OVERVIEW

In February 2009 Malcolm & Judi Collis shipped their Expedition 2003 Land Rover 110 TD5 Defender from the UK to Cape Town with the intention of spending one year travelling around the wilderness areas of southern Africa. They visited the countries set out below (the recent Namibia & Botswana trips are shown either to the right or below, depending upon the viewing device):

[NAMIBIA 2022

A Trip Report, summary and photographs of the camping trip to Namibia 22nd July to 10 August 2022 can be found on THIS PAGE]

[BOTSWANA 2023

A Trip Report, summary and photographs of the camping trip to Botswana 22nd June to 15 July 2023 can be found on THIS PAGE]

This site tries to cover what is involved in planning an adventure trip and the preparation it takes. The information is restricted to our trip, our vehicle and our journey and in no way attempts to be a substitute for guide books and other erudite works on the various subjects. I would strongly advise anyone planning a similar adventure to make their own researches through books and increasingly the internet, although there is a real danger of information overload allowing minutia to cloud basics. If something feels right then it probably is.

Although it is over 10 years since the trip and acknowledging many aspects have evolved and developed since then, those planning a similar trip may find something of interest within the following pages to help them on their way.

A journey such as ours seemed to us to be fairly tame and sensible but we are sure our families and friends thought otherwise. We met many kindred spirits in Africa, of all ages, undertaking what we thought were real adventures, personified by the young German we met in Zambia cycling from Germany to Cape Town with just his push bike for company.

Although we had been married for many years, for the first time we would be together every minute of every day and that may bring its own strains that have to be dealt with; difficult to go for a walk in the bush to calm down! The reality was that we were travelling on our own to remote places coming into contact with people from different cultures and dangerous wild creatures, both of whom could have the potential to cause us problems. Such isolation could faze many and one needs to be confident that they can cope with being miles from anyone, far from creature comforts and far from help.

In many countries, wild animals walking through camp is an exciting occupational hazard and whilst a healthy respect is required one needs to co-exist. Local cultures and customs often are at variance to those we are used to back home and it cannot be denied that our wealth, regardless of what we may think, is beyond the wildest dreams of many and this has the potential to lead to tensions. Having said that, we found 99.9% of the people with whom we came into contact friendly, helpful and respectful and for us makes Africa such a wonderful place.

Also for us, the splendid isolation, the close encounters with animals and the wonderful people with whom we came into contact, made the trip all the more special. One will either love Africa or hate it; if you love it, go ahead and explore it as you can. We hope this site goes some way to inspire you to explore Africa.

In Africa, we had previously visited Tunisia, The Gambia and Kenya as “tourist” but when a work colleague and friend took up a post in Botswana it was too good an opportunity to miss visiting southern Africa. Peter and Jackie hosted us three times in Botswana, once in Lesotho when he took up another post and then once in South Africa. They had similar interests to us, camping and wildlife, particularly bird watching.

We thoroughly enjoyed our trips and visits all over parts of southern Africa and saw some amazing sights but both felt we had rushed things as you have to in two or three weeks. We always said we would love return and do things slowly.

The seeds for our big trip were sown when we were staying in Lesotho, in a rondavel, and got chatting round the campfire to a young couple. I had spotted a Danish registered Land Rover earlier on – he was English and she was Danish. They had shipped to Cape Town and were taking a year to drive home … now there’s an idea!

A week later near the top of the famous Sani Pass that plunges from 2876 metres down into South Africa, making it one of the great 4x4 challenges, we came across the couple again. We chatted for ages and their tales of wild-camping hooked us and the seed began to flourish.

With Land Rover purchased, over the following months a large map of southern Africa collected red dots that signified wild places where we fancied visiting. We planned to take a year slowly travelling through the accessible countries of southern Africa with the whole ethos being that if we liked a place we would stay: if we didn’t, we would move on.

Apart from a few visitors we had no schedule to stick to. We met many people who were driving the whole way to or from the UK but we wanted time in each country rather than rush. We needed boundaries and decided the top of Tanzania would be the northern extreme as Kenya was having election violence when we left; Angola was difficult to get into and we though Zimbabwe was off-limits; as it turned out we did visit and were glad we did.

With vehicle prepared over a couple of years and ourselves mechanically and medically prepared we were ready to go. We had imagined that we would stay a few days in the roof tent followed by several days in proper accommodation to recover; as it happened we so enjoyed camping and the bed was so comfortable we actually spent most of the year camping, only using rooms when we had to a few times.

This site is dedicated to the memory of my dear Judi who lost her fight against ovarian cancer in August 2019. Without her there are so many things I would never have done in my life, including this adventure.