In March 2018, a bold Secret Compass team of 12 will leave life's responsibilities and excesses at the desert's edge, to undertake a tough traverse of Sudan's Bayuda desert by foot and camel. Bound on three sides by a giant 600km bend in the meandering River Nile, the Bayuda Desert route has been crossed by desert nomads for centuries, connecting the north and south of the ancient Kingdom of Kush.
A new venture for 2018, this 280km journey will follow a route steeped in history, a shortcut between Nile communities and the route taken by the Gordon Relief Expedition – a desperate military march across Egypt and Sudan to relieve General Gordon and the siege of Khartoum. The historic significance of this lifeline route combined with the parched landscape of sand sheets, acacia forests and yellow, ochre and brown rocky outcrops provides a grand sense of perspective to complement a back-to-basics desert adventure; top and tailed by the mesmerising ruins of the Meroë and Nuri pyramids and temples still standing at each end.
“Secret Compass is no stranger to this remote eastern region of the Sahara,” explains Tom McShane, Operations Director at Secret Compass. “We led the first commercial expedition across the Bayuda in 2013, before planning and leading the Sudan phase of Levison Wood's trademark adventure; Walking the Nile.”
On his epic journey, Levison walked over 4,000 miles from the source of the Nile in Rwanda to the Nile delta in Egypt where it flows into the Mediterranean Sea. Part of this journey saw him make a testing crossing of the Bayuda Desert in blistering summer heat. Making the crossing in March rather than July, this Secret Compass team can expect much cooler temperatures than those experienced by Levison.
However, the team mates will undoubtedly face the harsh realities of desert life on this testing expedition, connecting wadis and wells to water their camels and preparing for the possibility of sandstorms on the way. But with great challenges come even greater rewards, and Project Manager, Amy Bibby, explains that this is no regularly-trodden tourist trail: “To our knowledge, no other commercial teams have made this crossing, which will put the individuals in this 2018 team in the select company of a few privileged explorers to have ever made this journey.”
