Photo album WALK/two 08.10.09
One year ago, a journey was begun when two young men decided to walk their talk and take the motto of the eco-friendly music festival Rocking the Daisies quite seriously…
“Play Hard, Tread Lightly”
Then…
Greg Nicolson, a UCT botany student, and Nathan Heller, founder of culturetalent, walked 60km for two days from Cape Town to Cloof Wine Estate (just outside Darling in the Western Cape) to attend this popular outdoor music festival. The walk was inspired by the triumph of Greg’s then recent walk from the Namibian border to Cape Town, which was an epic 28-day, 690km effort to document and raise awareness of the rare and endangered wildflowers occurring within the road reserve that flanks the N7 national highway. With considerable support from various organisations and beneficiaries, this university research project became an awareness-raising campaign for the important biodiversity found in these inconspicuous roadside ecosystems, and gained positive public interest in the media. For more info please visit Greg’s blog and check out the slideshow on 24.com. Following the success of this project, Greg was looking to explore another road reserve so he decided to walk north along the R27 coastal road, which was in time to be rewarded with a weekend of great fun and live music at Rocking the Daisies. When the organisers of the festival Complete Events were approached about this initiative they were quick to rally support for these two intrepid partygoers and as a result Walking the Daisies was a great success. Apart from providing a unique opportunity to study the bio-diversity en-route, this effort went hand-in-hand with the significant efforts taken to make the festival carbon neutral by cutting out the emissions of driving to the venue. Through word-of-mouth marketing it helped raise significant environmental awareness in line with the eco-friendly responsibility of this special event. Please view the image gallery here.
Now…
Due to the promising outcome and with considerable support from Fruit & Veg City, the initiative has been taken further and the invitation is being extended to the 2009 Rocking the Daisies festival goers to join in. This October Greg Nicolson and fellow botanist David Gwynn-Evans will be guiding up to 20 selected participants. They will be joined by SA music journalist Evan Milton as well as Anna Shevel of Global Carbon Exchange who will be auditing the carbon offset of the walk. Our sponsors are offering great benefits for those who rally to the cause of Walking the Daisies – including free entrance! We strongly encourage your participation, however, if walking 60km over 2 days to a 3-day music festival is not your thing then take heed – this is not for the feint-hearted…