Louie tells the story ….
I came up with the idea of an adventure company name in 1999 that would be extreme in whatever I proposed to do, something that would be unique in stature, nature and easy to remember.
I Trade Marked – BeyondXtreme on the 11th of April 2000, two months before I started my world-first feat of River Gliding the world’s most dangerous river – The Mighty Zambezi!
BeyondXtreme is a registered Trademark ® which would give me kudos and make my company legit! Unbeknown to me, it opened up a can of worms in that every tom, dick and harry decided to abuse the trade name, but I’ll leave it at that.
My Zambezi swim logo followed with BeyondXtreme – The Quest For Survival when I conceptualised a Survival program as a TV Series a few months before the US SURVIVOR TV Series.
Unfortunately, I had Survivor’s Lawyers in London threatening to sue me, so I changed tactics and planned to River Glide the Zambezi as it had never been done and is a River feared by many who are acquainted and associated with it on a daily basis.
In March of 1998, I arrived in Harare (Zimbabwe) at the invitation of a good ex-military friend of mine, Keith Tomaselli who was the Chief Game Warden of Botswana, anti-Rhino Poaching unit and he had arranged for me to fly the length of the Zambezi starting at the exit point into the Indian ocean at Chinde in Mozambique.
We flew in a newly acquired New Zealand made Pilatus aircraft with two other conservationists and their sole purpose was to count crocodiles and Hippopotamus pods the entire length of the Zambezi respectively.
It was an eye-opener for me when I saw the results after we landed at the source of the river in Zambia. The figures were starling! 188,000 crocodiles a metre and longer and 3900 pods of hippos consisting of 5 or more hippos per pod!
However, although I was apprehensive about gliding down 3200 kms which included killer rapids, thousands of crocodiles, pods of hippos, war vets who shot at us, lion, hyenas, poisonous snakes, buffalo, elephant, and then killer sharks from Cahora Bassa dam in Mozambique, I planned and executed this world-feat!
The idea to share my amazing experiences regarding the Zambezi River came about when I decided at the age of 63 to do the Zambezi Challenge with myself as leader and 3 teams consisting of a female and male per team.
Newspapers and radio interviews dictated there was no shortage of getting Teams and my first team I select was surprisingly a Zimbabwe Team. Sponsors were keen and when we were about to sign contracts – South Africa underwent another Xenophobia attack and sponsors cancelled and The World’s
Most Dangerous Race came to a grinding halt….. and subsequent re-starts to get the TV series going failed because every year for 3 years Xenophobia attacks blemished South Africa even further as a dangerous place to be. Other neighbouring countries retaliated and killed South African long-distance drivers.
Check the full 52-minute documentary [HERE]
And here we are….. attempting another challenge…
The BeyondXtreme Team
He is a renowned travel author and motor journalist and has been involved in the motor industry for many years. He conceptualized the TRANSAMAZONICA 1980 4×4 Expedition in Brazil –using Brazilian made Jeeps, which was a worldwide hit and became known as The CAMEL TROPHY.
Leighton Herla
He is the Technical Director and takes care of ALL the technical requirements including radio communications, satellite connectivity etc. required to get the information and data back to civilization. The website is also updated and maintained by him.
Trevor Pienaar
Project director is second nature bringing the right people at the right time for every piece of the puzzle to achieve the final production. From tools to tooling, microphones to cameras, drones , bikes, cars, boats, helicopters to the people for operations. We see it as skill franchise.
Martin Naude
He is the Lead Data Capturer. His role is to correlate and compile the best video content and package it for production. This data is uploaded to the central server where it is sent for post production.
The Challengers- To be selected
Click on each team to view individual Bio’s
Team UK
Team USA
Click for Bio’s
Team Brazil
Team Germany
Team South Africa
Ghost Rider
A “GHOST” Rider will also partake the in the challenge and will be totally anonymous and only be known to the project director. The Ghost Rider will complete all the challenges set out and would be a “benchmark” or an example of what not to do for the other contestants.