As a life skill, navigation is important. Being able to find your way around is good. Before you move, you orient yourself and understand where you are, so you can figure out where to go. Then… you move. At the Defender Trophy, this skill is even more paramount. You find the triangle on the map. You establish where you are in relation to it and other things. Only then do you decide where you’re going.
That lesson, delivered bluntly, repeatedly, and mostly in bad weather, was the first real takeaway from the inaugural Defender Trophy media experience. And it’s probably the most fitting metaphor for what the modern Defender Trophy really represents.
The Defender Trophy’s roots trace back to the mythic era of the Camel Trophy in the 1980’s. The Camel Trophy was less a race and more a rite of passage. Jungle crossings, winches screaming under strain, Defenders sliding where maps simply stopped. To this day, there’s a sense in me that the original Trophy was what real men and women were made of. But the rebooted Defender Trophy isn’t simply about reliving that aesthetic or legend. It’s about recalibrating the compass, so to speak, taking some of the original’s nuances and modernising them.
Today, the event is aligned with Tusk, an organisation that has helped protect more than 70 million hectares of land and safeguard over 40 threatened species across Africa. That partnership matters. It matters to Jaguar Land Rover, and it matters to South Africa. That perspective reframes the hardship that I experienced. The rope bridges, the knot-tying drills, the river crossings in sideways rain weren’t just tests of grit for me. They were symbolic of what happens when capability is applied with positive intent. What you get out of that is a better tomorrow.
Mark Collins is a South African ex-Defender Trophy competitor and Adventure Expedition Racer. JLR has hauled him in to lead this new Defender Trophy charge, and what better man to do it? He has walked the walk before he learned to talk the talk. He has competed in the most unforgiving places on Earth, bagging silverware along the way, doing the unthinkable. For a large part of his life, the Camel Trophy was his holy grail, his absolute mission, and I recall his almost maniacal compulsion just to be selected to compete for his country on the world stage. Mark, together with his wife and daughter, both of whom are also Expedition Racers, has put together our itinerary for the next few days. They’ve termed it a ‘lighter version of what contestants go through’, but they set the tone quite early on. “This isn’t about speed. It’s about resilience and grit.” Somewhere in there, I heard the word “pain”.
Layered into the theatre of our introduction was a fleet of new 2026 Defender 110 Trophy Edition vehicles finished in their new signature Sand Glow Yellow. The colour scheme and specification are a deliberate nod to heritage, powered by the D350 and riding on air suspension with the full off-road pack. They wore Explorer-derived hardware: raised air intakes, ladders, expedition roof racks, side-mounted gear carriers and 20-inch alloys. Inside, a 13-inch display and refreshed detailing remind you this is modern architecture beneath the soon-to-arrive mud.
After some bootcamping that included basic navigation and compass-reading practice, we moved to basic rope handling and serious knot tying. I had no idea. This wasn’t the stuff they taught in scouts. One wrong knot, one mistimed move, and you could break a limb or wreck a car.
Heading to our base camp, we hopped into a Defender Trophy armed with navigation clues and hope. We arrived in the end, as the most spectacular storm struck down into the earth all around us and as sunset fought for its own visual glory on the horizon. The storm, against a fiery sunset, was perhaps the most telling metaphor of the challenge. Through the pain, we hoped to see some beauty. The rain drenched the farmland that would be our home for the next two nights. So much so that from the moment we entered the gates, the Defender’s 4×4 capabilities were called into question. Into the muck we went, not really knowing where the end was, even as darkness fell and the snaking lights of the group kept trudging deeper and deeper into the unknown. Spirits remained high. We were heading to our campsite, and the promise of a hot meal and a shower was a positive image until we heard the most hope-sapping news on the radio. A farm tractor had lost its way and become stuck along the one single track route that ran parallel to the stream. This hunk of a tractor was the thing separating us from a hot meal and a shower. It was 21h30. We sat parked up under a black sky. The terrain was unforgiving. The weather was worse. Our only option? Build a bridge across the stream using the rope and logs that just happened to be there. This was no accident. The real game was upon us.
There’s something that happens when a team of people has to deal with something challenging. You roll up your sleeves, and you get involved. All of those knot-tying skills were truly put to the test as we built a genuine bridge that we laid across the flowing stream for six Defenders to cross very carefully. The result? Success. But it was gruelling. It was very late in the evening when we actually got to our campsite. There was a hot meal and a hot shower. But we were so beat that those things that seemed like niceties just a few hours ago, had dropped down the order of need, instead replaced by a deep longing for a blanket, pillow and a place to lay our heads. Not even my mud-caked shoes or mud-smeared face mattered. I fell asleep the moment my head hit the pillow.
The next day, we’re up at the crack of dawn to take on a new series of challenges. From physical challenges that spike our heart rates to incredibly complex driving challenges that test our team spirit and communication skills, this supposed ‘light’ version of Trophy is not light on any of us. I never imagined that I would be climbing ropes, driving cars through mazes of poles, and even paddling through a reed-clustered dam to find hidden underwater buoys, found through compass-reading and navigation techniques, all the while with my fellow contestant’s butt in my face. We laugh about it now, but in the moment, we were fully focused on finishing the challenge.
We camped in storms. Built load-bearing structures with hands that had long since lost dexterity. Fought through mud and clay thick enough to swallow boots whole, all under the watchful eyes of a formidable team of instructors and safety peeps from JLR. Even the medics were in on the act. On medical standby, of course, ensuring that the experience never tipped into recklessness, but making sure that it danced with enough discomfort often enough for it to feel real.
Somewhere along the way, we built some owl boxes that we then pitched in strategic places around the farm. This was a timely reminder of the substance behind what JLR is doing with the Trophy: to make the world a better place. And hovering over the entire experience was the quiet gravity of men who know a lot more about this than I do. Kingsley and Ross Holgate, whose 25-year association with Land Rover has been defined not by competition but by humanitarian purpose, were there as we crossed the finish line, drenched in muck and dam water. They were there to congratulate us, laugh with and at us, and remind us of why we were there in the first place. Their missions over the last few decades are nothing short of miraculous to so many across the African continent. Their malaria prevention campaigns. Their mosquito net distribution, their journeys through every country in Africa. Kingsley once joked about entering Australia with 1.5kg of African mud and 13 species of insects still clinging to the vehicle. He’s a laugh-a-minute when you’re privileged enough to sit and hear his adventurous tales, but behind the humour lies a deep commitment to humanity and a deep love for Mama Africa. Their expeditions weren’t about conquering terrain. They were about serving communities.
With Tusk, this competition is doing the same. That’s the important pivot the Defender Trophy is making. From conquest to contribution. From adventure as a spectacle to adventure as service.
Through it all, we always came back to the Defender. It was our place of peace. The Defender was the one constant. The gift that never quit, never bottomed out, never failed. With its waterproof covers fitted for this very purpose, it was the one place I felt completely accepted and completely confident that we’d get to wherever the next bout of pain would come from. That turbodiesel is excellent for the open road as well as the harsh realities of off-roading. 257kW and 700Nm of torque make for a very usable all-rounder, finished with a trusted Pivi Pro on-board system that takes all of the guesswork out of tackling tough terrain. The Sand Glow Yellow contrasting with the black panels is a popular colour scheme, but I’m more a fan of the other Trophy signature colour, the Keswick Green finish. It’s more subtle, and that’s how I’d opt for mine.
Later this year, the global finale returns to Africa. Not coincidentally. This continent is both the Defender’s proving ground and its moral compass. Contestants from 75 countries will descend upon the southern tip of the continent to compete in the global final. South Africa’s two contestants have already earned their place to represent the country, having taken part and won our local Defender Trophy Challenge. If our little version of it was anything to go by, I can only heap praise on them. It’s one of the most demanding things I’ve done in a while. Mentally, physically and even emotionally. And despite all that, it’s up there with one of the most special things I’ve done too. Challenges like this force you to take stock of the people around you, the landscape around you and the possibilities that lie in both.
So as you ponder your next adventure, here’s a tip I learned from the new Defender Trophy. First, orient yourself. Then move.
