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Adventures with Kingsley Holgate (20)

Adventures with Kingsley Holgate (20)

Date: 2016-08-12
Friends in adventure, this is the second part of a series of 24 action-packed Land Rover dispatches. Off to find the Heart of Africa, it's a story best told in the words taken from the scribbles in Kingsley's sweat-stained expedition journals

For us as a family, reaching the Source of the Zambezi is always an important yardstick taking us back to past

Zambezi expeditions from source to mouth and mouth to source and many in between. At this beautifully serene place, I can't but think of Mashozi, my late wife Gill. (Certainly the most travelled woman in Africa.) We had adventured together for 45 years and she'd loved this spot.

Now some of the cycling team went back home, leaving Shovashova Mike to peddle on with the rest of us diehards to cross the Jimbe River into a remote part of Angola. The big 130 Landy Defender loaded up with bales of mosquito nets and the other humanitarian items lead the Landy convoy.

We manage to do some great malaria prevention work with mums at the village of Nhamutenga. It's a high risk malaria area and the nearest clinic more than a day's bush walk away... Their singing and dancing made it all worthwhile. We'd camped in a deserted village for the night, felt there was less risk of land mines, but in the morning we got chased out of there by a swarm of bees... Not to mention the Mopani flies!! We've got just 5 days to cross the rest of Angola to get to Kinshasa. 'Remember to drive on the right,' comes Ross' voice over the Landy radio.

Finally we exit Angola at Kimpangu. Aah! but it's lunch. You wait!! The prickly equatorial heat beats down. We break out a Landy tailgate lunch, standard fare of bully beef, tinned fish, bananas and local bread. I check out the body language of the DRC officials. This looks like it's going to be a tough one. Left over from the past a small forgotten concrete sign reads Congo Belge. 'You came all the way from South Africa to do What??' I explain all about our crazy mission to get to the 'Heart' but that doesn't stop the paper shuffling.

Six hours later and somewhat shell shocked by a crazy night drive along a road that I'm sure hasn't seen a grader since ousted President Mabuto's time. Then it's the nightmare 'Hell Run' of the Matadi road, crabbing charcoal lorries with no lights, passengers hanging by their fingers from the outside of ancient overloaded minibuses, cops in the night waving us forward with their dim flashlights and unlit broken down vehicles blocking the road.