Defender Transcontinental expedition: Kingsley Holgate still roving at 75

At the age of 75, you would expect humanitarian and adventurer Kingsley Holgate to sit back reminiscing about an extraordinary life with his Land Rover Defender parked safely in his garage. Not in the least.

After almost three decades of tireless adventures spanning across Africa into Europe, the KwaZulu-Natal native has embarked on the 40th expedition of his remarkable career. And, according to him, the most difficult.

The master expedition leader has embarked on what is dubbed “Defender Transcontinental: Hot Cape to Cold Kapp”.

It sees Kingsley, his partner Sheelagh, son Ross and family friend Mike Nixon take their trio of latest generation Land Rover Defenders from their home-base in northern KZN, across Africa and the Mediterranean to Norkapp in Norway – Europe’s most northern point.

From there, the convoy will trek down the Old Continent to the United Kingdom, more specifically, Red Wharf Bay on the Welsh island of Anglesey. This is where Land Rover Chief designer Maurice Wilks famously drew the outline of what was to become the very first Land Rover in 1947.

In total, they plan to travel all of 30 000 km through 30 countries.

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On their way to Anglesey, as per the mantra of the Kingsley Holgate Foundation, they will help provide humanitarian support.

This will include the distribution of mosquito nets in partnership with Mozambique-based Goodbye Malaria; providing reading glasses to the elderly and visually impaired as part of the Mashozi’s Rite to Sight programme; and help with the provision of clean water in the form of a water purification system.

“At no stage did we sit down and say, maybe we should become like an NGO to provide support in the fight against malaria. It came from the sheer practicality of having experienced and seeing people affected by it,” Kingsley says.

“We mustn’t see people as impoverished. It is different cultures with different needs. It is all about collaboration and leaving a story for the future. This is all extremely humbling for us and we are so touched.”

Kingsley said the “journey of purpose” aspect associated with the trip, aside from reaching Red Wharf Bay, will assist about 300 000 people living in sub-Sahara Africa.

This includes not only the goals set out by his foundations, but also in the provision of nutrition to children via a water-mixed porridge that will be distributed.

Two million of these meals have already been provided to communities in Holgate’s home province.

For the first time, the trip, which actually started in October last year at Cape Agulhas, hence the Hot Cape part of its title, is carbon neutral as all of the expelled emissions have been offset by the planting of 6 000 spekboom at the Tanglewood Conservation area outside Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape.

The expedition was originally planned to start in April 2020, at the Land Rover factory in Solihull, rendezvous at Red Wharf Bay and work its way south through the African continent to Cape Town.

After an indefinite delay and possible abandonment due to the outbreak of the Covid pandemic, amending the plans was the only way to save the expedition.

“We knew we had to do this, so we simply decided do it in reverse. Instead of going from the most northern point in the world where you can take a Land Rover Defender, we are now going from the most southern to the northern point,” Ross Holgate explained at the Jaguar-Land Rover Experience in Lonehill recently.

Attributing the challenges of the trip to not only Covid, but also the various conflicts and civil wars taking place in Africa, Holgate Jr said a variety of plans regarding logistics had to be made in order for the trip to go ahead.

“It has become impossible to trek across Africa from north to south or south to north. Borders are closed due to wars. The success of these expeditions is all about teamwork,” Holgate said in reference to the convoy being forced to enter South Sudan as the only means of progressing through Africa and into Egypt.

“South Africans living in South Sudan, Kenyans building roads in South Sudan and NGOs helping the military with South African assistance, have found a way for us to cross from Kenya into South Sudan.

“From there we reach North Sudan where, through the military good relations and friendship, they (the North Sundanese authorities) are prepared to open the border for us to enter”.

There was simply no way Holgate Snr was able to dodge the age-old question: “Why Land Rover? It has always been so by choice,” he said..

The convoy’s progress can be followed on social media via the Kingsley Holgate Foundation Facebook page.

WATCH: Kingsley Holgate’s Africa-ready Land Rover Defender