From Lake Eyre to Mt Kosciuszko, artist and adventurer Daniel Kojta has a bold plan to test the limits of his endurance.
With four disabled friends, the 47-year-old Wentworth Falls paraplegic will use a hand-trike to ride from the lowest point in Australia at Lake Eyre, to the highest at Mt Kosciuszko – 2228 metres above sea level and a journey of 2100 kilometres.
It will be the first time anyone has attempted such a journey, disabled or able-bodied.
“I’ve always been someone who enjoyed a great adventure, I’ve done a lot of travelling,” Mr Kojta said.
Mr Kojta “has had a full-on geographic connection with the Blue Mountains” and has lived here for 15 years, following a workplace accident which left him unable to walk.
The September expedition, which is being supported by World Expeditions, will take at least six weeks to complete, travelling about 50 kilometres a day.
The group will make a documentary of their journey and co-operate to ensure everyone is able to go beyond their usual boundaries.
Mr Kojta will be joined by well known adventurer Paul Pritchard, who has already been the subject of another film after he finished a climbing trip up Tasmania’s Totem Pole, where he had years earlier suffered serious head and other injuries to the right side of his body. It was recently selected at the Banff Mountain Film Festival.
“Paul got in contact with me after he saw a photo of me online [hanging off Dog Face cliff in Katoomba in a wheelchair].
“It will be one of the hardest things I have had to do.
“I’m attracted to it because of the challenge, the reward I get from doing that level of challenge [which] takes you through a personal journey with people really close to you.”
The adventurer will train for the event by doing laps of Catalina Park in Katoomba.
”Everything I do is challenging that notion of inability. I used to have [the message] on the back of my chair ‘the only disability is the inability to perceive ability’,” he said.
Mr Kotja will be joined by another Mountains adventurer, Conrad Wainsboroug, who will manage the safety aspects of the trip.
Mr Pritchard said: “Through the film we will demonstrate how our disability does not define who we are and how co-operation makes us (everyone) whole.”
Mr Kotja is raising funds for a specialist handcycle for the off-road sections of the expedition.
To help Mr Kojta buy his chair go to: https://www.gofundme.com/4wd-wheelchair-fund-for-expedition?u=15252654
He needs $14,000 to pay for the chair.
