This year so far I ave been in Kruger Park, still one of my favourite destinations, where a friend of mine and a couple of Oz tourists on an evening game drive were lucky enough to see a pack of wild dogs hunting. Even luckier, we were the only vehicle in sight and were able to stay with the dogs for quite a while.

In early April I stayed at the two new &Beyond lodges, Xudum and Xaranna, in the Okavango Delta, which is one of the world’s last true wilderness areas. To be poled in a mokoro along the papyrus-fringed waterways, across waterlily-studded lagoons, as a blazing sun sinks down into the crystal-clear water is one of life’s best moments.

Kate was a guest of Eurorail in September and travelled by train in Italy, Switzerland, France, Belgium and then by Eurostar to London. She claims that she will never use any other form of transport when travelling in Europe in future. She was part of a group of international travel writers from all over the world, and has since had articles published about her in Kazaksthan and Argentina.

The following is taken from my broadcast on Believe it or Not, Talk Radio 702 and Cape talk 567, on Sunday 31 August 2008.

Let’s just talk a bit about Norway. There are 4.5-million people living in Norway, and it is the second-richest country per capita in Europe because of the North Sea gas and oil. Oil platforms, incidentally, are higher than the Empire State Building in New York and, like icebergs, they are two-thirds below the surface of the water.

Because Norway was on the side of the Allies, it was bombed extensively in World War II, and many freedom fighters who fought against the Germans were tortured and shot. There is still some ill-feeling about this among older folk. Many towns were burnt down and rebuilt after the war.

Unemployment is at only 1.4%. Maternity leave is a full year for women, and one and a half months for men. The state church is Lutheran. Schools are free, but not universities. There is a very high standard of living for all, as well as strict and good recycling programmes – each village and city has its own recycling rules. Citizens enjoy five weeks of summer vacation, and one week for Easter and Christmas, as well as public holidays.

But, there is no sun from the beginning of November to the end of February, and only one and a half hours’ light at noon in these winter months. There are rose-pink ‘light’ houses, where you can go to recover from seasonal depression.

My voyage is called the “Classic Voyage North”. You sail on a big Hurtigruten mailboat (1 000 passengers) up the coast of Norway from Bergen, nearly 500km north of the capital Oslo, to the tiny town of Kirkenes a couple of kilometres from the Norwegian-Russian border.

Wild and beautiful northern Norway is known for its fast-changing weather and vast distances, and is famous for being the land of the northern lights, midnight sun, and polar night. You’ll see high mountains, glaciers, fjords, islands and rocky shores. There are 30 000 islands in this area.

Imagine a giant hand had picked up a handful of 3D jigsaw pieces and scattered them in a broken line from south to north – that’s the coast of Norway. So many islands, skerries, pieces of land, rocky humps; all lying haphazardly in the sea. Would they fit together? Probably not! And so there are many lighthouse, bridges galore and tunnels connecting them. One of my guides told me: “We build tunnels so that tourists can see what Norway looks like from the inside.” One tunnel that I travelled in was 140m below the surface of the fjord.

How do you go?

I travelled on a Hurtigruten mailboat from Bergen. The steamship service started in 1893 – at that time there were only two marine charts and only 28 lighthouses. The first ship, Vesteralen, sailed from Trondheim, further up the coast from Bergen, armed with a compass and a clock, stopping at only nine tiny towns, but it was sailed and navigated by the best sailors in the world – remember the Vikings got to America from Norway over a 1 000 years ago in their longboats.

Today, 12 big ships carrying passengers, vehicles and cargo ply the route back and forth from Bergen up into the Arctic Circle and Kirkenes three times a week. The route is known as “the world’s most beautiful sea voyage” and tourists come in their thousands, making the Coastal Express one of Europe’s biggest attractions.

When do you go?

Go in summer, as I did, for the better weather and the quality of the light – one night there was a soft pink sunset at about 10pm. A blazing, perfect half-moon glittered on the silvery sea.

Alternatively, visit in winter to see the northern lights – the aurora borealis –when the sky puts on a natural firework display. Electrically charged solar particles, high in energy, enter the earth’s atmosphere at about 67 degrees north in the Arctic Circle. The northern lights are usually yellow-green, but can be green or reddish-violet. The colours light up the sky and usually form a bow from east to west – a huge belt of colour. They appear suddenly at great speed and fill the sky with colour.

Why do you go?

Go to experience the world’s most beautiful sea journey, and to see the little towns and fishing villages along the route. The ship stops 35 times and you can get on and off at will.

You’ll see painted houses, fishing boats, fish hung out to dry (cod lasts 15 years when preserved like this), and spare, austere architecture that fits in perfectly with the rugged landscape.

My fellow passengers were locals, a number of Germans, the rector of West Wittering, John, and his wife Judy, as well as a Boston family with mum in a wheelchair.

Highlights

1. Geirangerfjord, a magnificent Unesco World Heritage Site, where tumbling waterfalls, rugged cliffs and majestic mountains are mirrored in the still, deep water. National Geographic has described this fjord as the world’s most untouched travel destination.
A fjord, according to plasstik.com, is “a glaciated valley flooded by the sea to form a long, narrow, steep-walled inlet”.

2. We drove up the Eagle Road with stunning views over the fjord – the ship looked like a toy boat – past a beautiful lake, and took a ferry from one island to another (remember 30 000 islands!) Then we negotiated the incredibly steep mountain roads and 11 hairpin bends on the way down the really scary Trollstigen pass.

3. Trondheim was founded by Viking King Olaf in 997. Trondheim Cathedral is a huge Gothic cathedral dating from 1160. It is austere, forbidding and gloomy, but with gorgeous rose windows. King Olaf is buried here, and many kings were crowned here. The crown jewels are on display.

4. Trollsfjord is 2km long and only 100m wide at its mouth. This is where, according to legend, many Norwegian trolls hang out, but they sleep for 1 000 years after their midday nap.

Extract from my notes: “It’s nearly midnight. Dark, ominous, oppressive mountains loom up in the dim light, which is like twilight. Charcoal rugged shapes, imposing dramatic grandeur, swirling mist and grey wraith-like shreds of clouds. Rocks and rock formations like ‘frozen’ trolls crouching, sitting, hunched up, petrified in stone. A grey light breaks through the grey sky and a deathly pallor cloaks the mountains and rocks. Reflections of the frozen trolls are perfectly still in the oily-looking water as we silently make our way along and through the fjord. No colours except greys, blacks. The occasional call of a lone bird.”

5. Tromsø: home of the northernmost Protestant church in the world, the northernmost Catholic cathedral and the northernmost brewery.

6. The Arctic Cathedral in Tromsø is like a cross between a Sami tent and an iceberg. The 140m glass window is the highest in Europe.

7. Birdwatching: 71 degrees north, Gjesvaerstappan in the Arctic Ocean is one of the world’s most exciting nature reserves. Although there are whiskered seals, it’s birds that you come here for. Puffins, kittiwakes, guillemots, cormorants, shags, arctic skuas, and huge flocks of northern gannets, a purple sandpiper, and over 50 sea eagles. Puffins return on 14 April each year between 3pm and 8pm, regular as clockwork, and they come back to the same holes. In summer, there are 1.6-million birds within these 1.5km. You can also see other animals, such as whales, reindeer, mice, and hares.

Extract from my notes on my last night: “So here I am, having just sailed past the northernmost point of Europe’s landmass, alone on deck 6. It’s half past ten at night. I walk eight laps around the deck (2km) and watch scores of lighthouses twinkling from grey promontories, islands and skerries. Still light in the west. Sea is steel grey and it doesn’t feel cold. A lone gull accompanies the ship, its strong silent wings beating easily against the wind. The air all day long has been like champagne – the light pure and crystal clear. It’s as if the world has just been made – perfect and pure …”

The following is taken from my broadcast on Believe It or Not, Talk Radio 702 and Cape talk 567 on Sunday May 31 2008.

I’ve always wanted to go to Iceland, since studying the language of Old Norse at university. Old Norse was the language of the Vikings and is still spoken with hardly any change in the same way it was when Iceland’s first Viking settler built his farmstead in ad 874 and named it Reykjavik – meaning ‘smoky bay’. The name comes from the steam that rises from many geothermal springs in what is now the heart of Reykjavik – the world’s northernmost capital.

I flew from Johannesburg on May 29 and spent the next day and night in London – one vast building site.hop-on, hop-off buses – Regent St, Piccadilly, Haymarket (theatre tickets at R2 000 a pop), Trafalgar Square (Nelson’s Column), Whitehall (Downing Street, Big Ben and the Cenotaph), on to the south bank of the Thames (London Eye, Tate Modern Gallery, Globe Theatre) , Covent Garden, St Paul’s Cathedral, Tower of London over Tower Bridge, Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Victoria Station, Mayfair and Park Lane, Hyde Park with its famous Hyde Park corner and up to Marble Arch. And with your bus ticket you get a free river cruise down the Thames and can join a couple of walking tours like the royal London walk which includes the changing of the guard, and ‘ghosts by gaslight’ – a trip to a haunted tube station, with dimly-lit alleyways where Sweeny Todd and Jack the Ripper carried out their foul deeds.

I cruised to Iceland on the Discovery, a gracious old lady of a ship which became my home from home.

My journey took me first to the Shetland Isles, the home of Shetland ponies, and a place where sheep outnumber people. Lerwick, the capital, is the most northern town in Great Britain. Shetland is an archipelago of more than 100 islands, although only 15 of these are inhabited. Mainland – the biggest island – is only 909 square km in size and home to 8 000 people. It was settled in the 17th century but was originally named ‘ler vik’ by the Vikings, which means ‘muddy bay’ in Old Norse.

The 16th-century fortress – Fort Charlotte – that guards Lerwick, makes an interesting contrast to the oil refinery and oil rigs which characterise the northern end of the island. These remote islands are today one of the wealthiest parts of the UK. Shetlanders are rich thanks to the discovery of North Sea oil during the 1970s. Shetland earns a royalty from every barrel of oil sold, which goes into a trust fund for use by the community to build schools, hospitals and community centers. Both young and old benefit from this community upliftment, with old-age homes and retirement villages built adjacent to schools.

I took a trip to Jarlshof – one of the UK’s most important archaeological sites – because it represents waves of settlement from the Bronze Age, through the Viking era (a 40-year period from 850 AD to 1250 AD) and medieval times, to the present.

The Vikings

When they were not on the high seas, en route to plunder new territories, fierce Viking warriors were farmers and fishermen, who made stone tools. However, their prowess as seafarers is legendary, since they sailed all the way to Newfoundland in Canada.

In Lerwick the streets are reminiscent of this regal era, with names like King Eric Street and King Herald Street. There are many grey stone houses and lots of churches, but few congregations to fill them.

Small crafting villages nestle on narrow peninsulas never far from the inlets of the sea. Typically they feature Shetland ponies, fat sheep and lambs, green hills, primroses, low mountains, the ubiquitous sea and peat bogs where the islanders still cut their own peat. Shetlanders are a fiercely independent people, which brings to mind a story I heard about Solly and Ruby and Bob and Janice, who met in Southampton during the war, but were all original Shetlanders. After the war they returned to their home island and have stayed there ever since. Ruby’s mother is now 96, yet she has never left Shetland.

Our ship went first to the northern part of Iceland – I crossed the Arctic Circle and was awarded a certificate by the captain to prove it. We spent a day and night at sea crossing the Arctic Circle where there is no sunrise and no sunset. It is strange to the sun shining above the horizon at midnight.

Iceland itself is home to dramatic volcanic craters, lava lakes and majestic waterfalls – truly a ‘land of fire and ice’. US astronauts trained in this moon-like barren landscape in preparation for space exploration. Iceland sits between two tectonic plates – the Atlantic plate and the Eurasian plate. The Atlantic plate stretches west to the Rockies; the Eurasian plate stretches east to the Himalayas. These two massive shelves are continually separating (at the rate of 2cm a year) which results in many earthquakes. Evidence of volcanic eruptions is everywhere, with lava fields ranging from 300 to 3 000 years old. Iceland is still forming and, on average, every five years there’s another volcanic eruption. There’s one little church, which at some point was surrounded by a red-hot lava flow, that now stands out on a tiny island surrounded by hardened lava fields.

Icelanders all live along the shores of their country, which comprises 10% ice and glaciers – the interior of Iceland is uninhabited. Icelanders don’t see the sun for two months – from mid-November to mid-January. During the remainder of the year, the weather is fickle, lending credence to the saying, ‘if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes and it will change’. Average summer temperatures reach 15ºC, and in winter it’s just below freezing. Houses often have corrugated iron protecting their walls and roofs are made from grass.

A few thousand people still follow the Old Norse religion, but most Icelanders are Lutheran.

Our first port of call in Iceland was Akureyri. It’s located on the northern side of Iceland, just 100km from the Arctic Circle, and was originally settled by Vikings in the 9th century. Iceland’s first settler was a Viking by the name of Ingolfur Arnarson. Other settlers arrived during the early 17th century and today there are only 16 000 inhabitants, many of whom are employed in local fisheries. Although Akureyri is surrounded by rich farming country, there are hardly any trees to be seen on the landscape.

As we approach the coast, a chill wind is blowing, but the sun is sparkling off the pewter-grey sea and glinting off the snowcaps of mountains which line the fjord. Seen from the ship, the town presents a mass of brightly painted houses, ice-covered mountains and there are lupins growing everywhere. In between the snow, green patches of hillside can be seen, but they’re also devoid of trees. In the past humankind, the weather, sheep and volcanic ash have prevented trees from rooting or growing, but today Icelanders plant more trees than any other nation in the world.

During the long hard winters, animals are kept inside. In summer one-and-a-half million sheep are herded on horseback up the mountains, only to be brought down again in autumn. An average farm will have 60 milking cows, and a large one, 100 milking cows. There are only 300 000 people living in Iceland and two-thirds of them live in the capital, Reykjavik. By law all Icelanders must learn to swim, so schools are equipped with geo-thermal pools which are responsible for the clouds of steam which dot the green-and-black landscape.

Iceland is also renowned for the many birds which spend winter there. It is estimated that there are four to five million puffins alone on the islands surrounding its coast. For more than 900 years the horse was the only means of transport and there are now 80 000 Icelandic horses and they have five gaits (still pure bred). They’re often seen galloping with tails flying amid green fields and yellow marsh marigolds. These are sturdy, small horses with short legs, once crucial as a means of transport and working farm horses, but today mostly used for recreational purposes.

Predictably, the variety of wildlife found in such an extreme environment is limited, with arctic foxes and an occasional polar bear making up numbers. During the 18th century reindeer were imported from Norway, but today they number around 12 000, so hunting is permitted.

Icelandic culture abounds with supernatural beings – trolls are big and ugly and live in the highlands, while diminutive elves live in stones.

Godafoss is known as ‘the waterfall of the gods’. Here in the year 1 000, Thorgeir, law-speaker of the Old Icelandic parliament (the oldest in the world) threw down his carvings of the Old Norse gods – Wodin, Freya and Thor) in a public declaration that Iceland would be a Christian nation from then on. Gullfoss waterfall is found in an area filled with active geysers including Strokkur, which spouts an 18-m high column of hot water every eight minutes.

It’s a magnificent lava landscape, with spectacular scenery. I visit a geo-thermal field with its constantly bubbling sulphur pits, boiling mud pools and steam vents. Boiling springs and fumeroles make it one of the most active volcanic areas in Iceland. It’s interesting to note that 90% of all Icelandic houses are heated by hot water coming from the ground.

The locals cook ‘geyser bread’ by popping the dough into a hole in the ground, leaving it overnight, and in the morning removing a freshly baked loaf. Reykjavik has a beautiful church with stained glass windows that came from Coventry Cathedral. Lake Myvatn boasts more than 17 types of duck, more than anywhere else in world, including mallards, golden eyes and eider ducks – it also offers very good salmon fishing. In the best salmon-fishing rivers, a daily license costs nearly R2 500!

Fellow passengersPam the policewoman who moved ‘from handbag and truncheon, to pepper spray and gun in 18 years’, two classics teachers, newly weds of six months (the lady had been married before for 67 yrs!), John Brocklehurst the captain (who has a brother in Bryanston), a couple from Port Elizabeth, a young archaeologist and his dad, and superb lecturers, geologists, ornithologists, artists and fellow adventurers … and superb food.

What will I remember of Iceland?

• The people
• The surreal landscape of black lava, rolling green hills, no trees, snow-capped mountains, brightly painted houses, steam rising from the ground, the cold wind…
• Its fascinating history
• The midnight sun. From my notes just after midnight standing on the deck as we plough through the north Atlantic … ‘sun just setting over western horizon. Pewter-grey sea, grey sky, pale yellow sun, sky streaked with pale pink and yellow’
• The land of fire and ice…

In May I was invited to The Great Indian Travel Bazaar held in Jaipur, Rajasthan province. Representatives of the travel trade from more than 42 countries were invited, including a few travel writers, of which I was fortunate enough to be one. It was a glittering, well-organized affair – India’s first-ever Travel Bazaar – and was opened by the charismatic Ms Ambika Soni, Honourable Union Minister of Tourism and Culture, Government of India.

The following is taken from my broadcast on Believe it or Not; Talk Radio 702 and Cape talk 567 on Sunday May 31 2008.

The Great Indian Travel Bazaar, the first of its kind in India, was held in Jaipur – the pink city. Attendees included 163 tour operators from more than 42 countries, 200 exhibitors and a handful of travel writers, including me.

The opening address was made by the Honorable Minister of State for Tourism and Culture, Government of India – Sambika Soni – a woman. I was impressed by how many women hold top tourism positions, including the Minister of State for Tourism and the Chief Minister of Rajasthan.

Mrs Soni talks about how India is gearing up for the 2010 Commonwealth Games, with visas being expedited and 11 states having specially appointed tourist police recruited from retired members of the police and armed forces. India offers arts and crafts tourism, eco-tourism, rural tourism, religious tourism, festival tourism, medical tourism, adventure tourism, and yoga and wellness tourism.

Whoever thought up the marketing slogan “incredible India”, hit the proverbial nail on the head. I can’t think of another country, in a long lifetime of travel, which dazzles the mind, body and spirit in quite the way that India does. Yes, there are the stereotypes – poverty, millions of people, polluted cities, dirt, dust and desolation – but these are juxtaposed with images of extraordinary richness and beauty – the snow-capped peaks of the mighty Himalayas, the unbelievably brilliant, jewel-colored saris worn by even the poorest of women, the marigold-garlanded sacred cows, mooching serenely amid traffic jams, the life-giving and sacred Ganga-ganges River, calling more and more devotees to its banks as it makes its way from its source in the mountains on its long journey to the sea, the powerfully compelling monuments – sacred and secular – and none more beautiful in the world than the legendary Taj Mahal.

The Great Indian Travel Bazaar was held in the rich, romantic northwest province of Rajasthan – home of the far pavilions, princesses, maharajahs, forts, chivalry, palaces, painted elephants, the most gorgeous (and cheapest) handicrafts in the world, and the history and images of a world well lost for love. Jodphur, Jaipur, Jaisalmer, Udaipur – the names trip off the tongue – there’s the history, pageantry, and high romance of a former age, when kings and potentates heavy with emeralds and diamonds, battled for beautiful princesses; when silver trumpets resounded inside city walls to warn of invaders; when thousands of craftsmen inlaid marble palaces, tombs and monuments with lapis lazuli, agate, garnets, rubies and malachite, to honor both the living and the dead.

In Jaipur, as I ride a caparisoned elephant with scarlet toenails up a steep incline to where an ancient amber fort dominates the skyline, I buy a maharajah and maharani puppet. Bargaining from the back of an elephant seems quite natural. That night I dine on solid silver plates under a full moon with a maharajah in an innermost courtyard of Jaipur’s city palace. I tell him about my husband, Alan and how he served in the British army, as had his father. In fact, Alan’s mother and father were here, serving in Rajasthan in the ’20s, and two of Alan’s brothers were born here.

There’s so much to tell, but I can only focus on some of the highlights…
The second evening we dine in another palace – a queen’s palace in the countryside outside of Jaipur. We drive along a narrow potholed road lined with crumbling ancient buildings, turrets, secret balconies, arches and parapets. A monkey watches us warily as we walk through narrow gates into the spectacular honey-colored palace set against the backdrop of a floodlit mountainside. Playing fountains and green lawns greet us. Dancers in scarlet, gold and orange-sequinned saris dance on a raised stage. A band of traditional musicians clad in white robes and scarlet turbans sit cross-legged with their traditional instruments – cymbals, drums and a wind instrument that sounds strangely like bagpipes.

Spotlights enhance the beauty and symmetry of the architecture. The palace rises level-by-level up a slope in front of the mountain. One can imagine it 100 years ago, softly lit by oil lamps, when the queen who lived here was honored and best beloved. The music rises to a crescendo as the dancers whirl in a kaleidoscope of colour. One lone final dancer spins like a dazzling top – her skirts whirling around her in a blaze of color, to the clash of cymbals.

The next night there’s polo match. India leads the world in polo and we watch a contest the historic Rajasthan polo ground where royal princes have played for centuries, including Britain’s Prince Philip and Prince Charles. Tonight we watch the Thunderbolts playing the Polaros, while heat haze hangs over everything and the temperature hits a searing 40 degrees.

When the bazaar is over, I decide on a bus trip to Pushkar, Udaipur, Mtabu and Nimja. We travel over some pretty bad roads for up to eight hours a day – a cosmopolitan group of people from England, Bahrain, Portugal, Singapore, China, Malaysia, Belgium, Australia and South Africa (me).

I choose to go to Pushkar, which lies southwest of Jaipur, because it is a sacred place for Hindus. It came into being, so the story goes, when Lord Brahma, the creator, dropped his lotus flower to earth from his hand to kill a demon. At the three spots where the petals landed, water magically appeared in the desert to form three small blue lakes, and it was on the largest of these that Brahma subsequently convened a gathering of 900 000 celestial beings – the Hindu pantheon. Surrounded by white-washed temples and bathing gnats, today the lake is revered as one of India’s most sacred sites. In October/November, during the full moon, the biggest camel fair in the world is held here. The legendary colour of the camel fair, combined with the beautiful desert scenery and heady religious atmosphere of the temples and gnats have made Pushkar a prime tourist destination. There are 500 temples in and around Pushkar, and I choose to visit the most important of these, Brahma Mandir, where the only statue of Brahma is to be found.

We move on to Udaipur and the lake palaces – so beautiful they almost defy description…

Then it’s on to Mt Abu through steep, mountainous territory on terrible roads. The scenery is a mix of parched fields in shades of brown, set against ochre sand, since we’re here in pre-monsoon season. As we reach Mt Abu, there’s a welcome change in the landscape, to trees, greenery and sparse forests. Here we find the Brahma Kumaris university and the most beautiful carvings I have seen anywhere in the world at the Dilwara temples. These are not only the most beautiful carvings to be found in India, they’re possibly the most beautiful in the world. The oldest white marble temple is 1 000 years old, created in 1031 – the exterior is simple, but inside the walls, columns and ceilings have been carved into wonderful patterns and shapes – living, breathing lotus blossoms, gods and goddesses, animals, dancing maidens and elephants. It took 2 000 craftsmen 14 years to complete this work of art 1 000 years ago, yet the carving is as sharp and bright today as it was when first completed. We spent the night in yet another palace and I spent time chatting with the Maharajah of Bikaner.

On to Nimjar and another palace, where I stay in the queen’s suite, which is bigger than my house. We are taken on a tour by the noble family who has lived there since the 13th century. They drive us ‘on safari’ to the shepherd’s village where life has remained unchanged for centuries. Women still milk cows, children play in the dust and the men bring their flocks home from the fields. Everybody seems content and serene although there is no electricity and few, if any, luxuries.

My visit to India was a gruelling but exhilarating and wonderful trip. It was not always easy, given the heat and the many hours spent travelling on terrible roads each day, but I am not sorry to have taken advantage of this wonderful opportunity.
Never turn down an opportunity. You know my philosophy – we only have one life so live for and in the moment.

At the end of last year I was invited on a Peter Deilmann cruise which wended its way along one of Europe’s great rivers from Potsdam to Prague. I visited some fascinating historical towns such as Wittenberg (where Martin Luther changed the face of Christianity forever), Dresden and Meissen.

I ended up in Prague where a highlight was sitting in the 10th-century basilica of St George in Prague Castle listening to music by Mozart, Grieg and Sibelius. On the famous Charles Bridge more musicians played for the hundreds of passers-by, even an old organ grinder. Young men touted their tours and the town was packed with tourists, but still undeniably beautiful.

In March, 2008, I was in one of the most remote places on earth – the Kalahari desert. I went walking with the San/Bushmen and learned about medicinal plants and herbs, and drank brackish water from an ostrich egg container. I saw huge black-maned Kalahari lions, dozing cheetahs and uncountable herds of springbok. The rains have been good this year and the desert – usually barren and brown – was lush and green. The Kalaghadi Transfrontier Park which is in the far northwest of South Africa, bordered by Botswana and Namibia is one of the less-known national parks in southern Africa but one of its loveliest and most dramatic. Visit it if you can. www.sanparks.org

That’s why I haven’t been updating this website as often as I would like.

Tanzania still remains my favourite – fewer people, specatacular wildlife, plains of golden waving grass with limitless horizons, and of course – Zanzibar.But I’m hoping that Tanzania won’t go the same route as Kenya,

where, because of no quotas and not enough regulation, in high season you can have up to 40 vehicles around one lion pride. That’s no way to experience wildlife.

If you can afford it, a private lodge in any of these great destination countries,where everything is included, including your game drives and guided walks, is the best way to go, and guarantees you much more privacy when you glimpse that first leopard or rhino.

I know so many lodges so well, that it’s hard to recommend the ‘best’ one in each country, but here’s a list of some of my my favourites.

South Africa: Mala Mala Game Lodge (www.malamala.com); Londolozi (www.londolozi.com) Djuma (www.djuma.com) Selati Lodge (www.sabisabi.com) Hilltop Camp and Ntshondwe Camp (www.kznwildlife.com) Phinda (www.phinda.com) Tswalu (www.tswalu.com).

If you’d like my recommendations in the other countries I cover, post me a note. And of course, you still can’t beat the affordable, amazing Kruger Park, Hluhluwe-Umfolozi in Natal, and the spectacular Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in the Northern Cape (www.SANparks.com)

Thirty-five years ago I lived in Northern Ireland in a little town by the sea called Bangor. It was in County Down where, as the old Irish song says, ‘the Mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea’. Thirty-five years later, in June 2007, I’m back…

Today’s Ireland is the same, only different. In Bangor, there’s a glitzy new marina, In Belfast 1.2 billion pounds sterling is being spent on the old dockland area alone, where the Titanic was built and launched. The dazzling greens of the meadows are still there, the non-stop talking, the music and the fun are all still there, but the new Ireland is also big business. After the Peace Process was finalised earlier this year, Northern Ireland has become a magnet for foreign investment. If you’ve a bit of money to spend, buy a Belfast docklands apartment – now. Dublin is still full of Eastern Europeans – there are Slavs, Croatians, Bulgarians, Romanians everywhere, as are their food shops and delicatessens. On one night alone in one of Dublin’s most famous pubs and eateries, only one waitress was from Ireland. The other dozen from all over Europe. Ireland is pricey, but great value, particularly the food, fom the “Ulster Fries’ in the north, to the ‘boxty’ in the south.

And then there are the haunted castles, the prehistoric burial places, the old battlefields like the Boyne River and the new – the Shanklin Road and the Falls Road, Derry’s Bogside. Once modern battlegrounds of the ‘Troubles’, they’re now tourist destinations.

But whatever your background, Ireland is on most people’s travel wishlist – and you won’t be disappointed. So it rains a lot, but then there are rainbows…

Little has changed since my last visit seven years ago.
The brightly coloured vintage cars – from 1934 Fords to 1950s chevies – still tool along the pot-holed city roads in top gear. They roar past lumbering Russian trucks crowded with people on their way home from work – it’s illegal for a government truck to drive past local hitchhikers. Ancient horse-drawn carts – still an essential part of the island’s transport system – clop along with their heavy load of after-work commuters. ‘Camel’ buses (so-called because they look like the elongated humps of camels) are jam-packed with 300 passengers at a time. Curvy girls (no signs of anorexia here) in skimpy skin-tight clothes – looking as if they’re shrink-wrapped – still strut their stuff on the broke n-down pavements, but there are fewer prostitutes hoping for a rich tourist. Macho cowboys with big-brimmed hats and flat bare stomachs still trot their thin horses alongside the main arterial highway. There are very few street lights, a handful of public telephones in the villages and small towns, and the people live in charming traditional little wooden houses with palm leaf thatch or ugly little mass-produced concrete boxes. No advertising signs, just huge billboards everywhere proclaiming, reinforcing and glorifying The Revolution. “Motherland or Death�? a towering painted Fidel Castro exclaims, pointing a massive warning finger at passers-by. “Always The Revolution!�? proclaims Cuba’s most charismatic son, the handsome Che Guevara, w aving his omnipresent cigar. (Che is to Cuba what the carved wooden giraffe is to South Africa – he’s the #1 tourist export).

Although today it’s officially a socialist republic, ironically tourism is its most important industry – a far cry from the days of Russian missile bases and the huge nuclear power station which still dominates the skyline outside the port of Cienfuegos, on Cuba’s Caribbean coastline. The beautiful old theatre – Teatro Tomás Terry – built by a wealthy sugar baron and slave trader – once hosted Sarah Bernhardt and Caruso.

A highlight here was swimming with two trained dolphins. As we jump into the sea with them they chatter to us excitedly in their squeaky language and give us each several salty “kisses�?. They then transport us on their backs for a breathtaking short ride through the Caribbean. It’s a magic time.

It’s up there in that wish list of legendary destinations alongside Machu Picchu, Angkor Wat, Kakadu, Killarney and the Great Pyramid of Giza. But although I’ve been fortunate enough to visit dozens of Africa’s parks and reserves from the far north to the deep south, somehow Serengeti has always eluded me. I’ve always felt like a well-respected Shakespearian scholar who has never read Hamlet.

Finally, in late March, I get my chance. If there was animal karma then Serengeti would be nirvana, because this is full-on food paradise. It’s an abundantly-stocked raptor restaurant which also offers something for every predator’s palate – a hyena hamburger place, a jackal fast-food joint, cheetah takeaways, banquets for bat-eared foxes, breakfast, lunch and dinner for leopards and feasts for lions. And if you’re a vegetarian, then don’t chew the fat but go for the lush grazing instead…

…I see the migration – the annual movement of the wildebeest, one of the great natural wonders of the world, when hundreds of thousands of animals are drawn into the relentless cycle of movement, birth and death. Because this is late March, the wildebeest have started to move in that time-honoured clockwise motion around the Serengeti, culminating in the survival of the fittest as columns – 40km long – plunge into the crocodile-infested Grumeti River on the annual 1,000km pilgrimage to new pastures.

So here I am drinking a cup of coffee surrounded by over a million and a half wildebeest. A couple of weeks ago they were dropping 8,000 babies a day, now the migration cycle has started again and they are on the move, grazing as they go. A few stop to lie down and rest now and again. A soft lowing fills the air, a melancholy moaning. Babies bleat. These calves are pale brown, able to keep up with the herd within 20 minutes of being born, but if left behind a swift, easy meal for a cheetah, hyena or golden jackal. Read more in the July 2007 issue of Africa Geographic…