It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for: the 50 minute documentary film about our expedition can now be viewed either through our main website www.kayakthekwanza.com or by clicking the link below: For those of you in Luanda, you can watch the film on a cinema-sized screen in a proper theatre by attending the Kayak […]
News
Update on the documentary
On Friday 5 August I took the train from London down to Southampton to meet up with an old friend, Carl Treeby, who is an experienced film editor. Over the course of 48 hours he did an incredible job of putting together the first cut of our film, which came to 52 minutes run time. […]
Expedition gear reviews: the good, the bad and the ugly
We are thinking of knocking together some detailed reviews for OutdoorGearLab once things calm down a bit, but in the interim here’s a quick overview of what we thought about some of our gear! Highly Recommended 550 Paracord: Held our buggy together and was generally handy on the kayak. Brasher Hillmaster II walking boots: Durable […]
A month in the life of Kayak The Kwanza: what did we actually do?
Since our return to Luanda I have been going through all the video footage from our trip and thought everyone might appreciate some screen captures showing what we got up to (and what will be in the documentary). I have tried to keep things in roughly chronological order. Sorry about the image quality! In total […]
We successfully finished…now what?
At around 1:30pm on Wednesday 6 July, Alfy and I arrived at the Kwanza Lodge, which sits on the mouth of the River Kwanza. This marked the end of our 1,100km journey, and a great conclusion to a very stressful week! I will do a full writeup of the issues we had with the Angolan […]
KAYAK THE KWANZA EXPEDITION’S FUTURE UNCERTAIN
After the team’s arrest at Capanda Dam and subsequent transport to Malanje things went from bad to worse. Having had all of their equipment and clothing confiscated, bar what they were wearing at the time, negotiations with local authorities broke down resulting in them being escorted under armed guard back to Angola’s capital, Luanda. At […]
KAYAK THE KWANZA TEAM ARRESTED AT CAPANDA DAM
After a difficult 40 km paddle with no water flow to help them, Oscar and Alfy settled down for the evening at their camp in a fishing village next to Capanda Dam with some local fish for dinner. Suddenly, at 12.30 a.m. they were woken abruptly with AK47 assault rifles shoved into their tent before […]
DISASTER HITS RECORD BREAKING ATTEMPT TO KAYAK ANGOLA’S KWANZA RIVER
Oscar Scafidi and Alfy Weston’s attempt to kayak 1,100 km from source to mouth of the Kwanza river in Angola has hit a snag as their 1960s German-made Klepper Kayak struck a dam in rapids near Kuito Bridge and sunk. After being stranded on an island in the river for several hours local fisherman came […]
Back in Luanda after two years!
I touched down in Luanda on the evening of Tuesday 31 May 2016. This is my first time back in Angola since I left Luanda International School in July 2014. The first thing that struck me was how visible the impact of the current financial crisis is. My flight was with Brussels Airlines, and was […]
Progress report -12 days to go!
Our plan was to start the expedition on 1 June 2016, but it seems more likely we’ll now be flying down to Huambo and then starting from the source on Monday 6 June 2016. I’ve just re-read my post from two and a half months ago, and thought now was time for an update on […]