Ray Chaplin’s solo walk from Cape Town to Beit Bridge

Posted on 7 December 2009

Friday 4 December marked an exceptionally difficult day on the journey across South Africa and in my life. Due to potentially life threatening water shortages, seeing myself rationing water by kilometres covered, and finding myself in various states of disorientation and disarray as a result, I made the decision as I wandered into Prince Albert Road to temporarily abort procedings until such time as I could find a viable solution to the sourcing of drinkable water and/or water transportation.

My expedition is not worth my life!

With stretches of well over 100km between reliable water sources approaching and progression of roughly 25km/day, one is looking at a fair amount of water being required to survive… and add that weight onto existing loads and you push the pack far over what is physically possible to sustain.

Bar a large logistical effort to have water strategically dropped along the route, the only viable solution is to tow a trailer of some description… thereby unloading the weight from the body, allowing far greater volumes to be transported.

Sadly, the terrain of the railway line restricts the use of a trailer… so an alternate would need to be found.

To work through things I’ve returned to the original objectives and worked from there:
1. To walk, solo, from Cape Town to Beit Bridge
2. To test, abuse, break & review apparel & equipment for Getaway Magazine

Objective 1:
With 20% of the distance already covered on foot, much of which was along the railway line as planned, I was well on my way to getting there. However, due to the two lifts received [police on day two due to safety and the tunnel on day four also due to safety], the ‘unbroken footsteps’ idea was compromised.

As a result, I will be restarting the expedition… following a different route to prevent these situations from happening again. Final route will be published later this week once I’ve managed to dot the i’s and cross the t’s.

Objective 2:
has been taking place and continues to do so…

As for a departure date for the new undertaking – I will confirm once I have confirmed the specific route. All I do know right now is that it won’t be before Christmas…

Thanks for your ongoing support and I will keep you posted with daily developments.

All the best
Ray






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