Beyond The Desert Edge Part1 The Road To Serra Cafema

Adventurer Peter Van Kets and photo-journalist Jacques Marais decided to ride their mountain bikes from Angola to Swakopmund. But before they could crank off on this incredible adventure, they first had to get to the Cunene River…

- Jacques Marais

This is one of those journeys that started quite some time ago. I’ve always been keen to get on board one of Peter Van Kets’ amazing adventures, but when we started chatting about a possible adventure collaboration earlier this year, I never expected that we’d launch the first in a series of ‘Beyond Expeditions’ less than six months later.

Somehow it all came together over a good few beers, with Dunlop Tyres SA signing on as main sponsor for our first expedition, ‘Beyond The Desert Edge’. Additional support from Isuzu South Africa, Wilderness Safaris, SPAR (Eastern Cape), Giant Bicycles (SA) and Hi-Tec (SA) meant that we had a green light to tackle a one-of-a-kind desert MTB crank, all the way from the Cunene River bordering Angola, to Swakopmund in Namibia.

And the best thing about it all is that we will be raising funds for Children in the Wilderness, our official charity, with all funds going towards educating kids in wild places, and instilling a love for nature in them (www.childreninthewilderness.com).

A few weeks of frenzied organising, branding, packing and gazing at the crystal ball of Google Earth, and we were good to go. (There had been a small crisis because rims we were to test for the Grandtrek tyres flown in especially from Japan were the wrong size –– but these Dunlop beauties were now fitted and ready to roll.

Apart from Chief Adventurer PVK and I, we had Pistol Peter Kirk and his brother Graham on board to handle the videography, drone work and camp logistics. So, by late Thursday afternoon on August 31st, we gunned our two Isuzu KB workhorses onto the N7 to hammer the first section of what would be a long road to Serra Cafema.