How it all Started

We have all had a wonder-lust to travel and experience new things and cultures by backpacking, hiking, camping and many 4X4 trails, often with a compass and contour maps. The natural extension was to explore wider afield in Southern Africa, specifically neighbouring Namibia and Botswana. But the logistics of arranging a couple of months off work, kids out of school and equipping our vehicles for a more extended trip proved to be the same as extending a trip through greater Africa. Cape to Cairo was thus a discussion amongst friends and family for a while.

The seed for exploring the world was sown in September 2004 while Gary and Jo-Anne were in one of their dreaming moments at fellow 4X4 enthusiasts' home, Hugh and Ursula Wiblin. They also excitedly participated in on our dream and decided to join us. Considering what we had to do to go through darkest Africa, we thought we might as well go the whole hog! Dean and Vanita received a call at 11pm that night and within 5 minutes they discussed it and phoned back with confirmation. Coming from a closely knit family, we just had to get our sister Deidre and her husband Eddie involved, and as excited as they were, it took a year before they decided to take the plunge and commit.

To form a great group, our dearest friends Lindsay Sampson and Waldo Adams joined in and before long the term ‘Globeriders' was coined. We spent the next 30 months having regular meetings, discussing routes, budgets, sponsorship and the logistics of such an extended adventure. Unfortunately Ursula and Hugh, later decided to pull out. Despite some friends and our parents thinking we'd never attempt it, the research led us to believe that it's viable although we couldn't find evidence that anyone ever attempted such an extensive journey with children! The initial focus was the vehicle and to start saving money. We cut our insurance and investment policies to the bone, stopped buying worldly items and eventually sold our homes, furniture and other vehicles.

Along the way we had valuable input from many friends, especially Daryl Howard who helped clarify our approach to the trip and to crystallize our motives for doing it. Shelly Barry helped educate us on video shoots and what potential footage may afford us. We also managed with the help of our patron Sebe Matsebula, to set up a forum to raise funds for the DICAG Centre (Happy Home for Children with Disabilities) in Transkei . Many hours of reading, planning, vaccinations, drawing up of various protocols, gathering support from the DFA and IMC saw us well on our way to our planned start date.

We've had a few setbacks with the vehicle design and broken bones, but on the 24 th September 2006 we lost one of our members, Lindsay Sampson, in a motor vehicle accident that devastated the group. His passing shocked us into a numbness for a few months but the concept had its own momentum by now, and before we knew it, we were staying with our parents and finalizing preparations in a whirlwind when the 1st March 2007 dawned. Great sacrifices were made, especially by Deidre and Eddie who had just moved to New Zealand 3 years earlier and gave up all to be part of this life changing opportunity.

Enthusiastically we set off on the 11 th March 2007 from St. Thomas School grounds in Port Elizabeth with the support of a mass of friends, family and our community, dissolving our fears and tears. We were off to experience our 'Journey of a Lifetime'.