Swiss professional adventurer Mike Horn has ticked off New Zealand’s Queenstown region and the Australian Simpson Desert in his two-year quest to circle the planet via its poles.
Since the Pole2Pole expedition began in Monaco in May 2016, the 51-year-old has used a pair of Mercedes-Benz G-Class wagons to traverse the length of the African continent; then his Mercedes-Benz powered ice-breaking yacht to cross to and from Antarctica.
In between, he became the first human to trek solo and unassisted across the widest section of the icy continent via the South Pole.
He reunited with his vehicles at New Zealand’s southern port city of Dunedin and thoroughly explored the South Island, particularly the rugged and challenging region of Queenstown.
Continuing on his yacht Pangaea to Sydney, he then led an eight-day trek from Birdsville across the demanding expanse of the Simpson Desert, crossing hundreds of dunes to finish within sight of Uluru.
“The Simpson Desert is something I’ve always wanted to do. It is even more beautiful than I ever imagined,” says Horn.
Horn departs Australia this month to continue his arduous Pole2Pole expedition, heading north through Papua New Guinea, South-East Asia, and Russia on the way to trekking solo across the Arctic Circle before his expected completion of the expedition in Monaco in mid-2018.
Horn says he prefers to camp beneath the stars than under a hotel roof, and can subsist for weeks at a time on boil-in-the-bag dehydrated meals.
A long-term alignment with Mercedes-Benz allows Horn to explore in the very vehicle he would choose for himself: the G-Class.
“The G-Class is the perfect tool to make my adventure a bit more human. It enables me to go by road to certain destinations that I used to fly to. That makes my exploration a bit more meaningful,” says Horn.
“Now I can spend time with the local people; I can eat their food and try to communicate with them,” he says.
Equipped with three individual differential locks, a wading depth of 60cm, the Mercedes-Benz G-Class is the vehicle Horn trusts to forge deep into extreme terrains.
The G-Class he uses – with its leather-appointed and heated seats, full Comand infotainment system and a host of comfort and safety systems on board – also counterpoints the often spartan conditions and life- threatening situations that Horn habitually seeks out.
“Sometimes I feel guilty that I have such a good vehicle because I should rough it,” he says.
“A journalist once asked me, ‘do you need the heated seats and the air- conditioning’? I said it’s not so much that I need it, I can live without it, but I think I deserve it. It is the car that I would buy,” says Horn.
