Reflections on Adventure

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Dorsland

Bachelor Dog
Joined
Apr 15, 2012
Messages
11,191
Reaction score
1,677
Location
Van Daar
Bike
Honda CRF-1000L Africa Twin
I recently started a project of scanning all my old photos so I have a permanent digital library rather than a pile of albums filled with fading photos.

The reminiscing of a purist can be a bastid though.

While going through my old travel pix, I was comparing the simplicity of those trips with what has become a technology and money race to see who can take the most gadgets along as they “get away from it all”.

In the process, I believe the essence of adventure has been lost as we strive for more comfort and connectivity, certainty, schedules and gadgets. What is billed as an adventure has become more of an extended road trip as we load our pre-planned routes onto the GPS; arrange cell phone roaming contracts with contact numbers for roadside assistance, Medivac, insurance with vehicle repatriation; charge laptops and tablets so we can update the blog;  book accommodation that has a WiFi hotspot and make sure we have enough memory cards for the gazillion photos we will be taking to prove to everyone that we had an ADVENTURE.

We then load everything into our 4WD or onto our bike that has Satnav, ABS, ESC, ESA, airbags enough to refloat the Titanic, heated seats and air conditioned interior, hill descent control, cruise control, hands free, Bluetooth, DVD player, snorkel, winch, Inmarsat phone, SPOT, GoPro, fold-up satellite dish, DSTV card for the lodge decoder, and and and.

And then we head out into the great outdoors.

To me, adventure is the unknown, the unpredictable, the new and undiscovered, the challenge of testing yourself under unexpected circumstances, of finding a solution, adapting existing plans to suit changing circumstances.  Of pushing the envelope of everyday humdrum experiences a bit further.  An adventure must have an element of risk and uncertainty, of edginess, to it.  There must be the “What if ….?” in the back of my mind all the time.  

As I get older, I like my comfort as much as the next guy.  I am also a paid-up member of G&GA (Gadgets & Gizmos Anonymous). But it seems to me we are planning our adventures into Sunday picnics with every aspect catered for, every eventuality covered, all risk removed and insured, sanitised.

The first men in space - without detracting from their achievement or the enormity of the task - had pre-knowledge of what to expect and thus their “adventure” - big as it was - was less than that of early explorers in their sailing ships who had absolutely no idea what to expect, no pre-knowledge at all.  Those early explorers had much bigger ghoens than the former.  Theirs was a true adventure.

Our road trips masquerading as adventure leave nothing to chance, no sliver of mishap is allowed, all bases are covered.

Going through my photos, some of my best memories and greatest adventures were experienced on a TT500 with no lights and no instruments. I strapped a cheap Pep Stores bag, my army sleeping bag and a cheap shoulder satchel to it, stuffed a few cash notes into my Fox Racing canvas wallet and took off for 5 weeks with absolutely no plan.  I had not even a road map with me.  

I slept under one of those concrete picnic tables on the roadside near Warden when a hailstorm caught me, got arrested for sleeping on a beach near Southbroom where I’d stripped the bike as I couldn’t get it started, met some RLI guys at Port St Johns and we got into a barney with some hippy types at the hotel, got dumped by my girlfriend in PE, meerkatted on the N1 with a guy on an XT500 I met in CT.  A true adventure.

I have travelled through Africa in 3 different LandCruiser station wagons I have owned.  But the best trip I ever did was to Tanzania in the cheapest one of them all: a 1986 FJ60 G Series with a 3F engine.  The 5 week solo camping trip - including fuel - cost me R3300!   Between Tete and Blantyre I could travel a maximum of about 60 km/h after I got dirty fuel in Tete. Big interlinks were passing me.  I paid nothing for a strip down and repair at Blantyre Toyota.  I was accosted by smoked up Mozambiquans when I stopped to photograph a burnt out Russian T54 tank deep in the bush somewhere (that event got my heart rate going!); I met a beautiful German girl in Zimbabwe, celebrated her birthday on the ferry between Milibizi and Kariba town, but that ended in heartache and tears on both sides; I unwittingly snorkled with a crocodile at Cape Mclear on Lake Malawi, enjoyed the company of Nganazana and Nikson at Monkey Bay who cooked, washed, tidied my camp and prepared a fish and rice meal of note on the beach for Christmas Day for me.  Nikson invited me to his village to meet his family and wrote me for about 4 years after that trip.

We all have stories like this, but my point is that the quality of the experience seems to be inversely related to the level of planning and money and gadgets and technology and pre-knowledge. This, and other forums like it are wonderful sources of information, technical knowledge and gear reviews.  I spend too many hours here reading and writing and looking and pix, dreaming of adventure.  But sometimes, what is learnt, cannot be unlearnt.  If you have seen or experienced what you have hoped for, what is there to hope for any longer.

The unknown is the adventure, the thrill, the challenge.  How will I square up against that big unknown, that adventure?
 

Attachments

  • Camping at Port St Johns.jpg
    Camping at Port St Johns.jpg
    73.9 KB · Views: 531
  • T34 tank  in Mozambique.jpg
    T34 tank in Mozambique.jpg
    60.6 KB · Views: 536
  • TT500 near Flagstaff.jpg
    TT500 near Flagstaff.jpg
    61.5 KB · Views: 528
  • Zomba Plateau.jpg
    Zomba Plateau.jpg
    72 KB · Views: 526
  • Camping in Malawi.jpg
    Camping in Malawi.jpg
    78.3 KB · Views: 522
Top