Holgate – SA's modern day adventurer – last week took the wraps off his latest journey, the 'African Rainbow Expedition', which will see him and his team travel from Durban, through Mozambique and Tanzania, to the Kenya-Somali border, providing malaria nets and education about the disease to affected villages.

The 'Africa Rainbow Expedition' will be the latest feat of the man who, along with his wife Gill and son Ross, has criss-crossed Africa in the footsteps of Dr Livingstone, circumnavigated the globe following the Tropic of Capricorn and travelled along the gruelling rivers of Africa from Cape to Cairo.

His latest expedition will visit villages near the mouths of the Rovuma, Rifiji, Pangani and Tana rivers, as well as on the islands off the east African coast such as Zanzibar, Ibo and Mafia. Sailing in a hand-carved dhow similar to those by Arab traders hundreds of years ago, Holgate's mission is to distribute life-saving malaria nets, information leaflets and anti-malaria products and to teach local villagers how to protect themselves against a disease that kills millions of people each year.

Through his travels, which are sponsored by Captain Morgan Black Label, Kingsley, who has had malaria nearly 40 times, has witnessed the horrors of malaria in Africa first–hand.

"Aids gets the limelight, but a person dies every minute of every day from malaria," says Holgate. "Despite good work by aid agencies like US Aid and the Bill Gates Foundation many people affected by malaria still do not have the most basic of preventative measures such as malaria nets."

Health workers who can speak the local language will accompany the team on each leg of the journey, so that the team can "provide not just nets, but education as well, which will be just as valuable as the nets." Women and children will be particularly targeted, as they are the most vulnerable to the disease and, because of poverty, their infections most often result in death.

Holgate whose incredible travels have been featured on TV networks around the world and who has written books on his journeys says “this expedition is not only about me following my dream in the spirit of adventure but a ‘do good’ mission in helping to prevent malaria."