Country, Culture and Expedition
Adventure means different things to different people. The “Bull of Africa” adventure race led the KEEN Torq’ers Team to South Africa for a sporting expedition with a difference.
South Africa presented a huge physical challenge with an epic course, and a very special insight in to a different culture. Prior to the race, we were invited to represent the international teams in a ceremony at the local schools. Amidst an array of microphones, cameras, and spine chilling African singing from the children.
We presented football and rugby balls to encourage the children in sport and to thank the local people for allowing us to pass through their country during our expedition.
We practiced as much tribal language as we could but not quite enough to help us when we struggled during the race in the remote Transkei tribal country. We learned the hard way that a “walking track” in local speak means any route that theoretically one could walk on; not necessarily implying that there is any sort of formed track, or that it is the quickest way to the named place!
It wasn’t only the cultural and linguistic differences which kept us on our toes during the race. The South African landscape and wildlife was spectacular. We covered a wide variety of terrain from the epic hike of the Amatola Mountains through beautiful waterfalls cascades and pools to spectacular gorges and peaks.
We had to swim (with our bikes) across rivers and estuaries and climb tortuously steep bush. Even the 180m rope climbing section was completely unsupervised except for a volunteer drinking beer at he top! Thankfully the local gun-wielding farmers were friendly, and we didn’t have any serious trouble with the wildlife except coming within a fence breadth of some lions, getting caught in a stampede of gazelles and chased by a friendly giraffe.
The gruelling non-stop race pushed all of us past our boundaries, challenged us in ways we had not expected, and as a team brought us to a new level of appreciation for raw adventure. 42 teams started, 12 finished. The KEEN Torq’ers returned in 8th place, pleased with our efforts and having had a fantastic journey and our eyes opened. For the full day-by day narrative see www.keentorq.blogspot.com or for some snippets of our daily video diary.
