Adventurer walks the length of SA’s coastline

Zakie Odendaal, 22, a free-spirited solo backpack adventurer, has almost completed half her dream of walking the length of South Africa’s 2 800km coastline, reports the George Herald.

“I have had a wonderful few nights in George visiting my parents who moved here at the end of last year. On Tuesday, I walked along the beautiful Garden Route from Wilderness to Sedgefield and then came back to spend the night with the family,” she resumed her walk on Wednesday. “Now I’m on my own again.”

Odendaal told the George Herald: “One morning, I just woke up with this idea which became my goal and now a reality.”

She started her trip in the small diamond-mining town of Alexander Bay on the South African/Namibian border on September 15, 2016, and expects to reach Kosi Bay on the South African/Mozambique border by mid-September this year.

A former freelance photographer from Lydenburg, in Mpumalanga, Odendaal has worked in Cape Town, Norway and Russia and is travelling as light as possible. “In my blue backpack, I have a small ration of food and water, a tent, a self-inflating mattress, a sleeping bag and a stove.”

Asked if it became lonely out on her own, she said: “I am never on my own, as I am a child of God, and he keeps me company.”

During her journey she sleeps in guesthouses, hotels, camping areas, next to the road, on the beach and at the homes of kind-hearted strangers.

“God created a wonderful and beautiful world for us, and I want to explore and experience it. I take each day as it comes.”

– Caxton News Service

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