Day 5:

After spending the last 4 ½  days at the YEP Haga Haga project, the YEP West2Wild road trip continued with YEPs Robyn Lighton, Kai Fitchen, Reghart Pretorius, Steph , Henko Roukema and the Mercedes-Benz Vito crew bus on the 1 200km long return trip from the Wild Coast to the mother city (Cape Town) on the West Coast of South Africa.

With the help of a map of a completely foreign city to all of us, we took a couple of detours to reach our first stop – the Mercedes-Benz Coastal Education and Visitor Centre in the Nahoon Point Nature Reserve in East London. It was really interesting to learn about the local environment of the East London area and how Mercedes-Benz is involved with environmental education in the area.

The aim of the MBSA Coastal Education and Visitor Centre is to make exceptional strides towards education and awareness of our natural heritage and to protect a valuable heritage site and conserve the wealth of coastal biodiversity in the area. This center provides an eco-tourism facility to educate children, city residents, and visitors to the area, and given MBSA’s CSI focus on community upliftment, protecting the environment and education, funding establishment of the Centre was a perfect fit.

The Centre is providing a number of social benefits, including job creation through opportunities offered to small, medium and micro enterprises (SMME’s) to become involved in the operation of the facility. The footprint found at the Reserve that scientists believe to be 120 000 years old (the oldest known humanoid footprint in the world) inspired the shape of the MBSA Coastal Education and Visitor Centre.

As ambassadors for YEP we provided flyers of the Mercedes sponsored Pangaea Project and we distributed our Shark Safety tips as provided by the Shark Spotters and also SASSI consumer pocket guides on Sustainable Seafood.

After a long drive down the Sunshine Coast we reached  our pitstop for the night where there was a nice warm plate of pasta waiting for us…

Day 6 West2Wild

We were up very early this morning as we had another 800km to drive today! We said good bye to Reghardt and Steph at Great Brak River and late afternoon we all arrived safely home in Cape Town!

But not without a few scary moments as people drive like mad to get to their holiday destinations L . Fortunately our Mercedes Vito crew bus have excellent safety features and we always felt safe and secure. During the YEP Selection Camp in Chateux d’Oex we spent time with the Mercedes-Benz team who taught us various environmentally friendly driving techniques and this came in very handy on this trip! The Blue Efficiency technology of the Vito really lived up to its reputation of fuel efficiency – even when carrying a full load of enthusiastic YEPs, their camping equipment and many boxes filled with donations!

I think the projects, West2Wild and Haga Haga were a great success as we certainly spread the Pangaea message where ever we were! We could have taken the “easy” route & just fly to East Londen, but by car-pooling we not only reduced our carbon footprint, we (as YEPs) got to know each other better & LEARNt from each other & the experts/places/people we visited, EXPLORED more of South Africa’s beautiful coastline and ACTed by spreading the Pangaea message!

During the West2Wild road trip we managed to support several Pangaea Projects such as :

· The Shark Project ( Shark Lab visit / Shark Safety tips )

· Clean-ups ( Nahoon Dam )

· Green Wave Food Project ( distributing SASSI sustainable seafood pocket guides)

· Presentations ( Shark Lab / Carmel Camp / Border Summer Camp )

· Books4Buddies ( Life Community Centre, George )

· Care2Share (Life Community Centre, George )

· Environmental studies ( MBSA Coastal Centre)

I will never forget the smiles on the kids faces when we delivered all the books & clothes in the township,  camping under the African stars with zebra & bushbucks roaming in the veld, all the fun & laughter, the sharing of our dreams for YEP - this made the many hours of driving certainly more than worthwhile.

All in all the past 9 days have been a great success with 6 YEPs exploring a total of 2 500km of the South African coastline and returning with lots of enthusiasm for more ACTion !

A HUGE “Thank You” to the Pangaea Project & Mercedes-Benz SA for helping to make this possible!!