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Today I worked my way Northwards, deep into the wilderness. I was heading for some pans I planned to explore. Tonight I have my camp on the edge of one of them. The light is slowly fading from the sky, but I am ready for the night; as safe as I can hope to be out in the open. It is time to face my chair to the setting sun and to let my thoughts go… Enjoy!...

I left behind the last signs of the Middle World some two hours ago. This is proper wilderness, and that means almost anything can happen. The sun is setting and I need to find somewhere to overnight. I turn off the track (which I guess still represents evidence of human activity, however tenuous), and work my way into bush. About a kilometre in I find a suitable tree to spend the night under. Enjoy the rest of the story here:...

I spent the first evening of my expedition at a guesthouse on a Kalahari farm.It was still in the Modern World, but nearing its end. Before sunset I went for a walk. Here’s the voice recording I made that evening. Enjoy!...

After much planning and shifting around of responsibilities and obligations, I was finally able to get away on a new expedition. Below is the first of a few voice recordings I made in the veld, which I will share with you. Enjoy!...

  You can listen to the voice recording, or rear through the text below. Enjoy!   Lion sign! The spoor from their soft pads was difficult to spot in the grass and litter, but the droppings told the story. This mere trace, more than a day old, grabbed our attention. Somewhere here, perhaps close, was the absolute predator of the African bush. We were in the presence of brutal strength that is singularly focused on its own survival – without question or compassion. The mere possibility of confronting lions in the wild when you are on foot and exposed,...

You can listen to the voice recording, or read through the text below. Enjoy!   I was not expecting them in such dense bush, but there they were – a small herd of zebra in a grassy clearing. They were unaware of me and completely at ease. Some were leisurely grazing, others stood dreaming with cocked hind leg, one or two were lying down. None jerked up a head to nervously scout around, or paused to test the breeze with wide nostrils. It made sense. I had not spotted any lion sign in the area nor heard any roaring...

I felt I could not do justice to the richness of this piece in a narrative, so I would ask that you rather read through it. Enjoy! The sun is setting and the fire is happily murmuring to itself. Jan-Martin, my companion on this expedition, is fiddling together something for dinner. I should write up my diary.  Soon it will be dark and the evening will take its own course, which I won’t want to interfere with.  Now is the best time to record the day. But I just sit and gaze out over the darkening valley below and...

You can read through the text below, or listen to the recording.   The late morning sun had a sting to it. A break is what I needed. I turned off the game path to a splash of shade around the trunk of a camel thorn.  I had been following the path for about two hours. It was well-trodden, but there were very few tracks, or any fresh sign of life on it. Game paths are a good source of bush information, but I was beginning to lose faith in this one. More accurately, I was beginning to lose...

You can listen to the voice recording, or read through the narrative below Most of us walk past trees so regularly that we hardly notice them. Out in the African savannah, they are so abundant that it can easily blunt the senses and the spirit of even the most ardent arborist. But, if we care to pay attention, trees, in life or in death, invariably make all but the most callous among us, want to gush “beautiful, pleasing, charming, soothing, elegant, impressive, sad, quaint,” and the like. In their natural environment trees are truly magnificent. On the African savannah...

You can either listen to the voice recording, or read the text below. Enjoy! Finding a camping spot and preparing a camp to overnight in reasonable comfort and safety is a daily challenge in the wilderness. It starts with finding a suitable spot to make camp – towards late afternoon; not too early, so that it shortens the day by too much, yet in time to have the essential things done before dark. Juggling these two is every afternoon’s bit of stress. Sometimes, one gets lucky, like this time. I had been driving through an unfriendly landscape with growth-stunted...