Cape to Cairo: The Roads Less Travelled (April–August 2025)

DAY 0 | 22 APRIL 2025: Pulmonary embolism, family illness, death and a derailed Rovos Rail train notwithstanding, we caught our plane from Cape Town to Johannesburg — the only flight we have planned as we make our way north to Cairo via public transport. In the 19th century, the British imperialist Cecil John Rhodes vainly envisioned a railway from Cape Town to Cairo — fitting, then, that our off-the-beaten-track, trans-African adventure should begin with a train safari to Victoria Falls. (WhatsApp Community Broadcast)

Nosy Be: Island Hopping

MADAGASCAR | NOSY BE: Winter, in August, had Cape Town by the scruff of its neck. A climate refugee, I washed up on the shores of a tropical Garden of Eden for two weeks of island-hopping. (Publication: ‘Travel Africa’)

Interview with Deon Meyer, South African Author

Klerksdorp’s most famous literary son counts Ian Rankin and Michael Connelly as friends. The ‘King of South African crime’, Afrikaans author Deon Meyer, never dreamed of being a published writer. Yet his novels have been translated into 28 languages. (Publication: ‘Leadership’)

Zambezi Zvakanaka: Canoeing Zimbabwe’s Middle Zambezi River

ZIMBABWE | MIDDLE ZAMBEZI RIVER: It’s New Year’s day and we are setting out to explore 121 kilometres of the Middle Zambezi at midsummer. The Zambezi River has Zimbabwe’s highest density of hippo and Nile crocodile – 33 hippos and 6 adult crocodiles per kilometre of river. Note to self: Do not be tempted to trail languid limbs in these deceptively still waters. (Publication: ‘Travel Africa’)

Interview with Mary Ovenstone: Relationship Counsellor and Management Coach

Six women are at a party. The chip bowl runs dry. All six of the women get up, go to the kitchen and refill the chip bowl together, chatting all the while. Six men are at a party. The chip bowl runs dry. “Hey man, the chip bowl’s getting low.” No one moves. “I bought the chips.” “It’s my bowl.” “I ate the chips.” “What did you do?” “I … I watched TV.” Defeated, TV man goes to the kitchen – alone – and refills the chip bowl. (Publication: ‘Leadership’)

Outsider Art: A Globetrotter’s Guide

SOUTH AFRICA | NIEU-BETHESDA: The dusty road bends into a blue bowl of hills. Suddenly, in a hollow lined in yellowing poplar trees and willows, the geese have the right of way. Complete with white roses in the churchyard, Nieu Bethesda is a little piece of England hewn from the badlands of the Karoo. This once-obscure backwater is home to the Owl House, South Africa’s premier example of Outsider Art – art created by driven individuals, outside of the mainstream, untrained and untainted by cultural expectations who are compelled to express their intense personal vision with whatever comes to hand. Miss Helen chose crushed glass and concrete. (Unpublished)

Pineapples and Prima Donnas: South Africa’s National Arts Festival

SOUTH AFRICA | GRAHAMSTOWN: The historic South African town of Grahamstown was founded as a British fort in 1820 during the fierce frontier wars with the Xhosa tribes in what is now the Eastern Cape. Today, Grahamstown’s (Makhanda) place on the map is assured by two things: Rhodes University and the Standard Bank National Festival of the Arts held every year in July. (‘Indwe’ Inflight: SA Express Airways)

Going Out in Style: The Coffin-makers of Ghana

GHANA: The Ga make up 8% of Ghana’s population. Most are to be found around the city they founded, today’s capital, Accra. Their burial rituals are a colourful blend of Christian and traditional beliefs. Like the Egyptians of old, the dead are buried with jewellery, money and hand-woven cloth. Their coffins tell the story of their lives. (Publication: ‘Africa Environment and Wildlife’)

Shark! The Whole Tooth

The lion is the undisputed King of the Jungle. The shark rules the seas. Both have toothsome reputations and, as it happens, identical preying patterns. The lion, however, has a better press. Kim Maclean, the ‘Shark Lady’, from Gansbaai, is doing for sharks what Disney did for lions. (Publication: ‘Discover Africa’)

Bushmans Kloof: An African Tale

SOUTH AFRICA | NORTHERN CEDERBERG: I knew how Cinderella felt. The morning after and the Cessna had changed back into my Exa. The private air-strip, the chef who’d cooked for Clinton, (and no, it wasn’t goose) the two thousand bottle wine cellar … gone … as though they’d never been. All was as it had been before – and yet, not quite. (Unpublished)
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