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!