Money Pits After a wonderful 22 day, 4500 kilometre trip through Botswana and South Africa's remotest desert parks with Isaac & Liesel it felt quite lonely to be back in South Africa on our own. We had left the Kalahari Transfrontier Park and driven to Upington, our Northern Cape bolthole where we visited Landrover for our regular ritual of parting with large sums of money for repairs to our Discovery 11. News from the UK, via text on the mobile and...

Ankle-Biters at Large (Continued from Bare Faced Cheek(s) in Botswana) Mabuasehube, the Botswana side of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park (KTP), turned out to be a lovely experience for Angela and I, despite our concerns about the overheating Landrover. This was our first visit to the area and we were impressed with the scenery, beautiful small pans surrounded by forests of camelthorn. The game viewing was not as prolific as we'd hoped for after the rain...

Bare Faced Cheek(s) in Botswana "We must look at each other's groins tonight" Rarely do I receive such direct (or come to think of it, any) sexual requests from Angela so it was with eager anticipation that I agreed to have my groin inspected. Sadly it transpired that this was less to do with preparations for a night of rumpy pumpy and far more to do with the tick that I had (fortunately) intercepted earlier that day as it headed for my groin a...

42 Days in the Desert (Microsoft spell checker does have its uses; this blog may otherwise have been titled "42 days in the Dessert) It was probably inevitable after nearly two and a half years touring Southern Africa that Angela and I would eventually have a nightmare encounter. Charging lions, aggressive baboons, over inquisitive elephants, scorpions under our feet, deadly snakes rearing in front of us, our friend Lesley's wet swimwear, the car st...

Flimwell UK December 2008 "My blood has thinned" This was Angela's conclusion as to why we were shivering at Heathrow airport when we returned to the UK in early December. The fact that we had gone from 42C in the Kalahari to -2C in London didn't help us feel any warmer! We'd returned to the UK after the death of Angela's father, John. The funeral, a private family gathering, took place on 17 December at Ticehurst Church, parts of which date back ...