It has been a year since DUT graduate Angelo Wilkie-Page left home on an eight-year solo journey to circumnavigating the globe twice – from west to east, and from the South Pole to the North Pole – without motors, sails or solar power.

Wilkie-Page, 29, a Pietermaritzburg adventurer, is an interior design graduate from DUT. He has just completed one year of his eight-year expedition. “I made it into Nome (in Alaska) today walked in the last 20 miles (32km) as it was snowing and high winds east of Cape Nome this morning. This has been a tough segment from Fairbanks, and a great test for what is to come. Feeling strong,” he posted on his web- site at the weekend.

Along the way, Wilkie-Page has been speaking about his experiences at schools and public places. His spokesman, Patrick Cromwell, said Wilkie-Page had completed the first leg from Los Angeles to Fairbanks in Alaska, a distance of 6500km in which he was ex- posed to extreme opposites of climate. “A warm start on the west coast to cycling through the Rocky Mountains,” he said. Cromwell said that in Fair- banks, Wilkie-Page had changed his mode of transport to a custom-built kayak and paddled down the Yukon River to- wards the Bering Sea. “Winter was coming in too fast, and Angelo had to make a quick decision.

In Kaltag, he flew his kayak ahead to Unalakleet, an Alaskan town on the Bering Sea, and became the first person to solo walk successfully from Kaltag to Unalakleet through the mountain range, in summer,” he said. Cromwell said Wilkie-Page had, to date, covered more than 2 000km in his kayak. ‘Angelo’s next obstacle is to overcome red tape and bureaucracy to enter Russia from the Bering Sea with his kayak. “He will then kayak around the Russian coastline till the town of Magadan, where he will be reunited with his bicycle and cycle through Siberia, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, ending Leg 2 in Cape Town,” he said.

The second leg is estimated to be in the region of a whopping 35 000km.

The third leg will see him row from Cape Town to Rio in a purpose-built solo rowing boat, whereafter he will cycle to Argentina and then back up the West Coast to end his first circumference in Los Angeles.

Cromwell said Legs 5 to 8 would be the second circumference – north to south. Wilkie-Page’s expedition aims to raise funds for Heifer International South Africa. Track him live at: wwwexpedition720degrees.com.

– This edited article was published in The Mercury.

Pictured: Angelo Wilkie-Page