SAANICH, B.C. — After he embarked on his first road trip across Canada and the U.S., Seth Scott dreamed of doing a dynamic drive that nobody had done before. “Finding out that nobody had ever driven the length of Africa in a three-wheeler really stuck with us,” Seth says. So, Scott (who lives in Canada) and his friend Oliver Jenks (who lives in England) decided to try to drive from London to Cape Town in a three-wheeled Reliant Robin. “They’ve kind of become the butt of the joke all around the world for being terrible at being a car,” Seth smiles. So, Oliver gave the vehicle a wonderful name — Sheila. “It kinda rhymes with three wheelah,” Scott laughs. The friends also set three goals: break a world record, document the drive on social media and fundraise for a charity that helps send the poorest kids in Africa to school. “You realize how difficult things can be and how lucky you are,” Scott says. “And how happy people can be in different circumstances.” Which is why, when countless things went wrong — like when Seth and Oliver suffered debilitating food poisoning, or Sheila’s axel broke, transmission died and engine blew up — they chose to focus on the countless things that went right. “We met a lot of incredible people and saw a lot of fantastic and beautiful things,” Scott says before showing pictures of helpful strangers, majestic animals and breath-taking scenery. “There is something special about Africa that will forever have a place in my heart.” And then — after travelling across 20 countries in 4 months — Scott and Oliver found out they’d raised $24,000 for charity, and after driving 25,000 kilometres, discovered Sheila helped them break the world record for longest journey in a three-wheeled vehicle. “It’s still hard to fathom that we actually accomplished it,” Scott says. But they did. And now that Seth is back home in his four-wheel vehicle—“It’s a Kia Rondo so we call it Rhonda”—he hopes you’ll also be inspired to overcome every obstacle on the road to realizing your dreams. “Go on that adventure. Go on that trip. You don’t need that $100,000 4x4 to do something,” Scott smiles. “You just need that drive and that motivation.” And if like Sheila, you can transform yourself from the butt of jokes into the heroine of an epic underdog story, all the better.
