A concept born in the dark, raining, snowing winter nights of the Battalions' Millennium Belfast Tour was to take an expedition to South Africa, during their summer (of course!), to complete some arduous trekking in the Drakensburg Mountain region in Kwa-Zulu Natal and to have a damn good time in the process!

The plan was initially presented to Lt Col Hill in July who, after some input, readily agreed to allow me to mount this, the first by the battalion for several years. In outline, the expedition would fly to South Africa, spend several days acclimatising by completing single day walks. This would then be followed by three mini expeditions increasing in difficulty, length and height. Of course no holiday… erm I mean adventure-training expedition would be complete without some time off to see the country itself. Several battlefield tours, a Safari and some local R&R in Durban would see to that!

The next phase was to begin to put the instructing team together, not an easy task considering the rogues gallery I had to choose from! In the end, the choice came down to three: a Warrant Officer who was only attached to the battalion of God's County (what was I thinking!), a Rhodesian Colour Sergeant (good local knowledge!) and a dour Yorkshire Sergeant. The combination was to prove interesting in the coming months and one, without which, this expedition would not have been possibly, either during the planning phase or conducting it in theatre! At our first O group, myself, QMSI Winterbottom APTC, CSgt Thompson and Sgt Eastwood began the long process of planning an expedition of this magnitude. All aspects of the planning phase were quickly identified and a plan put in motion to ensure that by 14 January 2001 we would be ready to fly out on holiday… oops! Expedition. I have been asked 'what was the hardest part of the planning phase?' by several people. The response? Trying to get payment from Corporals Crabtree, Tether, Hyde, Lance-Corporals Ellis and Colley and Privates Bateman, Cowan, Dillon, Brady, Priestly and Fozzard! Joking aside, the hardest part of any adventure training expedition is getting enough soldiers interested and willing to part with the money to go.

The major issue out of the plethora facing us was the prohibitive cost of taking fifteen people halfway across the world for four weeks. An intensive letter writing campaign was launched that contacted not only kit and equipment companies but local Yorkshire businesses, parish, district, metropolitan and county councils amongst others. This worked extremely well, right up to the point where all for of the expedition planning team deployed on OP SILKMAN in Sierra Leone!! At this point, no one was available to field specific questions regarding the expedition or answer the letters that did actually pour in! Here, Sergeant Hawley AGC (SPS), (now Corporal Hawley PWO!!), indispensably, graciously and ably took up the challenge of dealing with the expedition problems, liasing with the all interested parties, including myself, by telephone. The letter writing proved to work as we managed to obtain some small items of kit and some money that helped to offset the overall cost to everyone. However, I would not advise planning an expedition in this manner to anyone, unless that its, one wishes to lose all their hair!!

Before everyone really knew what was happening, we were stood in Manchester Airport ready to depart fro Jo'burg International. Fourteen hours, a few videos, several meals and what seemed like the worlds' supply of miniatures (gin and vodka of course!) later, the party arrived tired but buzzing in anticipation of what was to come. A long drive to the Drak' was to follow interrupted by an overnight stay in Harrismith, a large town in the Orange Free State, the home of the Boer. Surprisingly, (not!) our English accents and our Rooineks didn't sit too well here so we quickly moved on to the Royal Natal Park the following day. It was from here that we semi based ourselves for the trekking that was to follow.

A narrative of the walking expedition would take up reams of paper and to those not interested in walking would appear boring. Suffice to say that over the fourteen days walking that were conducted, the expedition had its fair share of tantrums, angry words, laughs, injuries, sweat, tears and blood. For several of the expedition it was the hardest thing they had ever done, especially when the altitude was taken into account. Everyone on the expedition learned something new about not only themselves but those in the group also. The scenery was spectacular, the dawns and the sunsets were uncluttered by the haze of vehicle and light pollution and even when it rained, it was warm! Perhaps the two most outstanding single events of the expedition were reaching the top of Cathedral Peak in the central Drakensburg and witnessing the source of the Orange River. The first stands at over 12000 ft in height and as such has a commanding view of the entire mountain range. Something I believe that no one who reached there would ever forget! The second was slightly different in terms that it was very much less accessible than Cathedral Peak and by default less people will have made it up there. Standing at the source, both myself, Csgt Thompson and Sgt Eastwood remarked on how may Afrikaners would have seen this, the source of their river!

As the walking was demanding and the fact that the nearest supermarket for re-supply was a minimum of an hour away, food and provisioning played a particularly large part in the holiday… ahh expedition. I must admit having to eat BBQ'd food every night did become a bit of a chore but, thankfully, this was interrupted by the monotony of eating at five star restaurants after every walking phase. Food in South Africa was very cheap but you did require a great deal of it to keep the energy levels topped up! Lance Corporal Colley and Privates Brady, Dillon and Cowen managed to keep a fried chicken emporium in business for the duration of our expedition. For the overnight expeditions, a source of dried foods could not be found anywhere within a 300 mile radius!!!!!!!!! This warranted a trip to Pietermaritzburg, a reasonably large provincial town in Kwa-Zulu Natal. It is a town famous for having the largest red brick building in the southern hemisphere, the town hall, and also was the site in 1912 where Ghandi was ejected from a white only carriage on a train. We managed to have a full day here and provisioned ourselves sufficiently for the walking phases of the expedition by shopping in a cash and carry. A South African couple very kindly allowed us to use their cash and carry card saving us a fortune! We also had several other rest/ provisioning days later in the expedition, one at Dundee and one from out of Cathedral Peak campsite, these coincided with the battlefield tours.

The secondary reason that Kwa-Zulu Natal was chosen was for its wealth of historical battlefields from the Anglo-Zulu and Boer Wars. As the battalion has a number of battle honours from these, it made sense to visit tour these. We took advantage of guides to walk us through the battles of Isandlwhana and Rourke's Drift (obviously), Colenso, Ladysmith and Spion Kop. Not only were these tours genuinely interesting and beneficial to our understanding of our regimental history, they were also a fine way to clear particularly bad hangovers.

From examining a map and having spent time in America, I did not fully comprehend the sheer vastness of South Africa. It is a huge country and because of this, travelling times between locations were much more than we originally intended. This also had to effect of ensuring that everyone spent a great deal of time ensconced in a VW Microbus, without air conditioning in soaring African summer temperatures, listening to Private Brady listening to his walkman playing 'Who let the dogs out'. The hardships of being on holiday… expedition were terrible! Perhaps the best journey of them all was the move from Royal Natal Park to Hwulele-Umfolozi Game park/reserve.

This involved quite a long tedious motorway drive but followed by one of the most spectacular drives I have ever undertaken. Upon reaching the gates of the reserve just before sundown (allegedly the best time for wildlife spotting), the expedition booked in and declared our intention to move to Hill Top resort, which was the only hotel in the reserve without an electric fence securing it. The instructions from the game warden were simple. 'Drive slowly and do not leave the vehicles.' Simple. This we actually achieved and what we saw on route was amazing. All manner of African wildlife from Spingboks, to Rhino, to Giraffe were captured on our cameras, however, the scariest of them all was quite possibly the largest elephant I have ever seen anywhere! When it actually assumed a posture that indicated that it was about to charge our vehicle, being the driver at the time, I reacted in cool and collected manner as follows…. 'Profanities abounding, vehicle slammed into reverse, elephant moves to get side shot, vehicle slammed into first and 0-60 in about ten minutes, shoot past dangerous wildlife!' Interesting and very exciting!! The night was spent in the lodge having a few beers discussing the trip and generally relaxing after a demanding three weeks or so. Upon walking back to our rooms, Corporal's Hyde and Tether thought they had been drinking too much when they were confronted by Zebra moving in and around the camp!! A very surreal experience indeed! The following morning was a 0500 start on a guided tour around the park. Wildlife literally abounded and unfortunately, out of the Big Five, the only one we did not see was the Lion. A slight disappointment but, not one that could ruin such an awesome experience. Wholeheartedly recommended!

We left the game park and headed back towards the surfers' and partiers paradise, Durban. This spot of local R&R was a tonic, just what the doctor ordered! A nice hotel room, some shopping for loved ones, great food, a few drinks and plenty of beach time!! I think that is all I will say on this matter for fear of creating the impression that the holiday… er .. expedition was too long!

Following two excellent, sun kissed party driven days in Durban, the return journey to Jo'burg proved to be terribly long and dull. There was very much a sense of the end of an era, a climax of an age or perhaps just pre post holiday… erm expedition blues! That is not to say that this journey was dull. All that I shall say of this phase was that I never fully appreciated the wonders of modern camera technology in the hands of one uniformed individual, stood by the side of the road, until now!

Mounting an expedition of this size is no small undertaking and requires a great deal work hard work and commitment. If you have a good team with you this is reduced immeasurably. Thankfully I did! I would like to take time to express my appreciation to everyone involved who allowed this to be such an unbridled success, without any reportable international incidents!! Everyone benefited and learned from this expedition including the instructors and definitely the expedition leader. South Africa is an amazing country with so many adventure-training opportunities that I may find myself heading that way again in the future.