College was privileged to host Mr Andre Bredenkamp for our Reunion Assembly held on Barns’ on Friday. Attended by the whole school, invited guests and some of our old boys, at the assembly, Andre delivered a humble yet inspiring account of his famous summit of Everest.
Andre came to College from Pelham as a day boy, and was placed in Stalkers House, where he recalls some of the memorable events at College being lots of freezing early morning swimming with former headmaster Mr Dudley Forde as the A-Team coach, participating in the first Midmar Mile swim in 1974 and coming in the top 20 places, playing in the 1st ever College Basketball team, and being Stalkers’ House Captain and a Prefect in his final year of 1975.
Currently living in Cape Town, Andre is one of South Africa’s leading high-altitude mountaineers. He is a keen sportsman having completed numerous Duzi canoe marathons and Argus cycle races, as well as having done parachuting and road running, and he has a silver medal for the Comrades marathon.
First introduced to hiking and rock climbing as a Scout whilst at school, Andre has climbed mountains all over the world including the highest mountain in Africa, Mt Kilimanjaro, the 2nd highest, Mt Kenya, and the 3rd highest, Mt Stanley in Uganda. In May 2004 he climbed Mount Everest – approaching the mountain from Tibet in China and became the 4th South African to summit the mountain. He returned again in 2007 and climbed Everest for a second time, but from the Nepal side. He has also climbed the highest mountain on each of the worlds’ seven continents – thus achieving the Seven Summits.
Currently, Andre is the only South African to have climbed Broad Peak (also known as K3) located in the remote Karakorum Mountains of Pakistan. This is the 12th highest peak in the world and is, “Significantly more difficult than Mount Everest”.
Perhaps Andre’s unique record is however, that despite being an amateur climber, he is the only South African to have climbed each of these mountains on his first attempt.
In his Reunion Assembly address, Andre’s message to the boys was a simple yet deeply meaningful one –
Never give up, challenge yourself every day, and always strive to be better than before.
In his honour, the school held a short, informal ceremony upstairs at the Kent Pavilion, at which Andre unveiled a plaque that records his exploits – a tribute to a proud son of Maritzburg College.
