LAKE TANGANYIKA KAYAK EXPEDITION 2008
CREW MAP&ROUTE KAYAK PHOTOS SPONSORS
CHARITABLE BENEFICIARIES BLOG (DAILY REPORTS)
WINSTON CHIZU
Lake Tanganyika 2008 Crew Members
Morné Smit
Morné has always been passionate about the outdoors and adventure. His lack of decent ball sense at school helped him to focus on activities such as hiking and paddle skiing. During a number of university holidays he back-packed around South Eastern Africa. These trips took him to Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi and Tanzania. He covered more than 25,000 kms in this manner during four such trips, using any form of transport that was available. This meant catching rides on trucks, boats, bakkies, bicycles, trains, donkey carts, busses and motorbikes. Travelling in this manner really exposes you to the communities that you travel through and makes you appreciate the spirit of Africa. His love for the continent and the unspoilt grew considerably during this time. On his first trip he met Louis Peters, with whom he will be doing the Tanganyika 2008 Expedition, in Zambia – although both were from the same university at the time.
During Morné’s time as an electronic engineer in Antarctica, he spent significant amounts of time outside the SANAE base doing everything from cross country and downhill skiing, rock and ice climbing, crevassing, power kiting to photography.
During the years numerous hiking and at times cycling trips in the Drakensberg, Namibia, the Cape, Mpumalanga, Malawi and on the Wild Coast were undertaken. In 2003 during a 3 ½ week visit to Tanzania, Morné and his wife climbed the active volcano named Ol Doinyo Lengai (Swahili for the “Mountain of God”). The same trip also included kayaking on Lake Victoria. They were fortunate enough to do some chimpanzee trekking at Gombe Stream National Park, just south of the Burundi border on the shores of Lake Tanganyika.
Morné is an active canoeist and has completed numerous river and surf ski races (including two Dusis). The canoeing is alternated with mountain biking and the occasional road cycling from time to time just to keep life interesting. Other sport that is not done often enough is scuba diving and snow skiing. And if time allowed it, he would still be skydiving and doing triathlons.
Louis Peters
Louis is an utter travelholic. This love for travelling came about because unlike Morne he has excellent ball skills and this enabled him to go on various rugby tours to exotic locations like Kroonstad, Clarens and Upington to name but a few.
After completing his Military Service in Bloemfontein in 1990 Louis packed his backpack and hitchhiked through Europe on a shoestring budget for four months. The sum total of the trip was the conclusion that he was not as “European” as the NP government told him - he had to find out who he really was. The opportunity came in the 2003 when Louis decided to hitchhike to Malawi in the July Varsity holiday – during this trip he met Morné in a remote campsite somewhere in Zambia. The trip took Louis through Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique and the kindness of spirit, good humour and selflessness of the locals he met along the way changed his perceptions of life, self and Africa for ever – Louis was not European after all but African! He repeated the trip the following year.
In 1999 Louis was approached by the South African Breweries in order to do sales development for them in parts of Africa. This gave him the opportunity to work very closely with sales reps in Angola, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Lesotho, Swaziland and Namibia. During the 24 month period Louis travelled extensively to these countries and found the experience enriching and rewarding beyond all measure. In 2001 Louis and his family moved to Mwanza , Tanzania where he worked for Tanzania Breweries as Regional Sales & Development Manager responsible for the North Western part of Tanzania until 2004. Living in Tanzania gave him numerous adventure opportunities – some of the adventures he was involved with (apart from the day to day living in Mwanza!) included being part of the first group of kayakers to circumnavigate the remote Rubondu Island in Lake Victoria, a kayak adventure on Lake Tanganyika, climbing the active volcano Ol Doinyo Lengai and driving via the remote Lake Natron to the northern most parts of the Serengeti National Park.
Before returning to South Africa Louis and his wife backpacked through South East Asia for six week in order to reassess life after Tanzania and to get clarity on the way forward. Currently he is working for Bavaria Breweries and plans exciting trips in his spare time.
Brent Wibberley
Brent owns and operates Kenya's first seakayak expedition company (Sand Dollar Kayak Expeditions) that guides clients through the remote islands of the Kiunga Marine Reserve on Kenya's north coast. Brent was born and raised in Zimbabwe; moving up to explore the wilderness of Kenya in 2003. He has a passion for the more remote and wild corners of Africa and was captivated by the wild country of Kenya's north coast. Brent has experience guiding safaris in Zimbabwe and taking kayak expeditions on African waters. He was one of a four-person kayak team to do the first attempted paddle along the length of the very remote and wild Lake Tanganyika – the world's longest freshwater lake. A journey he wrote about in the book 'In Search of the Strange'. Brent has trained in seakayaking in South Africa and Canada and is an honorary member of RECSKA of South Africa and is ORCA certified from Canada. Brent also trained at the renowned Royal Geographic Expeditionary Advisory Centre in London, qualified in medical response, is a keen photographer and an avid fly fisherman.
Brent will join Louis and Morné at Kigoma on Lake Tanganyika and will complete the trip to Bujumbura with them. Kigoma is last town before one reaches the Burundi border, which is where Brent's last attempt to kayak the whole lake had to stop due to political conflict in Burundi at the time.