Kingsley Holgate expedition reaches Iran
THE Cape Town to Kathmandu expedition that departed from Cape Town’s Nobel Peace Square on International Mandela Day on 18 July, has safely reached the border with Iran after traversing southern and east Africa, and now crossing Turkey, Georgia and Armenia.
Expedition leader Ross Holgate said, ‘It’s been an incredible adventure so far and a world first for the Land Rover Discovery, as this humanitarian and geographic journey continues to make its way east towards Kathmandu in Nepal.’
Crossing the Bosporus Strait that connects Europe to Asia in the mysterious metropolis of Istanbul was a high point for the six-member South African team of adventurers, as were Turkey’s iconic UNESCO World Heritage Sites of Ephesus, Troy, Pergamon, Pamukkale, Cappadocia and the WW1 battlefields of Gallipoli.
Following the mountainous Black Sea coastline, the expedition set itself a new objective to reach the highest permanently inhabited settlements in Europe, which lie in the northern Caucasus Mountains of Georgia near the border with Russia, before the first winter snows closed the challenging Zigara Pass.
Land Rover ambassador Kingsley Holgate said, ‘We’re Africans and the closest we’ve ever come to these conditions is in the Maluti mountain passes of Lesotho or the highlands of Ethiopia.
‘As we had been warned, the journey through mud, snow and ice was extremely difficult.’
Humanitarian element
The journey also has a humanitarian element and the people have helped the expedition along the way.
‘Hundreds of well-wishers have added their goodwill messages to the Madiba 100 Scroll of Peace and Goodwill, which clearly outlines the humanitarian work of Rite to Sight, malaria prevention, water purification and community conservation education that are attached to all Kingsley Holgate Foundation expeditions,’ said Ross.
The expedition has 123 days behind them and are now at the border post between Armenia and Iran.
While waiting for clearance, the team met up with a Russian Land Rover experience group also waiting to cross the border.
There were shouts of welcome, mugs of coffee and photographs of the two teams.
Seven hours later, after much paper shuffling and being shepherded from office to office, down came the entry stamp.
‘Ahead lies a 2 000km journey through the deserts of Iran, a testing crossing of the Baluchistan region with armed Pakistani guards, then on to Lahore and Islamabad,’ said Kingsley.
The next geographic challenge will be the famous Karakoram Highway that traverses the Himalayas to China before going on through India to reach Kathmandu in Nepal by 11 December.