On Youth Day, 16 June, five young cyclists arrived, sweating, at the lower cableway station on Table Mountain. Nothing unusual in that - except that when group leader Sean McDiarmid pushed the button for the final time on his bike computer, the total distance travelled read a staggering 14 159km. Which is, in fact, the distance from Trafalgar Square in London to Table Mountain in Cape Town.
The group left Trafalgar Square on 8 August last year on a cool, overcast day. Ten-and-a-half months later they pedalled into Cape Town to a celebrity reception, with several cycling clubs turning out to ride along for the last few kilometres. So close and yet their Holy Grail - Table Mountain - remained elusive, shrouded in a thick blanket of cloud.
Their epic journey, completely unassisted, had taken them through Europe to southern Italy where they caught a ferry to Greece, flew to Cairo then cycled down Africa via Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia and through Namaqualand to the Mother City.
So why did they do it? After working in London for a few years, Sean and his wife Michelle decided they wanted to return home overland through Africa. ‘We investigated doing the trip by 4x4, but the logistics and the bureaucratic red tape, not to mention the cost of taking a vehicle through Africa, is a nightmare,' explains Sean. That left public transport, possibly supplemented by bicycles. Eventually they opted for just bicycles, and soon roped in fellow Capetonians Heather Gear and Kate Stuart-Williams. Englishman Steve McInerny joined the trip in Cairo.
Their mammoth challenge would not only reveal their continent of birth in all its guises but also raise funds for a worthy charity. Their chosen beneficiary: the Starfish Greathearts Foundation, an organisation which helps children orphaned or made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS. Their target: £10 000.
Cycling home through Africa proved not to be the madcap scheme it initially seemed. ‘A bicycle is definitely the most cost-effective and least bureaucratic way to travel through Africa,' confirms Sean. ‘We had no hassles crossing any borders.' It also gave the cyclists the rare opportunity of mingling with the people and experiencing Africa as an insider. ‘We were overwhelmed by how friendly and generous the people were,' says Kate. Everywhere they went they were welcomed into homes, offered accommodation, food and treated with warmth and kindness. Sudan, however, stands out as particularly hospitable. On one memorable night in the desert, they stopped to ask a small settlement if they could camp in the dunes nearby. While they were pitching tents and getting the meal ready, a family appeared, dragging behind them beds for the party to sleep on that night.
Sudan also presented the toughest riding conditions of the whole trip. ‘We cycled for four days through the desert on a sand track. There was no shade and the temperature never dropped below the mid 40s. That was particularly horrendous for an Englishman,' Steve recalls. Kate takes up the story: ‘Then we reached the Nile and, after four days with-out a shower, we just didn't care about all those Nile crocodiles.'
Fortunately the crocodiles didn't like the look of the lean cyclists - or perhaps it was their odour. Africa's other toothed, horned and trunked inhabitants were equally accommodating. Despite riding through or alongside four game reserves: Sodaani and Mkumi in Tanzania, the Lower Zambezi National Park in Zambia and West Caprivi in Namibia, they only had one close call when an elephant flapped its ears and made unsettling preparations to charge Heather. Fortunately he didn't carry out his threat.
It was Africa's little nasties that attacked viciously and unceasingly. Stomach bugs, that inescapable African malady, struck frequently; Sean succumbed to tick-bite fever in Ethiopia and had recurring bouts of fever, not to mention a boil in a particularly uncomfortable place for someone spending several hours in a saddle. Heather was hospitalised for a week in the northern Malawian town of Rumphi with a very virulent strain of malaria. Perforce, she saw most of Malawi from the ‘luxury' of a bus window. ‘But the first day back on the bike after a three-week layoff was really tough,' she recalls.
Sure, there were times it was difficult to carry on, but a disciplined riding regimen with targets set for each day saw them through the despondent times. ‘It became like a day job,' explains Sean. ‘We'd cycle for five days and then take a day of rest. In the cities and towns we could leave the bikes and go off to get a break from one another and do the tourist things. Of the 300 days we were on the road, we cycled...
