Short Way Up
The People
Steve Wilson is a writer and journalist mostly associated with classic bikes. His age has started with a 6 for a few years now, and if he was ever going to do one last really good ride on British iron, it had to be sooner rather than later.
Tony Page is an ex-Royal Marine and long-time, long-distance British rider - in addition to covering a quarter of a million miles as a courier on a rotary Norton, he’s been to the Yukon on a Vincent twin, all over Europe, Eastern bloc included, on his yellow Norton Commando, round New Zealand on the Vincent, as well as overland to Egypt and back on an air-cooled BMW. Happy to go along for this ride, Tony, no stranger to Africa, brings much previous experience in coping with potentially hostile environments.
The Purpose
On a safari holiday in Zambia, Steve visited the school in the remote village of Kawaza. He was hit by the impact of being close, however briefly, to people who despite an average life expectancy of 35 years, were struggling cheerfully to improve their lives. And then the sight, from a light aircraft, of the red dirt roads running through the burning land. So there it was: ride up to Zambia from the south on classic bikes, to raise money for Kawaza. Travel simply, help with something that wasn’t hopeless, and maybe catch a little long overdue wisdom along the way.
The Charity Bit : Why A School?
Steve and Tony are covering all the expedition costs themselves ; Haynes Publishing’s decision to commission a book on the trip has helped here. So every penny you choose to give will go straight to the Short Way Up account with an existing voluntary body in the UK, the Kawaza School Charitable Trust, and will be released when the pair reach Kawaza. In Africa, since 1988 Robin Pope Safaris and other operators in the South Luangwa area have helped raise money and covered all administrative costs of the school/clinic/water programme.
Schools in Africa are crucial, as education can help save our overcrowded world. They develop skills ; lift people out of subsistence farming ; and studies show that population growth can level out when females are educated and choose to have smaller families. And education can also help save the wonderful wild life. The long association of Robin Pope Safaris and the South Luangwa Conservation Society with schools, clinics etc has helped convince local populations of the clear benefits of Zambia’s regulated animal-watching tourism. This discourages poaching (for money, meat or self-defence) and the climate in which it can thrive.
Short Way Up - Here’s the plan:
On May 1st 2009, fly two swinging-arm Ariel Red Hunter singles to Cape Town. Hook up with old bike Club contacts there. Ride across South Africa, hopefully taking in the Natal classic rally on the way. Then up through Botswana, possible side-trip to the Okavango delta, cross into Zambia via the Victoria Falls. Ride with local contacts across from the capital Lusaka east over the mountains to South Luangwa, and Kawaza. Then return across Zambia and into Namibia, down the desert Skeleton Coast and back to Cape Town.
A very approximate 6,000 to 8,000 miles or so, and yes, those film star chaps on their BMWs took a much bigger mouthful of dust, and more power to them. But this is the Short Way Up, the two-wheeled equivalent of Slow Food, with plenty of diversions and none of the killer deadlines the other dynamic duo and their crew had to operate under.
Because there will be no film crew. No ‘fixers’ for the borders. No 4-wheel drive back-up. No back-up at all, in fact, except a man with a shed-full of old bike spares, deep in rural Gloucestershire. For two 50 year old, simple, rugged British single cylinder motorbikes. And their even older and arguably simpler riders…