5,11,2010,395

Remember that camp old sawhorse from The Rocky Horror Picture Show? “It’s just a jump to the left / And then a step to the ri-i-i-i-i-ight…”

I’m a past master at seeing the dark side of things, but sometimes I hum the Time Warp tune when I know I need to change what’s going on in my mangled mind.

And maybe that’s the best advice we can give the world at the moment.

It certainly seems to be the advice Kingsley Holgate likes to offer. He’s that huge, bearded, sun-hatted guy who recently drove his Land Rover round the coastline of Africa, and distributed mosquito nets and reading glasses to the people who need them the most, and who will once again drive off today (between 10:00 and 11:00, actually, from the ICC) on his Boundless Southern Africa Expedition to visit nine countries and seven Transfrontier Conservation Areas.

I first met Kingsley when he passed through Mossel Bay on the last leg of his Africa Outside Edge Expedition (www.outsideedge.co.za) and I was taken by his immense positivity (it’s even bigger than he is, and from my tiny height – my small-man-syndrome is legendary – that’s REALLY BIG). So it fitted when I read this on the Boundless site: “Beyond boundaries the possibilities are unlimited.”

Through the Boundless theme of Nature, Culture, Community, Kingsley and his crew will explore Southern African nature and cultures whilst undertaking a number of humanitarian projects.

They’ll be visiting the /Ai-/Ais – Richtersveld Transfrontier Park (South Africa, Namibia); the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park (Botswana, South Africa) the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe_; the Limpopo-Shashe Transfrontier Conservation Area (Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe); the Great Limpopo Tranfrontier Park (Mozambique, South Africa, Zimbabwe) the Lubombo Transfrontier Conservation Area (Swaziland, Mozambique, South Africa); and the Maloti Drakensberg Transfrontier Conservation Area (Lesotho, South Africa).

Knowing what he has done (through his Foundation, the man’s distributed gazillions of mosquito nets and reading glasses and mobile libraries!), I thought, when Kingsley drove into Mossel Bay, that I would see dozens of Landies – but there were only two or three. If one man and a small crew like his can make this much difference…

Nelson Mandela once said that “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” With all we have to offer, if South Africa could only add Kingsley’s style of positivism to that and package and sell it to the world – bye-bye recession.

Visit www.kingsleyholgate.co.za and www.boundlesssa.com; and subscribe for regular updates about the Boundless Expedition HERE