Greetings from Cape Town – our new home as of 30 November. Like many South Africans we have chosen to semigrate to the Western Cape. A decision not taken lightly, nor quickly, to leave my spiritual homeland KwaZulu Natal, but one we feel necessary as we try to rebuild hearth and home post-Covid. I leave very shortly for two months in Antarctica (all of December and January), and back in SA for most of February. In February I am returning to KZN to do a battlefields tour with a group of Kamberg farmers, then ride my motorbike on the back roads to Cape Town. Facing my demons after the accident in May 2019, and an unequalled way to reconnect with my homeland. March finds me back in Antarctica, and then the run home onboard Silversea from Cape Horn to Cape Town, via Tristan da Cunha.
Whilst Karen settles into Cape life, my time here really only begins in April 2023. The plan being to pivot from battlefield tours (despite flying to KZN with Cape guests for a battlefields tour in April) to historic tours of emblematic wine estates in the Cape region. The wines have a story all their own, which I am NOT retelling. I wish to share the history of the land and its owners from the earliest inhabitants, to the present owners. Some estates have been in the same family hands since the Edict of Nantes in Europe in 1685. The early stories known only to the buildings and the trees…
Of course, my storytelling options remain in place for dinners, conferences, events and private functions, whilst I develop new stories specific to the fairest Cape. The recent whistle-stop tour to England went very well (6 talks in 7 nights), and UK tours will continue to be an integral part of our annual program. A highly inspirational friend from University, Graeme Stainbank from Eston, has taken on huge new projects roughly every 10 years during his adult life. This gave me time and reason to reflect upon chapters in my life. Ten years of wonder – in Botswana, the Afrika Odyssey Expedition from Cape to Cairo, then the backpack travels around the globe for three further unbroken years. Next came roughly ten years at Fugitives’ Drift Lodge, working alongside David Rattray for 5 years, then trying to keep the show on the road for the next 7. In October 2011 we moved to Howick to try and paddle our own boat, determined to measure Life by experience, rather than Dollar. Covid/Lockdown, the bike accident and the past 17 months in KZN have prompted us to take on new challenges and lifestyle 11 years on. Here we are, in Cape Town, wildly excited about the possibilities and opportunities of this new chapter in our lives.
As I head further south literally to Antarctica for a properly white Christmas, may we wish you a blessed, safe Festive Season, and every good wish for 2023. Carpe’ diem, always.
[with special thanks to Roger & Pat de la Harpe for this stunning Cape Coastline rainbow image]
Our Great Trek southwards
