Category: A Beard in the Bushveld
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The old Switch-e-roo
There isn’t much that knocks my ability to just keep going, but life does throw up some curveballs. Due to a global pandemic, volatile and uncertain politics, fickle tourism, extremely corrupt authoroties, a Russian war and the economic knock on effects into every aspect of peoples lives, along with some illegal and unforgivable behavior of…
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This is after all, with all its failings and wonder – Africa.
Just twenty minutes out of the city in any direction, you’ll see some more traditional communities strewn throughout the landscape. Huts and villages filled with underdeveloped African nostalgia. It’s easy to romanticise, but these are the blood cells that keep the African continent pumping; poverty and hardship meets grit and survival. It’s extremely easy to…
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Victoria Falls, Tigers, and Gambling on a Barnet
It’s a normal, but it’s an expensive and slow, procedure. After two and a half hours of frustrating queueing and lazy conversation, with enough paperwork to build a reliable raft to cross the English Channel on, we crept over the border and made it into Zambia. With money for old rope, we found our sky rocket…
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Oh Germany, some road rage, and a schooch
From the south west section of Namibia and Fish River Canyon, in one sentence I’m jumping north east to the Caprivi Strip. This 280 mile-long pan handle, sticks neatly-east out of the side of Namibia and borders at its most easterly end with Zambia. It was created in a way, by some naive Germans in…
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Blog On Pause…again
You may have noticed I haven’t posted in a while. Despite all the adventurous things I tell you about, there’s plenty of work that comes with it all. The updates will begin again soon with all my adventures around Sub-Saharan Africa.
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Liquid Insobriety, a Deserted Spa, and a little History
Located in the south of Namibia, close to the border of South Africa, Fish River Canyon is the largest gash in the African continent, and second only in the world to North America’s Grand. During the colonial era, there was much oppression, genocide and marginalisation in Namibia. The colonial authorities (mainly German) in the south…
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Nobody suspects a pigeon….but flamingoes?
We had driven through four landscapes since we left the giant dunes of Sossusvlei. We ambled leisurely through over 120 kilometres down to the coast. Venturing past mountains of rugged rock, more dusty flat pans as far as the eye could see, raggedy, stoned hills covered in tufts of hardy grass, and sporadic, stoic, shadeless,…
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Why did the one-armed man stab the pigeon-killer in the neck?
Side roads, unfit for any mediocre vehicle, lead to places the mind can’t imagine. It’s why we take them. A trip to Diaz Point! Awaiting us was a dilapidated shack of a cafe, some basic, eerily soulless and empty back-packer-esque dorm rooms which were falling apart, a weather-beaten, crumbling house, and some out-buildings which were…
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Leaving the sheep for some sand castles
Swakopsmund is slightly different to other Nambian towns. It has a certain charm about it being on the ocean. It’s a bit like Weston-Super-Mare, but it’s down with the kids. With plenty of busy holiday accommodation, lovely views, fishing trips out to sea, museums, good coffee shops, easy promenades full of arts and crafts wafting…
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Iconic rocks, OCD nooks and Look! A tree!
Packed around forced-manicured grass; a village of A-framed huts and boxy bungalows are agonisingly, tightly and tidily organised into poured concrete conveniences. All anti-organically strewn around an actually rather difficult place to live in an attempt at human consolidation. It just doesn’t quite feel right. When observing the officious people in Namibia in these OCD…
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Hobbits in the desert & checking out the ladies bathroom
It’s as if hobbits built a tiny second home in the desert, with a nod to being OCD and Christian. The accommodation at the border is possibly the most organised, most clean, most “model-village” that I have come across. It’s like a rather useful, miniature Hobbiton with grass that doesn’t quite belong. Welcome to Germany…
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WARNING: CONTAINS MASSIVE SOLIFUGAE…..but there is also a squirrel and a viking)
From Xade (pronounced Kar-déh), along a road with more sand than Sandy McSand’s sand-filled pockets after a day in the sandpit, we covered only 45 kilometers in an hour. Penelope did well, and as the sun began to set we decided to pitch camp in the wilderness buffer area, well before reaching civilisation in the…
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Awkward Nudists! A civilised cornucopia and Tortoise
After the rains, imagine puddles, wet wood, glistening greenery and frolicking beasts – but only for a short while. The sun reasserts it’s magnificence as fast as I can polish off a bag of salt and vinegar crisps. The Kalahari has a few surprises for us and it’s absolute treat. A spectacle that only happens…
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Mother Nature’s ooze
To a certain degree, the Central Kalahari Game Reserve is now familiar territory. While the weather appears to be so consistent in the CKGR, it is astonishing how different the desert can look and feel after visiting it multiple times. No matter what the conditions, or the wilderness, it always demands total respect. This landscape is…
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Fairytales and massive ears
The fourth morning of traversing through the Kalahari began early. The drive was roughly 200 kilometres through more sand and dust and Piper was to be our next camp to the north. Supposedly, we were travelling through one of the beauty spots of the Kalahari. Deception Valley and the iconic salt pans that are a common…
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A shocking privilege
Arriving at the Kutse gate of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve is somewhat of a relief. It’s been an intrepid drive of excitement and expectation, but what’s ahead is what we’ve come for. The drive is about to be left behind and the expedition and task is ahead. Very quickly it becomes apparent that the…
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To the Dessert! With rabies in the moonlight
Jumping back to Botswana, it has been a couple of days drive to reach, in my opinion, the last untouched wilderness on solid ground: The Kalahari dessert…. And it is, the absolute pinnacle of Pavlovas, a stuffed-strudel of a sequel after roaming through the melodramatic peripheral-wilds. It’s a bucket of creme brûlée (my favourite of…
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We Play God
North of Johannesburg is an area famous for a few hot springs. It’s a local tourism hot-spot and nearby is a group of game reserves, holiday accommodations and “wilderness” areas for the creature-comfort-loving nature viewer. It is commercial – with dozens of guides and rangers in each reserve all driving around in well-used vehicles, showing…
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Cocksure expectation & the undeniably strong fragrance of clumsiness
We had just crossed over into Botswana….but these tales are going to jump around, Kris Kross-style, through Southern Africa. I’ve now spent quite a bit of time between Johannesburg, Cape Town and down to Cape L’Agulhas (the most southern tip of the continent), up the Western Cape to the border with Namibia, and a very…
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Riddling hold-ups, 90’s reggae, and some slightly damaged chicken
“Swift” would be a huge overstatement – my passport was even stamped twice (presumably by mistake) as I passed through immigration, but even for the exceptionally efficient, marginally friendly and super-officious Botswana border, it was pain-free and hospitable. We make it out of South Africa without any issues and into new territory. Although crossing over…
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A Bangarang!
Deciding to avoid discussing clients and guests of Go Untamed, doesn’t mean I’m extending the same luxury to my business partner! We’ll suffer together… Bjorn might remind me regularly that what goes on in the bush, stays in the bush….but not for this writer, apparently. Just like running a business in Malawi; it’s never dull.…
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Beard: Back in the Bushveld!
I grew the beard… then chopped back. I have also been getting stuck into and enjoying some pretty hectic lifestyle choices. To keep a long story short, with the help of my recent African expedition partner (Bjorn) we officially set up Go Untamed (www.gountamed.com). Based in Malawi, our business offers wilderness experiences and safaris; bespoke…
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Blog On Pause…
Pausing the blog updates for a little while. All these travels have turned into work, and I’m loving it. The updates will begin again soon with all my adventures around Sub-Saharan Africa. Watch this space…
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