Hangry Hippos

Position: 24°03’02.7″S 31°43’46.1″E “Hello! I’m Wonderful”, announced our driver. “I’m fantastic”, I replied. “Actually, my name is Wonderful.” “Fantastic”, I repeated, not fully understanding that people in this part of the world have names like Wonderful, Sensible, and Surprise. For …

Numbi Numpties

Position: 25°09’20.4″S 31°11’53.4″E Leaving Kruger National Park via the Numbi Gate isn’t recommended. At least not for foreigners. A result of its proximity to the hard-knock township of Numbi and the 2022 murder of a German tourist in a carjacking …

Clarens, Thomas

Position: 28°30’53.6″S 28°25’15.6″E “Hello sir, I am Thomas. Can I look after your car?” enquired the slim young man with a shy look. Glancing around the boutiques and craft breweries lining the main square of Clarens, I decided that attended …

Crossing South Africa

Position: 25°21’39.6″S 31°53’35.9″E There is something about driving across a country as a foreigner that impresses the locals. Particularly in a place like South Africa. “You drove here from Cape Town?”, they might say with a certain amount of incredulity. …

Beating About the Bush

Position: 33°19’34.1″S 25°32’41.2″E Between muggings, flat tyres, wine tasting, and elephants it’s been a heckuva week. Telling the entire story would take days, so instead here are a few highlights. Stellenbosch By the time we paid our gas pump attendant …

Buggered in Büdelsdorf

Position: 54°18’45.7″N 9°40’03.4″E On Aleta we believe in redundancy. Let me say that again, on Aleta we believe in redundancy. One method of doing something always deserves a second one. As a sailboat we use sails for propulsion whenever we …

Southbound Through Denmark

Position: 57°21’23.5”N 11°58’32.4”E Despite Delta Airlines’ best efforts we arrived back in Gothenburg to find Aleta right where we had left her within an hour of our expected arrival time. A little last-minute running around and bill paying, and we …