Tag: Camping
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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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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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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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Life’s a Beach, with a few owls and some fly burgers
The project to kayak along some of the lake shore of Mozambique has sadly been put on hold – due to the kayaks not arriving from South Africa. We’re closing in on mango season; the unpredictable storms and heavy rains wouldn’t help our efforts. Attempting the expedition for three weeks on canoes made by digging…
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Crocodiles, Music, and a Sorry Sanctuary
I just needed to man up! Whatever I had last night was not malaria. A decent breakfast and a swim in some, apparently crocodile-friendly waters and I am fine. This area of the lake is busy with crocodile. Friends of ours who travelled here with us last night went for a morning walk and reported seeing a small…
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Something to do with a drunk captain…
Something to do with a drunk captain…or at least an extended stop while he visits his mistress(es) – of this I have absolutely no evidence other than everyone talking about it on the ferry like its yesterday’s news. Whatever the reason (I’m blaming mistress number three) the boat is, as usual, delayed. Following a very…
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Where Elephants Once Ruled
On the beach at Ruarwe, along with hundreds of other folk, we loaded our belongings into the rickety boats that realistically in the west would have carried a quota of about 15 folk. We’ve managed to stuff about 40 people on each craft including all manner of bags and suitcases, potato sacks, fish, goats, chickens, and a solar panel…
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Chiefly Politics and Recovery
I would love to say that like my two malaria muppets and the infected leg bandit, that my next few days were a smoke-free, alcohol-free resuscitation period, but I’d be lying. While the chaps have been recovering from their horrid ailments, I have spent the days gargling salty water, popping ibuprofen, rehydrating with powders that…
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Fatal mistakes, losing your jaw in the night….and Roy Hodgson
Baboons kept me awake all night (as well as trying to sleep in the hammock). Hackling, coughing and grunting to each other around the forest floor, it must be a social serenade to them. Shouting in the dark; probably making each other aware of the nearby dangers, they’re quite arrogant in their anti-neighbour behaviour. We…
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Malaria
Bjorn woke up this morning with what he thought was a mild hangover, but quickly within an hour, announced he had malaria. It comes on fast, especially when you’re in somewhat uncomfortable and hot surroundings. Naturally, the young paratrooper was keen to mock and inform Bjorn that he just can’t handle a few shots from the…
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Backpacking Spooners….and Charlie
Charlie was a young Berkshire boy who lost himself backpacking in Malawi over eighteen years ago – back when most of the lakeshore was wild and when backpackers didn’t expect to be lazily-spoon-fed all the secrets that an area has to offer. Queue sweeping statements and controversy…. Having come across a lot of modern backpackers…
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A corpse, a lot of blood, and a Chelsea smile
Back down the river in the bush north of Ruarwe, we found a new splotch of blood on a large rock by the river. This time, it wasn’t from the floods that came spurting out of my finger. Apart from my unfortunate digit, I haven’t called for the medic for many weeks now! On the…
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Perfect for a paddle…and a few cannonballs
As far as we know, and as far as we like to guess, no human has travelled up this river valley since the mid 19th Century. We assume there was some exploration at the time of slavery, and it may even have been used as a route to escape the lakeshore horrors. There really is…
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Look what we found! …and a Side Stabbing Snake
Tasting with their feet, an abundant and colourful butterfly population are constantly around us as we expedite up the river. Green water snakes hunt fish, spiders cast their webs as sails to catch the wind and transport themselves hundreds of miles, the rare blue-faced monkeys that live here (which actually have a red tint in…
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Leopards, Crabs, and Unknown Poison
Last night, Matt cooked dinner. As he picked up some kindling to move it onto the fire, he was bitten or stung by an unknown creepy crawly. A regular occurrence in the wild if you’re not paying a lot of attention. Losing feeling in his hand and with the numbness spreading up his arm, he…
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A thirst-quenching cauldron full of vivid hallucinogens
Sleeping in a hammock is rather good for keeping you off the jungle floor, if you can sleep! It’s perfect for catching a few winks, but to sleep through the muggy night is rather like trying to sleep in a kitchen drawer as someone is trying to close it shut, while at the same time an electric…
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Miniature-stealth scorpions and Schwarzeneaggar-esque Jiminey crickets…
Miniature-stealth scorpions and Schwarzeneaggar-esque Jiminey crickets, hypnotic millipedes and flesh-piercing ants. Nothing in the bush is ever bug proof and whether it be stabbing you with a sting, munching through your skin, shooting some kind of acid onto your skin from its arse or mouth, latching onto your urethra when you pop for a piss,…
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Truly into the wild, and lying to my mother about it…
There is no point in comparing the bush experience we had in Kasungu, near the Zambia border, to what we are enjoying on the northern lake tributary. For one, we’re not concerned about armed poachers. We’re not being naive; we’ll be extremely surprised to find evidence of them here. There should be no elephant as it’s…
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Some more controversy for you…
Before disappearing up a watery gash in the landscape to explore where one of the northern rivers flows into Lake Malawi, we catch our breath and take a chance to soak up some of the scenery near Ruarwe. The village is a typical, lake-shore place. It’s dusty, full of brick buildings with straw roofs. A…
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Hangovers, Goats, and some Freekin Ice!
Leaving over two hours later than scheduled, the “local” boat, as its referred to, took over eleven hours to carry us to Ruarwe at the north end of Lake Malawi. If Tom Jones were here, I’d be embarrassed to report that it’s not unusual (I promise the jokes don’t get any worse). It may be…
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Food…and drugs…and drunk fishermen…
Before we reached the lion’s den we passed Malawi’s largest farmed area of rubber trees. Tapped, much like maple trees for their syrup, the rubber trees contribute to a healthy list of Malawian exports. The processing plant is a privatised, Indian-run establishment and looks like a sturdy and huge, dust-covered corrugated fort. I imagine it’s…
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Barbecuing Beer, Intelligent Pigeons and Chuck Norris…
At last! You say. This one isn’t about how terrible humans are to the unfortunate wildlings. I had goaded one of the more social park rangers to join us for a game of shot glass-battleships. It can’t all be elephants and heffalumps when in a colonial-style lodge! After our ranger had energetically announced that together,…
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Marrying Sharron…
Compared to a few other nations on the continent, Malawi has remained relatively peaceful. Even through the historically volatile and ongoing trials of Southern Africa, the people here remain extremely welcoming and friendly. Understanding life in places such as Malawi is one aspect to my travels. Ultimately though, sharing my experiences and hoping to bring…
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Mobile cash machines in a war zone
Life isn’t all covert operations, investigations into convolutions or apprehending unfortunate forest folk. In truth, as much as I enjoy and appreciate the experiences to understand what “protected wilderness” is, making the much required military-style efforts part of my adventurous lifestyle isn’t MY desired calling. It is however, why these parks are called PROTECTED. It…
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Should we accept a sad fate?
Six months ago, the village we found yesterday, where we apprehended a man, was burned to the ground and returned to the wild. We saw remnants of scorched earth, charcoaled shacks and blackened beams as we stealthily operated under the sparse forest canopy. The people living in the park are doing so illegally. There is…
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Jealous of my lifestyle? Read this one
Three sounds concerned me as I tried to fall asleep in the Kasungu bush. One, chickens. They shouldn’t be here. Two, gunshots. They weren’t for the chickens. And three, the sound of snoring. Nobody needs to hear that, especially any encroachers with their weapons. It’s also as hot a sauna, and I don’t fancy being…
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Hopefully, without getting shot…
Hopefully, without getting shot, stabbed, sliced with a machete or even just damaged by anything in the bush…. After an early start to pack our bags with appropriate and thoroughly checked equipment, we had to wait a few extra hours for the ranger to show up. Here, timekeeping is a rare skill and even if…
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Kasungu National Park
While at the triathlon in Cape Maclear, and through no late night liquid coercion, Bjorn and I accepted a welcoming invite from Matteau, Remi and Leonie to visit them in Kasungu National Park. Matteau currently runs the volunteer anti poaching unit, operating with the permission of the government and the Malawian department of national parks.…
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It was a success…. Nobody died!
Beyond the point of relaxation and drifting into a tired trance, I managed to stay up for another thirteen hours after a fifty hour+ sleepless journey from the U.S. to Cape Maclear. Helping my new friends, we made sure the bar had little left and I finally gave in to my pillow of dreams and…
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Just missing that haunting, panpipe-style, ding ding…
I’m normally a morning person, and here in Cape MacClear waking up isn’t too much of a problem. The natural sounds of the village children (not a Village People spin off band) resonate around the lakeshore and invade the ears like touring musical mice whistling into megaphones on a carnival float. Come 7am there’s normally…
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Skip this opportunity? Don’t be silly!
Outside of Lilongwe (Malawi’s capital) it’s hard not to feel like I’m in a remote place compared to the western world I’ve just left behind. The countryside vistas vary as we drive around the mid country; seemingly stereotypical, grass-roofed African villages are located everywhere with the occasional aluminium shelter shining in the sun. The dry,…
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Nobody ever accomplished anything alone…
Just before the end of my adventure across the United States in 2014, seemingly impressed by my intrepid spirit and wordsmithing, I received an email from a man I had briefly met a few years earlier. He requested I help him complete a couple of expeditions and begin some projects in some remote and relatively…
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Malawi: Africa’s Warm Heart
The last you saw of me was when I left Portland, OR. They even had a new carpet in the airport! Time to let you all know what in the world I’ve been up to on the African continent. Malawi to be precise. Strewn all over the editing table, my notes and tidbits are on…
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Survival on Arrival
After a fifty hour journey to Lilongwe, I didn’t know what to expect when I arrived. I had emailed my contact, without response six days prior and said that hopefully I would be on time. I only lost one item of luggage between the four flights (unnerving considering I only took two)! It could…
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The End…with Malawi in sight
Some people asked me to compare last year’s trip across North America, to this year’s. I won’t, purely because they were completely different and as I continue on this nomadic lifestyle choice, it’s not about the comparison, but about living one adventure to the next. Filling life with experiences and not materialistic goods. Last year…
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Finally!!!!
KP sends me this photo while we’re having a week or so apart. He’s sent them to a better place. About time! Spending the trip with KP wasn’t anywhere near as bad as spending it with his shoes!
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My last morning in Alaska
The concerning wait for a ferry which hasn’t arrived yet, after being delayed for three days has been frustrating. It’s also been threatening and frightful while in the woods. Filled with another adventure’s worth of memories and scenes in the back of my melancholic mind, played out on a highlight reel in sepia as the…
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Stranded in storms and falling trees
As relaxing as the woods can be, they’re also a little nerve racking when some heavy storms are forecast and you’re sleeping amongst tall trees. It’s calm but building. Cautiously welcome, the eery winds through the forest feel like they’re bringing something. The overhead gushes and howls in the canopy drown out the rains and…
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Maliciously attacked by a schizophrenic French floozy
While in Moab last year, I didn’t meet a new friend called Shareena. Drinking a beer at the end of a Utah bar, alone, her rainbow coloured hair cascaded across her cheeky face. She wasn’t too difficult to miss. Shareena had previously found my blog and recognised me from it. Maybe a little nervous (or…
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Life is a holiday, not only two weeks a year
This morning three cruise ships docked downtown and Broadway was bombarded with over 10,000 visitors. A few hundred people live here year round and varied reports average around 2000 in the summer months to cope with the tourism. Like many other towns around Alaska, it survives solely because of cruise ship traffic, much of which…
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Love shack & some morning wood.
I was bound to talk about love at some point… Conveniently, a friend in Skagway, where my ferry will sail from, tossed me an invitation to visit. New friendships across the U.S. erupted while I was on last year’s epic adventure, but this trip has been different for me. I have not been travelling alone…
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I need a Bear & a Tlingit
The ride south to Skagway and back into Alaska takes you over the Alaska Range. A little over a century ago, stampeders hiked from the fjords of Skagway and Dyea, up over the White Pass to seek their fortunes further north. It took them at least three days. We drove further from Carcross in Canada,…
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Loudly banging back into Canada
The recent conditions on the Alaska highway have opened up the crack in the windscreen to one mighty, three foot gash. Today’s drive has also taken its toll on the suspension as one of the airbags under the chassis seems to have popped. It’s left us with some damaged metal work and we’re loudly banging…
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Being off grid isn’t always pretty
Even though it’s just a bus stop for the cruise ship companies, a train depot for those riding up through the Yukon from a southern port, a commercial coffee stop and a destination of only a couple dozen buildings for tourists to spend a pretty dollar, Carcross seems to be thriving. There is a restaurant…
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Humans are magpies (Atlin)
Ironically, on the first day since the adventure began which I haven’t worn my sunglasses, I’ve indulged in ice cream. I added rum. I think it was a mini celebration for completing the entire length of the Alaska highway (returning to it for the section we missed by veering north to drive to Inuvik). KP’s…
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A Defiantly-Wild, Bear-Guarded Mine (Kennecott)
Usually in the U.S. visiting a national park is an experience of managed wilderness – accessible to all – but while slowly being restored, the Kennecott Mine in Wrangell St Elias is more like wandering around a historical National Trust building in Britain, that hasn’t yet been brought back to life. In comparison to most…
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An unruffled Madam with a big bottom
Following our trip through the Whittier tunnel, and after a quick stop in the tiny town of Hope on the Turnagain Arm to bag myself a few salmon on the fly, we enjoyed a day trip in Valdez. Seeing the end of the Alaska Pipeline, we’ve covered its entire length, and by doing so gone…
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Whittier: Cold War Weirdo
The American outback, the boondocks, nestled in the sticks, appears barely operational. There’s evidence of gigantic agricultural farms operating in the lower 48, but prominent cities and towns built on a boom are now ghosts, stowed away in fields or mountains, at the end of a track, normally with a rickety disused railroad running to…
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Private moments in the bush…
Private Moment Home Spit About to leave the Kenai Peninsular. Some people suggested I make this a tradition…Sorry to the rest of you.
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If the Kenai Peninsular was a box of chocolates…
If the Kenai Peninsular was a box of chocolates, it would probably be one of those industrial sized boxes of Quality Street that you get at Christmas, to fatten grandma up so she doesn’t steal all the goose. A pretty big box and full of variety. Picking through them, choosing what you fancy is a…
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Pensioners Pensioners Pensioners…
Dithers Complainahan (he has a new nickname) has been trying to figure out why, in the last handful of years, he has repeatedly befriended troubled men in their early 30’s. Myself obviously excluded…he isn’t aware that I’m troubled. I try to encouraged him to not over think things like this, but it’s like trying to…
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A Polar Bear Garden
In 1867, William H. Seward (Secretary of State at the time under Abraham Lincoln), bought Alaska from Russia. There had been some earlier negotiations to sell the region to their main regional rival (Britain), but in a bid to weaken the British power in North America, the Tsar pushed for an American purchase. British Columbia…
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Seward
On the south coast, the port of Seward is small and mainly provides alighting for cruise ship passengers to be then transported over land to inland destinations such as Denali National Park. Tourists, it would seem, love a bus, yet I couldn’t think of a worse way to spend my time. The commercialisation around Seward…
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Splendid! South of Anchorage.
I reached Anchorage! Technically it was going to be the end of my planned trip but as usual, I’m not stopping yet. Alaska is vast, and I haven’t even scratched the surface. We drove through Anchorage in rush hour in a rain storm. Here’s a view of the cook inlet – a coastal spot off…
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Into the Wild?
“The best beer I’ve tasted this side of the Rockies” that’s me, quoting myself. The 49th State Brewery, just off Parks Highway in Healy (north of Denali National Park and Preserve) was good enough to check twice, and just to confirm my thoughts, a third time in as many days. If you enjoy beer, you…
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Graham eats Molly. Stan takes one for the team!
Three wolves, countless bear, numerous moose, a curious arctic fox, eagle hoards, awkward stalks, migrating swans and geese, territorial osprey and various regal raptors, botherless bison, wolverine, tasty fish, elk, owls, beaver, all the colours of squirrel, porcupine, ptarmigan, mink, chipmunks, pika, ground hogs, ground squirrels, prairie dogs, stone sheep, deer, muskrat, turtles, beastly leeches…
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My dithering pensioner and I disagree a lot
My dithering pensioner and I disagree a lot. We’re extremely good at it. Naturally, our opposing political views are cause for regular debate, but we agree and disagree on probably an equal split. Appreciating and having patience over our differences rather than condemning them, and being able to argue freely, explains both our spats and…
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Leeches! Driving! Glaciers! (videos in Denali)
Speechless Views I caught a Leech. Brilliant! My favourite driving
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Like a drunk spider, trying to climb out of a bathtub…
Clearly a blogging mix up in the last post, written by either a randy drunk or a lethargic halucenogenist. A cup of tea and a hearty breakfast sorts any Englishman out. Travelling 136 miles east from Cantwell, the Denali Highway is 90% unpaved and climbs into and along the mountains of the Central Alaska Range.…
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If you’re only going to read one update….why not make it the weird, sexually frustrated one? It has My Little Pony in it…
We had our sights set on Denali for the mountainous scenery, the remote wildlife, the promise of expansive, lush landscape, and well, now that we’re here: Beer. The drive from Fairbanks to find a campsite in Denali is only a few hundred miles, but when you stop at the rather rustic and tasty 49th State…
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Civilised trimmings & techno Grumpiness
Roughly two months into the trip, and before leaving Fairbanks, we stayed a night in a hotel for the first time. You may think it was a luxury, an indulgence after completing the Dempster, or a miniature celebration on entering the U.S. again. It could be viewed as a civilised respite from the cramped living…
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Some attractive mature nudists
The drive south on the Dalton Highway was infinitely more interesting and enjoyable than heading north. Not only was the mosquito population higher toward the north end of the road – not past the sublime and lush north slope as it descends towards the chilling ocean – but the smoke had cleared from the Brooks…
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You may need some lubrication…
The strangest, unpleasant, oddly informative and most numbing feelings I have ever had as a tourist. The shuttle bus escorted a handful of curious people through the oil drilling facilities, and along 26 miles of badly maintained and bumpy gravel road to the Arctic Ocean. We received a brief description of what was going on,…
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Hoth does exist on Earth
A few dozen miles into the Arctic Circle lies the place where Luke Skywalker ventured out on his tauntaun… Beyond the first 300 miles of the Dalton Highway, seeing virtually no wildlife, as well as endless miles of wilderness-covering smoke, we began to see stretches of scenery north of the Brooks Mountain Range. A few…
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Almost at the Arctic Ocean (videos)
In the photo: I started at the small red dot and travelled on the blue line. I’m now at the large one on the north coast. Few updates on Deadhorse, Prudhoe Bay and the road south on their way.. Morning Update on the Dalton Still on the Dalton Almost at the Arctic…
Not a Travel Blog 