Sojourn in Swakop Somebody might have told us that Pavarotti had died! Angela and I had tickets to the opera singer's farewell concert at Reading's Madjeski stadium in 2005 but it was cancelled with the promise of a re-scheduled date, tricky one to arrange now! Having said in my last postcard (I'm sorry but I hate calling them "blogs", that word sounds like something you clear out your nostrils) that we needed to speed up our trip a bit, we've ...

Walvis Bay & The Welwitschia Drive Last time we visited this part of the world, on the Skeleton Coast of Namibia, we bumped in to my ex boss attending a conference at the Swakopmund Hotel. This time we met up with Marc & Paula, the British couple we met in Etosha, for a couple of days of beer drinking, fishing and sand driving. The beer drinking and sand driving was far more successful than the fishing, but the lack of fish was more then compensa...

Windhoek Repairs There is nothing like the corrugated gravel roads of northern Namibia (Etosha to be precise) to test if everything on your car, trailer and body is attached, bolted and tied down. Sadly the vibrations did not clear the amber warning lights for the ABS, Traction control and Hill Descent on the Discovery so we decided to head for Windhoek, Namibia's capital, to hand out money to yet another Landrover dealership! As it happened the amber light...

Overland and Over Here There have been many certainties on our trip to date. Getting up before Angela every day is one certainty, being asked for spare brake oil by national parks staff is another (no idea why they want brake oil, they don't usually have vehicles!) However, the certainty I will dwell on today is that of encountering "Overlanders". First a definition. Overlanders are people, usually zit faced emotionally challenged ex teenagers sur...

Game Viewing Etiquette As you can imagine Angela and I have visited a few parks on our trip around Southern Africa. Here are some of the game viewing rules that we derived from watching the behaviour of that particularly dangerous animal Homo Sapiens Touristicus Stupidicus. 1)Always approach wildlife at a speed 20+kph faster than the park speed limit. This ensures that the animals scatter in all directions before you arrive, and that any nearby cars and the...