‘Once you learn to ride a bicycle, you never forget’. This was the saying author James Beatty relied on when he set off with his partner for an 11,000km ride across Africa.
“I hadn’t owned a bike since I was 14-years-old,” Beatty said.
His partner McKenzie Barney was more prepared, having spent the last five years cycling around the world.
“I’d never had panniers on a bike or anything with different weight when it’s strapped onto the front forks and back,” Beatty said.
“It was definitely a learning curve, she was all fit and ready to cycle and I was not.”
Beatty, 33, has now released a book about his six-month adventure between October 2021 and March 2022 called The Road South: An adventure cycling the length of Africa.
Their journey took them through Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, and finished in Cape Town, South Africa.
Beatty grew up in Leeston and attended Leeston Primary School and Ellesmere College before moving to Christchurch for a couple of years.
In 2013, while living in the city, Beatty said he had two dreams back-to-back which kicked off his global adventure.
“In our early 20s, we all think: ‘Is this it?’ You’re doing the exact same thing as what your parents are doing at that time.
“You work a 40-hour week, you empty the dishwasher, do the laundry, collect a paycheck, and pay the bills,” Beatty said.
On the third morning, he woke up and told his partner at the time he was going to travel the world. A couple of months later he was off and he has never looked back.
Over the years that followed, he has walked the length of New Zealand, from Mexico to Canada, through the High Andes, and over the Himalayas.
Before the Covid pandemic, Beatty would only spend a maximum of four to six weeks in one place.
During Covid he hunkered down in Mexico for months, the longest he had stopped since starting his journey.
Early on in the African odyssey, the couple quickly discovered traversing the continent was tricky.
While Egypt is a common spot for tourists, they found anywhere beyond the tourist areas is somewhat off-limits.
“Day two we got stopped and the police said we had to turn around and go back to Cairo.”
Then the police escorted them onto a train to Luxor, a city in Upper Egypt. Once off the train, they had a police escort for the remainder of Egypt constantly following them at about 10km/h.
“The police were with us the whole time (on the train).
“For the rest of the time (in Egypt) we had police behind us in their vehicles.”
“It was the day before my birthday, and I had teed up a call with mum and dad back in New Zealand and the next day there was no phone service.”
It wasn’t until later in the day they realised Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok had been kidnapped and the military had taken over, knocking out all connectivity to the outside world.
“When we cycled into the capital Khartoum it was like a ghost town . . . there were military tanks and humvees everywhere and just two white people on bicycles.”
The pair then spent two weeks in a hotel before flying to Ethiopia due to the land border being closed.
That was not the only close call they had. In northern Kenya they were targeted by a flying spear. While cycling a teenager ran out from behind tree and threw a spear, which landed about 30cm from Beatty’s back tyre.
“I’m sure if he wanted to hit us he could have, I think it was more of a scare tactic to get us out of their land,” Beatty said.
“It was safe to say we didn’t stop riding for a while after that.”
The pair had mixed experiences when cycling through some of the more remote parts of the continent.
“We were cycling through villages that hadn’t seen white people for over 10 years.
“There were teenagers who as soon they saw us were yelling out what translated from swahili to english as ‘white devil’.
“They would be yelling at our bikes, calling them ‘white devil horses’ and throwing stones at us.”
To help them through some communication issues they had a ‘magic letter’. It explained what they were doing in each of the languages.
“For the most part if we’re stopped by military or police we would show them that, and they would smile and tell us to head on our way.”
If that failed they would keep a certain amount of cash with them for bribes when required.
Each day they were averaging 180-200km on their bikes, riding for five or six days at a time then taking a day off.
For the most part, they would use a tent, with the treat being brothels used by truck drivers.
“We would have to go and talk to the girls and see if it was possible to rent a room for a whole night just to sleep.
“It would be a mattress that would be pee stained, no bed sheets, no pillowcases or anything like that, but that was almost our luxury.”
“In West Africa, down in Namibia, it was the Germans. We were in the capital city of Windhoek (Namibia) and they would have beer halls. So you would have a beer garden where you could get a pint of beer and pork knuckle. Then a week later you’d be back in mud hut villages.”
When they arrived in Capetown, South Africa, Beatty was exhausted.
“Over six months of eating two-minute noodles, and packets of oatmeal we were pretty skinny.
“The energy levels were dipping,” Beatty said.
The last few weeks they were getting into summer, with the temperature getting up to about 45 deg C. The hottest day was in the Sahara Desert earlier on in the trip – about 52 deg C.
Beyond some sores from the seat, the pair finished the ride in good condition and with a good tan.
“I was wearing sandals the whole time, so the tops of my feet were half African by the end.”
While they did not struggle with getting water, the water they were getting was like something from a cow trough.
“We would have chlorine and iodine tablets that we would drop into the water.”
On the ride, they struggled with the heat in some parts.
“There was heat exhaustion a few times a week when we went to the Sahara with 50 deg C plus every day. You’d be on the verge of vomiting or sh**ting your pants because of the heat.”
Despite the tough going Beatty loved it.
“I’d never been to Africa before that. I’m glad I’ve gone and now I’m itching to go back.
“I’m itching to get into the centre of Africa and the Congo.”
Over the past decade, Beatty has travelled to more than 100 countries but still has yet to see it all.
“I’ve seen a little bit. I haven’t been to Antarctica, I haven’t travelled to China or Mongolia, or Russia and Siberia.”
Beatty compared his travel style to a buffet.
“Do you go to a buffet restaurant and just eat the chicken and corn soup? Or do you go and have a taster of everything and try the sushi, the mac and cheese etc? So by the end of it, you’ve at least had a little taste test of everything.”
For the most part, Beatty lives off the smell of an oily rag to fund his adventures.
“Over the years I’ve picked up either tree planting or carpentry jobs.”
“I really don’t work that much. In the last 10 years, if you calculated all the work, I would probably have done less than two years of work.”
Annually he lives off about $8000-$10,000.
While Beatty has no immediate plans for his next big adventure he is planning to slow down in the years to come.
“Now we’re getting older we don’t have to travel the entire time. So we could travel for eight months and then stop for months in a beachside town or something.
“That’s what we’ve done for the last year.”
The pair will be back in New Zealand in April where they will do a book tour and screen Barney’s film Cycling the World.
