Great 20th Anniversary Trek – Final Blog – The Garden Route Children's Trust

We’re off on our 2026 virtual cycle/walk/run challenge!

Week 8 progress update from
Speedy Springbok …

Hello trekkers, I hope that you have had a good break and that you are ready for the final and fairly gentle last stretch – a mere 50 km, which should be easy now that you are at peak fitness! Still, make sure that you stay hydrated because it can get hot inland!

Our first stop will be Missionvale Care Centre, located in the township of Missionvale, now part of Port Elizabeth. It was founded under a tree in 1988 by Sister Ethel, an inspirational Irish nun with boundless energy and a heart for the desperately poor. It has evolved from nothing to a complex with a primary school, a medical facility, a creche, a training centre with an industrial kitchen, a large vegetable garden and number of counselling rooms. Its “purpose is to play a key role in building up the individuals, families and the community, through key initiatives guided by their values”. It is a truly remarkable story – if you want to be inspired and encouraged, click on Missionvale Care Centre . We provide e’Pap breakfasts for all the children in the primary school, about 200 in total, as well as sandwiches and juice for their after-school club, which is a haven for children in the community, whether or not they come to the school in the Centre.

Now it is on to Despatch, which is a relatively new town established to provide maintenance services for the South African Railways. Much of that has disappeared so it too is badly affected by unemployment and poverty, with drugs and gangs being a particular problem. The GRCT partner is the Eendrag Dutch Reformed Church, led by Arrie Preller, who works closely with a remarkable woman, Jacky Daniels, in the Daleview township. There is no preschool so the under 6s roam the streets during the day with nothing to do.

From her modest home Jacky, who is over 60 years of age, provides e’Pap for about 130 children and 20 desperately poor pensioners a few days a week and home cooked stew on the other days. The pictures below capture what it is like.

The end of your great adventure is approaching – only another 50 km to go before we come to the town of Addo in the middle of the Sunday River Valley, renowned for its oranges, which are exported all over the world. Here too the townships continue to expand as people come to look for work on the citrus farms. They include quite a large number of illegal immigrants and this has drawn an angry response from local residents, who feel that their livelihoods are being threatened (a familiar story in many countries around the world). In the middle of one of the townships there is an oasis, the Place of Mercy and Hope, which is not unlike Missionvale Care Centre. It was founded by the Sisters of Mercy, a Catholic order in the UK and Sister Breda and Sister Martha, who came out from the UK some years ago to head it up, work tirelessly and fearlessly to provide preschool education, medical care and social support for the local community.

The GRCT funds e’Pap breakfasts for about 250 preschool children most of whom arrive at school hungry. The Centre is extremely well run with alumni of various Marist Brothers schools filling key roles in finance and administration and providing other services (all on a voluntary basis).

We have come to the end of the trek but don’t leave Addo without visiting the Elephant Park, where you are guaranteed to see elephants and probably wildebeest, giraffe, zebra, buffalo, warthog and many of my relatives – kudu, eland, duiker, impala – and even, if you are lucky, lions.

I hope that you have had a great time. Thank you for your participation. You have been a wonderful group and through your generosity you have helped the GRCT sustain its important mission – to help educate and feed South African children in need.

Hamba kakulhe/totsiens/goodbye from your friend and guide, Speedy Springbok.