NEW DP EXPEDITION: Kayaking Madagascar's longest river

[Ozymandias]

OK so I've spent the last week eating outrageous quantities of food to try and regain some of the roughly 10kg of bodyweight I lost during the expedition. A few reflections on the adventure:

- Total distance was just over 750km. Not sure of the exact distance right now as the GPS tracks are split between two devices, but I'll fish them out eventually.

- We did about 250km of portage and about 500km of kayaking. Portage was significantly more difficult than the kayaking bit, as we had to carry the 36kg Klepper kayak over a mountain range on our backs!

- The area that we hiked through was an area of Dahalo activity. The Dahalo are bandits who rustle cattle (the iconic Zebu), causing serious insecurity problems in the south of Madagascar. I guess that qualifies it as a DP? Anyways, things were much worse a few years ago, and none of the security forces we met had any issue with the route we proposed, so I guess it was relatively safe. Our guides noted that we probably wouldn't have had any issues if we bumped into them as they're not really interested in foreigners.

- We saw very few crocs, despite warnings about the lower stretches of the Mangoky River being full of them. I think about 5 in total over a month, of which only 1 was big enough to be of concern to us in the kayak. This is sad news and shows the crocs are being badly impacted by habitat destruction and poaching.

- There are no hippos in Madagascar, so we did not have this to stress about, like when we were kayaking in Angola in 2016.

- I'll write up a full gear review in a while, but initial impressions are that the Garmin InReach Mini 2 is an amazing satellite communicator, and really suited to these kinds of remote expeditions!

- Keep checking our website for updates on when we'll release the documentary film of the expedition and the book! https://kayakthemangoky.com/

[Darcy]

Very cool! Looking forward to that

[Michael]

Another job well done!

[Ozymandias]

OK so I've spent the last week eating outrageous quantities of food to try and regain some of the roughly 10kg of bodyweight I lost during the expedition. A few reflections on the adventure:

- Total distance was just over 750km. Not sure of the exact distance right now as the GPS tracks are split between two devices, but I'll fish them out eventually.

- We did about 250km of portage and about 500km of kayaking. Portage was significantly more difficult than the kayaking bit, as we had to carry the 36kg Klepper kayak over a mountain range on our backs!

- The area that we hiked through was an area of Dahalo activity. The Dahalo are bandits who rustle cattle (the iconic Zebu), causing serious insecurity problems in the south of Madagascar. I guess that qualifies it as a DP? Anyways, things were much worse a few years ago, and none of the security forces we met had any issue with the route we proposed, so I guess it was relatively safe. Our guides noted that we probably wouldn't have had any issues if we bumped into them as they're not really interested in foreigners.

- We saw very few crocs, despite warnings about the lower stretches of the Mangoky River being full of them. I think about 5 in total over a month, of which only 1 was big enough to be of concern to us in the kayak. This is sad news and shows the crocs are being badly impacted by habitat destruction and poaching.

- There are no hippos in Madagascar, so we did not have this to stress about, like when we were kayaking in Angola in 2016.

- I'll write up a full gear review in a while, but initial impressions are that the Garmin InReach Mini 2 is an amazing satellite communicator, and really suited to these kinds of remote expeditions!

- Keep checking our website for updates on when we'll release the documentary film of the expedition and the book! https://kayakthemangoky.com/

Just to update y'all on this:

- I have finished writing the book of the expedition and it has been professionally edited. I am now sitting on the manuscript until I finish editing the documentary film, so that they can both be released together.

- ...but I haven't even started the editing process for the documentary film. Am still sitting on the mountain of footage!

Fingers crossed we get the book and the documentary film released and entered into various competitions in late 2024, just in time for my 2025 expedition in Borneo!