Adventurers & Expeditions

Adventurers and their expeditions – of days gone by and modern – have always held my interest; my bookcase bears witness to this fascination with polar expeditions and seafaring explorers.

There’s a built in element of safety and of the known to races and events. An expedition, on the other hand, especially a solo endeavour, is often about doing something never done before, venturing into the unknown and little explored and travelling from one place to the next under your own steam. An expedition, by its nature, should take an extended period of time – like more than a month or two.

Modern day explorers row across oceans, man-haul through polar regions, cycle around continents or go faster, higher and longer than anyone before them.

The effort, planning, thought and logistics that goes into preparing for an expeditition is a massive undertaking. Food, equipment, route, communication, sponsors… your bases have to be covered because help is not readily at hand.

Humans have always been explorers – they have headed out since the beginning of time to discover new places and people on our planet. Blank maps were gradually coloured in as the great unknown became known. Whether seeking resources, aiming to conquer new lands or curiously wanting to know what was on the other side, people have always ventured forth, exploring their surroundings.

Now, we can colour in those blank sections for ourselves with the help of Google Earth and Big Brother satellites. In the most tame version of exploring, we travel to foreign lands as tourists, we watch Discovery and Nat Geo and we attend events that pass through out of the way places. We may load up a Landy to drive through a country, stopping at sites along the way. The more adventurous hop on motorbikes or bicycles, touring through countries, mostly keeping to inhabited regions.

The most adventurous aim for uninhabited regions on self-sufficient, human-powered expeditions. Why? Because they need to.

Exploring and adventuring is, I believe, the natural order. Sitting behind a desk, working on a computer under fluorescent lights IS NOT natural. But, it is the way of our society. And while most of the population enjoys or is tolerant of this, there are people who just cannot survive in this environment. In order to ‘fit in’ most of the time they have to take time out to answer the urge that makes them restless – they have to travel and explore. And to do this many of them compromise and sacrifice personal and professional elements that are traditional desirables in modern society.

This Adventurers & Expeditions (news) section of the site is for – and about – South Africa’s adventurers and their expeditions.