Retracing barefoot journey of history
THERE is a good chance that John Ross, the intrepid Scottish teenager who in 1827 walked from Port Natal (now Durban) to Delagoa Bay (now Maputo) did much of the trip barefoot.
Now, Pietermaritzburg adventurer Thommo Hart is walking and running much the same route, barefoot, alongside his shod friend, freelance filmmaker Simphiwe Ngcobo to raise money for cancer charities.
“There is a high chance that John Ross walked barefoot,” said Hart who should be between New Hanover and Greytown today having left the provincial capital yesterday.
“Stephen Gray, in The Natal Papers he edited, reckons John Ross battled walking barefoot and Zulu impis had to help him a lot.”
They will head to Maputo via Kranskop, Melmoth, Pongola and Swaziland and return along the coast, going inland where river mouths are obstacles.
On the up run, they will meet John Ross’s path near Eshowe.
Hart is also hoping to break the 1 450km barefoot record just as Paul Ucheck is trying the same over 1700km between Scotland and England, also for cancer. Hart’s John Ross Expedition will cover 100km more than that.
Routes
“The regulations (set down by the Guinness World Records) state that we may not run over the same route twice so we have to go to Maputo and back by different routes,” said Hart.
“I’ve been running around barefoot in the suburbs for about a year now,” he said.
He added that his athletic abilities had improved significantly since his school days at St Charles in Pietermaritzburg “when I was in the last group all the time”.
Part of Hart and Ngcobo’s route will be through deep traditional Zulu country where Hart travelled as a child with his mother, Juliet Armstrong, a professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre of Visual Arts, in her red VW Beetle collecting pottery.
“Those experiences gave me a fascination and love for Zululand and Zulu culture.”
She died of brain cancer in 2012, prompting Hart to dedicate his adventure to cancer causes.
“I am fundraising for the PinkDrive and Simphiwe is fundraising for the Empilweni for Physically Challenged Community Centre at kwaNdengezi, near Durban.
“The PinkDrive is a cancer public benefit organisation powering South Africa’s first mobile PinkDrive Mammography and PinkDrive Educational Units through our country, driving home the fact that ‘early detection saves lives’,” said Hart.
“Empilweni for the Physically Challenged Community Centre is a non-profit organisation that takes care of children living with disabilities.”
He and Ngcobo are each carrying 15kg packs with provisions including a tent they will use when they do not have people to host them.
Hart, who has qualifications in anthropology, fine art and media studies and has worked in the NGO sector in East Africa, has also launched an adventurers’ club, Expeditionists, to help like-minded people with publicity and fund raising.
Ngcobo said it was significant in South Africa today that a pair of friends, one black and one white, were undertaking this challenge.
“We’ll learn a lot about one another,” he said.
“But we have a lot to gain. It’s not just for us, we also have two charities to support.”
Friend
Unlike his barefoot friend, he does not know the terrain, having lived in Port Shepstone, Newcastle and Gauteng.
The week ahead is scheduled to see them arrive tomorrow at Kranskop and finish the whole expedition at the end of October back in Pietermaritzburg, via John Ross House on Durban’s harbour front.
For further information on the John Ross Expedition, visit www.expeditionists.org/expeditions/