A video to provide some idea of the preliminary feasibility investigation and planning that goes into a safari into the African Wilderness. It covers considerations like routes and travel duration, river crossing points, border crossings, fuel and water availability to establish if a vehicle safari into the target area will be feasible. You can watch the video here. Enjoy!...
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Check the video below for an invitation to wander with me through the African wilderness on my latest solo African safari, this time into the South-east of Angola. Enjoy!...
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My four companions on this sojourn, ready for the day’s trek. “The day’s trek,” would be a meander in a general direction, say north, but easily deviated from to investigate bush phenomena we might notice, or to search for water, or to explore stories we might pick up from local bush people, and the like. On the right is Jacqui, whom I recruited as bush medium. He spoke a few words of English and a few of Fanagolo. Fanagolo is a pidgin language based on Zulu that developed on the South African gold mines as a kind of lingua...
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You can listen to the voice recording below, or read through the story. Enjoy! It took two days of meandering tracks and then three days of hard bush bashing to reach the pan. By then I had about sixty litres of water left. If I did not find water here, I would have to return to my previous source when I was down to about forty litres, or I might not make it back. That would limit my stay at the pan to a maximum of four days. The pan was a huge calcareous flat some four hundred...
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My old Land Cruiser has, over the years of bush travelling, accumulated all the bumps and dents and scratches the bush needed to inflict on it. It wears the bush comfortably now, like an everyday warmer. But, it knows to inflict lots of discomfort on its driver. The suspension is about as soft as an empty freight train’s; over uneven surfaces it raises a cacophony of rattles and squeaks that drown out any conversation and numbs the mind; it drives like an oxcart and the cab is a custom-built furnace during the day, and a fridge at night. So,...
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Parked in front of the Lion and Elephant Hotel, Zimbabwe It is part of bush tradition, no, it is bush religion to stop over at The Lion and Elephant on the banks of the Bubi if the route north leads through Zimbabwe. It is unassuming, inexpensive and just worn enough at the seams so that it feels comfortable, like an old shirt. It has become a sort of a tradition for me to overnight there if the route north leads through Zimbabwe. Here is an extract from my book, The Wanderers: “It was around two in the afternoon. The...
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Actually, on secondary roads in Africa bridges are something of a luxury......
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