2: cost you anything. It's all about these little elements to
33:23
Speaker 2: the journey. The talking. Another thing we do pebbles, m
33:27
Speaker 2: you know, we love pebbles. Yeah, and we will get
33:29
Speaker 2: to talking about the humanity and work at the moment,
33:32
Speaker 2: but we just love picking up pebbles. And I'm sure
33:34
Speaker 2: a lot of you listeners will just enjoy as you
33:37
Speaker 2: get to a lovely place and to get a pebble
33:39
Speaker 2: and put it in your pocket. Yeah. And this started
33:43
Speaker 2: by years ago. Uh, I was writing a book at
33:46
Speaker 2: the time. It was as a tribute to the Africans
33:51
Speaker 2: that had made it possible for the early explorers to
33:55
Speaker 2: achieve what they did. You know, so much tribute goes
33:57
Speaker 2: to David Livingston, Burton speed Letting Standing, all these great
34:02
Speaker 2: early explorers, but what about the Africans that made it
34:04
Speaker 2: possible actually happened. Yeah, So we were doing a book
34:09
Speaker 2: as a tribute to these African guys who made these
34:12
Speaker 2: journeys possible and as I say, dedicating the book to them,
34:16
Speaker 2: particularly Childman Sucy, the two guys that had carried it after.
34:20
Speaker 3: Having incredible, incredible story, the dedication, the.
34:24
Speaker 2: Dedication and and and so that. Yeah, that that story
34:31
Speaker 2: and there we were and we were done near Cabur guys,
34:34
Speaker 2: and we were right.
34:34
Speaker 3: And what's the name of that book?
34:36
Speaker 2: That book is called they're all sold out by it
34:39
Speaker 2: must there must be some knocking about. But it was
34:41
Speaker 2: called Africa the Footsteps of the Great Explorers. And you know,
34:48
Speaker 2: when I look back at all those journeys and the
34:52
Speaker 2: role of the calabass filling it at the beginning, emptied
34:55
Speaker 2: at the end, the purpose of doing the humanitarian work
35:00
Speaker 2: as we go, I just once again sort of feels privilege.
35:04
Speaker 2: But getting back to the pebbles, we were down there
35:07
Speaker 2: writing this book near Cap Beguals to southernmost tip of Mama, Africa,
35:12
Speaker 2: and a friend came to visit her, and he said
35:17
Speaker 2: to me, he said, so, how come you have the
35:20
Speaker 2: privilege of doing all these journeys. Sure, I looked out
35:26
Speaker 2: to where the two oceans meet, the Indian Ocean and
35:29
Speaker 2: the Atlantic, and there's that beautiful old lighthouse that because
35:33
Speaker 2: as you've been there, it's beautiful, they say it was.
35:36
Speaker 2: It resembles all is to the same design as the
35:40
Speaker 2: old Pharaoh's lighthouse in Alexandria and Egypt. Wow. When that
35:44
Speaker 2: lighthouse was built, by the way, it was powered by
35:47
Speaker 2: the oil from fat Sheep's tales powering the lamp. And
35:53
Speaker 2: I understand that subscriptions from local farmers help pay for
35:59
Speaker 2: the lighthouse, because they were second tide of finding the
36:01
Speaker 2: bodies of dead shipwrecks on the beach. Anyway, story of pebbles,
36:06
Speaker 2: the question from John Binnox's name, he might have met him,
36:10
Speaker 2: great writer, great lover of Africa. How do you get
36:15
Speaker 2: the lucky? How can you have had the privilege to
36:17
Speaker 2: do all these journeys? And I saw the light from
36:20
Speaker 2: that lighthouse shining out to sea, and the beach there
36:24
Speaker 2: is covered, as you know, with literally tens of thousands
36:28
Speaker 2: of time worn.
36:29
Speaker 3: Pebbles, smooth one.
36:31
Speaker 2: Yeah. So wandered down to the beach and I gathered
36:36
Speaker 2: seven pebbles and I put them on the table and
36:41
Speaker 2: I said, hey, John, let's pretend, I said, this is
36:45
Speaker 2: no big religious conviction or anything, but let's pretend that
36:49
Speaker 2: each one of these pebbles is worth ten summers, summers
36:55
Speaker 2: of life. Let's call them summers rather than years. You know,
36:58
Speaker 2: the beauty of summers, the wind in the palm trees
37:01
Speaker 2: and Zanzibar and the beauty of summers. I said, how
37:05
Speaker 2: old do you? You said, fifty four? I say, I'll
37:08
Speaker 2: give you the four years free for nothing. So that
37:11
Speaker 2: means your life to date is represented by five pebbles,
37:16
Speaker 2: m fifty years. I took those five pebbles and I
37:20
Speaker 2: slewed him to see cap of needles where the two
37:23
Speaker 2: oceans meet, the Indian and the Atlantic, and the lighthouse.
37:27
Speaker 2: It's light every now and then, shining up m to
37:31
Speaker 2: see and I said, do you see, don there's only
37:36
Speaker 2: two pebbles left. I said, you know the number of
37:40
Speaker 2: people that I meet that say, when the children are educated,
37:45
Speaker 2: when they finished with their schooling, when we've sold the house,
37:49
Speaker 2: when we've saved enough money, when we've sold the business,
37:54
Speaker 2: when we but I said, you know that last pebble
37:57
Speaker 2: three score years and ten. Yeah, no guarante, there's actually
38:01
Speaker 2: no guarantee. How fit will you be? How able will
38:05
Speaker 2: you be? You know? So I took that seventh pebble
38:08
Speaker 2: and I shout out to see to join the other five,
38:11
Speaker 2: leaving one pebble on the on on the table. That
38:15
Speaker 2: evening at caper goun, I said, a they're doing. Do
38:20
Speaker 2: you know you know about life? I said, there's no
38:23
Speaker 2: it's I said, it's a bit like an old land driver,
38:26
Speaker 2: you know where the windscreen is cracked and where the
38:28
Speaker 2: old side mirrors. You've hit hit too many trees through
38:31
Speaker 2: the bush and they look like a spider's web of
38:34
Speaker 2: cracked glass. I said, you learned one thing. Concentrate on
38:38
Speaker 2: the road ahead. Don't think back to what you've missed.
38:43
Speaker 2: Think of the road ahead. You've got one pebble. Make
38:46
Speaker 2: sure you make that pebble work, because everything in life
38:49
Speaker 2: is about how you spend your allocated pebble. Anyway, just
38:53
Speaker 2: as a joke, I gave them the pebble. I said,
38:54
Speaker 2: put it in your pocket. He said. I said, it's
38:56
Speaker 2: going to become a damned use. It's going to get
38:59
Speaker 2: it's going to it's gonna get caught up with the calkeys.
39:02
Speaker 2: Comment not. And the next morning you have to put
39:06
Speaker 2: this pebble in your pocket and it's gonna be sort
39:09
Speaker 2: of rubbed with petina. But I think we need to
39:12
Speaker 2: realize that it's how we spind the pibbles of life. Yes,
39:15
Speaker 2: you need a decent car, you need family, you need
39:18
Speaker 2: a home. I'm not saying you don't need those things,
39:21
Speaker 2: but you also maybe need to remind yourself every now
39:24
Speaker 2: and then about the pebbles of life and the importance thereof.
39:27
Speaker 2: So whenever we end up, we collect pibbles and uh
39:31
Speaker 2: there's a lovely Zulu traditions called an ecp but it's
39:33
Speaker 2: like a little candob stones and then we make these
39:36
Speaker 2: little kens and at the end we make a candob
39:39
Speaker 2: stones like it takes a calabas would have pour it
39:41
Speaker 2: out and take the scroll a piece and good woo.
39:43
Speaker 2: And it's another bit of African symbolism. Yeah, the pebbles
39:46
Speaker 2: of life.
39:47
Speaker 1: And if I remember, you guys got into a bit
39:50
Speaker 1: of trouble somewhere up in northern Africa because they thought
39:55
Speaker 1: you were either a spy or South African geologists come
40:00
Speaker 1: to steal steal their their natural resources. So how did
40:04
Speaker 1: the pebbles get you in trouble on that one?
40:06
Speaker 2: Well, that was funny because you know, what would you
40:08
Speaker 2: do if, against all odds, you made it to the
40:12
Speaker 2: most easterly point of the African continent, which if you're
40:15
Speaker 2: looking at the map, you see the Horn of Africa,
40:17
Speaker 2: and you would think that the tip of that horn
40:19
Speaker 2: is the most eastly point, but in fact you go
40:21
Speaker 2: down about one hundred and fifteen kilometers and there's a
40:24
Speaker 2: sort of whale tail that pushes out to see a
40:26
Speaker 2: little piece of land and that's the most eastly point.
40:29
Speaker 2: It's called us half Wooden. Okay. Only later did we
40:32
Speaker 2: find that it was in fact the Sobodian pirate base.
40:35
Speaker 2: But be that what it made. So we needed to
40:37
Speaker 2: go there and we made it through Sickens and had
40:41
Speaker 2: a private army and we traveled mostly at night. And
40:45
Speaker 2: it was one of the you know, we decide we'd
40:48
Speaker 2: want to also do these sort of key points around
40:52
Speaker 2: Africa and you know the southern, easterly, northernly, and this
40:56
Speaker 2: was one of them. So we said we thought we
40:57
Speaker 2: had a top of Kilimanjarra, first point, Lake a Sal
41:01
Speaker 2: near to Boti, all those. He said, we thought, well,
41:03
Speaker 2: you know we need to we need to see that.
41:06
Speaker 2: We got there and you know, on the top of
41:08
Speaker 2: the land river we carried a sign in Somalia and
41:12
Speaker 2: English and there was an old Italian lighthouse and the
41:16
Speaker 2: remains there are all crumbly on the most easterly point
41:20
Speaker 2: of the African continent. When the sun rithers, that's the
41:22
Speaker 2: first point of Africa that it hits. And we took
41:25
Speaker 2: that old sign calling for peace in Somani in English
41:28
Speaker 2: and wenlwed it up onto this old lighthouse and we
41:31
Speaker 2: took the little at easy to be bound of stones
41:33
Speaker 2: and we put it there. But of course we gathered
41:35
Speaker 2: pebbles to bring home. Yeah, wouldn't you do that? And
41:40
Speaker 2: then when we got caught and sadly we're even introduced
41:45
Speaker 2: to the lad that it would cut our head orf. Yeah, heads, or.
41:49
Speaker 1: I think you mentioned that you had ten minutes to you.
41:52
Speaker 1: I should convince them why they shouldn't cut your head off.
41:55
Speaker 2: Because because either you're you're you're either else above spies
41:59
Speaker 2: or your illegal geologists, with which Sheila, my partner, quickly
42:05
Speaker 2: ran down to the land rover those pebbles that we
42:08
Speaker 2: picked up from the very easterly point at last up
42:11
Speaker 2: when she carried them up, quickly put them into her underwear. Unfortunately,
42:17
Speaker 2: whilst doing so, she found an old book of mine
42:19
Speaker 2: that I'd written years ago called Africa Just.
42:23
Speaker 3: Sat there we go.
42:27
Speaker 2: And there was my face on the cover. And somehow
42:32
Speaker 2: that persuaded our interrogators to let us freeze another day
42:37
Speaker 2: of life. And so, yeah, pebbles have different roles to
42:43
Speaker 2: place those ones we brought home, And of course this
42:45
Speaker 2: was this crazy collection of pebbles to calabate the talking
42:48
Speaker 2: stick and the scrolls of Peace and good wild the
42:52
Speaker 2: symbolism that one gives to one's journeys. It's an African thing,
42:57
Speaker 2: I think, well.
42:59
Speaker 1: I do, but it's also a human story and because
43:03
Speaker 1: we all came from here, so you know, it's part
43:05
Speaker 1: of part of what we do. So one of the
43:08
Speaker 1: things that I really wanted, first of all, when did
43:12
Speaker 1: you start growing the beard? Because I have not only hair,
43:15
Speaker 1: but beard envy, so you know I can I'm not worthy.
43:20
Speaker 2: You know, I suppose it's typical of a young man
43:22
Speaker 2: who finds his freedom. And you know, I did have
43:26
Speaker 2: quite a sort of strict upbringing and my parents suggested
43:31
Speaker 2: that I shouldn't leave South Africa until I turned twenty one.
43:37
Speaker 2: Sort of rocket passes gave me the key. So one
43:42
Speaker 2: of the first things I did is had this short
43:44
Speaker 2: crop black beard and black certy, and I took with
43:48
Speaker 2: a recksack on my back, as was the sort of
43:51
Speaker 2: fashion in those days. You know, we sort of talking
43:55
Speaker 2: about the sixties and yeah, traveling I think seventy five
44:00
Speaker 2: countries with found work wherever I could, and so the beard,
44:05
Speaker 2: you know, got fuller and blacker. Yeah, and it's just
44:09
Speaker 2: been a way of life. But I have to say
44:12
Speaker 2: that is a bit of self interest in this, and
44:15
Speaker 2: you know from your own travels sometimes you get respect
44:21
Speaker 2: that or beyond your years. You get an amount of
44:24
Speaker 2: respect from people that is actually beyond your years. And
44:27
Speaker 2: having the big beard and the hat and sitting quietly
44:31
Speaker 2: with your back up against a tree and just nodding
44:35
Speaker 2: and agreeing and slowly talking. The beard in those early
44:42
Speaker 2: days definitely gives you a seniority and respect that you
44:46
Speaker 2: don't necessarily you know, you don't really necessarily deserve it.
44:52
Speaker 2: But nowadays, of course you know it seventy seven pushing
44:56
Speaker 2: seventy eight and if you weeks days time as the
45:02
Speaker 2: bed becomes one sort of persondent, but it's really lovely
45:06
Speaker 2: when you're sitting with Africans and you get greeted as
45:10
Speaker 2: grandfather and it gives you it gives you a bit
45:17
Speaker 2: of leeway.
45:18
Speaker 1: Well that's a that's a wonderful way to frame that.
45:20
Speaker 1: Thank you for sharing the history of the beard, because uh,
45:25
Speaker 1: you know, I do find that you know, even with
45:29
Speaker 1: some facial hair, depending on where you're traveling, it does
45:33
Speaker 1: make it a little easier to kind of flow through
45:36
Speaker 1: a community, you know, whereas if you're clean shaven, you
45:39
Speaker 1: can look a little bit too military or something, you know,
45:41
Speaker 1: So yeah, absolutely.
45:44
Speaker 2: So, yeah, it's it's it's it's all good fun and sure. Yeah.
45:49
Speaker 2: So often people got to me and they say, so,
45:51
Speaker 2: when are you going to hang up your boots? I
45:55
Speaker 2: get a little offended.
45:56
Speaker 3: Of course, of course, you know.
45:58
Speaker 2: I say what, and there's yeah, you know, forty one
46:03
Speaker 2: expeditions today, you've seen surely you've seen it all. I said, never,
46:09
Speaker 2: you'd have to live ten lifetimes and you'd only begin.
46:13
Speaker 2: And they said, but what is this store to discover?
46:15
Speaker 2: And I'll say, maybe no one's ever stood on the
46:18
Speaker 2: top of that hill, or you know, you've spent time
46:22
Speaker 2: with that tribe, or you'll be lucky enough to be
46:26
Speaker 2: part of a tribal ceremony that is quite unique. So
46:29
Speaker 2: there's always every journey, there's something more to learn. And
46:32
Speaker 2: then there's another question that is something to answer. So
46:37
Speaker 2: what on your epitophis is called epitophis at the run?
46:41
Speaker 3: What?
46:41
Speaker 2: What? What? What should that read? Well? I said, I
46:45
Speaker 2: hope that it would be one of those sevvines and pebbles,
46:47
Speaker 2: you know, a care nol stands with a very simple
46:50
Speaker 2: sign that could just read thank you Mama. Africa. Yeah,
46:54
Speaker 2: that would be good enough for me.
46:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, because Africa is it. I mean, it's certainly changed me,
47:01
Speaker 1: so I think it's changed most people who've been here.
47:04
Speaker 1: So you have done forty different expeditions and one of
47:10
Speaker 1: the ones that I found fascinating when I was reading
47:13
Speaker 1: about your story is you sailed the length I believe
47:18
Speaker 1: of Eastern Africa and a dow So this is a
47:22
Speaker 1: this is a traditional Arab sailing, right.
47:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, crazy, absolutely crazy, because none of us were say this,
47:32
Speaker 2: but we're fascinated by the history of the Swahili coast,
47:36
Speaker 2: the slave trade, the spread of Arab civilization, Phoenician civilization,
47:42
Speaker 2: Indian civilization, bond to civilization. What made it possible was
47:47
Speaker 2: the trade winds, the kas Kazi and the Kussi, one
47:52
Speaker 2: the northeast to the other of the south wind that
47:55
Speaker 2: were the engines of trade up the east coast of
47:58
Speaker 2: Africa all the way from Iraq all the way down
48:03
Speaker 2: to present day Kenya and Tanzania, Zanzibar. Yeah, and in
48:09
Speaker 2: Mozim the north of Mozambiq Cephala, which was considered the
48:12
Speaker 2: endpoint of the Daar trade. Trading in Karrie shells, ivory skins,
48:19
Speaker 2: mangrove pulse, trading up to the east and bringing back
48:23
Speaker 2: dates and sea chests and jewelry and carpets. We're fascinated
48:27
Speaker 2: by this ancient trade that was driven only by the wind.
48:32
Speaker 2: So what did we do? We sh We found an
48:36
Speaker 2: old dar. She was an old seti five tanna two
48:41
Speaker 2: hundred square meters of sail and uh Bruski, the same
48:47
Speaker 2: guy that I said came on a single adventure and
48:50
Speaker 2: lasted for fifteen years. What a delightful character. He found
48:55
Speaker 2: her and she was up in the mangroves near the
48:58
Speaker 2: Refiji Delta in Tanzania and preson Day Tanzania. And we
49:03
Speaker 2: managed to buy her for a pittance against what you'd
49:08
Speaker 2: pay for a regular yacht. Sure, this is an old
49:12
Speaker 2: piece of medieval you know his maritime history. Sure, so
49:19
Speaker 2: we bought her and we sailed her down to Pember
49:22
Speaker 2: and northern Mozambique. And there were some fundies, which is
49:25
Speaker 2: the Swahili word for trades people craftsmen. We refitted the
49:31
Speaker 2: old girl. She was called a mina mother of Muhammad.
49:38
Speaker 2: We added the words the spirit of adventure. And she
49:41
Speaker 2: had the MACHOs, you know those eyes, those wooden carved
49:45
Speaker 2: eyes on the front to ward off danger. And we
49:49
Speaker 2: replanked her, resealed her with cotton waste and palm nut oil.
49:58
Speaker 2: The outside was first with sharp fat. The ropes were
50:04
Speaker 2: made from old dry coconut fibers. Beautiful. The old cotton
50:11
Speaker 2: sail was stitched up and we took off. Our aim
50:16
Speaker 2: was to reach the border with Somania. What a challenge,
50:22
Speaker 2: and we sailed. None of us had ever done something
50:24
Speaker 2: like this. People, very limited safety equipment. We'd sleep on deck.
50:31
Speaker 2: There wasn't a toilets. They had to go off the bank.
50:34
Speaker 2: We'd cook on those little chicos, you know, those little
50:36
Speaker 2: charcoal stoves, put a wet sack down so it didn't
50:39
Speaker 2: burn the dar to pieces and the strong winds and
50:44
Speaker 2: we selled it and every day just became better and
50:47
Speaker 2: better and bigger. Adventure sailed her all the way, just
50:51
Speaker 2: short of the Somani border. We had a mutiny.
50:58
Speaker 3: You did as as things go ye.
51:03
Speaker 2: And this happened because we tired two outsiders, two r
51:06
Speaker 2: Junior Arabs to take us around the back end of
51:12
Speaker 2: some islands where there was an old channel that wasn't
51:14
Speaker 2: on our maps. Beautiful journey between the mangroves, and they'd
51:19
Speaker 2: taken our money, these two scoundrels, and we're too afraid
51:25
Speaker 2: to go all the way to the Somani border. So
51:27
Speaker 2: they white entered the rest of the crew and they
51:31
Speaker 2: turned that crew that had been so faithful to us
51:33
Speaker 2: for so many months, they turned them against us. And
51:37
Speaker 2: it was at a critical part of the journey. M
51:40
Speaker 2: So I interviewed each of the crew members one by one.
51:43
Speaker 2: I said to them, do you remember you've traveled us,
51:45
Speaker 2: work with us for seven months? Now? Are you going
51:48
Speaker 2: to be a coward? Are you gonna listen to answer this?
51:51
Speaker 2: And from what they tell us, we'll never see our
51:55
Speaker 2: families again. M Ever, there's the navy that will kill
52:01
Speaker 2: us idental pirates, of course, and of course there was
52:03
Speaker 2: a chance of that. Yeah, anyway, to a man, they said,
52:10
Speaker 2: we can't carry on any further. Well, we took those
52:13
Speaker 2: two but journeys who had Hugh caused the mutiny, and
52:20
Speaker 2: we gave them the marching orders to walk all the
52:22
Speaker 2: way back to Lamo. And then we said to the curoke,
52:25
Speaker 2: you guys hang on here with the doll because just
52:28
Speaker 2: us few three of us, can't sell the dina. It
52:32
Speaker 2: took to our people to sell. We got set it
52:34
Speaker 2: on our own. Yeah, and then we took the inflatable
52:37
Speaker 2: baths and we continued our journey all to the back
52:40
Speaker 2: waters and the mangrave and we got to the border
52:43
Speaker 2: with Somonia and we even photographed those old navigational markets
52:48
Speaker 2: that store were decorated with old Chinese porson. Incredible and
52:53
Speaker 2: whilst in that area so much suffering, we were able
52:56
Speaker 2: to do right to start the provision of spectacles to
53:00
Speaker 2: out of malaria work and such like. To talk about
53:03
Speaker 2: it more detail that and uh. Then we got back
53:08
Speaker 2: and on our way back, we stopped and we bought
53:10
Speaker 2: a goat. Huh had it slaughtered, cut up into pieces
53:15
Speaker 2: put in the bag. My son Ross said, what's that for?
53:18
Speaker 2: I said, you'll see when we get back to the boat.
53:20
Speaker 2: We got back to the boat and there was all
53:23
Speaker 2: our mutiny crew who couldn't believe we were still alive.
53:29
Speaker 2: Ross took them out on the inflatable boat out in
53:31
Speaker 2: the middle of the lagoon and he said, we've made it,
53:34
Speaker 2: We've survived. What are you going to tell my father? Mm?
53:38
Speaker 2: How are you going to explain this to him? Think
53:41
Speaker 2: about it? Yeah, they came back on shore and one
53:45
Speaker 2: by when they came to me and said, we apologized,
53:50
Speaker 2: we weren't brave enough. I said, gentlemen, let's sit around
53:54
Speaker 2: the fire, bring out the goat meat. Yeah, and we
53:58
Speaker 2: had a massive aberration and they sailed with us all
54:02
Speaker 2: the way back to Lamo, back down the east coast,
54:05
Speaker 2: all the way to Sofar at the endpoint of the
54:08
Speaker 2: Great Dow days when our journeys were so much part
54:12
Speaker 2: of Africa, and these days you hardly see.
54:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very rare.
54:16
Speaker 1: I remember in Tanzania seeing and they're quite big ships.
54:22
Speaker 3: Impressive, beautiful, they beautiful.
54:25
Speaker 2: And when you're traveling with the wind and you're barroning
54:27
Speaker 2: along and it's just you and the ocean, there's no engine,
54:29
Speaker 2: there's it's just it's just wonderful. It taught us a lot,
54:35
Speaker 2: living with a small Swahili crew on board and just
54:39
Speaker 2: going with the wind and the ocean, barefeet on the
54:41
Speaker 2: creaking decks. It was a memorable journey and there's elements
54:45
Speaker 2: of that journey all over this house. Stoff. We brought
54:48
Speaker 2: the thing back.
54:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you can carry a lot on the ship.
54:50
Speaker 1: You can load it up full of cool stuff.
54:53
Speaker 2: You brought her back in pieces and she wasn't exhibited
54:55
Speaker 2: at a local restaurant here called the Mozambique. It's beautiful.
55:01
Speaker 2: But when they lifted her to move her to an
55:02
Speaker 2: earth spot, she broke into But when they look down
55:06
Speaker 2: into the hole, can you believe it, they found a
55:11
Speaker 2: little teller's man, a little good luck charm to keep
55:17
Speaker 2: you safe. Let's see. Wow, And that it worked for
55:20
Speaker 2: us amazing.
55:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean just this ocean, the amount of
55:27
Speaker 1: trade up and down.
55:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, what it meant in the spread of civilization and
55:36
Speaker 2: to be able to do these journeys. It's just so lovely.
55:39
Speaker 2: And I said, this one is number forty one and
55:43
Speaker 2: we two shots of the way through with it.
55:46
Speaker 3: And this is for the African parks.
55:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is working with African parks, the wonderful work
55:51
Speaker 2: that they do with conservation and with communities. And we
55:55
Speaker 2: believe that there has to be hope for conservation in
55:59
Speaker 2: Africa of our beautiful wild spaces and wild animals, because
56:03
Speaker 2: if you look around the world, most of it's been lost, yes,
56:07
Speaker 2: and on this continent there is still huge wild open
56:11
Speaker 2: spaces where these beautiful animals can be preserved, and in
56:15
Speaker 2: so doing make sure that there are opportunities for the
56:19
Speaker 2: surrounding communities that for them it's also their park and
56:23
Speaker 2: it's their wildlife, and through tourism and all the other benefits,
56:27
Speaker 2: make sure that the communities come out on top. And
56:30
Speaker 2: that's a huge concentration of this journey, very simply told,
56:35
Speaker 2: it's a journey in search of hope for conservation and communities.
56:40
Speaker 2: Can they coexist or should these wildlife areas just people visiting,
56:45
Speaker 2: wealthy tourists moving in and out in open game viewers. No.
56:50
Speaker 1: I did notice that in Tanzania, which it's not a judgment,
56:54
Speaker 1: but I noticed that it's become so expensive that that's
56:59
Speaker 1: pretty much that's all you see. Yeah, you know, the
57:03
Speaker 1: the the people of that country don't really have an
57:06
Speaker 1: opportunity to experience it.
57:08
Speaker 2: And with what we've seen now, how wonderful that is changing.
57:13
Speaker 2: I mean five thousand kids a year are brought into
57:16
Speaker 2: Akagara and Rwanda MM not only into the park to
57:19
Speaker 2: see runners and elephants and other wildlife, which is theirs, Yeah,
57:24
Speaker 2: but also to go to the community center and learn
57:26
Speaker 2: about fish farming, vegetable grap poultry, piguries, you name it.
57:32
Speaker 2: Using this energy around conservation to do good with community.
57:35
Speaker 2: So we loving it. Yeah. It's a challenge. Yeah, I
57:38
Speaker 2: mean from here we make our way up through them,
57:41
Speaker 2: maybe through Angola, up through the Democratic Republic of Conga,
57:48
Speaker 2: on through Cameroon to the Central African Republic. Huge challenges, yeah,
57:55
Speaker 2: and then to Oddsala lowland gorillas, forest, elephants, forests, and
58:01
Speaker 2: then of course finally into the Republic of Chad. Three
58:06
Speaker 2: beautiful parks, one of them called Zakuma, which is like
58:10
Speaker 2: nineteen fifties wildlife. You cannot believe it to Quenny is
58:15
Speaker 2: the BirdLife, the giraffe, the lions and cap the elephants,
58:20
Speaker 2: those last of the big mega herds that of course
58:23
Speaker 2: have been tortured almost to extermination by rebels. The jungerweed,
58:31
Speaker 2: the devils on horseback from dark were so much in
58:35
Speaker 2: the news these days. Yeah, hundred horses at a time
58:40
Speaker 2: coming into the park wiping out the elephants with automatic weapons.
58:45
Speaker 2: And now that's been put to a stop. Yeah. The
58:48
Speaker 2: elephants are spreading out from the big mega herd. The
58:52
Speaker 2: matriarchal herds are moving families. And when we last flew
58:57
Speaker 2: over there as part of one of these journeys, there
59:00
Speaker 2: were well over one hundred calves that have been brought.
59:02
Speaker 2: They they hadn't given birth to a single calf in
59:05
Speaker 2: the last five to seven years, terrified by human being.
59:09
Speaker 2: So it is lovely that there's always these stories of
59:13
Speaker 2: hope and this journey is it's called Africa Odyssey, Community Culture, conservation,
59:20
Speaker 2: stories of hope. And I can understand that some people
59:25
Speaker 2: feel this continent is a place of doom and doom
59:28
Speaker 2: because if that's what you're looking for, you can find it.
59:32
Speaker 2: But if you're looking for the good, wow, yeah it's.
59:36
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I have never had a bad day
59:39
Speaker 1: in Africa.
59:40
Speaker 2: That's lovely to you.
59:42
Speaker 3: Moments that may be a little challenging, but yeah, never
59:45
Speaker 3: a bad day.
59:46
Speaker 2: So that's lovely to you. And I'm glad that you've
59:49
Speaker 2: so adopted this continent in your adventures.
59:52
Speaker 3: I just feel such gratitude to have a chance to
59:56
Speaker 3: be here, for sure.
59:58
Speaker 1: So one of the other I mean, like literally we
1:00:02
Speaker 1: could have one hundred podcasts, But one of the ones
1:00:05
Speaker 1: that I found interesting was your Tropic of Capricorn expedition,
1:00:09
Speaker 1: where you drove around the world on the Tropic of Capricorn.
1:00:13
Speaker 3: How long ago was that, sure? What were the vehicles
1:00:16
Speaker 3: that you used.
1:00:17
Speaker 2: Yeah it was. It was a long time ago. I'm
1:00:20
Speaker 2: going to say, let's just say fifteen years ago at least,
1:00:26
Speaker 2: maybe a little more. And we had those old Defender
1:00:30
Speaker 2: T five two standard station wagons in the big old
1:00:34
Speaker 2: one thirty you know that long will basic. It made
1:00:36
Speaker 2: such a great exponential vehicle. Lovely. It's just the rights
1:00:40
Speaker 2: are a part to wait ratio and what you can
1:00:42
Speaker 2: load and every Anyway, we took off on this crazy
1:00:45
Speaker 2: mission to track the Tropic of Capricorn around the world
1:00:50
Speaker 2: because you know, the Tropic of Capricorn is was so
1:00:54
Speaker 2: part of the old super Gondwana land before the continents,
1:00:59
Speaker 2: and I thought this store all linked by that traffic
1:01:02
Speaker 2: of Capricorn. So off we went. We started on the
1:01:05
Speaker 2: coast of Mozambique. Sure, so it must have been fifteen
1:01:09
Speaker 2: odd years ago because the land mines were such an issue.
1:01:13
Speaker 2: You know, here you've got your GPS on the dashboard
1:01:18
Speaker 2: twenty twenty seven and you're following this invisible line. We
1:01:21
Speaker 2: did a book it is called Following an Invisible Line.
1:01:24
Speaker 2: It's crazy because you know, what are you following? It
1:01:27
Speaker 2: doesn't exist, but you stick to it, and then you know,
1:01:30
Speaker 2: you get like so determined to follow this line. We
1:01:33
Speaker 2: gave ourselves the rules we shouldn't debate more than fifty
1:01:36
Speaker 2: kilometers north to south of the line. Yeah, and we
1:01:40
Speaker 2: followed it and we followed it. And I remember mosabiklose days.
1:01:43
Speaker 2: There was the danger of land mines, so you know
1:01:45
Speaker 2: you'd have to really be careful follow cattle tracks. Ask
1:01:49
Speaker 2: people be careful at old bridges such like I remember
1:01:53
Speaker 2: getting to the Kruger National Park. They called it to jump,
1:01:56
Speaker 2: they chores to jump to Joe be because at that
1:01:58
Speaker 2: time a lot of illegal because they were crossing. You'll
1:02:01
Speaker 2: remember from Mozambique across the Kriuger National Park to go
1:02:05
Speaker 2: and work on the gold mines in South Africa. I
1:02:08
Speaker 2: remember our guide said you have to be careful you're
1:02:10
Speaker 2: walking across this park. The lines can get you because
1:02:14
Speaker 2: they got used to the soft target of human beings.
1:02:17
Speaker 2: I said, how do you how do you avoid the risk?
1:02:19
Speaker 2: I said, well, he said, no sex for seven days.
1:02:28
Speaker 2: And when you get to your first elephant track, having
1:02:31
Speaker 2: seen a sung Oma divina which doctor you must take.
1:02:35
Speaker 2: You must make a rope of grass and put it
1:02:38
Speaker 2: around the first elephant track and you must step over it.
1:02:42
Speaker 2: Gingerly and with respect and chance certain words, and then
1:02:46
Speaker 2: you won't be killed by lines. I thought, well that's
1:02:48
Speaker 2: worth knowing, and so we jumped to George as it was,
1:02:52
Speaker 2: and I remember we tracked on foot.
1:02:54
Speaker 3: Were you were walking walking, and then you were supported
1:02:57
Speaker 3: by view by vehicle.
1:02:59
Speaker 2: So not only not always did we walk, but in
1:03:01
Speaker 2: this case most of the time it was with the
1:03:04
Speaker 2: land drivers. And I remember walking with this giant of
1:03:09
Speaker 2: a game ranger his name was Maba Ruler, named after
1:03:12
Speaker 2: a famous cheap size fourteen felt skoon boots, and him
1:03:17
Speaker 2: telling us of how he'd come across a tree where
1:03:22
Speaker 2: four or five people in the tree had already been
1:03:24
Speaker 2: dragged down the tree and eaten by a pride of lions,
1:03:27
Speaker 2: and there was one person left up the tree who
1:03:30
Speaker 2: completely lost his mind. Understandably, he said to us, we
1:03:34
Speaker 2: should be careful anyway we made it across.
1:03:43
Speaker 3: So you went, you went from east to west, and
1:03:47
Speaker 3: you know that's a.
1:03:47
Speaker 2: Bad mistake because you're going into the centric. So what
1:03:51
Speaker 2: an idiot? I mean, why didn't we go the other
1:03:54
Speaker 2: way around? Every aternoon people look at me and they
1:03:56
Speaker 2: see all the wrinkles, and I mean they said, oh,
1:03:59
Speaker 2: you've had a lie and I said, well, we we
1:04:01
Speaker 2: made we took we took the wrong direction because you know,
1:04:05
Speaker 2: like crossing those those big deserts of Australia. Yes, you're
1:04:10
Speaker 2: also going up the south side of the Durian Silver
1:04:12
Speaker 2: hard side. And all the time, yes, and all the
1:04:15
Speaker 2: time you squinting into the setting. But somehow we made it.
1:04:19
Speaker 2: You know, we crossed Africa. Oh, you get across the
1:04:22
Speaker 2: Number Number, you know, the oldest desert in the world,
1:04:25
Speaker 2: yet across the Atta Kama, you know, the driest desert
1:04:28
Speaker 2: in the world in South America. And yeah, the.
1:04:31
Speaker 1: Junks you would have gone through, you would have gone
1:04:33
Speaker 1: through Bolivia.
1:04:34
Speaker 2: And just a little bit below Bolivia. But yeah, So
1:04:39
Speaker 2: it was a fantastic journey, and it of course ended
1:04:43
Speaker 2: up back where we built the calibation, initially emptying it
1:04:47
Speaker 2: at that same spot on the coast of Mozambik eighteen
1:04:50
Speaker 2: months later.
1:04:52
Speaker 3: A wonderful journey took you over a year and a
1:04:55
Speaker 3: half to do that.
1:04:55
Speaker 2: It was a wonderful journey, and we made it. The
1:04:59
Speaker 2: vehicles made that. The team made it. And I said
1:05:02
Speaker 2: to them, I said, would you ever follow an invisible
1:05:06
Speaker 2: line again? They said no, because it really doesn't exist,
1:05:16
Speaker 2: you know, I mean it's on a map, sure, But
1:05:19
Speaker 2: it was a grand adventure. I remember the one time
1:05:21
Speaker 2: getting and getting through building dead on prety feet are
1:05:26
Speaker 2: twenty seven and it was a house of ill repute.
1:05:33
Speaker 2: So we went into the back door and we're thrown
1:05:36
Speaker 2: out the front by the bouncers. Crazy.
1:05:42
Speaker 3: You stayed true to the invisible lines without crossing.
1:05:47
Speaker 2: Without so so much humor and a great tunin you know,
1:05:51
Speaker 2: fin enough, you felt that that that tropic of Capricorn
1:05:55
Speaker 2: found us all together. It was a.
1:05:57
Speaker 1: Lovely feeling and such an objective to continue to march
1:06:01
Speaker 1: towards it in a way.
1:06:03
Speaker 2: Oh every day on the GPS, no roads through the
1:06:07
Speaker 2: sand dunes in the western Yeah, those digits of Australia. Yeah,
1:06:12
Speaker 2: I mean we went to see the Australia and the
1:06:14
Speaker 2: Australian courty said, well, you know we gone beck you
1:06:16
Speaker 2: on this mate, Clouds are going to pick your ears out.
1:06:20
Speaker 2: The brown Snake's gonna get you. I said, so what
1:06:23
Speaker 2: about the flying doctors? Oh no, where you going might
1:06:25
Speaker 2: not flying doctors. Servis going to fund you. You're on
1:06:29
Speaker 2: your own. Anyway, we did it.
1:06:34
Speaker 3: Well, Yeah, africanors make a plan.
1:06:36
Speaker 1: So I don't really want to touch on vehicles much,
1:06:39
Speaker 1: but I think it's going to be of interest to
1:06:41
Speaker 1: the listener is you've mostly used land.
1:06:45
Speaker 3: Rovers for your for your journeys.
1:06:47
Speaker 1: And two great credit to land Rover. They've been an
1:06:50
Speaker 1: incredible support to your expeditions.
1:06:54
Speaker 3: I've had a love for land.
1:06:55
Speaker 1: Rovers for most of my travels, but recently you've been
1:07:01
Speaker 1: using these modern, fairly complex land rovers. And you were
1:07:06
Speaker 1: just telling me earlier today that you've really not had
1:07:08
Speaker 1: any issues with them. So talk about what your what
1:07:12
Speaker 1: land Rover are you using now and how have they
1:07:15
Speaker 1: been working for you?
1:07:16
Speaker 2: Sure? Well, maybe it's by saying green diffinity runs in
1:07:21
Speaker 2: our veins. Yeah, sure, and we like the east. Also,
1:07:24
Speaker 2: landover is those old ones we used to use in
1:07:26
Speaker 2: the old days, you know, the series ones, two threes.
1:07:29
Speaker 2: I mean we've used them a lot, and now, of
1:07:32
Speaker 2: course shall we on this modern age with these the
1:07:35
Speaker 2: new diffender And people would say to me, you're going
1:07:40
Speaker 2: to take those modern day vehicles so technically advounced on
1:07:45
Speaker 2: your expibis, I said, well, we're going to try. Last year,
1:07:50
Speaker 2: we took three of them from Cape Goat, it's the
1:07:52
Speaker 2: southernmost point of Africa that we talked about there all
1:07:54
Speaker 2: the way to the northernmost point that you can drive
1:07:57
Speaker 2: a vehicle to in the Arctic Circle. Said, what's called
1:08:00
Speaker 2: hot cape to cold Cape? Yeah sure, And it was
1:08:03
Speaker 2: our first experience of these new defenders. Of course we
1:08:06
Speaker 2: Ross my son who does all the logistics, had U
1:08:11
Speaker 2: the computer with him, UH diagnostics computer, and we had
1:08:17
Speaker 2: one incident and it turned out just to be a
1:08:19
Speaker 2: faulty battery. Made it all the way there. We got there,
1:08:23
Speaker 2: right across Africa, right across eastern Europe, dodging around Ukraine, Belarus,
1:08:28
Speaker 2: you know, Black Yeah, Estonia, Finland, Norway, and then a
1:08:33
Speaker 2: dash down to Wales MM where the first land rover
1:08:38
Speaker 2: was drawn in the sand m right at Anglesey, seventy
1:08:42
Speaker 2: five years before our arrival. And so tired, we took
1:08:46
Speaker 2: our land thees art these modern vehicles arts to see
1:08:50
Speaker 2: as it were. And the news got out so quickly,
1:08:55
Speaker 2: and the land Wrapper Club of Anglesey were all there,
1:09:00
Speaker 2: and the old land rovers and character vehicles and that
1:09:03
Speaker 2: is something about landover is a solidarity. Yeah, and they
1:09:06
Speaker 2: were all out there community, sense of community and or
1:09:10
Speaker 2: out there to wish us well sir. There you go.
1:09:13
Speaker 2: That was our first test for these new defenders, and
1:09:16
Speaker 2: of course we readily put them through their places, standard suspension,
1:09:19
Speaker 2: everything standard, and we load them to the hill to
1:09:22
Speaker 2: wire because of all the humanitarian items. Yeah sure.
1:09:26
Speaker 1: And how many how many Mombasa nets do you think
1:09:29
Speaker 1: you've distributed over the last thirty years.
1:09:32
Speaker 2: Well, we've done well over a million malaria prevention nets
1:09:36
Speaker 2: incorrect and education to andy. We target pregnant mums, yeah,
1:09:42
Speaker 2: and mums with children under the age of five. Yeah. Sure,
1:09:45
Speaker 2: And you know I must share that with you that
1:09:50
Speaker 2: who when you get to a village, it it's like
1:09:53
Speaker 2: it said, to the hot a mother's screaming, Yeah, a
1:09:56
Speaker 2: child dying maybe in a coma. Yeah, maybe one hundred
1:10:01
Speaker 2: miles or so to the nearest hospital by doug out canoe,
1:10:05
Speaker 2: and you realize there's a life that could be saved
1:10:09
Speaker 2: by a simple mosquito. And it's an education. So I mean,
1:10:13
Speaker 2: I've had malaria countless times. Our whole team suffer. Yeah,
1:10:18
Speaker 2: we get malaria constitutes a way of life. And what
1:10:21
Speaker 2: we do there is we camp in, yeah, sleeping under
1:10:24
Speaker 2: the stars.
1:10:24
Speaker 1: Around do you bring the just to to bring it
1:10:28
Speaker 1: back to something more a little bit practical, but cause
1:10:32
Speaker 1: I'm curious when you get how do you know? How
1:10:35
Speaker 1: do you get a sense you have malaria? And then
1:10:37
Speaker 1: do you take the task the small little squaw test.
1:10:41
Speaker 2: We we carry the malaria tests with us. But the
1:10:44
Speaker 2: truth be told, we've got so used to identifying the
1:10:47
Speaker 2: symptoms that we know.
1:10:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's fifty times.
1:10:51
Speaker 2: Right, I know, more close to a bus. I have
1:10:54
Speaker 2: nothing to be proud of. But you know, you the
1:10:57
Speaker 2: base of your back, you know you feel you have
1:10:59
Speaker 2: been hit for the base for bat You know your
1:11:01
Speaker 2: eyes when you touch your eyelids, saw the headaches, naiseousness
1:11:08
Speaker 2: or the spirts or both. Yeah, and you realize I'm
1:11:10
Speaker 2: getting done with malaria. So it's up to every expedition
1:11:14
Speaker 2: member to carry cart in, which is the present day
1:11:17
Speaker 2: drug that you use as as a cure in the
1:11:21
Speaker 2: cubbyhole of the landlord and in your personal bag hidden
1:11:24
Speaker 2: in various places you don't want to run out. And
1:11:28
Speaker 2: we treat ourselves instantly. And that's the only reason I'm
1:11:32
Speaker 2: talking to you today is because of quick treatment. Otherwise
1:11:36
Speaker 2: we've beat it.
1:11:37
Speaker 3: And how long has that treatment been available.
1:11:39
Speaker 2: It's been available for say the last probably ten years
1:11:44
Speaker 2: at least.
1:11:45
Speaker 3: What did you do? What did you do before that
1:11:49
Speaker 3: lot of genin.
1:11:51
Speaker 2: Okay, Queenen tablets or queenan injection makes your ears ring,
1:11:56
Speaker 2: you feel noises. But that even today if the card
1:12:00
Speaker 2: and the other button day don't work, last resort quini
1:12:04
Speaker 2: even today. So yes, the malaria work. And that's just
1:12:10
Speaker 2: you know, that's what we didn't like. Should we form
1:12:14
Speaker 2: an India or maybe we should give out some nets.
1:12:17
Speaker 2: Maybe we only did this because of our own experiences.
1:12:21
Speaker 2: We had someone die in the land driver, we had
1:12:24
Speaker 2: malaria so many times we saw what was happening. We
1:12:28
Speaker 2: knew that it was the writing to do. So it was.
1:12:33
Speaker 2: It was a very easy conviction to make. And then
1:12:38
Speaker 2: one of the other beautiful humanitian projects or campaigns that
1:12:45
Speaker 2: we do is one that's so close to our heart
1:12:47
Speaker 2: because my late wife Ma Suresy started it and it
1:12:50
Speaker 2: happened on that journey to circumnavigate the globe on the
1:12:54
Speaker 2: Tropic of Capricorn. We were in Peru and we were
1:13:01
Speaker 2: at a place where the park's authorities had to remove
1:13:05
Speaker 2: an old man who they felt living alone was a
1:13:08
Speaker 2: danger to himself because he couldn't see property. So we
1:13:10
Speaker 2: all went there to get an idea and Mashaus. He said,
1:13:15
Speaker 2: all this guy needs is a pair of reading glasses,
1:13:18
Speaker 2: and she happened to have the correct strength in her back,
1:13:21
Speaker 2: gave it to me. Let her match, he smiled. He
1:13:23
Speaker 2: was allowed to stand as we drove out of the marshals.
1:13:26
Speaker 2: He turned to me, and that's why the project is
1:13:28
Speaker 2: still called Mustials. He's writer design. She turned to me
1:13:31
Speaker 2: and she said, Kingsley, I don't care what it takes,
1:13:34
Speaker 2: if we have to bond our house, whatever we have
1:13:37
Speaker 2: to sell, it's unacceptable, just as it's unacceptable that a
1:13:41
Speaker 2: child does from malaria, you know, for every minute of
1:13:45
Speaker 2: the day, around the clock in those days. So it's
1:13:48
Speaker 2: unacceptable that millions of people should have such a low
1:13:51
Speaker 2: quality of love for something that we take for granted.
1:13:53
Speaker 2: Go and buy a pair of reading glasses of the
1:13:55
Speaker 2: right strength. So we got to we learned how to
1:13:59
Speaker 2: do the tests. We've now done about two hundred and
1:14:02
Speaker 2: fifty thousand pairs.
1:14:03
Speaker 3: And you you do reading glasses plus vision glasses.
1:14:08
Speaker 2: No just reading glasses. So in other words, you can
1:14:11
Speaker 2: read your Bible again, you can read the Koran, you
1:14:13
Speaker 2: can do beadworks, you can do craft work, and the
1:14:16
Speaker 2: difference that makes to someone's life because we can't carry
1:14:19
Speaker 2: sophisticated eye testing equipment, but we can carry all the
1:14:23
Speaker 2: charts that are necessary for reading glasses. It's very easy
1:14:26
Speaker 2: and ninety percent of all eyesight problems in Africa, she
1:14:31
Speaker 2: can be sold by a simple pair of readers. And
1:14:34
Speaker 2: the difference it makes you know, you get the right
1:14:38
Speaker 2: strength and that person like I remember an old Massai woman.
1:14:41
Speaker 2: She made a living from doing beadwork, a couple of
1:14:44
Speaker 2: teeth missing as old doug. And now when she got
1:14:47
Speaker 2: the right strengths glasses, she could pick up the red bead,
1:14:50
Speaker 2: the blue bead, the green bead that she could see again,
1:14:52
Speaker 2: and she got a quality of life back again, and
1:14:55
Speaker 2: she could make a living, and the little community around
1:14:57
Speaker 2: her all clap their hands and chair she'd got laugh
1:15:00
Speaker 2: back for a simple pair of reading glasses. Yea. I
1:15:03
Speaker 2: remember one other guy. He came in. We were in
1:15:06
Speaker 2: the Tugan Hills in the Great Rift Valley in Kenya
1:15:09
Speaker 2: and uh we were on the veranda of an old
1:15:10
Speaker 2: trading store and this old project came up one day
1:15:14
Speaker 2: homemade crutch. I said, what happened to you? So I
1:15:16
Speaker 2: got ridden over by tracked and I couldn't farm anymore.
1:15:19
Speaker 2: Said then what did you do? He said, I learned
1:15:21
Speaker 2: to become a cobbler, fixed the shoes for the community.
1:15:26
Speaker 2: And I said, and then he said, I can't see
1:15:28
Speaker 2: the thread anymore. I can't see the needle. I can't
1:15:31
Speaker 2: thread the needle. Yeah, so I remember we I remember
1:15:34
Speaker 2: the strength he took, even it was a two point
1:15:36
Speaker 2: seven five, And I remember even giving him a three.
1:15:38
Speaker 2: I said, he has a two point seven five, have
1:15:40
Speaker 2: eleven little bags we put them inside one scratch and
1:15:42
Speaker 2: he has a three four A few years time. Yeah,
1:15:46
Speaker 2: and he shouted to his grandson, bring me my equipment
1:15:48
Speaker 2: to his grandson came running over with a little anvil
1:15:51
Speaker 2: and a half finished shoe. The thread was still there,
1:15:56
Speaker 2: the tools, and straight away he got back you being
1:16:00
Speaker 2: the cobbler for the community. That crowd rough. Yea, they've
1:16:04
Speaker 2: got their cobbler back. He got his lop back for
1:16:07
Speaker 2: a simple pair of eating glasses that we so take
1:16:10
Speaker 2: for granted. So it's a lovely project. How do you.
1:16:15
Speaker 1: For those that are listening, how do they help support
1:16:18
Speaker 1: what you're doing? For example, with the glasses, do they
1:16:22
Speaker 1: go to the Kingsleyholgate dot com or how do they
1:16:25
Speaker 1: support what you're doing with the glasses.
1:16:30
Speaker 2: What's happening at the moment is that the malaria work
1:16:32
Speaker 2: is supported by a land driver and we have to
1:16:37
Speaker 2: fund the rochasatric too much is the right to Sadric
1:16:41
Speaker 2: and it's an area that we ready do need help.
1:16:45
Speaker 2: So if anyone wanted to support that, just with a
1:16:48
Speaker 2: few dollars go a long way, then you could just
1:16:51
Speaker 2: get hold of the Kingsleyholgate Foundation and we could lead
1:16:56
Speaker 2: you through. And how easy it is, just you know,
1:17:01
Speaker 2: a few hundred dollars goes a long way.
1:17:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would expect that that would buy dozens of glasses, yes, And.
1:17:09
Speaker 2: So it's the classes, of course, it's the work in
1:17:13
Speaker 2: getting them out there, of course, and then lovely little
1:17:17
Speaker 2: soft draw string bags to keep each space for the recipient.
1:17:21
Speaker 2: But it's a lovely project because the instant gratification is
1:17:25
Speaker 2: just so lovely. It's so good for the soul. And sometimes,
1:17:28
Speaker 2: you know, we've had a rough day and we're sitting
1:17:30
Speaker 2: around the campfire and I'll say to the team, was
1:17:32
Speaker 2: it worth a glass? You know, if you do one
1:17:34
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty recipients in a day with the Right
1:17:37
Speaker 2: to Start project, it's a fold day and you know,
1:17:40
Speaker 2: you try and work out the person's age. Many of
1:17:44
Speaker 2: them don't know, so it might be related to historic occasion.
1:17:47
Speaker 2: And then you take the person's age, you deduct thirty
1:17:50
Speaker 2: five and you divide the results about ten and that's
1:17:53
Speaker 2: your starting ice drength and just that can be ten
1:17:56
Speaker 2: minutes and then you chat to them and what can't
1:17:59
Speaker 2: you do and what you can do and then you
1:18:01
Speaker 2: get it right and wow, that instant gratification mean that
1:18:06
Speaker 2: person can see again. It's just lovely. So when you're
1:18:09
Speaker 2: singing around the final after a hunt and you stay
1:18:10
Speaker 2: to the teams with it. God, it's a little work,
1:18:13
Speaker 2: they say. You know, if you stop the humanitarian work
1:18:16
Speaker 2: you take, you remove the soul from the expedition.
1:18:21
Speaker 1: Well, and it's actually what makes it an expedition to
1:18:25
Speaker 1: begin with. I mean people use that word far too lightly.
1:18:30
Speaker 1: You know, if you're not contributing something significant on the
1:18:33
Speaker 1: humanitarian front, or if you're not doing scientific support and
1:18:37
Speaker 1: research or doing something that is so maybe the first
1:18:43
Speaker 1: of something, it's really not an expedition.
1:18:47
Speaker 3: A bit of marketing.
1:18:50
Speaker 2: So yes, is there right? Decide another another little program
1:18:54
Speaker 2: that we love so much, and it's just had its
1:18:56
Speaker 2: tenth Indivistry was we've been shocked by the increase in
1:19:03
Speaker 2: the number of rhinos that are being killed across Africa,
1:19:06
Speaker 2: you know, exterminated for their horns, sold sold to Southeast
1:19:11
Speaker 2: Asia for for a purpose that doesn't work. They're not medicine.
1:19:20
Speaker 3: It's the same thing that our nails are mounted.
1:19:22
Speaker 2: And then so now they bling. You know, someone will
1:19:26
Speaker 2: have one up in the mantelpiece and you know all that.
1:19:28
Speaker 2: And so we just felt, how what can we do
1:19:31
Speaker 2: as an ordinary bunch of adventures. What can we do?
1:19:35
Speaker 2: And we decided, let's work with the children, the next generation.
1:19:39
Speaker 2: And so we did a journey and we started this
1:19:45
Speaker 2: campaign called Rhino Art. A simple HV piece of paper
1:19:49
Speaker 2: the outline of a rhino. The title on the page
1:19:52
Speaker 2: was in Zulu, in the Zulu language, and it said
1:19:54
Speaker 2: sebakandall bench which means we love our rhinos. And underneath
1:19:58
Speaker 2: we had English let our voices be heard, Yeah, And
1:20:02
Speaker 2: we took this to thousands of children. They would do
1:20:05
Speaker 2: the chance summatano, bitch our net our voices be heard,
1:20:08
Speaker 2: and then they would color in the rhinos, very often
1:20:11
Speaker 2: with the national flag of the country Swaziland, South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe,
1:20:19
Speaker 2: and as importantly they would around the rhino, they would
1:20:24
Speaker 2: put other animals, the trees, the rivers, the landscape where
1:20:28
Speaker 2: they lived, village scenes, and then at the bottom they'd
1:20:32
Speaker 2: pull in their name, their grade, the name of the school,
1:20:34
Speaker 2: the country, the province, everything, But most importantly there would
1:20:38
Speaker 2: be a space or is a space where they write
1:20:40
Speaker 2: the message, their message of how they feel, wanting their
1:20:44
Speaker 2: voices to be heard for the future of these animals.
1:20:49
Speaker 2: And wow, we beat to more than five hundred thousand kids.
1:20:54
Speaker 2: It's just wonderful. And on the journey where a now
1:20:58
Speaker 2: all twenty two pox of course twelve at every one
1:21:01
Speaker 2: of them. We do wildlife art. And of course when
1:21:04
Speaker 2: you come to the prize giving to the judging of it,
1:21:08
Speaker 2: that's a football game. Man of the match wins a
1:21:11
Speaker 2: bicycle the rhinos against the elephants. I knew had that
1:21:14
Speaker 2: whole thing of keeping it fun. Yeah, sure, And it's
1:21:17
Speaker 2: just a wonderful program. So yes, the Milaria, the rock
1:21:20
Speaker 2: sat and Community Conservation lot.
1:21:25
Speaker 1: I remember the first time that I saw a rhino.
1:21:28
Speaker 1: It was in South Africa and we came around a
1:21:32
Speaker 1: corner and this rhino was, you know, maybe three quarters
1:21:35
Speaker 1: to us in in the road, and it took up
1:21:38
Speaker 1: the entire road, and I remember it.
1:21:41
Speaker 3: It took me.
1:21:43
Speaker 1: Several moments from my brain to register how massive this
1:21:49
Speaker 1: animal was and how how impressive it was.
1:21:52
Speaker 3: I mean, an elephant is of course much larger, but.
1:21:57
Speaker 1: I wasn't expecting to see a rhino because they're so rare,
1:22:00
Speaker 1: and then to actually see one with your own eyes,
1:22:02
Speaker 1: it was nearly a spiritual experience.
1:22:06
Speaker 2: This wonderful creature that goes back to the time of
1:22:09
Speaker 2: the dinosaurs. And why do we have human beings that
1:22:14
Speaker 2: want to wipe it off the face of the earth,
1:22:17
Speaker 2: corruption and greed and welsh But so the little bits
1:22:21
Speaker 2: that we can do, and you know, I'm so pleased
1:22:23
Speaker 2: to see on this journey that there's so much hope
1:22:27
Speaker 2: in some areas where the Runas are being slaughtered become extinct,
1:22:30
Speaker 2: and now on other areas they're coming up and being
1:22:34
Speaker 2: reintroduced and having their cobs. The overall picture is there's
1:22:39
Speaker 2: always hope for Africa.
1:22:42
Speaker 1: They what an incredible and diverse continent for sure.
1:22:46
Speaker 3: So what are in when you do your trips?
1:22:50
Speaker 1: What's been two or three constants throughout these journeys, the
1:22:55
Speaker 1: little pieces of kit or the one gadget you like
1:23:00
Speaker 1: to bring along on all these journeys. What are some
1:23:03
Speaker 1: of the things that you found works for you in
1:23:04
Speaker 1: your travels.
1:23:05
Speaker 2: Well, it all starts with a paper map. So we
1:23:11
Speaker 2: take we go to the architect's office and run off
1:23:13
Speaker 2: a big map of Africa just showing the country is
1:23:16
Speaker 2: no roads or rivers or anything else. And we come
1:23:20
Speaker 2: into this room behind us here, it's called the Swahili shed,
1:23:23
Speaker 2: and we put out this big mapp on the table
1:23:28
Speaker 2: and the team all gather around and we discuss the
1:23:31
Speaker 2: journey and we write this area needs malaria support, that
1:23:36
Speaker 2: area needs support for right to such. Yeah, we need
1:23:39
Speaker 2: to do community conservation work. Here is some real challenges,
1:23:44
Speaker 2: four by four roads, mountains, crossings, river crossings, interesting tribes.
1:23:49
Speaker 2: And then on that paper map gets all these scribbles.
1:23:53
Speaker 2: It's such a nice way of starting a journey. And
1:23:56
Speaker 2: then you roll up that map and you fly to
1:24:00
Speaker 2: land of his head of us and you've put it
1:24:04
Speaker 2: out on the table and you say, how's this for
1:24:07
Speaker 2: a journey. By that time you've given the journeyor name,
1:24:09
Speaker 2: you've given it a clear objective. You've said how long
1:24:14
Speaker 2: it will last roughly and you say, so, what do
1:24:16
Speaker 2: you think, Tim, It's fantastic. You hand 'em one of
1:24:21
Speaker 2: those felt depends and you say sign it, m rot
1:24:24
Speaker 2: it up and the adventure starts and we still do
1:24:27
Speaker 2: that to this day. Isn't that love it? So as
1:24:30
Speaker 2: opposed to twenty seven emails, out comes the old paper mapp. Yeah,
1:24:35
Speaker 2: it's just a lovely thing. It can relate to. Yeah it,
1:24:38
Speaker 2: make a copy and put it in your boardroom, yeah,
1:24:40
Speaker 2: or put it in your home, you know, put it up.
1:24:41
Speaker 2: It's so there's that symbodic start to each journey is
1:24:45
Speaker 2: when you've finished the paper map, and that's that ready
1:24:48
Speaker 2: symbolizes the start of the journey. And then there's always
1:24:52
Speaker 2: a logo, a vision and a mission. Yeah, what do
1:24:56
Speaker 2: you want to achieve? It's so important that we get
1:24:58
Speaker 2: that right, So everybody in the team exactly, whatever might
1:25:01
Speaker 2: go wrong or badly or up and down, the mission
1:25:05
Speaker 2: for the journey remains very very strong and the objective.
1:25:09
Speaker 2: So that's that's sort of failure obvious. And we have
1:25:13
Speaker 2: one of the team is a bit of an art
1:25:14
Speaker 2: direct and he designs the logos and everything and they're
1:25:17
Speaker 2: ways quite lovely and then we take off and you
1:25:19
Speaker 2: asked about this sort of important bits of kit. Well,
1:25:24
Speaker 2: one thing that we have learned is that we all,
1:25:28
Speaker 2: and I'm sure you do as well, Scott, we load
1:25:31
Speaker 2: too much stuff.
1:25:33
Speaker 3: It's taken me a long time to learn.
1:25:35
Speaker 2: The trick is to limit it to one soft bag.
1:25:37
Speaker 2: It's the same people that do our beautiful scrolls, a
1:25:39
Speaker 2: pieces of wood, will Marvelne Moon one bagage, chuck your
1:25:44
Speaker 2: stuff in there. Remembering that these days as you travel
1:25:46
Speaker 2: after year, you can go to those second end clothes markets.
1:25:48
Speaker 2: Most of those clothes I understand are important from America
1:25:51
Speaker 2: and you and you can buy a really good branch
1:25:54
Speaker 2: if you need one. Yeah, and you can just wear that,
1:25:57
Speaker 2: you know, you never you don't have to. You don't
1:26:00
Speaker 2: have to carry enormous So that's just one like one
1:26:03
Speaker 2: lesson that you do need to carry a medical good medicocket. Yeah,
1:26:09
Speaker 2: and your comms should be the best that you can.
1:26:12
Speaker 2: Of course, nowadays you've got this new satellite stem starlink.
1:26:16
Speaker 2: We tried it out in Tanzania and it really is
1:26:19
Speaker 2: quite impedivet now. Of course, some countries that you know
1:26:23
Speaker 2: don't like you to have a satellite, but.
1:26:25
Speaker 3: Yes, that's right.
1:26:26
Speaker 1: So for example, I don't I can't take starlink in
1:26:29
Speaker 1: the Ethiopia.
1:26:30
Speaker 2: Oh no, yeah, So good combs are good. And there's
1:26:34
Speaker 2: that old thing that is let people know at home
1:26:40
Speaker 2: where you are and where you're heading for. It is
1:26:42
Speaker 2: a lovely feeling when you sit around and face say
1:26:44
Speaker 2: and you say to yourself, do you know there's not
1:26:47
Speaker 2: another person in the world that knows where the hell
1:26:49
Speaker 2: we are? And that's a nice feeling. I think, But
1:26:53
Speaker 2: I think, but I think for security reasons, you need
1:26:55
Speaker 2: to let people know where you are, where you're traveling
1:26:58
Speaker 2: to have those good comps, good medical get good comps.
1:27:01
Speaker 2: Now let's get onto them and limit the amount of
1:27:03
Speaker 2: personal kit that you carry. But let's get to the
1:27:08
Speaker 2: most important subject, I guess is food.
1:27:12
Speaker 3: And South Africans do like good food.
1:27:18
Speaker 2: What I share with people is that you can buy
1:27:22
Speaker 2: everything in Africa. You can go to the local market.
1:27:25
Speaker 2: It's not going to be You're not going to be
1:27:28
Speaker 2: it's not like you know, it won't be a fancy
1:27:31
Speaker 2: saper market necessarily, but you can go to the market
1:27:34
Speaker 2: and like in Zambia, and they shout you allow customer,
1:27:38
Speaker 2: and you can get these little red tomatoes that aren't
1:27:41
Speaker 2: full of fertilizers. Yeah, organically grown naturally, and isn't it
1:27:46
Speaker 2: lovely you And then you support the local people. And
1:27:49
Speaker 2: you have your old basket that hangs from the back
1:27:51
Speaker 2: of the land over so the egg can pots it.
1:27:53
Speaker 2: And you've got your potatoes and your onions and your tomatoes.
1:27:56
Speaker 2: And you know you can buy meat from the local
1:28:00
Speaker 2: It just means you have to hang it, but to
1:28:01
Speaker 2: cook it better. But you can get stuff all across Africa.
1:28:05
Speaker 2: So I don't think travelers should get hung up on that.
1:28:09
Speaker 2: You you have to carry an entire supermarket with so
1:28:13
Speaker 2: I first too, And then of course the obvious ones.
1:28:16
Speaker 2: You know, pieces of kit, the decent camera, binoculars, your notebook, pencil,
1:28:21
Speaker 2: medical kit, the calabash, and the pebbles, the pebbles, the
1:28:27
Speaker 2: scroll of piece and goodwill and the old talk.
1:28:32
Speaker 3: You don't need much, you don't need money.
1:28:35
Speaker 2: And you know, people often talk about border crossings, and
1:28:41
Speaker 2: I suppose we've been doing it so much that we
1:28:44
Speaker 2: just trust a fixer. We meet a guy to go
1:28:47
Speaker 2: a NA space, Will you take us through the process,
1:28:49
Speaker 2: agree on our price. He takes your past, what you do,
1:28:52
Speaker 2: what you have to do, and try and avoid that
1:28:56
Speaker 2: typical sort of Western anxiety. Oh I stuck them. Not
1:29:03
Speaker 2: they're going to rip us off. It's going to be
1:29:04
Speaker 2: a terrible explained. It's not just smile smiling way.
1:29:09
Speaker 3: You signed up for an adventure, didn't you.
1:29:13
Speaker 2: And of course not only the things that you should
1:29:16
Speaker 2: carry with you, like a good medical that. What is
1:29:20
Speaker 2: quite nice is to carry a small box that can
1:29:23
Speaker 2: be called the condiments box. So your favorite Nando's sauce
1:29:28
Speaker 2: like in South Africa, Mamuch or bob raw those little
1:29:32
Speaker 2: luxuries have that little box that you easy to carry.
1:29:36
Speaker 2: So when you go into a little simple rural restaurant
1:29:39
Speaker 2: to buy doughnuts and coffee or whatever, you know, Mussa
1:29:43
Speaker 2: tea and Mandazi's, you know, but then you've got your
1:29:49
Speaker 2: little box with the people to with a peanut butter
1:29:52
Speaker 2: and the right sources and so they never mind that
1:29:54
Speaker 2: no one ever objects, and so you spuck up your
1:29:58
Speaker 2: meal a little bit and make it a bit more fair. Yeah,
1:30:00
Speaker 2: so everything's I think everything's possible. But with the right attitude.
1:30:05
Speaker 2: A lot of youngsters Scott come to me and say,
1:30:09
Speaker 2: how can we start off? How can we possibly adventure?
1:30:13
Speaker 2: So you don't have to have the fanciest of vehicles.
1:30:16
Speaker 2: You just have to have the attitude, a mission, a vision,
1:30:20
Speaker 2: a name, No, exactly what you want to do. But
1:30:24
Speaker 2: the most important thing you have to do is turn
1:30:27
Speaker 2: the key. Yeah, turn the key, and you'll be absolutely
1:30:31
Speaker 2: surprised at what you can do. You turn the key,
1:30:34
Speaker 2: you're going and you look back at it. Did I
1:30:36
Speaker 2: get this together? It was the moment that you stopped
1:30:39
Speaker 2: talking about it and turn the key. And that turning
1:30:43
Speaker 2: the key, that moment you turn the key and you
1:30:46
Speaker 2: head off, that's that symbolic moment. Yeah, that starts a
1:30:50
Speaker 2: new adventure.
1:30:51
Speaker 1: Otherwise you keep spending pebbles and you don't end up
1:30:55
Speaker 1: with very many left by the time you turn the.
1:30:57
Speaker 2: Key and you talk about it and you made it's all.
1:30:59
Speaker 2: Say so when you're leaving, that's another thing. Given a date,
1:31:03
Speaker 2: even if it's an arbitrary date, say on the twenty
1:31:06
Speaker 2: eighth of baby next year, we are leaving to do this, Yeah,
1:31:10
Speaker 2: and you'd be surprised at the energy that gathers. It's amazing,
1:31:14
Speaker 2: it is. Yeah, I'm sure you've done that a number
1:31:16
Speaker 2: of times. You're not sure when you're leaving, but you say,
1:31:19
Speaker 2: I'm gonna leave on that date. And there's the sort
1:31:21
Speaker 2: of unseen energy that gathers it pushes you along.
1:31:24
Speaker 1: It is and it's it's necessary to put that line
1:31:28
Speaker 1: in the sand. So one of the things that I
1:31:30
Speaker 1: love to ask, and it's it's a bit selfish because
1:31:34
Speaker 1: of my love of reading. But obviously you've written a
1:31:37
Speaker 1: lot of books yourself, Kingsley, But do you have a
1:31:41
Speaker 1: few books that you love that were written by someone else?
1:31:44
Speaker 1: Of your library? Your library is one that I'm jealous
1:31:50
Speaker 1: of many things, including the beard, but your library, I
1:31:54
Speaker 1: think is pretty high on my list.
1:31:55
Speaker 2: And we've got an old we had an old stopping
1:32:00
Speaker 2: to the learning because he moving to another property. And
1:32:05
Speaker 2: it's got an African library, but it's not necessarily these ancient,
1:32:10
Speaker 2: very expensive books about the early explorers. I've made it
1:32:14
Speaker 2: a habit to wherever possible buy anything on African adventure
1:32:19
Speaker 2: and travel, travel and adventure. It could be a nineteen
1:32:23
Speaker 2: fifty is a book to Northern rhodesha doesn't matter. I
1:32:28
Speaker 2: just buy it. You like it? Yeah, And the library
1:32:31
Speaker 2: is such as it even needs a ladder, ah and say,
1:32:36
Speaker 2: and you know you sort of suss out your mood.
1:32:40
Speaker 2: It's a bit of a rainy sunday. What would I like?
1:32:45
Speaker 2: I think the White. Now let's get the book on
1:32:51
Speaker 2: the White. Now that's fantastic book. You go up the
1:32:53
Speaker 2: ladder and you grabbed the white. Now you sit in
1:32:56
Speaker 2: your favorite chair, getting enough light to the window, and
1:32:59
Speaker 2: you emerge yourself in another great adventure. Why now I
1:33:02
Speaker 2: think it's by Moorhead is the author of a beautiful book.
1:33:06
Speaker 2: But yeah, sir, But in terms of what you carry
1:33:10
Speaker 2: on the adventure space is a problem because books are heavy.
1:33:13
Speaker 2: But still we do it. Great reference books Michael May's
1:33:19
Speaker 2: books on the Book on the Zambizi River Zambizi Odyssey
1:33:23
Speaker 2: is another one, but so many great books, and we
1:33:26
Speaker 2: take those along with us as reference books. Together of
1:33:29
Speaker 2: course with guidebooks and paper maps. Now that's something quite
1:33:32
Speaker 2: heavy to take. A lot of people might not to
1:33:34
Speaker 2: do that rather just google or wonder. But you know,
1:33:38
Speaker 2: we've still got this sold habit of putting out a guidebook.
1:33:41
Speaker 2: There's something about that isn't there following the pages.
1:33:44
Speaker 1: But well, because it can present something to you that
1:33:48
Speaker 1: maybe you wouldn't search for, And so I do find that.
1:33:51
Speaker 1: Guide books oftentimes for me help me find something new unexpected.
1:33:58
Speaker 2: So I mean you have a f you scattered around here.
1:34:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, and for those that are watching, these were on
1:34:04
Speaker 1: the table to begin with.
1:34:06
Speaker 2: Yes, and some of them are quite old. You know,
1:34:10
Speaker 2: you'll be going off to a country and you've got
1:34:12
Speaker 2: a ten year old guidebook, but it still gives you
1:34:15
Speaker 2: the basic knowledge.
1:34:17
Speaker 1: So, Kingsley, in this incredible life that you've lived, and
1:34:23
Speaker 1: of course you have many adventures still to come, but
1:34:26
Speaker 1: what is one of the things that you've done that
1:34:27
Speaker 1: you're most proud of?
1:34:32
Speaker 2: One that I think changed our lives was when South
1:34:35
Speaker 2: Africa came of age and we had our first democratic
1:34:40
Speaker 2: elections and we took off on this journey which is
1:34:45
Speaker 2: called Africa Odyssey, but it's simply got called in the
1:34:48
Speaker 2: books you've got called Cape to Kira. I don't know
1:34:50
Speaker 2: why everybody just are kept and using open boats along
1:34:55
Speaker 2: the rivers and lakes of Africa. We traveled the entire
1:34:58
Speaker 2: continent and you know, for example, and over the radio
1:35:03
Speaker 2: coming the news South Africa is a democracy and then
1:35:07
Speaker 2: them allowing us in. So you had this feeling that
1:35:12
Speaker 2: you were sort of an unofficial diplomat or ambassador for
1:35:16
Speaker 2: the new order. And I'm always just find it incredible
1:35:20
Speaker 2: how Africa can forgive and how welcome people made it.
1:35:27
Speaker 2: So that journey in ninety ninety two, ninety three to
1:35:31
Speaker 2: cross Africa from the Cape of Good Hope all the
1:35:35
Speaker 2: way to the mouth of the Now in open boats,
1:35:39
Speaker 2: I think will always will it, will remember it forever,
1:35:42
Speaker 2: because it was as if in our lives we again
1:35:47
Speaker 2: became citizens of Mama Africa, citizens of the greater content.
1:35:52
Speaker 2: And I remember arriving in Cairo and South Africa at
1:35:57
Speaker 2: that point had only been a trade consul or something
1:36:00
Speaker 2: change mission. But now with the arrival of democracy and
1:36:05
Speaker 2: our journey was a full on embassy and all a
1:36:10
Speaker 2: number of the other embassies all joined us. They brought
1:36:14
Speaker 2: red wine and roast beef and what have you from
1:36:16
Speaker 2: South Africa was flown in and we had this wonderful
1:36:20
Speaker 2: get together, an incredible function. It was like, wow, we're
1:36:24
Speaker 2: part of the new South Africa. We part again of
1:36:28
Speaker 2: the greater Africa. And so that journey always sticks in
1:36:31
Speaker 2: our mind. And funny enough, on the way back bringing
1:36:34
Speaker 2: all the equipment down ross and the major has brought
1:36:38
Speaker 2: the boats and the vehicles down all the way back
1:36:40
Speaker 2: through to Nairabi, and we got through to Nairobis that
1:36:43
Speaker 2: we're not ready for home yet, and we started a
1:36:46
Speaker 2: safari business called Africa Odyssey and spent many years in
1:36:50
Speaker 2: East Africa. But that was started by this journey from
1:36:55
Speaker 2: Capetown to Cairo and Alexandra in open boats. It was
1:36:59
Speaker 2: this time in one life where you felt, wow, I'm
1:37:02
Speaker 2: a member of this greater continent.
1:37:04
Speaker 1: And a member of humanity because this is Africa's story
1:37:09
Speaker 1: is a human story. Jesus Kingsley. How do people find
1:37:15
Speaker 1: out more about what you do?
1:37:18
Speaker 2: Well, Fortunately, Sheila, my partner, she's good at keeping records,
1:37:30
Speaker 2: so she takes my scribbles from the notebook and she
1:37:35
Speaker 2: turns them into great Facebook stories. So if anyone interested
1:37:41
Speaker 2: were to follow us on Facebook, the kings the Olgate Foundation,
1:37:45
Speaker 2: you would be instantly part of our journeys. And what
1:37:47
Speaker 2: you'd be doing for us is this feeling of solidarity
1:37:50
Speaker 2: that we're not traveling alone. We don't buy posts, we
1:37:55
Speaker 2: don't you know, it is just is who we are
1:37:58
Speaker 2: and what we do stories from the heart, and if
1:38:02
Speaker 2: you're follow those now you get a good idea of
1:38:05
Speaker 2: how the journeys role the humanity and work and all
1:38:08
Speaker 2: the other good stuff. So yeah, just can go into
1:38:11
Speaker 2: the Kingsley Holgate Foundation. Going to the website, you'd get
1:38:14
Speaker 2: to know more about us and in talking to you, Scott.
1:38:19
Speaker 2: Wouldn't it be wonderful if some of your fellows and
1:38:21
Speaker 2: some of your readers could maybe get involved in THEIRS.
1:38:26
Speaker 1: I would love that, and we're going to provide information
1:38:29
Speaker 1: in the show notes of the podcast so that people
1:38:32
Speaker 1: can reach out and connect with you further and find
1:38:35
Speaker 1: ways to give back. Kingsley, it has been all of
1:38:41
Speaker 1: the honor that I expected to spend this time with you.
1:38:45
Speaker 1: You're an inspiration to me. You're an inspiration to so
1:38:48
Speaker 1: many throughout Africa and the world because of your journeys,
1:38:52
Speaker 1: your humility and your awareness about the importance of giving
1:38:56
Speaker 1: back is such a lesson to all of us.
1:39:00
Speaker 3: Grateful and I thank you for spending the time with
1:39:01
Speaker 3: me today.
1:39:03
Speaker 2: Thank you, Scotch. It was a pleasure.
1:39:04
Speaker 3: Thank you my friend, pleasure.
1:39:06
Speaker 2: Thank you.
1:39:07
Speaker 3: We thank you all for listening, and we'll talk to
1:39:09
Speaker 3: you next time.