Published in the Sunday Times 13 June 2017 / Image: Piet Grobler Accidental Tourist Tamlin Wightman tried to mark her 30th birthday with a daring excursion – and got way more than she bargained for. What I did on my 30th birthday and what I should have done are very different things. Much like when I told people, “I’m … More How I got over the hill
“Imagine there’s no countries / It isn’t hard to do / Nothing to kill or die for / And no religion, too / Imagine all the people / Living life in peace.” – John Lennon I wasn’t there when it happened. I was at home, an ocean away. But I saw the images, I heard the words, I felt the … More Imagine All the People, Living Life in Peace
First published on the Relais & Châteaux Africa blog. Home, is where I want to be But I guess I’m already there I come home, she lifted up her wings I guess that this must be the place – Talking Heads We all have a place. A simple name on a map that we have traced with … More This Must Be The Place. This Must Be The Zambezi.
In moments like this, I can never tell whether my heart is beating faster, wilder, its doof doof doof building dizzily, or whether it has stopped. What I do know is that it is not rested in the in-between. And it is not on terra-firma, wherever it is, whatever it’s up to. Moments like this … More The Scared Heart of Madagascar
First published on the Relais & Châteaux Africa blog. conversation noun, a talk between two or more people, in which news and ideas are exchanged. synonyms: discussion, talk, tête-à-tête, heart-to-heart, head-to-head, exchange, dialogue, parley, powwow, chit-chat, chinwag, natter. Walking along a mountain path with Autumn’s colours spanning out from our feet and across the vines, we find ourselves … More The Art of the Heart-to-Heart in the Winelands
First published on the Relais & Châteaux Africa blog. We have been inspired this week by a simple sentence. One shared by the Great Plains Conservation, the organisation encompassing a few of our favourite safari lodges and camps in Botswana and Kenya. The image accompanying the sentence, posted on Facebook, showed an elephant in the Selinda … More Safaris and the Things That Really Matter in Life
First published on Relais & Châteaux Africa’s blog. The beauty of going slow when on an adventure is the gift of time, seeing more and seeing it more fully. I read somewhere recently that the smallest moments contain the whole universe if we just slow down enough, are present enough, to recognise them. This is what … More Like a Rolling Stone
First published on the Royal Chundu blog here. “Day by day and night by night we were together, — All else has long been forgotten by me…” – Walt Whitman We were together. It was that last day of the year feeling, day by day, night by night. How were we meant to hold back? … More When in Wonderland
First published here, on the Royal Chundu blog. As I sit with my laptop before me, both connecting me with the world and getting between the two of us, I am more and more aware that while modern life may let us know more people, it does not necessarily let us know them. We get to follow … More The Art of Getting to Know Someone
First published on the Royal Chundu blog. As the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child. And the village of Mushekwa, alongside Royal Chundu on the banks of the Zambezi, has many children. Even the children help in raising children. Young boys that reach only to my hips walk with a child … More In the Garden of Togetherness
