In an interview on ClimbZA Steve Bradshaw describes their expedition.

We’ll leave from Bob’s cottage in Scotland early June, sail for a month across the Atlantic and up to Upernavik, Greenland.  We’ll spend a few weeks on the west coast of Greenland hopefully opening a big wall or two before heading to Baffin Island.  On the northern side of Baffin, where we’ll set up, the walls are slightly smaller but the rock quality looks exceptional so hopefully we can put up a few more exciting lines.

After a week in Baffin we head up to the Arctic Bay and start the North West Passage.  This is the most uncertain part of the trip as ice conditions vary from year to year and can easily block passage.  We’ll spend two months winding our way through icebergs and flows until we round the Bering Straight to reach our endpoint, Anchorage Alaska.  Hopefully we’ll find the odd wall to climb during this last stretch, but the focus will be on avoiding bergs, spotting wildlife and meeting the odd local.

A Belgian team traveled with Captain Bob two years ago. The South Africans aim to climb one or two of the same walls in Upernavik (new lines) but they’ll also cover a larger area, visiting more spots around Baffin Island, Northern Canada and Alaska.

The expedition website is arcticproject.wordpress.com. Also read this great interview with Steve Bradshaw on ClimbZA.

Images from the expedition website.

The Ubunye Challenge includes the following long-distance disciplines and events:

Cycle: Land’s End to John o’ Groats is the traversal of the whole length of the island of Great Britain between it’s most north easterly and south westerly points. The traditional distance by road is 874 miles (1,407 km) and takes most cyclists ten to fourteen days. Eight riders, split into two groups, will start this challenge. There’s a seven-day group and a 10-day group. A following vehicle will transport luggage, food and equipment. The date for this challenge is set at 29 April 2012 to 5 May 2012.

The cyclists are: Cameron Bellamy, Greg Pienaar, Stuart Bellamy, Richard English, Brett Pringle, Mike Weston, Anastasia Volkova and Patrick Hayden.

The next challenge up is the swim. Across the English Channel.

Swim: Swims usually start at or near Shakespeare’s Cliff or Samphire Hoe (in between Folkestone and Dover), and aim to finish at or near Cap Gris Nez (between Boulogne and Calais). The fastest crossing is 6 hours 57 minutes, the slowest is 28 hours 44 minutes and the average time is 13 hours. There are seven swimmers (two groups) and they’ll attempt the crossing during the week of 1 – 9 July 2012 (Group A) and 20 – 26 July 2012 (Group B).

The swimmers are: Cameron Bellamy, Hugh Elkington, Ian Milne, Sam Wells, Wade Ronald, Mike Sutton and Ryan Higgins.

Row: The final event is the Woodvale Ocean Race – a crossing of the Atlantic Ocean from the Canary Islands to Antigua.

They’ll be fielding a six-person team – aiming to start in December (dependant on weather conditions). The trans-Atlantic season runs through to late-April. Their boat, “The Oystershack”, was built for the 2007 race and it allows three people to row together, while the other three rest. The final team, racing with Cameron, is still to be confirmed.

The Ubunye Challenge website is ubunyechallenge.com. From here there are links to their blog as well as Twitter and FB.

Sibusiso’s name first hit the major headlines when he summited Mount Everest, from the South side, on 26 May 2003. He repeated this feat two years later from the North Ridge, a more difficult route. By 2008 he had bagged the highest summits on each of the seven continents. His South Pole conquest was achieved on 17 January 2008 following a 65-day, 1,200 kilometre unsupported man-haul expedition with fellow adventurer, Alex Harris.

Adding the North Pole to his collection makes it a ‘Three Poles Challenge’ success: North Pole together with the South Pole and Mt Everest.

To date, Sibusiso is one of only 27 people to have attained the ‘Explorers Grand Slam’; the Seven Summits and both poles.

Sibusiso’s website is www.sibusisovilane.com

Thanks to First Ascent for the heads-up on Sibusiso’s North Pole success.

Image from ExplorersWeb

Having seen Mike Horn’s “Zero Latitude” doccie and few years ago and recently read “Three Men in a Raft: An improbably journey down the Amazon” by Ben Kozel earlier this year, I was totally captivated by Davey’s planned Amazon adventure. I fired a couple of questions back to him about the disciplines (hike, bike and paddle) and other odds. This is quite a logistical expedition and he has certainly spent days and weeks, not just hours, in planning this adventure.

The adventure starts in July with a flight to Lima, Peru with all of his equipment. In Lima he has to do paperwork and admin for getting maps and documentation to authorise his passage through certain areas. From here he’ll use public transport to drop equipment in San Francisco (not the one in the US) and Yauri. San Francisco is on the Apurimac Tributary and this is where his kayak will be stored. Yauri is about 1000-kilometres South of San Franciso. Here he’ll leave his bicycle.

His physical adventure starts from Yauri with a hike to the source of the Amazon, the 18000ft Mt Msimi mountain. He’ll then hike back to Yauri to collect his bicycle (the same bike he used for the Africa trip) for the 1000km ride to San Francisco.

Then the journey really starts (as if it hadn’t already!). Davey will face a 5,700km paddle to the Brazillian coast! He’ll be using a sea kayak.

Davey plans to camp on riverbanks or in riverside communities. He’s vegan so he’ll devour any fruit and veg that he finds. He did the Africa cycle as a vegan. “I remained healthy and fit (gained 8 kgs) through a diet of primarily rice, beans, bananas and poatato! haha! Basic, but it did the job perfectly.”

Keep an eye on Davey’s preparations and, later, his journey through his website: www.worldwonderer.co.za (click on the links on the map). His Facebook page is ‘World Wanderer – The Amazon‘.

I haven’t been consistently following their postings on their website – although they do make for good reading. Recent news (from 27 March) is that Richard was down with a bad tummy bug. They also had to make a quick flight from Chengdu to Hong Kong in mid-March to extend their visa, which was only valid for 60 days.

The pair have had to be adaptable, making changes to their initial planned route. They found the weather in the North, which is where they headed from Beijing to see the Great Wall, to be much colder than expected and the terrain bleak with “intense pollution”. They decided to catch a train to Chengdu and to change to a more southerly route. This trip has definitely not been plain sailing especially with flu, bugs and visa-imposed time limits.

In their most recent post Thamar comments: “I think we’re getting stronger and are now more accepting when things don’t go as planned but it’s always easier to opt out – it’s definitely not as satisfying though”.

They’re tweeting regularly (/beyondthewall) and their website is beyondthewall.co. (Photo from their website).

Calvin O’Keeffee is home. He left London on his bike on 27 August 2011 and reached home in Durban on 18 March. He clocked up 15,800-odd kilometres. He’s down 25kg and is certainly hard at work already on the book he’s writing about his adventurous solo cycle expedition. Calvin’s Facebook page is ‘Calvin Rides Home‘. His website, not yet updated with recent news, is www.calvinrideshome.com. (Photo from his FB page)

James Lea-Cox and Mark Yetman are also back. They completed their ‘Big Ride’ from London to Cape Town on Sat, 31 March. As James says, “After 15 458 km on the saddle, 176 days and 19 countries, our adventure on two wheels came to an end on Saturday 31 March as we rolled into the Cape Point car park to a huge welcome by friends, family and loved ones.”

A “final (ish)” blog is up on their expedition website at www.bigride-africa.com. Their Facebook page is ‘The Big Ride Africa‘. (Photo from their FB page).

Well done riders and welcome home.