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Books > Travel > Travel writing
"White, and more white, in every imaginable shade. Each and every second in this whiteness became an ordeal: being this close to the magnetic South Pole made the needle of my compass spin like the hands of a crazy watch. I didn't know where I was heading. I was a blind man in the middle of Antarctica ... " South African-born explorer Mike Horn achieved his childhood dream of crossing Antarctica in February 2017. Journeying alone across this immense, white desert on foot and by kite-ski, he followed an unexplored path: 5 100 kilometres over crevasses, ice fields and some of the highest summits of the South Pole. Dream of a Lifetime: Crossing Antarctica tells the story of the authorʼs deeply personal quest, which followed the loss of his wife. It is the narrative of an individual testing his limits and overcoming adversity through willpower, with the support of family and friends.
Dr Joan Louwrens was always drawn to wild places, which were balm to her soul. When her husband died, leaving her alone with two small daughters to raise, she threw herself wholeheartedly into ‘adventure medicine’, seeking out the world’s most remote corners – on land and at sea – to practise her healing, both her own and others. Working in wild places from the Kruger Park to the Australian Outback, the Atlantic Ocean islands, and both the south and north poles, ‘Doctor Joan’ dealt with a vast range of medical issues, from rabies to deep-vein thrombosis, childbirth to wisdom-tooth extraction, catatonia to depression. Showing an eagerness to learn and a humility that isn’t always a given in her profession, and with a wry eye and a sympathetic outlook, Joan Louwrens has written a memoir that’s a poignant and often funny story of a life lived to the full
After exploring more than twenty other African nations using only public transport, Sihle Khumalo this time roams within the borders of his own country. The familiarity of his own car is a luxury, but what he finds on his journey through South Africa ranges from the puzzling to the downright bizarre. Voyaging from the northernmost part of South Africa right to the south, the author noses his car down freeways and back roads into small towns, townships, and villages, some of which you’ll have trouble finding on a map. But this is no clichéd description of beautiful landscapes and blue skies. Khumalo is out to investigate the state of the nation, from its highest successes to its most depressing failures. Whether or not he’s baffled, surprised, or sometimes plain angry, Sihle Khumalo will always find warmth in his fellow South Africans: security guards, religious visionaries, drunks, political activists and the many other colourful personalities that come alive in his riveting account.
In May 2015 Weg/Go journalist Erns Grundling was disillusioned with love, life and himself. Then he decided to embark on a life-changing journey, undertaking a solo walk along the Camino, the famous Spanish pilgrimage – despite being illprepared, overweight, unfit and nursing an injury. Walk it Off recounts Erns’s 1 025 kilometre journey, completed in 40 days without cell phone, camera or watch, so that he could rediscover what it means to truly live in the moment. He falls in love (three and a half times), meets a fellow pilgrim who’s his doppelganger, experiences numerous adventures and comes across a series of colourful characters. In the process he sheds 10 kilograms and undergoes an inner transformation. Walk it Off is something out of the ordinary – a travelogue and memoir, and a life-affirming adventure story that will inspire readers to put on their walking shoes and dare to venture where they haven’t gone before.
Told with the immediacy of a diary, which is where the book began, Patrick takes us on a journey to the highest mountain in the world, where one of the greatest tragedies in climbing history was about to unfold. Filled with photographs and sketches from his notebooks we become part of the Radio 702 team sent to cover the South African Everest Expedition of 1996. It would turn out to be the deadliest climbing seasons in the peak’s history. Twenty years later the controversy around what truly happened on the mountain continues to rage. Conroy kept a meticulous diary and recorded many hours of radio communications between the climbers. Now, two decades later, his memoirs reveal a remarkable and untold story of what happened on the mountain that fateful year. Everest Untold includes hidden insights and never before revealed transcripts that shed new light on the 1996 disaster, including the mysterious disappearance of one of the South African team members in the death zone. Conroy’s hidden story reopens the debate on the risks of high-altitude mountaineering and what it meant to a young democratic South Africa unaware of the dangers that lay ahead.
"Mid-life crises don’t have to be boring and staid. Buy a mountain bike and the best adventure of your life is just over the next hill" - Quote unquote from the guy at the bike shop. What he didn’t tell you is that when you’re on a bicycle most hills turn into mountains. And he also didn’t tell you beware of riding next to guy with a long bucket list. Because he will casually ask if you want ride with him from Harare to Cape Town. After completing the trip (unexpected experiences – both good and bad- forever skeyched in your memory), you get home exhausted but exhilarated, patting yourself on the back for having raised more than a million Rand for charity, and your friends call you lazy for choosing a downhill destination. So straight away, you look for another mountain to aim at, a pointy one this time called Kilimanjaro. Cape Town to Kilimanjaro is about having fun, doing good, and above all doing epic. It will make you laugh and cry if you are on the receiving end of the intravenous antibiotics. Hopefully it will also inspire. All you need is a bike and a destination.
Tom David and Warren Handley are two South Africans who at 24 years-of-age took the first steps of a life-changing journey. This is the honest, gripping account of climbing the highest mountain in Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro, and walking 6 000km through six countries on US$2 a day in aid of early childhood development. In a story of extreme pain and even greater kindness, overcoming challenges and lessons learned, they have a message to share.
What’s your cat up to when you’re not around? Do dragons exist? Are clouds alive? Why did three men risk their lives for a single penguin egg? These are just a few of the questions and stories puzzled over by award-winning travel writer and naturalist Don Pinnock. Assembled from years of wandering around Africa, this is a funny, entertaining and thought-provoking book.
Azille Coetzee gaan studeer in Nederland, kry ’n Nederlandse lover en besluit om in Europa aan te bly. Maar iets voel nie reg nie … Daar is tog altyd die vraag: Watter herkoms hou die styfste vas, Afrika of Europa? Dié is ’n uiters leesbare verhaal van identiteit, reis en liefde: intiem, eerlik en slim.
“Sometime in November 2007 while working as an entertainment and lifestyle journalist, a job that had seen me party and hang out with local and international stars, including John Legend, I realised that I was over my life in South Africa. My job was fab and my life should have been great but it wasn’t because who cares if you get to pose with Beyoncé? I had had enough of writing about people living their wildest dreams. It was time to see what the story of my life would be. I had always had wanderlust, especially for Africa. And so I made the decision to leave South Africa, an urgent need that consumed me and almost drove me to a point of insanity. I planned to spend three months in Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Togo and Benin.” When Lerato Mogoathle left South Africa for a planned three-month break to West Africa little did she know that those three months would turn into five years. Vagabond is her hilarious and honest account of her five years of living as a drifter in Africa. In between the borders, foreign architecture and interesting new ways of life, Mogoatlhe found passion, love, laughter and heartbreak. On these pages you will find capsules of time spent in 21 countries in five regions of Africa. You will be regaled by the tales of how she tries to worm herself into hotels when she has no money because of unpaid invoices back home. You will be mortified and proud of how she navigates herself out of difficult situations like being misread by a man who tries to force himself on her. Mogoatlhe’s book is a travel memoir driven by the belief that whatever else Africa is, it is first and foremost a home. It is punctuated with a deep urge to know the continent differently.
Africa is falling. Africa is succeeding. Africa is betraying its citizens. Africa is a place of starvation, corruption, disease. African economies are soaring faster than any on earth. Africa is squandering its bountiful resources. Africa is a roadmap for global development. Africa is turbulent. Africa is stabilising. Africa is doomed. Africa is the future. All of these pronouncements prove equally true and false, as South African journalists Richard Poplak and Kevin Bloom discover on their 9-year roadtrip through the paradoxical continent they call home. From pillaged mines in Zimbabwe to the creation of an economic marketplace in Ethiopia; from Namibia’s middle class to the technological challenges facing Nollywood in the 21st Century; from China’s investment in Botswana to the rush for resources in the Congo; and from the birth of Africa’s newest country, South Sudan, to the worsening conflict in CAR, here are eight adventures on the trail of a new Africa. Part detective story, part report from this economic frontier, Continental Shift follows the money as it flows through Chinese coffers to international conglomerates, to heads of state, to ordinary African citizens, all of whom are intent on defining a metamorphosing continent.
Blacks Do Caravan tells the story of a young South African family’s caravan journey, and the everlasting memories created along the way included amazing adventures and wonderful experiences. The book aims to inspire South Africans to take time out of their busy schedules and spend that valuable time with their families to discover the beauty of our country. Fikile’s trip began on 15 September 2014 and during the journey she came to the realisation that South Africa is still a divided nation. Over twenty years into democracy, boundaries still divide us. Fikile aims to break those boundaries created by the past regime and contribute to the unity that is needed for all South Africans to move forward and experience this country equally. What better way to do it than caravanning? Fikile and her family visited over 60 caravan parks and extended their travels to the Kingdom of Swaziland, which became an eye opening, mind changing trip of a lifetime.
Steve and I clutched hands - his right in my left - and then we simultaneously pushed down with our feet. Cogs clicked, wheels turned, and we were on our way. We left Nordkapp within minutes. Cape Town was only 18,000 kilometres away. Deciding to break away from his comfortable lifestyle in London, Reza and his friend Steven set off from the most northerly point on mainland Europe to cycle the 11,000 miles to the other end of the planet, completely unsupported. Their expedition becomes a race against the clock, as they attempt to complete the trip in a world record of just 100 days. Battling punishing terrain and primitive roads, harsh and debilitating climates, malaria, food poisoning and heat stroke, their thrilling journey brings them face to face with some of the world's most stunning, memorable and volatile regions. This is the intensely personal story of one man's mission to create a more positive, purposeful life, and the compelling account of the epic journey he took to get there.
In 2018, kort op die hakke van sy topverkoper-memoires oor die Camino, Elders, en die kykNET-reeks Elders: Die Camino, reis Erns Grundling met ’n TV-span na Japan om ’n nuwe Elders-reeks te gaan verfilm oor die land waar die Rugbywêreldbeker 2019 sal plaasvind. Sushi en shosholoza is sy verslag van die reis. Kom stap weer saam met Erns, dié keer op die plek waar talle Suid-Afrikaners laat in 2019 die Bokke sal gaan ondersteun. Konnichiwa, Japan!
These days, you might know him better as a tractor-driving Gentleman
Farmer, but Jeremy Clarkson wasn't always a horny-handed son of the
soil.
But as puzzling and exasperating as life on the road often seemed to be, you could always count on Jeremy to set the world to rights with a rare wit and unique understanding. And at full throttle. Just don't expect it to all go smoothly . . .
It is the driest, flattest, hottest, most desiccated, infertile and climatically aggressive of all the inhabited continents and still Australia teems with life - a large portion of it quite deadly. In fact, Australia has more things that can kill you in a very nasty way than anywhere else. Ignoring such dangers - and yet curiously obsessed by them - Bill Bryson journeyed to Australia and promptly fell in love with the country. And who can blame him? The people are cheerful, extrovert, quick-witted and unfailingly obliging: their cities are safe and clean and nearly always built on water; the food is excellent; the beer is cold and the sun nearly always shines. Life doesn't get much better than this...
A seventy-year-old Northwestern journalism professor, Loren Ghiglione, and two twenty-something Northwestern journalism students, Alyssa Karas and Dan Tham, climbed into a minivan and embarked on a three-month, twenty-eight state, 14,063-mile road trip in search of America's identity. After interviewing 150 Americans about contemporary identity issues, they wrote this book, which is part oral history, part shoe-leather reporting, part search for America's future, part memoir, and part travel journal. On their journey they retraced Mark Twain's travels across America-from Hannibal, Missouri, to Chicago, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, New Orleans, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, and Seattle. They hoped Twain's insights into the late nineteenth-century soul of America would help them understand the America of today and the ways that our cultural fabric has shifted. Their interviews focused on issues of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, and immigration status. The timely trip occurred as the United States was poised to replace president Barack Obama, an icon of multiculturalism and inclusion, with Donald Trump, whose white-identity agenda promoted exclusion and division. What they learned along the way paints an engaging portrait of the country during this crucial moment of ideological and political upheaval.
Small in stature but very big on charm, Britain's tiniest treasures have always been worth celebrating, but it takes a trained eye to track them down throughout the length and breadth of the country. Step forward Dixe Wills, champion of all things tiny. Taking us on a miniature odyssey traversing the smallest counties in the land, jumping aboard the tiniest ferry and crossing the shortest river, he seeks out these Lilliputian treasures, examines their best features under the magnifying glass and bigs them up for our benefit. Undaunted in his search for the diminutive and bold in his quest for the bijou, he presents his findings here - the tiniest bits of Britain writ large, for all to see.
'Part travelogue, part memoir and wholly engaging' Daily Mail Bestselling author and hugely popular commentator David 'Bumble' Lloyd takes the reader on an unmissable and hilarious tour of the cricketing world as he searches for the perfect pint. After more than 50 years involved with cricket as a player, international, umpire, coach and now commentator, David Lloyd has travelled the world. It's all a long way from his childhood, growing up in a terraced house in post-war Accrington, Lancashire. But cricket has taken him all over the globe, and he has experienced everything from excruciating agony Down Under to the Bollywood glamour of the IPL - he's even risked it all to cross the Pennines into Yorkshire. In Around the World in 80 Pints, Bumble relives some of the most exciting and remarkable periods in his life, showing how his travels have opened up new and exciting avenues for him. The book is packed full of brilliant stories from famous Ashes matches and Roses clashes, sharing the commentary box with Ian Botham and Shane Warne, and much else besides - all told in his idiosyncratic style that has won him so many fans the world over. His previous autobiography, Last in the Tin Bath, was a huge bestseller, and this one is sure to appeal to anyone who shares Bumble's unquenchable love for cricket - and life!
In Afskeid van Europa lewer Karel Schoeman verslag van sy laaste twee besoeke aan Nederland, Duitsland en Oostenryk gedurende die herfs van 2011 en 2013. Dit is veral die stede Amsterdam, Berlyn, Dresden, Salzburg en Wene wat aandag kry en ook met Schoeman se vermoe om mense en plekke wat hy waarneem, in woorde tot gestalte te bring. By dit alles is daar ’n ondertoon van heimwee en gelatenheid omdat die skrywer voortdurend bewus is daarvan dat dit werklik sy laaste besoeke is en hy dikwels aan sy ouderdom herinner word: “‘Elderly,’ lees ek op my vliegkaartjie, ‘can’t walk long distance can sit gate close 15 minutes prior to departure.’ Dit is ek.” Maar afgesien van die element van afskeid, is dit Schoeman se belesenheid en sy vermoe om hede en verlede te skakel wat opval en hierdie boek ’n ryk leeservaring maak. Nie alleen die politieke geskiedenis nie, maar ook die verhale van die gewone mens soos dit in die letterkunde uitgebeeld is, word in verband gebring met die strate, parke, kerke en paleise van die groot stede wat hy besoek. Onvermydelik skryf hy oor die twee wereldoorloe se impak op mens en omgewing, maar ook die vasberade inisiatiewe om te restoureer en te herstel in stede soos Berlyn en Dresden. Die hede met sy massatoerisme, die gewonde daaglikse gang van sake en veral ook die tipiese geregte van die plekke wat hy besoek, verseker dat die boek vir eietydse reisigers ook relevant is.
Die "ver paaie" in hierdie teks (wat in 1949 vir die eerste keer verskyn het) verwys na 'n reis wat die vertellende P.J. Schoeman deur die Kaokoveld in Suidwes-Afrika onderneem het. Deur die soektog na 'n wilde perd ontwikkel die reis egter in 'n verkenning van die gees en word die uiterlike gebeure met die romantiese verlange en die strewe na 'n onvervulde droom verbind.
Iets heerliks gebeur. Dis asof ek nie meer Lanie-op-’n-fiets op ’n mission is nie, maar een word met die natuur om my; of ek nog van altyd af hier was, hier hoort. Asof die lewe nog altyd eenvoudig was. Ek klim af en gaan lê op my rug en kyk deur die herfsblare wat goud aan die bome hang tot by die ysblou lug ver bo. Ek wil iets gee, iets sê… Net mooi fine is die opvolg van Lanie van Reenen se suksesvolle boek C’est la Vie. Hierin beskryf sy wat gebeur het sedert haar hotelprojek in Frankryk gefaal het; hoe sy die nuwe realiteite van haar eie gestroopte lewe te bowe moet kom terwyl sy ook die verwerende château moet probeer red of verkoop. Op haar pad na heling onderneem Lanie vele avonture: soms alleen per fiets, soos wanneer sy die Camino Portuguese voltooi; maar ook te voet, soos die tog na die berg Everest se basiskamp wat sy ter wille van liefdadigheid onderneem. In hierdie ontroerende omstandighede ontstaan die vraag: Wat is die somtotaal van verlies? En hoe groot is die wins wat verlies tot gevolg kan hê as jy bewustelik daarmee omgaan, sodat ʼn mens ten slotte kan sê: “Eintlik is alles net mooi fine”?
Voetspore op die ewenaar vertel van Johan Badenhorst en sy Voetsporespan se agtste reis deur Afrika. Hierdie keer pak hulle 'n reis op die ewenaar aan: 'n reis wat begin in Kenia, kronkel deur Uganda en eindig in die Demokratiese Republiek van die Kongo. Soos gewoonlik het die Voetsporemanne geen tekort aan avontuur, en hierdie keer selfs aan gevaar, nie. Hulle ontmoet president Barack Obama se ouma in Kenia, klim 'n deel van die Ruwenzoriberge in Uganda, bring 'n dag by die pigmee by Epulu in die DRK deur en sluit die reis af met 'n onvergeetlike bootvaart op die Kongorivier.
In hierdie boeiende dagboek doen Johan Badenhorst self verslag oor sy span se reis van 20 000 km deur die ooste van Afrika, met besoeke aan plekke soos Zambie, Tanzanie, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenia, Ethiopie, Somaliland, Djiboeti, Eritrea, die Soedan en Egipte. Dit is ’n plakboek propvol asemrowende foto’s deur Gideon du Preez Swart, kaarte en nuttige inligting vir beide die ervare sowel as aspirantreisiger. |
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