Biker circumnavigating South Africa for elephant conservation
Kyle Malyon hopes to raise funds for the Hoedspruit Elephant Rehabilitation and Development Organsation (HERD) through visiting all nine provinces of South Africa.
Johannesburg’s Kyle Malyon is in the middle of a massive road trip to raise funds for land’s biggest animals.
His 21-day ‘Mammoth Ride’ will see him solo circumnavigate the country on a 2013 Honda NC700 motorbike, visiting all nine provinces along the way.
In doing so, he hopes to raise significant funds for the Hoedspruit Elephant Rehabilitation and Development (HERD) organisation, which is South Africa’s first elephant orphanage.
Kyle made his local pitstop last Friday, staying overnight in Salt Rock on day six of his journey.
“It has been great so far and I’ve racked up around 2 250km to date,” said Kyle.
“By far the trickiest section was a misty, rainy stretch between White River and Pongola. The rain clears as you ride but the mist is sometimes impenetrable on a bike.”
Kyle will travel about 6 500km in total and is trying to traverse the closest tar road to all of the country’s land and sea borders.
“Obviously my home province of Gauteng doesn’t have an international or sea border, but that’s where I started and will finish,” he said.
“So I figured I might as well include the Free State too, because the other seven provinces qualify automatically.”
Starting in Johannesburg, Kyle first travelled north to Limpopo, staying overnight in Lephalale, Musina and Hoedspruit.
He entered Mpumalanga on day four, staying in White River, before reaching Pongola in KwaZulu-Natal on day five and Salt Rock the next day.
Kyle hit the Eastern Cape on day eight, and will next reach the Western Cape (day 11), Northern Cape (day 15), North-West (day 19) and Free State (day 20) before returning home.
“I’ve been riding for about six years and really love planning these kind of trips.
“I run a casual social motorbike group called the Fiery Octopus and we ride quite a lot. My bike already has 152 000km on the clock, of which I’ve contributed around 75 000km.”
Kyle has had a lifelong interest in elephants and became motivated to help raise funds after reading An Elephant in My Kitchen by Françoise Malby-Anthony about the elephants at Thula Thula game reserve in Zululand.
“I did some research and saw the incredible work HERD was doing and wanted to help however I could.”
If you would like to help, you can donate at The Mammoth Ride’s fundraising page on Quicket, or directly at
herd.org.za.
Follow Kyle’s journey @themammothride on Instagram.
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