Since the beginning of travel, continents like Africa have had a magnetic pull on adventure travellers. Africa is a continent like no other with its diverse landscapes, culture, and captivating wildlife, which roam the lands the further North you traverse, making Africa an unparalleled adventure’s paradise. Whether it’s just to create new life experiences or for the love of travelling to new and wonderful places, once the travel bug bites it’s tough to go back to what was the norm, especially when there’s so much left to see.
The Africa Rally is an event tailored for hardcore travellers, for those who want to travel further and deeper, and just need another excuse to do it all over again. Three weeks, 4,500 km and a drive that sees the teams make their way through six unique countries, depending on which route they decide on driving, this is the Africa Rally—human, machine and the beautiful yet challenging land in-between.
The Rally is all about raising funds for charity and proving that you don’t need the latest 4×4 or adventure motorcycle to get to the end destination or to have fun getting there. Breakdowns, on-the-road servicing, navigation, camping, cooking and the occasional shower are all part of the daily challenges these drivers and co-drivers have to face.
We decided to pull through to the start line party for The Africa Rally at Sparrowhawk Lodge in Hartbeespoort to meet the teams and the lubricant sponsor Liqui Moly, before the teams make their long journey up to Kenya.
The start line saw everything from high-end camper 4x4s to cabbed bakkies, modified classic cars, budget-friendly overlander builds and even two star-struck lovers on commercial motorcycles. Walking amongst all these hardcore travellers you come across so many different personalities and different methods of getting the job done, but with one love and the same goal—getting to the finish and soaking up every second because the journey is the destination.
All the teams have the choice of choosing between two routes, one called the Challenger route and the other the Discovery route. The Challenger sees teams drive through Botswana’s amazing wildlife, the Makgadikgadi Salt Pan, the world-famous Victoria Falls in Zambia, Lake Malawi, Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, the Great Migration in the Serengeti and finally, Lake Victoria in Kenya.
The Discovery route is somewhat similar to the Challenger route until the halfway party. On this route, teams drive on the beautiful coast that is in Mozambique which allows for some scuba diving excursions or better yet whale watching at Morrungulo. The discovery route also twists its way through the beautiful Eswatini mountains before reaching the finish.
Back at the start line party, we managed to meet and catch up with a few teams one being Tom, Dave and Thingi. Thingi is a 1974 (I’m guessing) Volkswagen Thing that has been taken to town with upgraded fuel injection and its own engine management system along with a few practical storage modifications and a set of modern General EuroVan 2 tyres. Other than that Tom and Dave are travelling as lightly as possible with a cooler that takes six cokes being their best creature comfort onboard Thingi. A satnav system has been cleverly set up and from what the eye can see, old Thingi looks like a very comfortable place to be.
Tom and Dave are raising funds for their charity called Take Back Our Mountains and are auctioning off a toolbox to further raise funds to help their charity cause. So, give them a follow-on Instagram and keep up to date on their travels.
A cool group to see eventually arrive at the start line was the reasonably priced BMW X5 called Land Bruiser driven by the familiar face behind The Car Scene, Samuel Da Fonseca and his team. Land Bruiser had a tough life before meeting ‘Sam’, but together with his team and sponsors Land Bruiser has been given a second life, from 30k banger to badass overlander.
You can watch their awesome build and keep up to date with their travels up to Kenya on Instagram.
Not taking part, but showing some support was a couple whose relationship revolves around and is glued together by adventure. We are talking about Tom and Lauren, a couple that just said, “screw it let’s do it”. They’ve sold everything, well almost all of their worldly possessions, bought two Honda CG 125’s and the rest is history. What you see strapped onto them and their motorcycles is all they’ve got. What legends, keep an eye on them on social and give them a hand when the opportunity presents itself—we’ve got an awesome story on them by Dave Cilliers here.
Last but not least we would like to give a special shout-out to Liqui Moly SA for the fantastic support, products and advice given to all the teams taking part in The Africa Rally, from start to finish.
As for us, we would like to wish all the participants a fantastic three weeks of unbridled exploration, life-changing experiences, and long-lasting friendships going into the future, enjoy guys and girls.
For more information visit: www.africarally.com
