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Angola – Update and Binga Bay to Flamingo Bay 26th to 29th June 2010
We took off northwards rolling between two walls of mopani bush along a dusty single lane track towards a destination unknown to any of us. The grand Angolan Adventure has begun. We have covered some four and a half thousand kilometres since leaving home and in Angola we have taken a route from Ruacana to…
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Venture into Angola – the introduction
We have decided to leave the lager louts swimming in their bibs of beer in Cape Town, during the World Cup, and venture north into uncharted territory for all of us. Although partly regretting we are not to be caught up in the fervor of World Cup mania, an altogether new and intriguing adventure awaits…
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Sojourn at Moondance, Willow Point
Seven days in and it feels as if I have reverted to stone age man. The water ran out on Wednesday and then the electrics went down last night. I am running up the hill to boil the tea water and have emptied the geyser. I bathe in warm brackish water from the vlei. Willow…
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No Worry, Chicken Curry – the Whittles family adventure
I came across this story on Alaistair Sawday’s newsletter and thought it sung of a ‘very Explorers Club’ story which embodies the Mark Twain quote ‘Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did so. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away…
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New images of the Selinda Canoe Trail
The Selinda Canoe Trail in Botswana, run by the old four-fingered Dorian Hoy, bubbles for a short season when the waters fill the Selinda channel, from the Kwando River in the North and The Okavango in the south. We have the latest pics in what Nat Geo Adventure has listed as one of the Top…
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2010 Zambezi Expedition reaches Mblizi on Lake Kariba
Warren Willis and Francois Kruger are paddling the Zambezi, reaching the half-way mark, around Lake Kariba. Their latest news reads: ‘We set off from the source in NW Zambia. The section through Angola was approx 480km and took us 11 days including getting our passports back in Cazombo. It took another 26 days and another…
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Fishing report from Kenya's north coast
The East African dung beetle, Gordie Owles has filed a recent fishing report. The exceptional fishing along Kenya’s north coast has continued into February. This has generated huge enthusiasm amongst keen fishermen and women, of all ages, and has drawn them from all over the globe to the small hotel in Malindi called Driftwood. The…
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A hungry croc tastes Rupert's canoe in Caboro Bassa
Below reads a story, of which much of us dream, of two men in two boats, on a great adventure down one of the most thrilling rivers in Africa. The photos appear on a blog below and Rupert has sent this story along to accompany the photos. Yesterday I received a message from Warren Willis…
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Fancy a stroll?
Jeanine Barone went for many strolls in the search for some unusual ambles. I concur to two, having cut my teeth for three years in the Croatian backwaters. There are plenty of gems in Croatia, off the beaten track. Two more worthwhile are crossing the Massif de la Selle in Haiti (although sadly now might…
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Rupert FitzMaurice and Justin Matterson descend the length of the Zambezi, dodging hippos and fending off crocs
By chance, some friends staying in The Explorers Club and I got chatting of adventures over some Chamonix Sauvignon Blanc Reserve at New Year. Kiki told me of two intrepid explorers she knew who descended the Zambezi River – source to sea – and I mentioned I had been to a lecture at the Royal…
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Ripley attacks Tibet and Mount Everest
Ripley returns with his next installment from peaks on the top of the world. This time circling, like a three-legged mountain goat in the Himalayas, around Chomolungma, Goddess Mother of the Earth. We were standing there scratching our heads again. The road was so bad that we were starting to wonder if we were even…
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Herzog's extraordinary new film on Antarctica
On location at a research station in the Antarctic, the film director Werner Herzog is enthralled by the wildlife – and the wild people – he discovers there. Below follows an excerpt of an interview with Hertzog on what he discovered. “It was what lies beneath the ice, not what exists on top of it,…
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The Best Food Books of the Decade, by leading food writers
We all have our favourites but these are The Guardian’s official Top 10 and more…. ‘Putting together the picks of the decade in food and drink books has been rather a painful process, not least due to the number of outstanding volumes published in the last gasp of the old century. The trickiest example was…
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Canoeing and walking through Mana Pools National Park in Zimbabwe
It would be hard to find a better place to drift down a wild river dodging pods of hippo and skirting submerged elephants crossing channels. Or walking freely through the bush stumbling across a pride of lion, and a leopard in the fork of a tangled wild fig tree. Mana Pools is unique and offers…
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Franschhoek hosts yet another A-list Event
There was another splendid weekend of revelry at the Franschhoek “Magic of Bubbles” Cap Classique and Champagne festival earlier on in December. The festival continues to grow from strength to strength and it opened on Friday evening, this year, for a soiree under the stars. Certainly one of the finest events in the Franschhoek calendar.…
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Franschhoek Restaurants in Top 10 again
Once again the village has been acknowledged for its culinary prowess providing two restaurants in the top 10 in the country and four in the top 20, in the latest 2010 Eat Out Magazine awards. The Tasting Room at Le Quartier Francais and The Restaurant at Grande Provence are this year’s flagships and the respective…
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Exploring Damaraland and the Skeleton Coast in Namibia
Richard Coke recently guided a safari to the remote north-west of Namibia and has posted a transcript and some photos of what they discovered in this remarkable area… A country of contrasting and dramatic landscapes that sometimes give you the impression that you are on another planet. It is arguably the oldest Desert in the…
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Ripley attempts the Matterhorn….
Esteemed Hugo Ripley, a regular doyen of Explorers Club Franschhoek, has climbed out of journalistic retirement to contribute some words of wisdom to the ECB… of a past expedition, when he was a few kilos lighter. The great heyday of Alpine mountaineering in the 1850s completely passed the Matterhorn by. It was considered unclimeable. If…
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The pink dung of the Elephants at Lariak-Orook Spring
Gordie Owles files another from East Africa…. Just before the rain broke here Kitonga took a new route. This particular safari, started at Lewa Wilderness Trails, then walked through dry forests, Borana and lands of the Laikipiak Maasai, before coming eventually to the water. Our destination was the Ewaso Nyiro river and its elephants.
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New Prince Albert Cookery School opens
Prince Albert is on the gourmet map thanks to African Relish, a sparkling new culinary school offering cooking getaways at the gateway to the Great Karoo – and another good reason why you should visit PA. Previously of Franschhoek’s Grand Provence and Le Quartier Francais, and fu.shi restaurant in Plettenberg Bay, chef Vanie Padayachee (and…
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Following the aroma of Hospital Food
In the heart of Old Riga the doors opened at restaurant “Hospitālis” where everyone can enjoy a pseudo hospital atmosphere. Its creation involved Latvia’s largest hospitals and Medical history Museum, contributing to its authenticity is the fully restored attributes of the diverse medical offices from the Soviet era. It is rather bizarre. The menu sticks…
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A Fortunate Soldier…new documentary film
Koos Verwy was a special forces operative for the South African army during the Angolan Border war in the 1970’s and 80’s. He now operates a remote lodge located in northern Namibia, on the Kunene River, overlooking Angola. Every year he takes a few adventurous Franschhoek locals on a long trek through the Marienfluss and…
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Franschhoek Food launches book
It was a glorious late spring afternoon in Franschhoek, where about 70 guests gathered on the valley floor at La Brasserie, to celebrate the launch of Myrna Robins’ newest book, Franschhoek Food.
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Huzzaaahh!! It's the Franschhoek Champers Festival!!!
Franschhoek’s ‘Magic of Bubbles’ Cap Classique and Champagne Festival, kicks off this weekend. The largest of its kind in the country allowing visitors the opportunity to sample both Champagne and Cap Classique wines. The centrepiece of the festival is a grand marquee on the sprawling lawns surrounding Franschhoek’s famous Huguenot Monument, where bubbly stalls will be…
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The greatest migration on earth – update from Rekero in the Mara
Gordie ‘Sailripper’ Owles brings you the first in a series of reports on the goings around Rekero Camp in the Masai Mara, as this year’s migration completes another revolution. We knew it would be a good one but it really has passed all expectations and now we are able to reflect on three whole months of…