Getting your story into the newspapers

Dan & Will Hawkins before they set off for Africa

In August 1991, Dan and I set off from Andover in Hampshire for our adventure. Before we pushed off from our parents' house, we had been packing our stuff up onto our bikes in the garden. 

My girlfriend (now wife) had designed t-shirts for us to wear emblazoned with the title 'The Hawkins Tour' across the top and a map of Africa below with our route dotted along the continent. 

At one point, the local reporter and her photographer came along to interview us and take some pictures. It was a quite a frantic morning before we finally set off.

But, we did not see the outcome of the interview with the press until we returned a year later. Although our intentions to travel beyond Africa when we reached Cape Town never happened, it was still a good thing to have asked the press along. 

We did not invite them along for the sake of publicity for a cause. After all, Dan and I were not raising money for a charity. We were cycling down Africa for the hell of it. We were not selling a book or a TV program (who would have been interested anyway?). 

Having the article was a good memento of the start of an amazing year in the saddle with my brother. 

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