Author: Hoffman

A dawn discussion about a big decision – in which direction shall we head today? We had more or less decided to explore the area a bit and we had made a rough “fly” camp. It was under a stand of young and taller Brachystegia that formed a reasonably good canopy to keep the dew off us and our equipment and would provide shade over the hot part of the days.  Around us, in all directions, lay many kilometres of unknown wilderness. We had some anecdotes about what might be going on around us from a small hunting party...

The bushveld savannah of Africa is shown on maps as vast uni-coloured blotches of yellow or green or brown or some other monochrome, with numbers inside them – 18, 21, 22… Reference tables on the sides explain that the colour blotches represent Woodland Savannah, undifferentiated or, Woodland Savannah, south-eastern areas and other such prosaic-sounding descriptions. But the animals and the bush people that live there know that the bush is infinitely more variable than what the uniform yellow or green or whatever might suggest. It can change within a few hundred meters from mopani shrubland to tall knobthorn and...

When you dare deep into the great wilderness, the familiar activities and undertakings and sensations of existence change. To prevail you now need to be acutely aware of different things, like your environment and your vehicle, and you need different kinds of skills – ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance – and luck. You have to make use of what you have with you, or can find around you; stitch them together in ways that will keep you going. Your vehicle with your equipment represents about the last of the familiar ploys, but one can take only a very small bit...

Once I get into the wilderness I like to dawdle; to take whatever direction the voices whisper. It is like a slow-motion ride on an extreme roller coaster – a slow climb, a breathless pause, a plunge through vast vistas; a slow linger on minute detail, sometimes pondering deep mysteries, at other times applying simple common sense, sometimes facing gigantic forces, then tiny vulnerabilities, sometimes mortal danger, then soothing tranquillity… But the voices speak in the subtle words of the veldt. Nowadays people go on tracking courses or such for a few weeks or longer and become “Field Guides,” believing...

You can listen to the voice recording, or read through the text below. Enjoy!   Unreachable for most humans, but gods roam here, and fairies, and the spirits of long-dead animals and trees, I like to believe. I stare back down the trail. Creeper weeds and the odd tuft of grass have invaded the wheel ruts. My tracks, visible in the sandy patches, are the only ones. Being alone here where everything has been pushed into silence and sky is to be exposed to impressions that totally consume the senses—to forces that, should they be unleashed, would be immensely...

The last of the fresh meat. I don’t take a fridge along on my journeys; just a coolbox, for what that’s worth in the African heat. So, perishable food only lasts for the first day, or three, while still passing through the Middle World. Here, one can supplement with food bought from the locals – coal-fried chicken, some wonderful coal-fired buns, grilled maize cobs, cassava, wild spinach… After that, once I get into the wilderness proper, the mainstay becomes dry food, like grains, nuts, cured fruit, and what the wonders of preservation technology can bring to the palette. Most...

Getting to those truly untouched parts of wilderness that I prefer, means eventually running out of any form of road or track. Then starts the undertaking of moving through bush. Moving through virgin African bush is not for the faint-hearted. It is an undertaking that pushes human and machine close to their limits. Sometimes, for stretches where the terrain is not steep and the growth not too dense, one is able to meander along quite pleasantly in roughly the desired direction, even if it means setting the Old Man to run over a few shrubs or young trees. Sometimes...

I am careful to either avoid places where I might get stuck, or work on crossings beforehand to ease the passage. But sometimes it just takes fate, or a slight error in judgement, and then… This little ditch seemed minor. The front wheels actually mounted the step-up quite gamely, but then the rear end of the body caught on the slab of rock with the rear wheel spinning in fresh air. The jack point was too low off the rock to get the hi-lift in, and there was simply no space to crawl under the vehicle to get a...