First sail-powered crossing in a homemade go-kart
GLYN HUNTER | Thursday August 2, 2012 00:00
The wooden craft will sail approximately 160km across the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans that are on the fringes of the Kalahari Desert in north-eastern Botswana and cover a vast area of more than 15,540 square kilometres.
Makgadikgadi is home to the second largest migration of zebra and wildebeest in the world, with up to 75,000 animals crossing their seasonal grasslands each year.
Named the 'Mike Campbell Dune Dancer,' the go-kart was designed and built by Joshua (12) and Stephen (10), the grandchildren of the late Mike Campbell, and originally had an Optimist dinghy sail. The body is lightweight, with wheels large and wide enough to go over the pans' thin crust, as well as clearance to allow it to run over tussocks and rocky areas. For the expedition, the go-cart will be propelled by a five-metre kite.
The Mike Campbell Foundation was set up last year to honour the courage of Campbell, a Zimbabwean commercial farmer and conservationist who fought for justice and the protection of human rights after the violent government-led farm invasions decimated his country.
Through the expedition, the UK-based foundation hopes to raise R130,000 for its work.
The money raised will provide training, medical assistance and educational support to additional destitute Zimbabwean farm workers who have lost everything due to the political violence.
With just US$50 (P378), the Mike Campbell Foundation can supply a family with seed, inputs and the training they need to feed themselves for a whole year, as well as buy the seed and inputs for the following year. 'A well-wisher in America recently donated an artificial leg for a farm worker who was crippled in the 2008 post-election violence and this has transformed his life,' said Freeth.The foundation is also involved with justice work and a lobby campaign to reinstate the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Tribunal, which was dissolved by the SADC heads of state in May 2011.
This tribunal was the only regional court where victims of human rights abuses could go when justice systems failed in their own countries, as has happened in Zimbabwe.
'Every donation will contribute to rebuilding shattered lives in Zimbabwe and protecting people's rights,' Freeth said.
Said Freeth of the expedition: 'This is an ambitious and exciting adventure for two young boys - crossing a lifeless expanse of nothing in the Kalahari Desert on a home-made wooden go-kart!
'The desolation of the area is symbolic of the barren lives of the injured and destitute people we're helping. But like the Makgadikgadi pans which sustain the migrating herds, the Mike Campbell Foundation can help people to survive and rebuild their lives.'
Ben Freeth's previous expeditions include a 2,000km trip through 'old Africa' in 1995 with James Egremont-Lee following the remote, largely unmapped Omo Valley in Ethiopia.
This involved a three-month walk with mules and donkeys through southern Ethiopia into northern Kenya, finding routes through beautiful but impenetrable rain forests and across awe-inspiring plains following the Omo River and Lake Turkana.
In 1992, Freeth and Egremont-Lee were the first people to successfully navigate the length of the Rufiji River in Tanzania. This was a six-week expedition travelling without support along one of East Africa's largest rivers and going through big game country in some of the wildest and most remote places on the continent. The family regularly spend time camping in the pristine environs of the Zambezi valley, including the wild and beautiful Mana Pools World Heritage Site.
In October 2010, Freeth was presented with an Member of the British Empire (MBE) by Her Majesty the Queen of England at Buckingham Palace 'for services to the farming community in Zimbabwe'.
To follow the expedition and make a secure donation online, go to: www.justgiving.com/Mike-Campbell-Foundation.
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