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Adventures with Kingsley Holgate - Afrika Outside Edge 25

Adventures with Kingsley Holgate - Afrika Outside Edge 25

Author: Kingsley Holgate
Date: 2017-10-06

A mole-hilled track bounces and shakes the overworked Land Rovers through the fynbos down to Quoin Point. It's a race against the clock. We're still determined to empty the calabash at last light today. It must be on Madiba's birthday - we owe it to the great man. On past Buffelsjagsbaai, Shell Point and Kleinbaai to the Danger Point lighthouse where Land Rover owners flash their lights in a greeting.

The beauty of this piece of Africa's outside edge is truly remarkable. You have to have gone the full circle to appreciate the splendour of our own coastline. We hug the outside edge, Hangklip, Pringle Bay, Rooi Els, Koe'lbaai, on to Gordon's Bay and the Strand where more Land Rovers of well wishers join the convoy.

It's 4pm on day 449 - looking across False Bay we can see the outline of Cape Point - so near but so far. Already late afternoon clouds are covering the sun. Headlights on. The wind howls and tugs at the Landies.

Down Baden Powel Drive, the shacks of Mitchell's Plain on our right. The waves of False Bay break a few meters to our left - we couldn't be closer to Africa's outside edge if we tried. On through Fish Hoek and historic Simon's Town.

A couple of jackass penguins wobble across the road. "Slow down," warns Mashozi as we climb up through the curves with cliffs falling away to our left. The Cape Point Nature Reserve officials urge us through the gates with waves and smiles. There's a long line of Land Rover lights behind us. "We're all together," comes Ross' voice over the radio, "let's go."

There's a flash from the Cape Point lighthouse, just a few minutes remaining before sunset the convoy turns hard right and drops down to Cabo da Boa Esperanca, the Cape of Good Hope. The team bundles out of the Land Rovers. We slip and slide over the time washed rocks and long tubes of black green kelp. 448 Days, 64327kms, millions of tyre revolutions, tens of thousands of potholes and corrugations, hundreds of campfires and river crossings, buckets of sweat, loads of laughs and thousands of lives saved and improved through this adventure to track Africa's outside edge.

And it ends in just a few seconds as we all place our hands on the calabash of much travelled seawater taken from this point 448 days ago. We remove the stopper, shiver with cold as it glugs slowly back into the cold South Atlantic. We hug, kiss and shake hands and line up behind the Cape of Good Hope sign. We raise our mugs in a salute to Mama Africa - WE'VE MADE IT