Kingsley Holgate Foundation Expedition Team - Rides High on Sky in New Expedition of Mountain Passes Southern Africa

RIDING HIGH ON SKY

What better place to kick off 2020 and a bright new decade, than from the 3,262m Tlaeeng Summit in Lesotho one of the highest driveable road passes in Africa, all part of a challenging high altitude Land Rover and mountain bike Riding High on Sky Expedition by the Kingsley Holgate Foundation (KHF) Team to tackle 100 of Southern Africa’s highest and toughest mountain passes in just 30 days.

‘It’s another tough challenge for our specially kitted-out Land Rover Discoverys but mountain passes are not new to them,’ explains veteran expedition leader Ross Holgate, who heads up the Foundation. “These are the same Land Rovers that, on a recent Cape Town to Kathmandu expedition, not only completed the high Caucuses mountain passes between Georgia and Russia but also the ancient high-altitude Silk Routes across Armenia and Iran, the famed Khyber Pass between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the Karakoram route to China, said to be one of the highest paved roads in the world.”

As in all their journeys of Discovery, this new Holgate Land Rover odyssey, which began on 2 January 2020, is also linked to humanitarian and conservation work along the way.

One of the colourful expedition members is ‘seven summiteer’ (meaning he’s climbed  the highest peaks in each of the world’s seven continents) “Shova” Mike Nixon, one of the ‘Last Lions' and Land Rover team member of the famed Absa Cape Epic, who will use this journey as high altitude training for the 2020 mountain bike event.

Kingsley Holgate explains that apart from the high passes of the Kingdom of Lesotho and the Eastern Cape (passes with colourful names like Ben Mac Dhui, Ongeluks Nek, Ramatselitso and Baster Voetslaan), the Riding High on Sky expedition will also pay tribute to Thomas Bain, by following in the footsteps of one of South Africa’s greatest road engineers who, starting in 1848, built famous mountain passes with names like Swartberg, Baviaans, Prince Alfred, Bains Kloof and the ‘Seven Passes' road.

The team plan to end their 3000Km mountain pass journey in the north west of the country on a pass aptly named, ‘The Road to Hell', followed by the 7 rugged passes of the Richtersveldt.

For more information follow the team on Facebook.

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Well-known KZN Conservationist Sheelagh Antrobus accepted as Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in the UK

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Well-known KZN Conservationist Sheelagh Antrobus accepted as Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in the UK

Well-known KwaZulu-Natal conservationist Sheelagh Antrobus has just been accepted as a Fellow of the prestigious Royal Geographical Society, the professional body that advances geography and supports related fields of interest across the globe.

Antrobus, the founder of conservation organisation Project Rhino, is one of the integral members of the Kingsley Holgate Foundation expedition team, which specialises in using geographic adventures to conduct humanitarian work and raise awareness about Africa’s endangered wildlife. This South Africa-based Foundation now boasts four Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society including Ross Holgate, who heads up the Foundation, Mike Nixon, the celebrated mountain biker who cycles the expeditions, and the legendary adventurer and humanitarian himself, Kingsley Holgate. 

Over the past three years, Sheelagh has been part of the team that completed three world first expeditions in their Land Rover Discoverys. In 2017, they reached Africa’s most easterly point in Somalia on the Horn of Africa; in 2018, a transcontinental journey took them from Cape Town to Kathmandu in Nepal and onto India; more recently in 2019, their east-to-west Zambezi to Congo expedition included helping the Doctors for Life volunteer medical team to conduct life-changing eye operations. Intrinsically embedded into all their expeditions, which continue to be supported by Land Rover, is communicating the urgent need to conserve Africa’s wildlife and in particular, the rhino.

Antrobus’s love for wildlife led her to set up the award-winning, aerial anti-poaching unit, the Zululand Anti-Poaching Wing (ZAP-Wing) that supports more than 20 game reserves collectively holding the second-largest remaining population of rhinos left in the world. In 2016 she received the prestigious Rhino Conservation Award from the Game Rangers Association of Africa. She is one of the founders of Rhino and Elephant Art, a youth conservation programme that uses educational school lessons and community football matches to engender a passion for wildlife amongst young people, as well as the World Youth Wildlife Summit series, which works towards building a new generation of conservation leaders across Africa and the world.

"Through these Land Rover Discovery expeditions we have traversed Africa and beyond, visiting more than 25 countries in the past three years,” says Antrobus. “We have been very blessed to have such incredible opportunities to go to places where few “outsiders” venture in our modern world. While doing our humanitarian and conservation work, we see some incredible sights, meet extraordinary people from many cultures, and are able to report back on some of the remotest and often forgotten locations in Africa.”

To be accepted as a Fellow of the 190-year-old Royal Geographical Society, a person must have sufficient involvement in geography or an allied subject through their training, profession, research and publications, or demonstrate expertise in related fields such as the environment, conservation and ecology. 

Previous RGS Fellows include Sir Charles Darwin, Dr David Livingstone, polar explorers Sir Ernest Shackleton and Sir Robert Scott, mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary, Michael Palin and Joanna Lumley.

Speaking from Afrika House on the north coast of KwaZulu-Natal, an excited Antrobus said, “I am still pinching myself, this is a huge honour for me.  It is quite incredible that there are now four of us in the Kingsley Holgate expedition team who are now Fellows of the RGS.  Holding a Fellowship opens up many doors to network and share information, but it comes with some important responsibilities, such as continually enhancing geographical knowledge and understanding of related critical issues among the wider public. I say a heartfelt thank you to all the people in my life – family, friends, colleagues and associates – who have helped me get to where I am today, and I hope that this encourages other women to get out there and explore the amazing wild places of this beautiful continent, be courageous enough to follow their passion, whatever it may be, and stand up for a cause they feel strongly about.”

And plans for the foreseeable future? “Christmas with family, relaxing after a rather busy year, and planning for our next Land Rover geographic adventure in 2020, which will continue to focus on raising awareness of the crisis facing Africa’s endangered wildlife, particularly the rhino, alongside our humanitarian endeavours.”

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Kingsley Holgate and his Cape Town to Kathmandu expedition team realised a dream by finally reaching one of the highest paved roads in the world

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Update – Kingsley Holgate Foundation’s Cape Town to Kathmandu Expedition

Last week Kingsley Holgate and his Cape Town to Kathmandu expedition team realised a dream by finally reaching one of the highest paved roads in the world with their Land Rover Discoverys. With a maximum elevation of 4,714 metres, the Pakistani Karakoram Highway and its treacherous passes is often referred to as the Eighth Wonder of the World.

It’s here on this ‘Roof of the World’ where the three highest mountain ranges on the planet collide – the Himalayas, the Hindu Kush and the Karakorams. This is the fabled Shangri-La (The Kingdom of Lost Horizons) – a land of snow leopards, bears, apricot orchards, stone-built villages and hardy people. The area plays home to vast glaciers, alpine deserts and 33 of the highest mountains on Earth, like the snow-covered 8,126m peak of Nanga Parbat, Pakistan’s second-highest mountain after the 8,610m ‘Killer Mountain’ of K2, which is only exceeded by Mount Everest.

“For months we’ve dreamed about achieving this major expedition objective,” said Holgate. “It’s a long, fascinating and sometimes arduous journey of mountain passes, tunnels, wash-aways, and landslides. We find ourselves squeezing past colourful, jingling Bedford trucks; the Landys’ tyres just millimetres from the edge of dizzying drops into steep gorges where the green waters of the Indus River tumble and meander. We’ve met police checkpoints and travelled in convoys, all flavoured with the friendliness of the amazingly tough Baltistan people who inhabit this rough mountainous region which through centuries of the Silk Road trade, has linked northern Pakistan to China.”

Near the picturesque Hunza Valley, Kingsley and crew broke away for some tough off-road sections of the ancient Silk Road. It’s yet another high-altitude test for the expedition’s two Discoverys which haven’t missed a beat. The Discovery’s 283mm ground clearance has been key in tackling the rocky conditions, while the multi-mode Terrain Response 2 has allowed the team to adapt the vehicles’ settings to varying terrain – some of which is more easily passable by goats than cars – with a simple turn of a knob.

But the Karakoram Highway will soon be unpassable by any vehicle. A new, faster highway is being built through these mountains by the Chinese to quicken the transportation of goods to the Port of Karachi on the Arabian Sea. The waters of a new dam on the Indus will also flood large sections of the old Karakoram Highway, which when it was built in the 1970s, claimed a life for each of its 883km.

“Land Rovers have taken us from the southern tip of the African continent to the Roof of the World,” concludes Kingsley. “What a great feeling! It’s been a special privilege to travel this iconic road which will one day be only a memory.”

The Cape Town to Kathmandu expedition will now travel south across the Punjab to Lahore in time for the daily military ceremony at Wagah, which marks the sensitive border with India. Then it’s on to New Delhi, the famed Taj Mahal at Agra and onwards again to meet the Ganges at Varanasi en route to the final destination of Kathmandu in the Himalayan Kingdom of Nepal.

Under the shadow of the great Mount Everest, the team will ceremoniously empty a symbolic, decorated Zulu calabash of south Atlantic seawater carried all the way Cape Town and will present the expedition’s Madiba Scroll of Peace and Goodwill to representatives of Kathmandu as a symbolic gesture of friendship from the people of South Africa. Hundreds of well-wishers have already added kind-hearted messages to the Scroll along the route, which has successfully crossed southern Africa, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Iran, Pakistan and India.

Follow the expedition on Facebook - Kingsley Holgate Foundation.

Update on Kingsley Holgate Foundation Land Rover Cape Town to Kathmandu Expedition on reaching Iran

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Update on Kingsley Holgate Foundation Land Rover Cape Town to Kathmandu Expedition on reaching Iran

The Land Rover Cape Town to Kathmandu expedition that departed from Cape Town's Nobel Peace Square on International Mandela Day, 18 July 2018, has safely reached the border with Iran after traversing southern and east Africa and now across Turkey, Georgia and Armenia.

‘It’s been an incredible adventure so far and a world-first for the all new Land Rover Discoveries,' said expedition leader Ross Holgate, as this humanitarian and geographic journey continues to make its way east towards Kathmandu in Nepal.

Crossing the Bosporus Strait that connects Europe to Asia in the mysterious metropolis of Istanbul was a highpoint for the six-member South African team of adventurers, as were Turkey's iconic UNESCO World Heritage Sites of Ephesus, Troy, Pergamon, Pamukkale, Cappadocia and the WW1 battlefields of Gallipoli.

Following the mountainous Black Sea coastline, the expedition set itself a new objective: to reach the highest permanently inhabited settlements in Europe, which lie in the northern Caucus Mountains of Georgia near the border with Russia, before the first winter snows closed the challenging 4x4 Zigara Pass.

'It turned out to be a fascinating chapter,' explained legendary adventurer Kingsley Holgate, says legendary adventurer. 'The high-altitude villages of Ushguli, with their stone-built watch towers nestling beneath Mt Shkhura, the highest mountain in Georgia and other grand, snow-capped mountains are out of a medieval fairy tale and added to the many UNESCO World Heritage Site already visited by the expedition.” 

'We’re Africans and the closest we’ve ever come to these conditions is in the Maluti mountain passes of Lesotho or the highlands of Ethiopia.  But as we’d been warned, the journey through mud, snow and ice was extremely difficult but certainly proved the incredible capability of the all new Land Rover Discoveries and the heavily-loaded Defender 130.'

From northern Georgia, the expedition made its way south into Armenia, following ancient Silk Road mountain passes to stone-built World Heritage Site monasteries, through villages and mining towns reminiscent of the old days of Soviet occupation and enduring nights camping in sub-zero temperatures.  Few, if any, South African-registered vehicles have ever reached these parts, but the waves and shouts of welcome from locals in their old Russian-made vehicles was heart-warming for the expedition team.

Apart from the three Land Rovers, one of the expedition members, Mike Nixon, who is also a member of the Land Rover Cape Epic mountain bike team, is cycling the journey to Kathmandu.  ‘It’s tough going,' he said, ‘Especially the snow-clad mountain passes in Georgia and Armenia, where temperatures drop to well below zero and the occasional, fierce Armenian sheep dog gives you a run for your money.’

‘Apart from the geographic challenges, this journey also has a humanitarian element and the people who we’ve met and have helped us along way have been fantastic,’ said Ross.  ‘There is a big Land Rover family of dealerships and clubs who have all bought into this expedition to celebrate Land Rover’s 70th Anniversary and hundreds of well-wishers have added their goodwill messages to the Madbia100 Scroll of Peace and Goodwill, which clearly outlines the humanitarian work of Rite to Sight, malaria prevention, water purification and community conservation education that are attached to all Kingsley Holgate Foundation expeditions.”

“123 days into the journey, on an overcast day at the border post between Armenia and Iran, underneath dark, brooding mountains, a large Islamic Republic of Iran flag flopping in the wind, the Cape to Kathmandu expedition team met up with a Russian Land Rover experience group also waiting to cross the border.  There were shouts of welcome, mugs of coffee and photographs of the two teams.  Here for the first time, messages of peace and goodwill were added to the Scroll in Russian and Farsi (Persian).  Africa has taught the team to be patient and seven hours later, after much paper shuffling and being shepherded from office to office, down came the entry stamp and the three Cape Town to Kathmandu Land Rovers crossed into Iran. 

‘Ahead lies a 2,000Km journey through the deserts of Iran, a testing crossing of the Baluchistan region with armed Pakistan guards, then onto Lahore and Islamabad,’ said Kingsley.  ‘Then, the next geographic challenge will be the famous Karakoram Highway that traverses the Himalayas to China, then on through India, and if the Zen of Travel is on our side, our convoy of Land Rovers will reach Kathmandu in Nepal by 11 December.’

In Nepal, the expedition team will hand over messages of solidarity against rhino poaching from South African youth to Chitwan National Park in Nepal as part of the Foundation’s partnership with Project Rhino. Hundreds of Rhino Art messages from South African children in the expedition’s three Land Rovers and are en route to Nepal.  These will be handed over to Nepalese conservation officials and children living in communities bordering Chitwan National Park, before Kingsley and the team head to Kathmandu for the expedition’s finale.

Follow the expedition on Facebook - Kingsley Holgate Foundation.

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