Trans-Africa Motorcycle Expedition 2007

It’s nearly 4 months since that fateful May day. I’m fully recovered and returning to work tomorrow. I’m not sure I want to go back on the paramedic motorcycle but that feeling diminishes as the days go by.

I have to wear a size 14 boot on the left foot and 13 on the right. I’ll have fun going through airport security and I’ll never be able to have an MRI scan again (5 was getting greedy anyway).

The chaps made it to Cape Town on August 1st. I’m happy for them but still gutted too. On the bright side, there’s a chance I’ll be the medic on the Round The World motorcycle expedition in 2009 but definitely not on a motorcycle!

I will do the London-Cape Town journey again independently. There’s talk at home that we will do it as a family when the boys are older which would be fantastic. I fell in love with Africa and want to go back to this wonderful continent to discover as much as I can.

The experience, though cut short, has changed me and the way I see the world. I recommend that everyone should do something like this at some point in their lives.

Thank you for visiting this site. And thank you so much for all your kind words, best wishes and support.

Peace & Love

Kev

On 1st May 2007 I had an accident while traveling in the east of Gambia. I broke my collar bone, 3 metatarsals and a bone in my ankle. Apart from being badly battered, bruised and broken I’m absolutely gutted as my expedition has had to come to an untimely end.

I’m currently in Ashtead hospital having had surgery, feeling a bit miserable but generally OK. Internet access is limited to a connection via my mobile which is horrendously expensive so you’ll have to wait for the gory details and the repatriation story (if you’re interested). I’ll be in hospital for a while so if you fancy popping in to take the piss, feel free!

The rest of the team are continuing the trip and I wish them well.

Thanks for all your support and kindness.

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I have not had a good night. Up a few times with D, no V, unable to sleep, at 04:00 I take my sleeping bag and go to the large hammocks near the bar. I have a splitting headache and basically feel like shit (a technical, medical term). The hammock is very comfortable and I quickly nod off. I wake a few hours later when the dew on the palm trees drips on my face. I feel great.

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Another day at the Zebrabar. I can use Lee’s bike to go into St Louis this morning and Pete wants to come too so that he can do his banking securely on my MacBook. We set off at 09:00 and are sitting outside the Internet facility, it’s no cafe, waiting for it to open at 10:00. It’s very good, best so far - modern PC’s, aircon and a pretty fast connection. They allow me to connect the MacBook up directly and you are reading the results!

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Word from the Kiwis Tony and Michael is that they will be here on Thursday night after a lot of to and fro the Senegalese embassy in Nouakchott. It means that we will be at the Zebrabar until Saturday. Good times!

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We will be at the Zebrabar for the next few days. It is 10 years old this year and is about 10 miles south of St Louis, built and run by a Swiss couple who have made their home here. We are here for R&R, cleaning and maintenance. I’m going to clean the sand out of my tent.

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On the short off road ride this morning I see 2 warthogs. They really do walk like Walt Disney animated them! Arriving at the border between Mauritania and Senegal early after only two hours ride we wait to go through the administration to get out of one and into the other. Leaving Mauritania is relatively straightforward, getting into Senegal however, for some is going to be a big problem.

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Leaving the Jasmine hotel is a little sad. I really liked it there and could have easily stayed a couple more days chillin. Today we’re going to Diama piste, just west of the border town of Rosso. The Rosso crossing into Senegal is rough, busy and full of ne’r-do-wells so we are riding 80 kilometers along a track to bush camp before entering Senegal tomorrow.

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We just about beat the tide, it got higher and higher and Lee looked a little concerned. We past the remains of an old ‘Magic Bus’ that had not made it and was now buried deep in the sand. The steering wheel serves as gravestone. We make it in good time but the thought of getting the 4×4 caught in the rising tide freaked me out a tad!

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Desert crossing, day 2 starts early. Everyone is keen to complete this journey in 2 days instead of the planned 3. We have some easy plains to cover first where good progress is made. After the plains is a difficult section of around 10 kilometres that will take us down to the beach and then the 180 kilometres to Nouakchott. Things don’t quite go as planned.

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This morning Michael departs for Nouakchott by road, he should arrive there early this evening. The rest of us are about to embark on a 400 mile journey through the desert to arrive in the same place in 3 days time. For much of the journey returning to the tarmac will be a matter of turning around or going on, the soft sand limiting our route significantly.

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I didn’t expect to spend another day here but with yesterdays dramatic (hardly) events, here I am. I spend most of the morning in what was once a bar/cafe area for the campsite guests. It has seen better days for sure but there is a comfy chair next to a power socket so my immediate needs are met.

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Well prepared with fuel and water we set off from Nouadhibou to Nouakchott, a journey of around 450 miles. There is a road of good quality tarmac, it’s been there almost a year, but we’re going to do the traditional desert crossing. For many this is the highlight of the expedition, for others its biggest challenge. It’s where this trip stops being a funky motorbike touring holiday and starts to be an expedition.

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We cross the border from Morocco to Mauritania and can expect the administrative delays associated with any border crossing in Africa. As we get closer the police and military checkpoints get more frequent and we are scrutinised more closely than we did, if at all, in the north.

Internet too slow for images today - this is one of the poorest countries in the world!

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A welcome late start today, 12:00, and a short ride of 180 miles or so. I’m not riding today so I’m going in the 4×4 while Werner drives. I take the opportunity to shower, shave and sort out my kit. I’ve got a tee shirt, and 2 clean pairs of socks and pants so I won’t need to do any washing for a week or so! (Joke honest)

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Today is yesterday again, well in a way. I’m riding, the road is straight (mostly), the desert is beautiful and getting hotter and brighter. We’re heading to Dakhla, a costal town in Western Sahara. Once again it’s over 300 miles away - prepare for an arse numbing day!

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Another early start and long ride to a desert camp about 300 miles away. I’m riding Lee’s bike again but often think about the comfort of the 4×4 as I head south along an almost perfectly straight road into the Sahara.

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An early start and a very long ride (around 300 miles) to look forward to today. I’m riding again and of course very pleased to be so. Rod says it’s going to be a scorching hot day, I believe him and freeze my bollocks off for the rest of the morning! It’s hard to believe that it can be so cold in southern Morocco!

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A rest day in a pretty dingey campsite just south of Marrakech and time to update the blog. I spent most of the morning typing days 6 to 11. Must try to do it every day because this is such a chore. I also took everyones camera memory cards and backed them up. There are now over 1200 images in the library in only 10 days - how we will bore to tears everyone back home with the ‘holiday snaps’! At this rate there will be over 15000 pictures!

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Today is a long but exciting 250 mile journey to Marrakech. The route takes us over the Atlas mountains through the Tichka Pass. Rod is not riding again today and we’ve got a rest day tomorrow he should have mended well before the desert crossing. I’m riding his bike again and of course, very pleased to do so!

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After breakfast this morning the riders went out into the desert with Lee to practice riding in the sand. Werner and I stayed at the camp to pack up and get ready for the ride later in the day to Todra Gorge. A couple of hours later the riders returned some with broken bikes and bruised bodies.

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A late start, 10:00, and a relatively short ride of 100 miles into the Sahara Desert near the border with Algeria. I’m riding Lee’s bike again and this time my warm weather bike gear is brilliant - very pleasant riding in the desert heat with the cooling wind circulating through. We reach a waypoint just north of Erg Chebbe and head off into the dessert to make camp.

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An 08:00 start to travel the 250 miles to the Ziz Gorges and my first bike ride in Africa. I was a little anxious as we set off because I’d only ridden the F650 Dakar briefly in England and had not been on the ‘wrong’ side of the road on a bike in over 20 years. I got use to the machine quickly and was soon confident enough to be told off by Lee for going too fast! You can always spot me in any photos - I’m the one in the bright yellow jacket.
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A rest day in Fez has given me the opportunity to do some basic housekeeping tasks in the morning; clothes washing, buy a local SIM card and visit an Internet cafe to update the blog. It’s amazing, I spend a couple of hours with the MacBook wired up to the ‘net on a reasonable broadband connection and it costs 7 dirram which is less than 5p. After which I walk the 8 or so kilometres into the centre of Fez.

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Location: Fez - A more relaxed day, 10 AM start and a 150 mile journey from Asillah to the camp site just south of Fez. The riders started to get more acclimatised to the riding conditions in Morocco. It’s mainly good quality tarmac but often unpredictable drivers, pedestrians and animals. The occasional rough, potholed and rubble strewn sections keeps the boys concentration sharp.

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Location Asillah - Today we left Europe behind and started the expedition for real. Crossing the Straights of Gibraltar from Algerciras to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta followed by organised mayhem at the border crossing into Morocco and into Africa proper. As expected there were some minor problems and delays.

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Location Algerciras - An early start to get the longest and most boring part of the trip out of the way; 450 miles of mainly motorway to Algerciras on the Mediterranean coast near Gibraltar.

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Location Pica Camp - We disembarked the Pont Aven around noon to face the usual traffic chaos found outside a busy port. After an hour or so we were heading south towards the first camp site 50 miles north of Madrid. My phone is working again which is a relief.

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Location - Bay of Biscay. I don’t know the exact lon/lat because I left my Garmin GPS in the support vehicle. We’re on Britanny Ferries Pont Aven a new, large and very well appointed cross channel ferry. It’s got a cinema and a swimming pool too but I’ve only seen the bar and my cabin. I’m sharing a cabin with Lee, Werner and Michael - very cosy!

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I did my last shift on Saturday, late off as is always the way when you’ve got something to do.

On Sunday Deb threw a party at our house. It was superb, my family and lots of good friends showed up during the day and I drank far too much beer and wine. (So did Gridhead!)

The highlight of the day was loads of genuine Bradford curry. Deb had ordered them off the ‘net from The Real Bradford Curry Co. and they arrived packed in dry ice. Bloody fantastic to eat a proper shami kebab with hot green slime again, it must be 10 years or more.

Thank you all who came, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. See you when I get back!

I’ve set up a blog for Kudu Expeditions boss Lee to journal the expedition from the company’s perspective. Not as flash as here of course, but very functional and tasteful!

Lee will be making regular posts as the expedition heads south on the long way down.

Don’t stop visiting here though! I’ll be adding news, pictures and personal observations here on bigkev.net as often as I can.

I was about to write an account of the recent training weekend up at Kudu’s base in Cambridgeshire but Lee has beat me to it and there’s no point duplication the effort. Read about it at http://trans-africa.info

Sad to say, I’ve had another round of rather nasty and somewhat racist comments posted to this site.

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OK, the deal with the Vaio fell through but every cloud has a silver lining. I bought an Apple MacBook. In a word - awesome.
I also purchased a small (but beautiful) application called ecto.

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Travelling in remote places, often far away from a 240V electricity supply let alone a broadband Internet connection is going to be pretty challenging for a nerdish techie. I want to stay in touch with my family, regularly update this site, know where I am, capture and reliably store digital photographs and listen to music and audio books. Read the rest of this entry »

I love technology, gadgets and toys. This expedition has given me the excuse to buy some rather nifty stuff without too much grief from Deb (although I still get some disaproving looks!). This week’s essential piece of kit that I will definately need on the trip is a Leatherman Charge TTi (do you get a sense that I’m trying to justify it?).

This tool is the Rolls-Royce of pocket tools - titanium and high grade steel construction, muliple configurations and a lovely leather belt case too. Andy McNab’s SAS heroes in his novels all carry one. You can find out more about the Leatherman tools at http://www.leatherman.com

If you want to read more about expedition medicine and travel health I can recommend the following books -

• Oxford Handbook of Tropical Medicine (Oxford Handbooks)
• The Royal Geographical Society Expedition Medicine (Royal Geographical Society)
• Travellers’ Health: How to Stay Healthy Abroad
• Where There Is No Doctor: Village Health Care Handbook for Africa

If you click a link and purchase any one of these books from Amazon the small fee earned will go to MAG and Attah.

I want to thank the good folks at TCS Biosciences in Buckingham. I contacted the company to buy a rapid diagnostic kit for malaria. The OptiMAL-IT kit will allow me to diagnose malaria in a matter of minutes and if necessary begin treatment without delay so it’s a very handy bit of kit to have along.

A short while after placing an order for the kit, Lesley Ayres from TCS contacted me to say that I could have 12 kits free of charge. All they wanted in return was some feedback if I had to use the product.

Thank you very much Lesley and everyone at TCS!

The expedition timetable has changed a little. We’ll now be leaving England on 1st April 2007. April fool’s day! I’m not superstitious or anything but have you seen my rabbit’s foot?

The number of members is not quite finalised, around 8 adventurers will be taking part. If you want to join us you had better contact Lee at Kudu now!

My employers, SECAmb, sent me on a one day wound care course at Crawley Hospital. The very friendly and helpful staff taught me gluing, steri-stripping and general wound care. I’ll be able to use these new skills at work and treat more people at home as a result.

I mentioned the expedition to Mr Daghestani, the consultant lead and he very kindly gave up a few hours to teach me suturing. He also gave me a basic kit to perform the procedure! I can’t say that I’m particularly proficient at it (ask any medical student how long it takes!) but if the need arises I’m confident enough to try it.

Thank you very much Mr Daghestani and the staff at Crawley Hospital Walk-in Centre!

The itinerary given here is intended as a guide only and by the very nature of this kind of undertaking must always remain subject to change. Although crossing Central Africa is becoming easier as time goes by it remains the most testing section of any Trans-Africa expedition. Read the rest of this entry »

The Attaah Appeal is a small fundraising group based in Epsom , Surrey whose aim is to improve the education of the inhabitants of a small village called Pantoase in the mountainous region, south of Korforidua in Ghana. The approximate population of the village is 750, 250 children and 500 adults. Pantoase is a farming village whose main produce is pineapple. Read the rest of this entry »

MAG (Mines Advisory Group) is one of the world’s leading humanitarian organisations providing conflict-affected countries with a real chance for a better future.

MAG clear the remnants of conflict from some of the world’s poorest nations, MAG educate and employ local people and help provide solutions for those trapped by poverty and economic devastation through no fault of their own. Read the rest of this entry »

The majority of expedition motorcycles will be the BMW F650 Dakar, a single cylinder, 4-stroke, 652cc enduro/adventure machine that is well suited to the various and sometimes difficult terrain we’ll encounter. It’s light, strong and relatively easy to maintain. Read the rest of this entry »

The Long Way Round was a fantastic TV show. I watched the series, bought the DVD and read the book. I almost bought the BMW GS1150 Adventure motorcycle too!

Charlie Boorman and Ewan McGregor rode with a cameraman and support team from London to New York going east through Europe, Russia, Mongolia, Alaska and Canada. Thier journey was a great adventure and did wonders for BMW’s motorcycle sales too! Read the rest of this entry »

GeoPress is a Wordpress plug-in that allows you to associate a post with a longitude and latitude, it then displays a Google Earth map of the location. Very neat and ideal for the purposes of this site - each entry (daily I hope) will have a map detailing exactly where the expedition has stopped that night. Read the rest of this entry »

Hi! I’m Kevin McKeown commonly referred to as ‘Big Kev’. I’m a state registered paramedic working as a motorcycle responder for the South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Trust (formerly Surrey Ambulance).

My part on this journey will be as expedition medic. In this role I will be responsible for all medical aspects of the trip. Duties will be anything as designated by the expedition leader and can be expected to include dealing with all medical issues, emergency or otherwise and accounting for, maintaining in good order and controlling the use of all medical equipment and supplies.

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