Tag: walkabout
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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…
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The Dalton Highway
There are three seasons in Alaska – Autumn, Winter, and; If the ground isn’t frozen, and if there isn’t a white out causing everyone to stay indoors for a few days (common at the north end of the Dalton Highway), it’s Road Maintenance season. When you think of a white out or an Arctic blizzard,…
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The Trans Alaska Pipeline
The kinky snake is as long as Great Britain (just over 800 miles) and transports oil from the Beaufort Sea in the Arctic, to Valdeze on the southern coast. The Trans Alaska Pipeline split the state from top to bottom in 1977 and was the most expensive, privately funded construction on earth. Although I can…
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I’ll make sure the minx is filthy again soon
After driving slowly past the least inconspicuous military air base in The World (I can say that now, as America advertises everything compared to “the world”) Fairbanks is the next city on the trail. For its location, the Eielson Air Base, just south east of Fairbanks, was established as part of World War 2 military…
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Tok on July 4th & a mile marker to note
Driving into the tiny town of Tok on the Alaska Highway at the beginning of the 4th of July carnival/caravan parade, is rather like accidentally walking into a meeting room containing your bosses, while discussing the sexual antics of ducks on the phone and not realising anyone else is in the room. Inappropriate, and badly…
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Rougher than grinding pebbles in a blender
Top of the World & Taylor Highway. Following the old sourdough track over the hills from Chicken, the views from most of the Top of the World Highway as we headed towards the U.S. border, were of pine forests as far as the eye can see – some of which replicates the fire damaged trees…
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I “beeped” out the expletives
This morning I was woken up by a loud, beeping alarm and KP coarsely saying “no, I don’t need you!” Unless signalling a fire, some carbon monoxide overload, burglary, an air raid, a morning when the sun isn’t going to rise (it does happen here), or worse, we’ve run out of tea, there really shouldn’t…
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Into the Arctic
We crossed into the Arctic Circle a little after 7am on July 1st 2015. The sodden, squelching tundra was forgotten briefly as it opened up into sparkling, dew-covered hills. From a distance, rather than early morning Arctic peaks, the approaching mountains resembled hazy, desert sand dunes. Although not gigantic, they possess their own, gently unassuming,…
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Mother Nature: The Temptress
There have been no obvious critters from the start of the Dempster, all the way to the Inuvik (750Km). The caribou cross the road twice a year on their migration – once in spring and once in autumn – but despite appreciating their time keeping, I’m slightly sad I won’t see them. It’s also correct…
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Wearing a woolly jumper and swimming through peanut butter
Day two on the Dempster and the road has been surprisingly good so far. Like many highways in the north country, it’s detailed as dangerous and not for standard vehicles. Compared to the rest of the country, the roads are unpaved, and indeed a little rough, but honestly, (especially in the summer) apart from a…
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I am literally a walking stick of candy floss wrapped in bacon
Industrious, vicious, relentless, and the size of birds – mosquitos in the Yukon are intrepid villains, seemingly programmed to insistently make my life a complete misery. As long as I’m around, getting their full attention, KP appears relatively fine, but even he has had a dozen bites on his head and hands since we started…
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I Lied
Dawson City is not the start of the Dempster Highway (but it is where the paddle boats from Whitehorse once steam powered to). Forty kilometres east of Dawson City, we found a petrol pump in a deserted gas station, at the start of the highway. KP had to go into a booth-like-Tardis and follow instructions…
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Whitehorse: An update for lovers….of murderous horses, my toilet time, and history
Arriving into a city isn’t normally such a wonderful thing, but since leaving dusty, Dawson Creek, Whitehorse is strangely, rather comforting. There are crowds of people, even in the rain. There is traffic to negotiate, and various city aromas fill the air (it’s amazing what civilisation stinks of). There are numerous places to fuel up,…
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Penetrating your Yukon…
Update from the river bank Penetrating Your Yukon Update prior to Heading North Productive day
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Intimacy with an orally fixated sheep
As if driving on the back of a grey millipede which is missing a few legs, the highway’s industrial limbs appear to be less common as we head north. I wouldn’t normally be so happy to see an insect with its appendages missing, but whichever bully decided to dissect the bumpy-backed diplopoda, I’d like to…
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Camouflaged, but not for my furry friends.
The start of the Alaska Highway from Dawson Creek constantly reminded me of how the north works – practically, hard, hands on, in extreme weather, overcoming the wild, and with no apologies. The industries up here are oil, gas, logging, infrastructure maintenance, and survival, and everyone seems to enjoy it a little rough around the…
Not a Travel Blog 