Adventure with a Purpose 2015 round-up

What an incredible year it has been, so many adventures, some planned some not.
So many new opportunities were presented some doors closed to allow many new doors to open. A new exciting direction unfolded and the possibilities for 2016 are endless my only limitation is time. I will have to manage it very carefully next year in order to achieve all my goals.

Our monthly hiking events are become more popular and its a great way to keep fit and explore our beautiful country, its spectacular mountains and its stunning trails and breathtaking landscapes. These hikes are to become a regular feature for everyone of all shapes and sizes to engage in and reach their own personal goals of some bucket list hiking trails and big mountains. We are based in Johannesburg which means most of our monthly hikes are around the Gauteng area. We have explored many, have some favorites and look forward to trying out many new ones in 2016.

This year we explored the Drakensburg a fair amount and we were reminded just how beautiful our mountains are and why they appear on several bucket lists and international top 10 lists of one of the worlds mountains to climb. We have a few Drakensburg hikes in the pipeline as training camps for several charity groups who will be tackling Mt Kilimanjaro and Elbrus later this year.

MT KILIMANJARO 2016

We have several big events for charity lined up; A group of 17 people both from South Africa and abroad to raise funds for rape survivors and create awareness for their "against sexual abuse" campaign. This is really very exciting as most of the climbers are rape survivors themselves.

SA 9 PEAKS 2016 & 2017

We will tackling our SA 9 Peaks challenge again this year. However as it will be used as a training sessions for a large group we will be taking our time in completing it to fit in with work constraints and logistics for the group. We

will also be planning the SA 9 Peaks Challenge over its 10 day endurance race for a large South African charity dealing with Cancer. Much work with securing sponsors and logistics needs to be put in place to ensure its success. We had a successful pilot event in 2014 and many lessons were learnt and a lot of fun was had by all.

TANKWA KAROO CAMINO 2016

In May this year we will be taking part in the grueling 254 km endurance trek through the Karroo. This event is known as the Tankwa Karroo Camino. This region is very dry and unforgiving. has spectacular sunsets and sunrises. Beautiful clear skies to watch the stars at night. We are trekking to raise awareness and funds for the Children's Red Cross Hospital in Cape Town who are refurbishing and upgrading their ICU unit. As a Paramedic and Adventurer this cause could not rest more on my heart.

MT ELBRUS 2016

In August a very close and dear friend will be joining me in Russia to climb Mt Elbrus the highest mountain in Europe. We will be collecting kiddies pajamas, funds and food for various projects for CHOC who deal with childhood cancer. I will be talking at various schools and several other pre-climb events are on the cards so look out for the press releases.

NEPAL 2015
In August this year I went to Nepal unexpectedly with Gift of the Givers on a Rescue Mission. As a Paramedic and Rescue Technician this is what we are trained for, what we live for, to help others in such situations, for us its the Olympic games of rescue. It was both terrifying and exciting to be able to be part of a very unique and incredibly privileged experience. We had a great bunch of people with us and managed to preform many life saving surgeries and assist in finding many bodies buried under rubble as well as many other aspects of an international rescue mission even though the situation was very challenging. I got to camp out in the Nepalese Mountains, lived through a 5.6 earthquake at 3 am in the mountains. Nepal and Everest is on my bucket list however this was not how I had planned to visit this very poor country. We also assisted in rescuing South Africans who were on Everest and others who were on various hiking trails up in the mountains caught in life and death situations while slap-bang in a middle of one of the worst earthquakes known to man.

KILIMANJARO 2015

Last year in October we successfully summited Mt Kilimanjaro for Meals on Wheels for our #trek4hunger2015. It was a fantastic trip and we had heavy snow on summit night!

#BUCKETLISTODYSSEY
old friend Vanessa Yelseth has joined me on creating affordable bucket list adventures in Africa. We have completed 4 adventures and we are busy with editing once completed these will be aired on YouTube in short 2-5 minute episodes and we will see where this leads to. We are very excited and being ladies who grew up in the African wilderness we cannot wait to share some really exciting adventures in 2016 with you all.

#BucketListOdyssey

Adventure With a Purpose™
The Team Zodwa Project ™

Member: FGASA (Field Guides Association of Southern Africa)
Member: Vincent de Paul Victory Park (St Charles Catholic Church)

Photo Credits: Kim Williams Copyright

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