“Quirky, unusual, fresh, and like nothing we’ve seen before…” – i-escape.com
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New to Explorers Club – Step back in time at Daniels Kraal Farm on Route 62
Hidden away in a valley in the Klein Karoo lies a luxurious homestead overlooking rolling green lawns, a large swimming pool and surrounded by mountains. Wind your way out of the little town of Calitzdorp for 9km past vineyards, orchards and ostriches and discover the Daniels Kraal Farm, encased by rambling vineyards, olive trees and…
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Explorers Club brings you…A Walk in the Wild 2017
Explorers Club launches its first mini-Expedition..
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Local break at the hottest new hotel in Franschhoek
Having seen close to fifteen years of innovation in our valley it is surprising we see the bar still being lifted each year. A few years ago, during the World Cup hosted in South Africa, a new visitor fell in love with Franschhoek. Since then he has been busy, quietly amassing a hospitality portfolio that…
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My Sister-in-Law, Ash Sinfield, takes on the toughest foot race on earth, second stage today…
Ash has just completed the 2nd stage of the Marathon des Sables (Marathon of the Sands) today. She has been training for two years. It is a six-day, 251 km (156 mi) ultramarathon, which is the equivalent of six regular marathons. The longest single stage (2009) is 91 km (57 mi) long. This multiday race is held every year in…
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The Selinda Reserve: Two weeks in a rich wildlife territory, on the fringes of one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World
The Dogcatcher was sitting idle, in Kasane on the northern Botswana border with Zimbabwe and Zambia, and it needed to return to roost in Franschhoek, some 2,400 kilometres across the central Kalahari. A very generous extended pink ticket was granted to me, so I asked my nine-fingered friend, Dorian Hoy, who runs Great Plains Conservation in…
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A recce into the depths of the Okavango Delta
Rear-Admiral Dorian Hoy, able-fisherman master Sam Hoy and I (tackle-master, bottle washer, deck-scrubber) threw caution to the wind and took off up a channel from Maun to see how far we could get into the swamps in a day. Laden with drinks, snacks, binos and fishing tackle we launched at dawn, following a GPS route…
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Library Lecture – Patricia Glyn on two months in the Kalahari with a family of Khomani Bushmen
Patricia Glyn returns to Franschhoek to give a more in-depth insight into the plight of a family of Khomani Bushmen when they returned, for two months, to their ancestral hunting grounds of the southern Kalahari, in the Kgalagadi National Park, from which they had been evicted. It was a moving and memorable expedition during which…
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Scorpions, Spiders and Lighting Fires with the Bushmen of Tsumkwe
A boy scout trip with a couple of bushmen at Meno a kwena is always going to throw up some surprises. Fire was always on the cards but it was the hunt for the small things that was particularly interesting. Matchbox size entrances, on the harder parts of the ground, were indicating the presence of…
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A memorable night on the Makgadikgadi Pans
Should a bit of bush fatigue set in the perfect antidote is a night under the stars on the Makgadikgadi pans. The contrast to the bush is thoroughly refreshing, particularly if you have been tossed about in the sandy mires of the Kalahari and taken in the somewhat cluttered areas of Chobe where the elephants have…
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Entering a Time Warp – The Kariba Ferry across Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe
The choice of dribbling along for twenty-two hours across an expanse of water or battling for forty-eight hours across corrugated roads and bottomless potholes was an easy one. It was an especially easy decision as it was like entering a time capsule – The Kariba Ferry. We squeezed onto one of the three available berths…
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The first beach house to join forces with The Explorers Club collection…
We have been striving to find somewhere on the coast we can send our guests from Franschhoek, for an escape like nowhere else, where you can feel part of the ocean. La Gratitude, in Hermanus, delivers this in spades. It is an historic family holiday home, retaining it’s old fashioned charm, in an unbeatable position…
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One extraordinary flight – Ol Malo to South Island, Lake Turkana
Andrew, at the end of the night, suggested an adventure at dawn the next day. “Let’s fly to South Island on Turkana, see if we can catch a Nile Perch, and if we can’t we can have some breakfast anyway, and take in some views.” Chiyulu added “We can break the doors off to get…
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Oddysey into Laikipia, Kenya
On a dusty bend in the road north between Nairobi and Nanyuki, Gordie Church lurked in ambush sporting flat cap and razor sharp side burns. A long awaited re-union with a gangly old friend and Felicia on their shamba, resting in between safaris. A fitting start, over a few Tuskers, to 5 weeks in Kenya,…
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AfrikaBurn – Burning Man Festival in the Tankwa Karoo
Abi, Nicole (thanks for the pics) and some equally flowery damsels took flight to join the flock of slightly off-piste revellers on the edge of the semi-desert in the Northern Cape. Images speak louder than words.
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Absinthe: A taste and talk on the blisteringly powerful creative lubricant which has earned an enduring place in alcoholic folklore…with Roger Jorgensen of Jorgensens Distillery
What better way of welcoming in the festive cheer by coming to taste and listen to the story behind mind-bending effects of the notorious medicinal tonic, Absinthe, otherwise known as the Green Fairy, and its re-birth on a Wellington farm. Invented in the late nineteenth century, consumed by the bohemian café societies of Europe and…
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'Chasing The Devil' – In Search of Africa’s Fighting Spirit. Tim Butcher lectures at The Library, Franschhoek
Best-selling author (Blood River) and adventure-traveller Tim Butcher lost friends in Sierra Leone during its civil war and was threatened with death by the Liberian warlord Charles Taylor, but he faced down these demons by trekking 350 miles through the jungle on an epic journey to one of Africa’s most overlooked regions. He wanted to…
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Baltic Oddballs
A voyage is not complete without a degree of bizarreness. I knew this passage would be a little out of the ordinary and had put some effort into research. A former military prison where you can stay – they treat you as a prisoner; a restaurant resembling a hospital where you eat with surgical instruments,…
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Where the Bison Roam…and other beasts
Apart from startling a buck in Mavrovo National Park, in Macedonia, and encountering at least half a dozen vipers on paths and roads, we fell short on encountering some big game. The signs were there but guides were slim on the ground. Enter general oracle Laco Molnar, primarily wildlife vet but also part-time hunter, on…
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National Parks of Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo
One of the purposes of coming to this region is to uncover some of the lesser known backroads and wilder areas. Although the larger wildlife has remained elusive it has not in the least detracted from the mountains, lakes and rivers of that we have encountered. Snakes, on the other hand, have been much more…
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The Accursed Mountains of Theth, Albania
For seven months Theth is isolated, cut off by the winter snows. The rocky track to get there is arduous, with slippery hairpin bends, even when the snows have melted in May. As we climbed the narrow pass and entered the clouds, the weather closed in, and the temperature slumped. Tea was taken on top,…
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Gravediggers; Sweaty Twins; the Harushas of Theth; a bizarre serenading boatman and multiple shots at dawn – some of the characters so far….
The first foray into the unknown has taken in Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo. Not your a-list destinations, but the so called underbelly of the Balkans. These are some of the characters that opened our eyes to the local hospitality, filled with generosity, usually flushed down with some home made rakija, no matter what time…
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An expedition sailing down the Irrawaddy, through the James Bond islands and onto Langkawi
In 2002 I organised a sailing escapade in the Far East. It was four months long and it started 1,000 miles up the Irrawaddy River in Burma, close to the Chinese border, and ended at Langkawi in Malaysia. Recently a sailing magazine in the US asked a few questions about the voyage and the article,…
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A glorious weekend exploring Indian Food with Reza Mahammed
If you can, do yourself a favour and call African Relish, the Cookery School in Prince Albert, and get your name on the waiting list for next year’s course hosted by the unplayable BBC personality and chef extraordinaire; Reza Mahammed. What a weekend!! It was a mesmerising display of colour and layers of exotic flavours…
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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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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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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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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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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.
