After retiring from a successful career as a globe-trotting lawyer, John Balsdon was looking for a big new adventure. They don’t come much bigger than the Cape to Cape Challenge, a 20,000-kilometre (12,427-mile) car journey from Nordkapp, Norway all the way down to Cape Agulhas in South Africa, the most southerly point of mainland Africa. The first such north-south mission was completed in 1955 by British explorer Richard Pape, who travelled for 86 days and 20 hours in an Austin A90 Westminster. But Garry Sowerby and Ken Langley, a Canadian partnership, beat his time in 1984, setting a new ‘best’ of 28 days and 13 hours in a GMC Suburban. Balsdon, a British fine-art photographer, and his expedition team wanted to better it. On March 1, 2026, they set off in an INEOS Grenadier Station Wagon and a Grenadier Quartermaster with a Bruder EXP-4 trailer loaded with drones, cameras and essential gear, arriving at Cape Agulhas on March 29, 2026, creating a new world record of 28 days and eight hours, shaving around five hours off the 1984 time.
Here, John Balsdon talks to Graeme Green about the highs and lows of the Cape to Cape Challenge…
What made you want to do this challenge?
I’ve always been a photographer. Since I was 13, I was developing in a darkroom. Then I had to make money, so I became a lawyer. But I kept up my photography. I finished my legal career at the end of 2024 and I wanted something big, a new challenge. I’ve always loved travel. I’d worked in 54 countries, and I was always taking photographs over the last decade in remote places. I love Africa, and I thought this would be an awesome challenge. I also thought it would give me a ton of inspiration, because I keep coming back to the east and west coasts of Africa.
What was the hardest thing about the trip?
Keeping the team aligned. When we started, we didn’t think we’d have to drive at night. But because the borders were taking up to six hours to cross from one country to another, and you had to do that in daylight hours, starting at about 8am, it meant we weren’t driving until about two in the afternoon and it got dark at half past six. You’re never going to break a record doing just that, so we had to change the parameters. There were a few people who were very nervous about driving at night, and rightly so. It’s quite dangerous. In some places, the roads aren’t lit, the driving conditions are quite poor, there are animals wandering across the roads and people either side of the roads, so you have to drive quite slowly. Those countries were a challenge. Keeping people together was difficult. People did question “Is the record that important?” Road traffic accidents were the biggest risk of the trip. The conditions also changed so much. We went from minus 28 degrees in the coldest place in Norway, to +48 degrees in Guinea.
How difficult was it to cover such vast distances?
It was unbelievably tough. In Angola, I went to bed at about 10pm and I realised we had about 4000 kilometres left to do and three-and-a-bit days to do it in. I said to myself “This is never going to work” because we’d never done 1500 kilometres per day, even in Europe. The roads aren’t great in Angola, but once you get to Namibia and South Africa the roads improve. I was with a dear friend, and we’re both used to long-distance driving, but still we didn’t really get out of the car for 40 hours.
What were some of the highlights?
In the middle, we stopped in Nigeria. The people there made us so welcome, took away our cars, cleaned them up, gave us dinner, replenished all our supplies. That was great. And then, another highpoint was arriving, having done it, broken the record. That felt fantastic.
What were your favourite landscapes that you spent time in?
Congo, for the greenery and jungles – it was a totally unspoilt place. And Namibia, for the red rock and deserts.
Was it difficult to find time for photography when you were travelling so quickly?
It was very frustrating, but I knew that the photography would have to take the back seat. I took reference points on where I’d like to come back to. I’ve already been back to Namibia, to Swakopmund, then I got a plane and a helicopter and went to the Skeleton Coast and Damaraland. The two cars and the trailer that broke the record are now in southern Africa and they’re going to be there for the next few years. I’m going to go to some of the places in the Congo and Botswana. I want to go to Zambia and Zimbabwe. I’ll end up in Kenya and Tanzania, doing what I do.
You focus mainly on aerial photography, using drones or from planes and helicopters. What are some of your other favourite places to work in?
Northern Kenya and Namibia are both favourites. In Northern Kenya, there’s the Laikipia Plateau, and you go north of there up into the Rift Valley, which has some of the most beautiful scenery in the world, with enormous flocks of flamingos. There are so many beautiful shapes and patterns, and that has driven me to go to Botswana, Argentina, Australia…. I’m interested in those abstractions, colours and shapes.
What do you think other people can learn from your Cape to Cape journey?
Everyone can have more than one career, but once a lot of people retire in the UK, they’re expected to shuffle off into the sunset. I’m not going to do that. I think lots of people need to find their own purpose. One way to do that is to find something you truly love and have a good crack at it.
If you’d like to know more about John Balsdon, see www.alwayslooktwice.com
Around the campfire
What about you? If time, age and practicalities (e.g. money) were no obstacle, is there a big journey (or entirely new challenge) that you would love to embark on? Maybe you’d like to support a conservation project, learn to identify animal tracks, volunteer your skills to a wildlife organisation or take on a challenge such as Kenya’s Safaricom Marathon or New York’s Saving the Elephants Run. Do you dream of returning to a place that fascinates you, or possibly starting a conservation project of your own?
It needn’t be record-breaking, like John’s Cape to Cape Challenge. It might simply be something you’ve always dreamt of doing, that brings you closer to Africa or helps protect a place you love.
Let us know. As always, we’d love to hear from you, and your idea might inspire someone else around our campfire…
