Africa by Kayak

Directed by: Beau Miles 2010 Australia 50 minutes
Showing:     Saturday February 11th 2012 - Ocean Traverses
Location:    Pacific Cinemateque

Tickets $18 online / $20 doors   Buy Tickets Here

In 2007 Beau Miles attempted to paddle over 4000kms from one side of Africa to the other. Mounted to the front of his kayak was a camera. This is the footage of the attempt.

Setting off from the tropic of Capricorn on the eastern coast of Africa; Mozambique, Beau Miles was towed into the Indian Ocean by half a dozen school boys. The locals had come from no-where, fascinated by the sight of a red-headed and zinked man, his friend, and their strange boats (Jared Sharples of NZ whom would paddle with Beau for the first 6 weeks.)
It was an odd sight.
Over the next 5 months the typical set of expeditionary themes would throw the experience.
A good day was hard, a hard day was hard to explain. With it were typical highs and lows associated with adventure; man eating wildlife, sickness, body ailments, finding food & water, illegal border crossings and dealing with the largest swell in 50 years. The journey, especially when Beau continues alone, becomes one of questioning; why we rush, what is success, and why we take risks? Why, he asks, am I doing this? It’s ultimately very personal. It’s also very real, and hopes to portray the journey for the stories it encounters, and not the amassed distance it covers.
All negotiated with aviation maps from the 70’s, bad hygiene, a bad book and a worse beard it also hopes to take the hero out of adventure.

Beau Miles
Beau first commercial film project ‘The Green Paddle’ (solo circumnavigating three major island chains in South and Western Australia) has toured both Australia and the U.S, having showed to hundreds of audiences ranging from primary schools, keynote address’s, coffee shops, major symposiums, cinema-chains and the Australian Geographic Society.
The short version of this showed on Fox Sports Fuel during 2005 and has both won and showed at film festivals all over the world. When not working for Monash University in Australia, teaching and lecturing in Bachelor of Sport and Outdoor Recreation studies, Beau divides his time between filmmaking, building projects and freelance writing.
In March 2011 Beau turned his attention to the Australian Alps, where he was the first person to run the Australian Alps Walking Track. A true first, Beau ran the 680km+ trail in 14 days. The premiere walking track in the country has an elevation loss/gain of over 30,000, tracking the Great Dividing Range over the ACT, NSW and VIC alpine areas. Summer 2011/12 will see the film of his AAWT journey released.