An overland trip from Cape Town to Nairobi

A fabulous 4 week overland trip from Cape Town to Nairobi through South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania and Kenya with “Which Way Adventures” in a large truck with 13 fellow passengers and two crew.

Countries and places visited

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A summary of our trip

• Pre-briefing to meet fellow travellers and the crew. They are delighted to have a fellow SAFA on board
• Leave from Business School at Waterfront. First view of our yellow truck
• First camp, briefing from Martin, learn how to pitch tents
• Memorable fellow travellers: Carl, my tent mate, an American law student and intrepid photographer; Chris the hilariously funny group clown; Rory, the firy and booze loving Irishman; “Mama”, very large, loud, fun American who got on Martin’s nerves; Anna the wingy Australian; Terra the young student from “down South” with the long drawl; Menno, the older, zany Dutch lorry driver
• Views of Fish river canyon – and river walk at camp site
• Hear about 9 / 11 just outside Swakopmund ( Namibia) - shocking but surreal
• Cycling into town with Anna from the camp site
• Sand buggying in dunes of Swakopmund
• Nice camp site in Namib with canyon walk. Get sozzled on punch and get to know each other
• Climbing a large dune in the Namib and viewing an ancient petrified forest in the middle of the desert (where they filmed “The Cell” starring Jenniefer Lopez)
• Driving through Namib coastal park and seeing large seal colony (very smelly!)
• Seeing lions at the “night hole” at Etosha Pan and a leopard on a game drive
• Long game drive to hilly part of Etosha
• Lazing in the pool at Etosha camp
• Walk into a barbed wire fence and cut my stomach (faint scar to this day)
• Fly into Okovango Swamp from Maun in tiny plane ( Botswana)
• Moses, the fun local guide. “Welcome to Afrika” in his deep voice
• Makuro (dug out boats) through the swamp – overnighting on an island with roars of lions and hyena skulking close by
• Game walk on island in Okovango
• Watching birds and hippos from the look-out at Okovango camp – and trying to find our wooden huts in the dark
• Stay in Baobab camp on way to Chobe – and I prove my worth my climbing the pole in the bar to write my name on the roof
• Sun set river trip at Chobe, watching elephants on the bank
• Holding breath under the water competitions in pool at Chobe – I manage close to 3 minutes but Carl just pips me
• Martin meets a soul mate, a South African tourist who joins us for the next 5 days – he’s in love for the rest of the trip
• Victoria Falls – white river rafting grade 5 rapids along Zambezi River (feeling rather ill due to dehydration)
• Pissing it up in the local bar (after a meal at the Spur) – Chris gets a body shot from Mama!
• Touts desperately selling foreign currency
• Overnight in cool camp on Zambian side of Zambezi
• Sun set and all you can drink cruise along the Zambezi River – and pushing Carl into the pool with his passport, then getting pushed in myself
• Ben takes out his glass eye
• Slow progress over pot holed, narrow roads in Zambia – slow progress in the big truck
  Southern
• South Luanga National park – day and night drive. See leopard cubs, Scops Owl
  Great fun by pool at South Luanga and elephants coming through the camp, playing darts
• Into Malawi, the land of happy, colourful people
• 4 amazing days at camp on Lake Malawi – snorkeling, windsurfing, fishing, water skiing. Fun with the camp’s tame squirrel monkey who loved playing with the dogs. Watch England narrowly claw back a draw against Greece in the Euro qualifier. Apocolypse Now – Terra’s favourite movie. “Truth or dare”
• Locking Chris into his tent
• Weird swimming out in what look like the ocean but not needing to worry about sharks
• Apple pie at the famous local tea house.
• Two nights at another camp along the lake – beer race against another truck, great waterfall walk, swimming in some quite big waves
• Reading “Down Under” by Bill Bryson
• Into Tanzania – the girls have trouble peeing in private because curious local keep appearing from nowhere
• Dar Es Salaam camp site – get to swim in the ocean. Prostitutes in the camp cause some merriment. Sexual confessions – innocent Terra does some shocking
• Zanzibar ferry to Spice Town. Italian ice cream, night fish markets
• Drive a jeep with Terra and Mamma, while others go motor biking. Red Colobus Monkey. Great forest walks. Up north to a gorgeous coastal camp. Swimming, beach walks, turtle aquarium, smoking grass, Lounge music, lying till very late by the fire
• Serengetti base camp – love birds, great bar, Panic Mechanic
• Drive to camp on outskirts – see Coucal
• Serrengetti – see the big 5 within an hour, leopard hanging over tree, cheetah too. Giant Eagle Owl. Sit on roof of the cruisers, sharing sightings on walkie talkie.
• Goro Gora Crater, amazing views down, fever trees, flamingos on the pan, lion.  Wild pigs at camp on top of crater
• Back to Serengetti Base camp for a big piss up
• Kenya lake – Malachite Kingfisher, watch TV, feel a little blue, Born Free house where Hamiltons lived
• To Nairobi. Visit museum with Terra
• Fly out back to London - what an awesome trip

New birds seen

Etosha (Namibia)

• Doublebanded Sandgrouse
• Sociable weaver
• Kori Bustard

Okavango

• Lesser honeyguide

Ngora Crater

• Lesser Flamingo

Serengeti

• Whitebrowed Coucal
• Southern Crowned Crane
• Giant Eagle Owl
• Yellowthroated Sandgrouse

South Luanga

• African Scops Owl

Gramps CV

Dirk's wedding

Queensway and Porchester Spa, Bayswater

I have wonderful memories of relaxing in Queensway in a local book store and luxuriating at the Porchester Spa in London with Ally. 

Queensway

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Porchester Spa

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Rotanga Junction

Having great fun doing adventurous rides at this fun park.

Pavarotti concert in Hyde Park

It was a lot more enthralling than the photo indicates!

Neale Donald Walsch and "Conversations with God"

With his "Conversations with God" series of books, Neale Donald Walsch transformed my conception of God.  He also introduced me to the concept of life being God's experience.  His first book was bought for me by Rosemarie Saunders, a moment of synchronicity.  I read it in The Himalayas while hiking The Annapurna Circuit. I also immersed myself in his books while on holiday in Barbados.  

His books I read

Some favourite quotes

• It is the purpose of your soul to announce and declare, to be and to express, to experience and to fulfil Who You Really Are. And who is that? Whoever you say you are! Your life lived is your declaration. Your choices define you. Every act is an act of self-definition.
• The deepest secret is that life is not a process of discovery, but a process of creation. You are not discovering yourself but creating yourself anew. Seek therefore not to find out Who You Are but determine Who You Want to Be.
• You are always and forever in the moment of pure creation. The point of life therefore is to create—who and what you are, and then to experience that.
• You do not live each day to discover what it holds for you, but to create it. You are creating your reality every minute.
• My moments of awakening can come at any time, and through any person. These are my moments of grace, when clarity and wisdom, love and understanding, guidance and insight are brought to me and through me. My life has been created to bring me just such moments. That is why I do whatever it takes – meditate, exercise, pray, read, write, listen to music, whatever I find works – to ignite my awareness daily.
• You cannot create a thing—not a thought, an object, an event—no experience of any kind—which is outside of God’s plan. For God’s plan is for you to create anything—everything—whatever you want.
• I truly want what you truly want—nothing different and nothing more. Don’t you see that is My greatest gift to you?
• If there is some aspect of creation you find you do not enjoy, bless it and simply change it. Choose again. Call forth a new reality. Think a new thought. Say a new word. Do a new thing.
• Your job on Earth, therefore, is not to learn (because you already know), but to remember Who You Are. And to remember who everyone else is.
• You think of yourselves as humans searching for a spiritual awakening, when in fact you are spiritual beings attempting to cope with a human awakening. Seeing yourselves from the perspective of the spirit within will help you to remember why you came here and what you came here to do.
• Your soul doesn’t care what it does for a living – and when your life is over, neither will you. Your souls cares only about what you’re being while you’re doing whatever you’re doing. It is a state of beingness the soul is after, not a state of doingness.
• In creating “something else” – namely the realm of the relative – we have produced an environment in which we may choose to be God, rather than simply be told that we are God, in which we may experience our Godness as an act of creation, rather than conceptualisation, in which the little candle in the sun – the littlest soul – can know itself as the light.
• We are all God, Godding – experiencing Our Self through the experiencing of Our parts. We are God expressing Our Self.
• My purpose in creating you, My spiritual offspring, was for Me to know myself as God. I have no way to do that save through you. Thus, it can be said that My purpose for you is that You should know yourself as Me.
• You cannot experience that Which You Are in the absence of that which you are not. Therefore, know that when you experience that which you are not, it is not a failure to experience but a way to experience That Which You Are.
• The parable of the soul and the sun: There was once a soul who knew itself to be the light. This was a new soul, and so, anxious for experience. “I am the light,” it said. “I am the light.” Yet all the knowing of it and the all the saying of it could not substitute for the experience of it. For in the realm from which this little soul emerged, there was nothing BUT the light. Every soul was magnificent, and shone with the brilliance of My awesome light. And so the little soul in question was as a candle in the sun. In the midst of the grandest light, of which it was a part, it could not see itself, nor experience itself as Who It Really Is. Now it came to pass that this soul yearned and yearned to know itself. And so great was its yearning that I one day said “Do you know, Little One, what you must do to satisfy this yearning of yours? You must separate yourself from the rest of us and then you must call upon yourself the darkness.” “What is the darkness, oh Holy One?” the little soul asked. “That which you are not.” I replied and the little soul understood. And so this the soul did, removing itself from all Yea, and going even unto another realm. And in this realm, the soul had the power to call into its experience all sorts of darkness. And this it did. And yet in the midst of all the darkness did it cry out, “Father, father, why have you forsaken me?” But I have never forsaken you, but stand by you always, ready to remind you of Who You Really Are, ready, always ready to call you home.
• Be a light unto the darkness, and curse it not.
• The act of resisting something is the act of granting it life… the more you resist, the more you make it real, whatever it is you are resisting.
• God is love. God accepts you as you are. God expects nothing of you. God does not judge. Nothing makes God unhappy. God would never condemn anyone. You do not need to change anything or “get better” to be seen as perfect and beautiful in God’s eyes.
• God is love. There is no judgement and there is no separateness. And the only ‘hell’ is the one we create for ourselves here on Earth.
• I do not love “good” more than I love “bad.” Hitler went to heaven. When you understand this, you will understand God.
• God offers friendship, not lordship—and in return asks for friendship, not worship.
• See God in everyone and help everyone to see God in themselves.
• God is in the sadness and the laughter, in the bitter and the sweet. There is a divine purpose behind everything—and therefore a divine presence in everything.
• God’s greatest truth is that there is not one way only but many ways Home. There are a thousand paths to God and everyone will get you there. Indeed, all paths lead to God. This is because there is no other place to go.
• There is no such thing as an incorrect path for all paths lead to the same place eventually
• I have sent you nothing but angels and miracles. See the perfection in this moment. Your soul chose your life to create the opportunity to fulfil your soul’s agenda. There is no such thing as a chance encounter. Everything is occurring in perfect order, as it should be. 
• The universe is conspiring in your favor. It is placing before you in every moment all of the right and perfect people, circumstances, and situations with which to answer life’s only question: Who am I? Have you decided yet?
• A master understands that life is perfection and always prefers what is occurring.
• Enlightenment is understanding that there is nowhere to go, nothing to do, and nobody you have to be except exactly who you’re being right now.
• Each moment of your life is a holy moment, a moment of creation. Each moment is a new beginning. In each, you are born again.
• Do what you do for the sheer joy of it. Do what you choose, not what someone else chooses for you.
• The purpose of a relationship is to decide what part of yourself you would like to experience and express.
• In all relationships, there is only one question that has any importance to your soul: “What would love do now?”
• A five-word sentence that could change the world tomorrow is “What would love do now?”
• All you have to do to have love is be love.
• What you do for your Self, you do for another. What you do for another, you do for the Self. This is because you and the other are one. And this is because…there is naught but You.
• When you see others who appear separate from you, look at them deeply. Look into them. Do this for a long moment and you will capture their essence. And you’ll meet you, waiting there.
• Life proceeds out of your intention. Your true intention is revealed by your actions, and your actions are determined by your true intention.
• Have intentions but don’t have expectations, and certainly don’t have requirements. Do not become addicted to a particular result. Do not even prefer one. Elevate your Addictions to Preferences, and your Preferences to Acceptances.
• He who does not go within, goes without.
• FEAR is an acronym in the English language for ‘False Evidence Appearing Real’.
• Quotes on Wisdom Trove

Sam's 1 st birthday

Thanks for the photos, Jo.

Jo, Anthony and Sam visit us in London

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Mum and Mike visit us in London

 

Favourite movies watched (2001)

• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
• Moulin Rouge (2001)
• Amelie (2001)
• Shrek (2001)
• A Beautiful Mind (2001)
• Enemy at the Gates (2001)
• Enigma (2001)
• A Knight's Tale (2001)
• Bridget Jones Diary (2001)

Quotes by Neale Donald Walsch that I love

• Your life proceeds out of your intentions for it. 
• See God in everyone and help everyone to see God in themselves. 
• Each circumstance is a gift, and in each experience is hidden a treasure. 
• It is in sharing the most, not gathering the most, that the most is received. 
• In the stillness, you will find your true being. In the silence, you will hear the breathing of your soul - and of God.
• Say not this is true. Say this is true for me. Say not mine is a better way. Say mine is merely another way. 
• Every moment of your life is a holy moment, a moment of creation. Each moment is a new beginning. In each moment, you am born again. 
• Enlightenment is understanding that there is nowhere to go, nothing to do, and nowhere you have to be except exactly who you're being right now. 
• In the stillness, you will find your true being. In the silence, you will hear the breathing of your soul - and of God. You will find God in the Stillness. 
• We are all of us, exactly where it is perfect for us to be, all the time. And we need nothing more of our evolution than exactly what we have, and are experiencing, right now. 
• When you see others who appear separate from you, look at them deeply. Look into them. Do this for a long moment and you will capture their essence. And you'll meet you, waiting there. 
• Be what you are looking for and what you are looking for will find you. What you seek from another, give to another. That which you wish to experience from another, cause another to experience. 
• Go ahead and do what you love to do. Do nothing else! You have so little time. How can you think of wasting a single moment doing something for a living you don't like to do. That is not a living, that is dying! 
• God's greatest truth is that there is not one way only but many ways Home. There are a thousand paths to God and every one will get you there. Indeed all paths lead to God. This is because there is no other place to go. 
• When you do not require a person to show up as you imagine you need them to be, then you can drop expectation. Then you love them exactly as they are. Yet this can only happen when you love your Self exactly as you are. 
• You cannot experience that Which You Are in the absence of that which you are not. Therefore, know that when you experience that which you are not, it is not a failure to experience but a way to experience That Which You Are. 
• The deepest secret is that life is not a process of discovery, but a process of creation. You are not discovering yourself but creating yourself anew. Seek therefore not to find out Who You Are but determine Who You Want to Be. 
• Have intentions but don't have expectations, and certainly don't have requirements. Do not become addicted to a particular result. Do not even prefer one. Elevate your Addictions to Preferences, and your Preferences to Acceptances. 
• Your soul doesn't care what it does for a living - and when your life is over, neither will you. Your souls cares only about what you're being while you're doing whatever you're doing. It is a state of beingness the soul is after, not a state of doingness. 
• It is the purpose of your soul to announce and declare, to be and to express, to experience and to fulfill Who You Really Are. And who is that? Whoever you say you are! Your life lived is your declaration. Your choices define you. Every act is an act of self definition. 
• Simply be quiet. Be with your Self in the stillness. Do this daily. Just stop. Stop all your doingness. Stop all your thinking. Stop all your thinking. Just "be for a while. Take an hour every day at dawn and give it to your Self. Meet your Self there in the holy moment. Then go about your day. You will be a different person. 
• Nothing happens in life by accident. Nothing. Nothing occurs in your life by chance. Nothing. Nothing takes place without producing the opportunity for real and lasting benefit to you. Nothng at all. The perfection of every moment may not be apparent to you, yet that will make the moment no less perfect. It will be no less a gift. 
• When you lose sight of each other as sacred souls on a sacred journey, then you cannot see the purpsose behind all relationships. The purpose of a relationship is to decide what part of yourself you would like to experience and express - not what part of another you can capture and hold. Not to have somone to complete you but to have another with whom to share your completeness. 
• A true Master is not the one with the most students, but one who creates the most Masters. A true leader is not the one with the most followers but one who creatses the most leaders. A true teacher is not the one with the most knowledge, but one who causes the most others to have knowledge. And a true God is not One with the most servants, but One who serves the most, thereby making Gods of all others. 
• The correct prayer is never a prayer of supplication but a prayer of gratitiude. Thankfullness is a powerful statement to God; an affirmation that even before you ask, God has answered. Therefore never supplicate. Appreciate. Every prayer - every thought, every statement, every feeling - is creative. To the degree that it is fervently held as truth, to that degree will it be made manifest in your experience. 
• At the end of your life, you will know that nothing you have done will matter - only who you have been while you have done it. Have you been happy? Have you been kind? Have you been gracious? Have you been compassionate and considerate of others? And most of all, have you been loving? You will see that it is who you have been, not what you have done, that matters to the soul. And you will see that it is your soul, after all, that is Who You Are. 
• However little of anything you have, you can always find someone who has less. Find that someone and give to them from the abundance that is yours. Seek not to be the recipient of anything but to the the source. That which you wish to have , cause another to have. That which you hope to experience, cause anther to experience. For what you give you become. And in so doing, you will realise that you have had these things in your possession all along. 
• Is the tulip superior to the rose? Are the mountains more majestic than the sea? Which snowflake is the most magnificent? Is it possible that they are all magnificent - and that, celebrating their magnificence together, they create an awesome display. See the beauty and the wonder of all whose lives you touch. For you are each wondrous indeed, yet no-one more wondrous than another. And you will oneday melt into Oneness, and know then that you form together a single stream 
• Every event of life is a miracle, as is life itself Life is designed to provide your soul with the perfect tools, the perfect circumstances, the perfect conditions with which to realise and experience, announce and declare, fulfill and become Who You Really Are. Therefor judge not, and neither condemn. Love your enemies, pray for your persecutors, and embrace every moment and circumstance of life as a treasure, a perfect gift from a perfect Creator. For I have sent you nothing but angels. I have given you nothing but miracles. 
• Your purpose is to create and recreate yourself anew in each golden moment of Now in the next grandest version of the greatest vision you have ever held about Who You Really Are. To announce and become, express and fulfil, experience and know your true Self. Life is a constant process of limitless creation. It is about recreating Who You are, by remembering all you have always known, & choosing what you want to experience of your Self. Go therefore into this magnificent world of your creation and make your lifetime an extraordinary statement of and a breathtaking experience of the greatest idea that you have ever had of yourself. 
• You get your life to "take off" by first becoming very very clear in your thinking. Think about what you want to be, do and have. Think about it often until you are very clear about this. Then when you are very clear, think about nothing else. Imagine no other possibilities. Throw all negative thoughts out. Release all your doubts. Reject all fears. Discipline your mind to hold fast to the original creative thought. When your thoughts are clear and steadfast, begin to speak them as truths. Say them out loud. Use the greatcommand that calls forth creative power: I am. "I am" is the strongest creative statement in the universe. Whatever you think, whatever you say, after the words "I am" sets in motion those experiences, calls them forth, brings them to you. 
• The parable of the soul and the sun: There was once a soul who knew itself to the the light. This was a new soul, and so, anxious for experience. "I am the light," it said. "I am the light." Yet all the knowing of it and the all the saying of it could not substitute for the experience of it. For in the realm from which the this little soul emerged, there was nothing BUT the light. Every soul was magnificent, and shone with the brilliance of My awesome light. And so the little soul in question was as a candle in the sun. In the midst of the grandest light, of which it was a part, it could not see itself, nor experience itself as Who It Really Is. Now it came to pass that this soul yearned and yearned to know itself. And so great was its yearning that I one day said "Do you know, Little One, what you must do to satisfy this yearning of yours? You must separate yourself from the rest of us and then you must call upon yourself the darkness." "What is the darkness, oh Holy One?" the little soul asked. "That which you are not." I replied and the little soul understood. And so this the soul did, removing itself from all Yea, and going even unto another realm. And in this realm, the soul had the power to call into its experience all sorts of darkness. And this it did. And yet in the midst of all the darkness did it cry out, "father, father, why have you forsaken me?" But I have never forsaken you, but stand by you always, ready to remind you of Who You Really Are, ready, always ready to call you home. 

Event highlights (London years: 2000 - 2003)

Siegelgale  (April 2000 - June 2001)

• Infuzer
• Safehost
• Synthesising financial services
• Bank Hapoalim in Tel Aviv (brand strategy, literature strategy, site review, flash)

Travel

• Africa trip: Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya (2001)
• Nepal: Annapurna Circuit hike and Chitwan National Park (2001)
• Istanbul to Cairo tour leading (2002)

Hammersmith Grove life

• Touch rugby & roast lunch
• Rollerblading
• Many plays
• Visitors (Jo & Ant, mum & Mike)
• Cycling
• Thai Chi
• Landmark forum

Volvo.com project (2003)

• Project communication
• CMS training and documentation
• Webcentre site
• Trips to Asheville, Gothenburg, Curitiba and Iguazu Falls in Brazil (2003)

Holiday

• Barbados (2002)
• Croatia (2003)

Cape Town

• 2001: In advance of my trip through Africa, Dirk wedding, Rotunga
• 2002: Mum and Mike wedding, meet baby Matt
• 2003: Jo & Steve wedding

Hiking

• Climbing through Steenbras cracks with Russell
• Annapurna circuit (21 days)
• Malawi to waterfall

First trip to Cambridge

Visiting Amanda and Johnathon

My beloved MiniDisk player and David Gray

Ally gifted me this beautiful device and I absolutely love it. It allows me to put several albums on a disk. I take it on the train with me, listening to lots of David Gray and classical music.

Branding for Bank Hapoalim

At Siegelgale, one of the main projects I worked on was to help Bank Hapoalim, a leading Israeli bank, to  rebrand.  I worked with Peter Gilson, the CEO, and Anita, a very effective senior consultant.

The last project necessitated weekly trips to Tel Aviv which I loved.  The project took well over 6 months and and our project team and clients became a very close knit group.

My involvement

• Helping with brand strategy (brand vision, mission and values). 
• Helping to simplify their literature system with the new brand.
• A review of their web site and recommendations on improving it in line with the new brand.
• An online flash presentation promoting the new brand strategy.

Highlights

• Flying business class from London to Tel Aviv each week and getting to recline completely on the chairs.  We needed to sleep as we flew at night and arrived early in the morning before starting our workshops.
• Working closely with Tali, a marketing person at Bank Hapoalim, and earning her respect.
• Dinner and after-dinner discussions with Peter and Anita at the Hilton Hotel.  We all got very close to the extent that Peter shared one night his "imposter syndrome."

 

Affirmation (London years: 2000 - 2003)

Siegelgale

• Safe Host project
• Intelligo
• Hapoalim web review
• Literature model
• Tallie really sorry to see me go
• Ken Winsor thought a lot of me
• Peter: Synthesis is your gift
• Speaking course - "natural genius"

Tourleading

• Having the courage
• Conquests
• Personality
• Donna - crack me up
• Offered South American trip by Oasis

Volvo.com project

• Courage to go for Volvo job
• Slide showing volvo.com fragmentation and integration
• Site businessl-line descriptors
• Volvo.com training, including trucks
• CMS training manual
• Volo.com web-centre support site
• Volvo.com presentations to web group, especially on usability principles

London life

• Bulk up at gym
• Rollerblading
• Personality with Adam

Courage

• Barclays interview
• Prudential presentation
• Going with tour-leading job
• Going with Volvo job

My 30th birthday (London)