My Journey to Everest
2003
There were six equally gifted climbers on our team but only one – Sean Wisedale – summitted. Such is the mountain goddess’s perverse selection process that decides who will triumph and who will be left wondering forever why they didn’t.
Everest is famed for bringing out the worst and the best in people. As a non-climber, I witnessed it all from my quiet corner of the mess tent. ‘Testosterone Town’ – as I came to call Base Camp – is home to intense struggles, massive and fragile egos, silly pranks, boyish dreams, and sometimes the ecstasy of a dream fulfilled. It’s also rocky, wet, smelly and cold – all of which I describe frankly, and, I hope, humorously in my irreverent blog from the mountain, later published as a popular book called Off Peak. It contains hilarious illustrations by Rob Owen, equally hilarious limericks by Jeremy Hele, and a foreword by Bear Grylls.
The Long Walk
2005
In 1863, English gentlemen Sir Richard George Glyn and his brother Robert came to Africa, lured by its big game and the astounding cascade that David Livingstone had recently ‘discovered’ and named the Victoria Falls. The brothers set off from Durban, and after terrible trials, reached the Falls four and a half months later, becoming the fourth foreign party to do so.
Richard kept a diary about their odyssey, which inspired me to shadow their expedition in 2005. But unlike my ancestors, I made the journey on foot, accompanied by my devoted African dog, Tapiwa.
By journey’s end I had clocked up nearly 2 200 kilometres, having religiously followed my forebears’ route along the 19th-century wagon trails that ran parallel the great rivers of the sub-continent. Keeping strictly to the timetable set by Richard Glyn, I moved when his wagons moved and stopped when they did – reaching the Falls on exactly the same day as my ancestors had, 142 years before.
Trudging through deep desert sand in Botswana was particularly trying, as was its thick thornveld. And camping in Big Five territory with a dog (and later a puppy too) was nerve-racking, but this expedition was the most treasured experience of my life to date. I saw magnificent country and met many gracious rural African people. Even Zimbabwe’s notorious ‘war veterans’ were helpful! And I will always value the time I had alone on foot with my thoughts.
My book about the walk is Footing with Sir Richard’s Ghost and is illustrated with over 400 photos from my expedition, those of my ancestors, and many others from the 19th century.
Into the Kalahari with its First People
2011
Dawid Kruiper’s community live on the outskirts of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park (KTP) in South Africa. What is now the National Park was once where Dawid’s ancestors lived and hunted prior to their eviction in the 1970s. What they still regard as their land holds secrets and stories, some of which Dawid dearly wished to pass on to his family. So I helped him mount the great – and final – odyssey of his life. For two months in 2011, three generations of the Kruiper family, accompanied by my expedition and film crew, travelled through the KTP and documented what Dawid so longed for his children to know. My book about the trip was published under the title What Dawid Knew.
