| 1. |
Friday 27th April 2007, a symbolic calabash is filled with cold Cape of Good Hope seawater - will it survive the outside edge of Africa through 33 countries? |
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| 2. |
And now a bumper to bumper record breaking 347 Landies escort the Outside Edge Expedition out from the Cape of Good Hope in the week of Africa Malaria Day - this has been an incredible act of solidarity in the fight against malaria. |
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| 3. |
Nobel Prize laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Madiba himself, together with 1000's of well wishers endorse the Scroll of Peace and Goodwill in support of malaria prevention. |
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| 4. |
Up the West Coast with its fine hospitality, bokkoms included. |
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| 5. |
Then it's across the Orange and into the Forbidden Coast of the Sperrgebiet - old ghost towns and diamonds in the dust. |
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| 6. |
The great sand ocean of the Namib, sliding the overloaded Landies down 100 metre slip faces - tough on man and machine |
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| 7. |
The cold wind blows off the South Atlantic. We survive the desolate Skeleton Coast to reach the Cunene and border with Angola. |
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| 8. |
We give out mobile libraries and thousands of pencils pens and exercise books to remote bush schools on the raw edge of Africa. |
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| 9. |
Forever following the edge, we come across a graveyard of ships north of Luanda, Angola |
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| 10. |
Money and passports in our top pockets we hire an old plank boat with an ancient outboard to carry us across the wide mouth of the Congo River. |
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| 11. |
Using inflatable expedition boats, life saving Vestergaard-Frandsen mosquito nets are distributed to pregnant mums and children under the age of five in remote, hard to reach areas miles away from a clinic or hospital. |
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| 12. |
Just off the equator 300 km off into the Atlantic from Libreville, Gabon, is one of the world's great island paradises, Principe & Sao Tome - it's part of Africa and our Outside Edge expedition to circumnavigate the continent. |
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| 13. |
It's Cameroun in the Big Wet - we've hit the rainy season and here the rainfall is measured in metres. |
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| 14. |
Armed Nigerian police ensure our safety. Nothing could prepare us for the chaos of Lagos - an experience we'll never forget. |
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| 15. |
Gabon remains a forested jewel on the edge of Africa with more trees than people and 11% of the country declared national parks. You can see hippo and buffalo frolicking in the waves, sititunga, gorillas, chimps and pygmy forest elephant. |
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| 16. |
We've reached voodoo country and in the fetish markets of Benin and Togo you can buy anything from love trinkets to a voodoo telephone - dried chameleon is said to bring prosperity in business |
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| 17. |
The shocking statistic is that for every minute of every day two African babies die from the bloodsucking bite of the Anopheles mosquito. |
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| 18. |
South African school children move in to Ghana to save lives in the One Net One Life campaign and kids unite as a South African flag is exchanged for a Ghanaian one. |
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| 19. |
We buy diesel measured by the gallon in mayonnaise jars, then it's back battling the endless mud road through Liberia and on to Sierra Leone - tough on man and machine |
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| 20. |
The expedition breaks away from the coast on a river boat journey down the Niger River and reaches remote villages in the 20 000 square kilometres inland delta - destination: mythical Timbuktu. |
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| 21. |
At a school for the deaf in Guinea, Conakry they welcome us with the waving of hands and the South African Ambassador to Guinea, Mr Isaac Kekana, assists with the giving out of life saving Vestergaard-Frandsen nets. |
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| 22. |
Where possible we embrace the islands off the edge of Africa and so we explore the Bijagós Archipelago - our island base camp: 90m long by 30m wide |
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| 23. |
In Dakar, Senegal, we drop a conservation stone from the southern most tip of Africa, Cape Agulhas, and pick another up at Les Almadirs, the most westerly point of the continent. |
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| 24. |
We reach the high cliffs of Cap Blanc, Mauritania where the Sahara meets the North Atlantic - we've survived the desert coastline of the least populated country in West Africa - Morocco here we come. |
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| Adventure Summary |
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 27 412 km to date |
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20 countries with 13 still to come |
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millions of tyre revolutions & potholes |
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100's of campfires and river crossings |
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buckets of sweat, loads of adventure |
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and tens of thousands of lives already saved and improved through this world-first humanitarian expedition |
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| Here's to the halfway point! |
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| Kingsley Holgate |
