Sommaire pour September 2017 de go!

Mpafa tour exceeds expectations Our family did the go! and Mpafa photography tour to Botswana in June. What an amazing, well-organised, fun experience! The guides’ extensive knowledge and enthusiasm made for a very pleasant adventure through Botswana, the Caprivi Strip and a day trip to Vic Falls. Mpafa exceeded our expectations and left us wanting for nothing. I would recommend this tour to anyone, young or old. My parents Aleck (70) and Ilona (65) enjoyed it immensely, as did some students from Stellenbosch who were also part of the group. We relished the game drives, sunset cruises and mokoro rides. The camping venues – under baobabs next to the Makgadikgadi Pans and along the banks of the Okavango and Chobe rivers – were lovely and beautifully laid out. Douwe Vlok…

One strong feather star Q JOHAN VISSER from Somerset West writes: I found this sea creature on the beach at Struisbaai. It was lying very still, but when I approached it moved away. Is it a starfish? A Marine expert GEORGINA JONES says: This is a feather star, which belongs to the same group as starfish. Interesting that it walked on land – I’ve never seen that before! Occasionally we see feather stars swimming underwater using their arms – but only to move from perch to perch. They tend to stay in one place and wave their arms through the water to catch plankton. I’m surprised that its arms were strong enough to bear its weight – those arms are good for catching food and the occasional (short) swim, but…

Philipstown is known for its Draadkar Grand Prix Festival – an annual wire-car race that will be held on 2 September this year. Besides that, however, it’s not known for much else. The town is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, plonked down in the Karoo between the Vanderkloof Dam and the N1. Hennie Fourie and her husband Phillip have been residents of Philipstown for the past three years. “With my name, it was either Philipstown or Philippolis,” Phillip says with a smile. The couple practise subsistence farming just outside town. “We can breathe easily here,” says Hennie. “We wanted a debt-free life.” Hennie also runs the Philipstown coffee shop in a large room that was once part of the filling station next door. A remnant of the room’s…

I did this trip many times and shared my cabin with many interesting people over the years. I enjoyed my schooling in Port Elizabeth, but of course holidays were better. On the Friday at the end of each term, I’d be bundled onto the night train to Willowmore. My father would help me with my suitcase and my mother would order the conductor to keep an eye on me and to wake me up in time for my stop. My mother had six sisters, one of whom was called Betta. She and her husband Danie lived on a farm called Krugerspoort outside Willowmore and they had no children of their own. I was three years old when I was first left in their care. I loved it on the farm…

Is this paradise? Here, in a distant corner of Tanzania, where my tent is pitched next to Lake Tanganyika, where the beer is cold and the food is cheap? Or is paradise the unbridled wilderness of nearby Katavi National Park? Or how about Kipili, a fishing village further down the lake, where a mystic ruin of a mission church stands guard? Or maybe paradise is a combination of all of these places, plus the journey to get to them… When you leave home on a trip, you set out on a search to find that mythical place where you’ll be at peace. When you reach the furthest point of your travels, and you turn around to start the journey home, does that mean the search is over? Or does a…

Edward Duckitt works mostly as a wedding and portrait photographer, but when a rare thunderstorm rolled in over Cape Town he knew he had an opportunity to capture a unique landscape image. Capetonians aren’t used to lightning; rain in the Mother City is usually a gentler affair. At the first rumble of thunder, Edward raced to the top of Signal Hill and set up his camera on a tripod facing north-east over Table Bay. He shot a continuous sequence of 13-second exposures, hoping to capture as many lightning strikes as possible. This photo is a combination of three of those exposures, blended together using software. “The storm tracked west across the bay and not a single drop of rain fell on me,” says Edward.…

As a freelance journalist, I am morally obligated to put myself at the front line of experience for the sake of the reader. So when I heard that there was a 58-metre waterslide at Umziki Chalets just outside the town of Jozini, my journalistic integrity insisted that I investigate further. The pump was off when I turned up at Umziki, so the slide was really just a pool at the bottom. However, when I explained to manager Manuel Rodrigues how important it was that I tested the slide first-hand, he started the whole thing up just for me. Being the meticulous fact-checker that I am, I had to slip and squeal down the tube several times to determine whether the experience was actually fun. (It was!) Then I had to…

Hole-in-the-Wall stands ta on the Wild Coast – one of our most co ossal landmarks. Polokwane-based photographer Jason Stander first encountered Hole-in-the-Wall on a photography trip to Coffee Bay and managed to convince his family to join him on a return visit. Determined to get a unique shot of the iconic head and, he woke up every morning before sunrise and went down to the beach. This was the sight that greeted him on his third day. “The sky it up like fire and I knew a silhouette would work best,” he says. He took three exposures using a slow shutter speed and b ended them using software to create this composite image. The slow shutter speed captured the movement of the sea and gave the water a milky fee…

Follow in Halley’s footsteps The Southern Cross is currently lying on its side and its pointer stars are right above. It’s a good time to look for a very unique globular cluster… Hang on, what’s a globular cluster? In simple terms, it’s a compact collection of stars. The stars are so close together that a planet in such a system will never be in darkness. This particular cluster, known as Omega Centauri, is the biggest and brightest of its kind in the night sky and only visible from the southern hemisphere. If you’re in a place with minimal light pollution, you might be able to see it with the naked eye – it looks like a fuzzy blob. But you’ll get a much better view with your binoculars or with…

ANNÉNE MARÉ @adventure_annene Nikon D3100 Nikon 18 – 55 mm lens ANNÉNE WRITES: One morning, I set out -ith my brother to photograph the sunrise over the Blyde River Canyon. We -ere on our -ay to the Kruger Park and -e -ere overnighting at the Blyde Canyon Forever Resort. When -e got to one of the vie-points on the Leopard Trail, ho-ever, I struggled to get a good shot of the sunrise. Frustrated, I -as ready to give up and go back -hen my brother suggested -e stop at one of the other vie-points for a final attempt. He sat do-n and I paused briefly, then I stomped on. When I turned around to call him, I sa- this scene. The tree blocked out the sun perfectly and the human…

Not as imposing as a Toyota Fortuner, but substantially bigger than a Suzuki Vitara, the Mitsubishi Outlander occupies a niche gap between compact and mid-sized SUVs. You’d think this would be a good place to be in, but when you consider that the Outlander is Mitsubishi’s worst-selling vehicle in South Africa – selling on average just seven units a month – it appears that we don’t have much faith in it. So what’s amiss? Frankly, not a lot. It’s attractive, particularly after a design facelift, and it also has an all-new INVECS-III Continuous Variable Transmission (CVT) gearbox with a six-step Sports Mode shift control that works rather well. I’m not a fan of CVT gearboxes in general, but this one is praiseworthy. I didn’t even realise it was a CVT…

How does it work? This is slackpacking at its best over four days and four nights in the company of expert guides. Group size is restricted to 14 people or fewer. Just bring your hiking shoes, a walking stick, your camera, binoculars and a daypack. Everything else is covered: accommodation, all your meals, entrance fees to the various nature reserves and transport from one trail to the next. We’ll even pick you up and drop you off at the Plettenberg Bay airport if you arrive by plane. CemAir offers daily flights to Plettenberg Bay from Cape Town and Johannesburg. Where do I stay? There are two accommodation options: You can stay in lodges or you can camp with us – for two nights at Diepwalle and two nights next to…

WHERE & WHEN? • Dwarsberg Trout Hideaway, Rawsonville, Western Cape • 8 – 10 September 2017 HOW MUCH? Base rate: R950 per person for the full weekend. Book your spot and bring your own caravan or tent at no additional accommodation rate. Or choose one of these options: Cottage* Add R1 300 per person for the full weekend (various options available – enquire when booking). Basic tent* Add R1 350 per tent (sleeps two) for the full weekend (includes two mattresses). Medium tent* Add R2 250 per tent (sleeps two) for the full weekend (includes two beds with linen, bedside table and two camp chairs). Premium tent* Add R4 950 per tent (sleeps two) for the full weekend (includes two beds with linen, bedside table, two camping chairs and a shower cubicle).…

The kiss of death One afternoon, my wife Rina and I were driving along the S29 in the Kruger Park, from the Mlondozi picnic site towards Lower Sabie. There weren’t many animals around. We were mid-moan about not having seen a kill in the park when a leopard dashed across the road and caught an impala – right in front of our eyes! The antelope didn’t know what had hit her. The leopard dragged the stunned impala across the road to a shady spot, killed it and started to eat. IG VAN ROOYEN, White River Fish kebab to go This African darter was perched on a dry branch at Lake Panic in the Kruger Park. We were watching from the hide when it suddenly dived into the water. The fish…

Where does your love of the outdoors come from? When I was a child, my family often holidayed next to the Mtamvuna River on the Wild Coast. My brother and I would paddle down the river for kilometres until we reached the estuary. In later years we went to the bush and I would go for hikes and identify scat and animal droppings in the veld. My sense of adventure was ignited when I got my first BMX at the age of 8. We lived in Joburg at the time and my friends and I roamed the surrounding suburbs on our bikes. Why this particular running challenge? I wanted to connect with nature and take it much slower than I did when I cycled from Cape Town to Cairo. Humans…

5 BUCKET-LIST PLACES IN AFRICA We recently did an epic 90-day tour in a Toyota Fortuner, crossing six international borders and driving more than 17 000 km. We stopped at these iconic places along the way: Drive to Dar es Salaam. Tanzania’s biggest city is very accessible if you’re travelling from South Africa – it’s tar roads all the way. A trip there and back is one of the best self-drive tours you can do in Africa. Visit reserves like Ruaha and Mikumi along the way and take the ferry to see Zanzibar for a few days! See Kilimanjaro. No, you don’t have to climb it, but you should go and gaze at it. Africa’s highest mountain is in northern Tanzania. Along the way you can visit national parks like…

DUFFEL BAGS The trusty duffel bag is still the go-to luggage solution when camping. Here are four suitable choices. 1 K-Way Evo ’12 Gearbag If you need a simple, inexpensive and durable duffel, you can’t go wrong with this one. The bags come in a variety of colours and in four sizes: small (35 L), medium (60 L), large (85 L) and extra large (140 L). The medium size is the most practical for a weekend away – it’s big enough for all your gear and remains easy enough to carry. It isn’t waterproof, but you can wash it in your machine if it gets grubby. Volume: 60 ℓ R600 at Cape Union Mart 2 First Ascent Dry Bag If you’re into paddling or fishing, you should check out this…