The first? Seem a stretch to me

[Mark Sedenquist]

While looking in the Trip Journals I found this report underway, seeking to be the first expedition to complete an overland crossing of the Western Hemisphere from north to south. It sorta seems like it has already been done -- several times by car and truck, but I've never seen any such attempt done by motorcycle -- He will eventually return to Colorado -- Makes for some very entertaining reading.

Mark

[AZBuck]

Yep, I would also suspect that this is hardly the first, even by motorcycle. And I checked his logs, and indeed he flew from Panama to Bogata, jumping the (shark) Darien Gap. I seem to recall from a number of years back a British expedition in Land Rovers that actually crossed the Gap overland, building rafts for the vehicles as needed.

AZBuck

[Peter Thody]

I know they were driving Land Rovers but it did seem to be pushing it to describe a team led by two Panamanians, an Australian and a Brit as a British expedition.

Further investigation shows that there were in fact two such expeditions: the Trans Darian Expedition in 1960 and the British Trans Americas Expedition 11 years later. As this letter shows, the Australian in the first party - Terrence Whitfield - is understandably keen that his team receives due credit.

As a fellow Brit - and Land Rover driver - I loved the biographical notes of the English member of that first team, Richard Bevir (who died in 2001):

• Nephew of Sir Anthony Bevir, KCVO, CBE, retired permanent secretary to Prime Ministers of England from 1947 to 1956.
• Served with SAS (parachutist, frogmen, cloak and dagger missions).
• Emigrated to Canada in 1956 (employed in bushwork, tobacco priming, encyclopedia and shoe salesman, ditch-digger, etc.)
• Personal dislikes: rice pudding and sentimental moments.

Brilliant stuff.

[AZBuck]

I was not even a teenager at the time of the Trans-Darien expedition. I probably saw it on a PBS TV special or in a National Geographic article in which most of the time was probably spent talking to the Brit and the Aussie. That and the Land Rovers (an exotic vehicle in those days) cased me to (mis)remember it as a British Expedition. Still, that it caught my eye at that age and that I remembered it nearly 50 years later speaks to the impressiveness of their accomplishment.

AZBuck

[Peter Thody]

... that I remembered it nearly 50 years later speaks to the impressiveness of their accomplishment.

... and of your memory!