DISPATCH 4: MOZAMBIQUE – THE FINAL CHAPTER– 23° 26′ S
This Africa Traverse adventure has brought us all the way across Namibia, Botswana and South Africa tracking the Tropic of Capricorn – a legacy journey that has followed our footsteps from the first Capricorn expedition that traversed the world, 25 years ago.
It’s the final chapter: through Kruger National Park and into flood-ravaged Mozambique. Here recent record rainfalls have changed everything. Statistics show that due to the floods malaria incidence is up by a staggering 55% compared to the same time last year and 1.3 million cases have been reported in Mozambique. We’ve got important humanitarian work to do.
To stay true to the Capricorn geographic mission of this journey, we’re forced to divert north and enter Kruger through Punda Maria Gate near the Zimbabwe border, then loop back to reconnect with the Tropic of Capricorn where it cuts through the Park. It turns out to be a wonderful adventure, our detour made richer by large elephant herds encountered along the way.
Into Mozambique, it’s a grand reunion with old friend Babu Cossa, our Portuguese and Shangaan interpreter and malaria educator, who’s journeyed with us for the past 20 years. We load up the Defenders with bales of insecticide-treated malaria nets and hit the road to reconnect to the Capricorn line, deep in the flooded southern regions of Mozambique. We did not expect it to be this challenging.
We navigate around huge expanses still underwater – roads are drowned and bridges destroyed. Vast farmlands and villages are swamped with waterlilies flowering amongst the dead stalks of drowned maize and sorghum crops – there will be no harvest this time, so many livelihoods now lost- it’s heartbreaking.
The days are long and the nights hot as we zigzag along the Tropic of Capricorn. Our Defenders grind through the mud along little-used dirt tracks, and we wade the vehicles across flooded rivers as we go from remote homestead to homestead to handout lifesaving malaria nets to pregnant mothers and children under the age of five. The reality remains – for every minute of every day around the clock a baby dies from malaria in Africa!
Each afternoon near sunset we look out for a bush clearing to wild camp for the night –sleep remains near impossible in the fearsome heat and humidity, and the constant buzzing of mosquitoes. But it’s all worthwhile to reach communities cut-off by the stagnant water and now very vulnerable to the malaria-carrying Anopheles.
The expedition then teams up with Doctors for Life where hundreds of pregnant women and mothers with tiny babies are waiting in the shade of mango trees outside their busy post-natal clinic. The humidity is thick as golden syrup as Babu conducts a vibrant malaria prevention session in Shangaan and Portuguese, with the clinic’s nurses and doctors helping to distribute more lifesaving nets.
Near the town of Funhaloura, Ross’s voice crackles over the radio: “Dad – do you remember this stretch from 25 years ago?” We stop the mud-spattered Defenders and scan the forested area ahead. This was one of the sections that was full of landmines left over from the Mozambique Civil War when we first did the Capricorn line in 2001. The memories come flooding back – clenching our butts, our hearts in our mouths, following well-worn cattle tracks, swopping leads vehicles to share the risk.
“Dad, I even remember asking you to go ahead because you have had a longer, fuller life and I had a new baby at home.” It’s so good to be travelling this same path without the risk and now just an opportunity to observe this beautiful natural woodland.
Ken helps navigate the expedition team down little-used sand tracks through endless palm plantations to reach the Indian Ocean – to the very same place on the beach at 23° 26′ S where father and son had embarked from on their first Capricorn journey that had taken them around the world.
This is the moment we’ve been working towards from the very beginning of this Africa Traverse expedition, 89 days ago on the stormy Atlantic coast of Namibia. With enthusiastic cheering and clapping from a crowd of friendly fishermen, Ross and Kingsley wade into the warm, turquoise waves and jubilantly empty the cold Atlantic seawater from Namibia that’s been carried across the southern Africa continent by the hardworking Africa Traverse Defenders.
This journey has taken us through four countries, across deserts, mountains, vast areas of wilderness and floodplains – 14 200 kilometers of Namib dunes, Kalahari dust, little used dirt tracks, detours, salt pans, axle-clogging mud, mosquitoes and heart-in-mouth crossings of creaking bridges, buckets of sweat and loads of humour around the fire at night.
It’s a deeply emotional moment: the circle had been completed – the original Capricorn expedition and now Africa Traverse. Twenty-five years apart – one invisible line – one extraordinary continent.
“Standing in the same spot now, the distance between then and now feels both immense and impossibly close,” reflects Ross.
“In the years between, there have been Defenders in every form, countless crossings, setbacks, breakthroughs—and a quiet accumulation of kilometres that now stretch into the millions, across Africa and far beyond. From the old TDi to the D350 Defender 130s; from paper maps and compass bearings to satellite navigation and terrain response—each evolution marking not just progress, but lived experience.
“Alongside it all has been a defining thread—the privilege of sharing these journeys with my father. Learning from him, being guided by his experience, and carrying those lessons forward across every expedition has been a constant through the years.
“It’s a rare kind of perspective, looking back like this. Not just at where we’ve been, but at what it took to get here.”
Our Africa Traverse journey has taken us into the lives of people and places where adventure can become a force for good. From marine conservation education with school kids in Namibia, to community conservation and rhino protection in Botswana and South Africa; to helping hundreds of elderly people with the gift of sight; and finally, malaria prevention for vulnerable women and children in flood-ravaged Mozambique.
That is what ‘improving and saving lives through adventure’ means to us.
We could not have done it without the people who travelled with us, supported us, opened their homes and communities to us, shared their knowledge, guided us, and, most importantly, believed in the mission of this Africa Traverse expedition.
Siyabonga. Muito Obrigado. Thank you.
Kingsley, Ross and the expedition team
PS. The Africa Traverse journey may have come to an end, but the adventure continues. And right now, we prepare for our next homegrown adventure – it’s called “Following the Dragon”. As always, we will keep you posted.
Images credit Kingsley Holgate Foundation.
This article is written by Ross Holgate, adventurer, explorer and expedition leader who has spent much of his life travelling across Africa alongside his father, renowned explorer and humanitarian Kingsley Holgate. From the original Capricorn expedition to the recent Africa Traverse, Ross has been part of extraordinary journeys across some of the continent’s most remote and challenging landscapes. With millions of kilometres of adventure behind him, he brings a unique perspective shaped by years on the road, the evolution of expedition travel and the experience of sharing these journeys with his father. His adventures combine a passion for exploration, Africa’s wild places and the people who call this remarkable continent home, with a belief that adventure can make a meaningful difference in the lives of others.
