Final Continent Expedition

21 Jul

NB: This is a permanent introductory post. NEW POSTS BELOW

Welcome to the home of the final continent expedition. My name is Hap and in June 2011 I will be undertaking my human-powered working expedition through Southern Africa.

Why?  I  left my home of New Zealand in April 2003 with the goal, to live and work in every continent of the world before 30.  And it just so happens that I turn 30 in 2011 (11/11/11), and Africa is my final continent!

I could have easily bought a plane ticket to Africa and found work as I have done in most continents. However, I want a new challenge, and so I have set myself the goal of a human-powered working expedition. And yes I am an expedition virgin.

I have taken the first major step for any expedition, I  have committed to it and I mean fully committed to it. I have set a date, I have teamed up with the charity Bicycles For Humanity who work alongside the Bicycle Empowerment Network in Namibia.

So come along for the ride (yes a little pun as my expedition will be a cycling expedition) and be apart of my final continent expedition as it takes form. Follow me and help me as I decide my exact route, gain sponsorship and raise funds for my charity. Plus there will also be the odd good ol’ hapworkingtheworld blog post about my working the world misadventures!

If you are interested in what I have done on the other 6 continents then take a wander around hapworkingtheworld  or read this interview that sums it up rather well.

If you want to read more about my human-powered working expedition then click here to find out why, with whom, when, where, I will be doing it, and who my expedition inspirations/charity/sponsors are. You can also follow me on twitter @7continentsb430, or if that isn’t your thing then you can get my weekly posts sent to your email address by hitting the sign me up button in the right hand column.

Enjoy the ride!

Hap

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My charity and new fundraising page

24 Aug

G’day folks,

I have been busy of late setting up my fundraising page for my expedition charity. Click here and check it. And of course donate some money, I guarantee it will make you sleep better if you donate, probably even make you look more beautiful and you will have firm, toned abdominals in just 2 weeks! Guaranteed!

All donations go directly to my expedition charity, Bicycles for Humanity and not to my African beer drinking fund. Although if you want to donate to my Africa beer drinking fund I can send you my account details – ummm cycling long distances and drinking beer I’m not sure if they go together but I suppose I will find out.

I have set myself the goal to raise the $12,000 transportation cost of the sea container. At this point with the grand total of $0 raised that seems a long way away, but I have a plan to get into the schools here in Melbourne, speak at their assemblies and hopefully get the schools to help create some fundraising projects.

If you want to help out, get your workmates to donate or organisation than please contact me. We can even get you hooked up with your own team member fundraising page where all the donations you raise go directly to the final continent expedition’s $12,000 goal.

Below I have copy and pasted in my charity page from under the final continent section of my blog. If I must say so myself it does a great job in showing what both Bicycles for Humanity and the Bicycle Empowerment Network, Namibia (who I will be working with once in Africa) actually do. Plus there are 3 video for you to watch, well worth a gander.

Happy reading and donating, and remember EVERY LITTLE BIT COUNTS

For my cycling expedition I’m teaming up with the Melbourne chapter of Bicycles for Humanity who work with the Bicycle Empowerment Network (BEN) Namibia.

Basically what Bicycles for Humanity does is gets an empty sea container and fills it with disused bikes. These are bikes that people donate for many reasons, mainly because it is a great use for a bike that has been sitting out in the shed collecting dust.

Then the sea container is sent from Melbourne to the Bicycle Empowerment Network (BEN) that has their headquarters in Namibia. Using their local knowledge and infrastructure BEN allocates the container to a local community in need of bicycles to bridge the gap to health care and education facilities.

BEN turns the container into a Bicycle Empowerment Centre (bike workshop). Locals are employed and trained in bicycle mechanics and how to run the bike work shop. Profits from the workshop go to paying the local employees and the ongoing running costs of the workshop. This is what I love about this charity! Bikes are not just given to the locals and then forgotten about. The work shop is set up as an ongoing self sustainable business, by locals for the locals

So who get’s the bikes? Ozzie founder Michael Linke first established BEN Namibia to meet the need of 700 local HIV/AID volunteers who visit people living with HIV/AIDS in their homes, delivering counseling and medical and sanitary supplies. Most of these volunteers walked long distances, so Michael’s original idea was to help them get bikes. Nowadays BEN also supplies bikes to other community members to help make health and educational facilities more accessible. Check out the news clip below for a better idea.

So how did I end up hooking up with bicycles for humanities? It all started with one of my blog reader’s Kate who I volunteered with at the Orphanage in Mexico back in 2007. She knew I was going to Africa to volunteer and had seen bicycles for humanity on TV and had thought of me as they had a chapter in Melbourne. I then met up with Matt the founder of the Melbourne chapter for coffee and planted the seed of my expedition with him. He loved it and was keen to team up. So keep watching this space and we will see what kind of tree this seed grows.

Below is a video featuring Matt at the 2009 Melbourne bicycle drop

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What is an expedition?

12 Aug

What does the word expedition mean?

An excursion, journey, or voyage made for some specific purpose, as of war or exploration.

When I consider the feats of expeditions like Ed Stafford pictured below who has just completed 859 days walking the length of the Amazon River or Rob Thomson with his world record for longest unassisted skateboard journey, I wonder if I’m allowed to use the word. It feels like I’m comparing walking to the local pub in Melbourne winter to a South Pole expedition.

BUT, the one thing that I think is very important for mine and for that matter any expedition is that I do it for me, for the reasons I want to do it. People say to me “Hap, you should cycle the whole of Africa from top to bottom”, I’m like “why don’t you cycle the length of Africa?” And there are plenty of people that have done it and I’m following plenty of people on twitter that are in the middle of doing it.

My specific purpose for my expedition is that it is human powered so that I off set working on that floating monstrosity of over consumption (the cruise ship) to complete my Antarctica continent with Africa where everything will be human powered.

The other purpose to my expedition is to work, so that I complete my goal of living and working on every continent of the world before 30.

I also want to use Africa as a way of giving back to the world. Since 2003 as I have been working the world I have worked the odd job for oil and mining companies which can be perceived as taking away from the earth. I have also been the recipient of people’s generosity and have at times relied on people’s generosity. Africa gives me the opportunity to give back, to volunteer and raise money for my charity and to make a small difference.

So that’s that folks, a human powered working expedition through Southern Africa.

WOW a blog post without reference to faecal matter or STI’s, is maturity clutching at my ankles as the big 3 0 nears!

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Best wishes from Rob Thomson (long distance skateboard world record holder)

3 Aug

This blog post is rather special for me as it includes the best wishes from one of my expedition inspirations, Rob Thomson. Rob achieved something pretty darn amazing and even got recognition for it in the Guiness Book of Records – A 12,000km unassisted skateboard journey, Wow!

It was back in 2008 while reading Rob’s deep, intellectual and philosophical blog posts where my desire to do a human powered expedition began. It is now in 2010 that a very humbled Hap shares with you Rob’s best wishes for my final continent expedition

Hap has proven himself a man of great determination and grit with his above-all-odds success so far in his unique working-on-all-continents-before-30 dream. And once again Hap has dreamed himself a worthy dream – cycling Africa. This is a dream that will bring great joy, fun, and enriching experiences. It is, however, also a dream that will cost him. It will cost him time. It will cost him physical pain. Mental agony. A determined mind. Most of all it will, more than any experience thus far, cost him his innocence and ignorance. The latter two costs are, in my view, the hardest but most rewarding things to pay when pursuing a dream such as Hap has conjured up. Any extended human powered journey in environments different to one’s own comfortable cultural and environmental bubble will leave a person changed. It will leave a person aware, enlightened perhaps, to the issues and challenges of our wide world. And with that awareness comes responsibility. A responsibility that I am thrilled to see Hap already embracing through his collaboration with Bicycles for Humanity and BEN Namibia. Therefore I wish him all the best for his journey. Hap’s dream is a reality. May it change many, and be the inspiration needed for many more to embrace their own worthy dreams.

ABOUT ROB (taken from my expedition inspirations page)

Rob Thomson was an ex-office worker who set out in July 2006 on a 12,000km journey on a recumbent bicycle (the ones that look like an armchair on wheels) from Japan to Switzerland. He endured -23 degrees Celsius daytime temperatures, cycled over 4,600m high passes, and put up with some of the most frustrating bureaucracies perhaps in the whole world.


Then his challenge changed and on the 25th of June 2007, almost a year since he set out from Japan on his recumbent bicycle, he sent his bicycle home and started out again on a long board skateboard. Little did he know that he was going to skate into the Guinness Book of Records. He skated solo and unassisted across Europe, North America, and China. On the 28th of September 2008 he finally arrived in Shanghai after skating just over 12,000km (7,500 miles). The previous world record for long distance skateboarding was 5,800km.


I was put onto Rob’s blog by his brother and my friend Tofa who was one of my 9 flat mates (at times 14) in our 3 bedroom house in Banff, Canada. Then 2 years later in 2008 when I was working as an exploration field assistant in the Australian outback Tofa put me onto Rob’s blog. I then followed the end of Rob’s trip as he skated his way into the Guinness book of records.


Whilst reading Rob’s blog posts I began to feel the desire that I had always had, a desire to do something more challenging, cycle, skate, kayak, something. I wanted to have an adventure, a real adventure, not just backpacking. I will always remember Rob’s words about travelling by bicycle, “it will change the way you see the world”.

If you would like to read about my other expedition inspiration, polar explorer Robert Swan, please click here

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Some motivating cycling shots

30 Jul

Hey guys,

In my last blog post I mention how I met Swede Carl-David whilst living in Ushuaia, Argentina looking for work in Antarctica. Well for Carl Ushuaia was the starting point of his epic bike ride of the South American continent, in fact I took the photo below as Carl cycled off from our Hostel in the most southern city of the world.

Below is an email from Carl (I inserted the photos), and below are some of my favourite photos of Carls South America bike trip.

Hi Hap!

I DO remember you (and your t-shirt), haha! I’m glad to have inspired
you, cycling is such a nice way of travelling. I love your mission
about working on all continents before 30, that’s so awesome =)


Lots of luck with Africa, please ask about equipment or general tips
whenever you want!

I am now in the lowlands of Bolivia. It rained during the night and
the road turned into a muddy hell. Wasn’t able to cycle (nor walking)
at all! Attached is a photo =) But I really like it here though, much
more animals etc. than on the altiplano, and people like to talk more.

Cheers!

Carl

Now for Carl’s photos. I love eating my lunch in my 30 minutes off work and just surfing cycling websites and watching slideshows of peoples cycles trips to far off corners of the world. And Carl has some wicked photos, if you like what you see then go and check out his blog.

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Why am I doing an expedition?

26 Jul

Howdy folks,

I thought I best explain

1. Why I’m doing a human powered expedition?

2. Why in Africa and why a working expedition? (The only stupid question is a question not asked)

3. Why human-powered?.

I suppose I could save you all 15 minutes of your lives and have said “why not”, but there’s more to it than that for me. Here goes………oh yeah, apologies in advance for my weird use of metaphors that refer to haemorrhoids and STI’s)

Why I’m I doing an expedition?

Like every other continent (except Antarctica) I could have bought a plane ticket to Africa, found myself a room to rent, a place to work or an organisation to volunteer for, made friends in the local community, joined a sports team, hung out with my new friends, and lived happily this way for months on end. Then once finished work I could have gone backpacking through Africa. But I have been there and done that. Don’t get me wrong, I loved every minute of it (nearly every minute of it, those minutes in hospitals, a jail cell, bent over a toilet bowl vomiting with food poisoning weren’t that enjoyable).

I was craving a new challenge in my working the world quest. During 2008 whilst working in the Australian outback I followed my mate’s brother Rob Thomson as he skateboarded through Europe, North America and China on the way to breaking the world record for the longest unassisted skateboard journey. And like hemorrhoids I developed an itch to do something expedition-like and I knew I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I lay in my coffin thinking “damn hemorrhoids! Wish I had done something about them………I mean, damn expedition, I wish I had of done that”). Like the saying I learnt back at Outward Bound—live life with no regrets.


During 2009 when I was living in South America I met many people who were on their own expeditions, like Keith, motorcycling from Alaska to Argentina, and Swede Carl-David who was cycling from Ushuaia up to Colombia. I kept feeling that itch, and like an STD, I just tried to ignore it hoping it would go away.


At the end of 2009 I overcame the biggest obstacle of my working the world journey. After nearly 3 years of rejection I gained work in Antarctica. I remember when I first set foot on the great white continent feeling a sense of immortality (in a mortal kind of way). It was a great big feeling that anything is possible!


After finishing work on the Antarctic cruise ship, I was doing the 8 day Torres Del Paine hike in Southern Chile. I was wondering how the next chapter of my working the world journey would be and what I would do. As fate would have it, I hiked with a Kiwi couple who looked after me as I suffered from severe vomiting and diarrhea in the harsh Patagonian environment. During one of the long days of hiking before my illness, they told me about an expedition grant given to young New Zealanders that they themselves had won back in 2004. Craig and Ros used this grant to complete their Mekong River challenge, following it from source to sea.


On the long gruelling days, battling the Patagonian wind and listening to the rain as I laid in my tent, vomiting out the door, my mind was racing about this grant and the possibilities of what kind of expedition I could do in Africa.

After the hike, I nursed my bowels back to health with a burger and a beer in Puerto Natales, the little town closest to the Torres Del Paine national park. Whilst I was there the Banff Mountain Film festival was in town, showing right across the road from my cold concrete hostel. There I watched the documentaries of extreme sport athletes—all living their dreams. They were doing amazing things: kayaking rivers, free climbing crazy cliff faces, and cliff jumpers doing a first jump into a crater-like hole in China.

On the 66 hour bus ride from Puerto Natales to Mendoza in Northern Argentina, I committed to my Africa chapter as being an expedition. My original plan was to make a documentary and for my expedition to be a summit, source, sea: summiting Kilamanjaro, going across land by skateboard to north west Zambia to the source of the Zambezi and then rafting the 3,500km Zambezi to the Mozambique coast line where I would find work building a school for a village.

But like all ideas, they change, and now the plan is to cycle through Southern Africa. This decision was inspired by the commitment I’ve made to my expedition charity, Bicycles for Humanity, who work in connection with African based BEN (Bicycle Empowerment Network). The exact route and details of the expedition will still depend on several variables: where the work I will do is located, who else I get involved in the expedition, sponsorship etc. Of course you can follow all that here on my blog as it unfolds and even give me your input. Enjoy the ride folks!

Why Africa? Why working?

I suppose it’s due to my goal. Without my goal to live and work in every continent of the world before 30 I wouldn’t have done many things. I wouldn’t have my Taekwondo black belt, I wouldn’t be able to speak Spanish, I wouldn’t have seen Kiwi golfer Michael Campbell win the US open, or been to Ernest Shackleton’s resting place. Also, I wouldn’t have been to many places: Antarctica, Guatemala, Kentucky, Ibiza, Mexico, the Australian outback, Paris, The Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, and Japan, to name a few.


When I started my goal, I had spent the entirety of my 21 years in the Australasian continent. Even though my first destination was Asia, Africa was the continent that I was most fond of, the one that had fuelled my dreams of travel. I remember my well travelled English boss in Vancouver, Canada telling me “Hap, save Africa for last, it’s amazing!”. So although I haven’t planned it that way, it seems I have done it–saved the best for last.

Why human powered?

Apart from the cost and the different experience one gets from a bicycle seat as opposed to sitting in a bus or car, the main reason I was inspired to make my expedition human powered was because of Robert Swan. Robert was the first man to go unassisted to both the north and south poles, and since then has dedicated his life to educating the worldabout climate change and what we can do to decrease our carbon footprint. I’m not trying to make myself out to be a big environmentalist who’s saving the planet, but I believe that at some point we all have to stop taking from the world and give a little back. It was Robert’s passion and drive “for a better world” that inspired met to make my expedition human powered and charity based.


Having read his book, and having met him in person (I basically stalked him…..twice) and seeing what a down to earth guy he is made such a big difference to me. I made a promise to him that I would help him in his quest. I’ll work towards offsetting my Antarctic carbon emissions by using my skinny sticks instead of fossil fuels in my African expedition, in theory off-setting one continent with another.

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