Roxanne Reid's Blog, page 10

Highlights of lakes Naivasha and Nakuru in Kenya

By Roxanne Reid
If you grew up reading books like Karen Blixen’s Out of Africa and Elspeth Huxley’s Flame Trees of Thika, you’ll understand what a thrill it is to stand somewhere between Nairobi and Naivasha at a viewpoint over the Great Rift Valley, a 9600km trench that carves its way through East Africa. Here are some highlights of two of Kenya’s Rift Valley lakes, Naivasha and Nakuru. Loldia House Italians prisoners of war built the Governors Camp Collection’s Loldia House of hand...

Highlights of the Chyulu Hills, Kenya

By Roxanne Reid
Somewhere between Tsavo East and Amboseli national parks in south-eastern Kenya you’ll find the green Chyulu Hills, where we began our East African adventure. Snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro hovers on the horizon, a backdrop to classic landscapes of lone umbrella acacia trees and open plains. Here are some of the highlights of the Chyulu Hills area. ol Donyo lodge When you’ve driven past Mount Kilimanjaro and the volcanic Chyulu Hills, past open plains dotted with umbre...

Past and present collide in Namibia’s ghost town

By Roxanne Reid
I’ve talked before about how diamonds at Kolmanskop were so plentiful in the early 1900s that you could pluck them by the fistful off the open ground. The boom didn’t last long, but during its heyday some 1300 people lived and worked here. Today past and present collide with haunting magnetism at Kolmanskop ghost town in Namibia. Those were the glory days when Kolmanskop had its own transformer station, creating electricity by burning coal that was shipped to Lüderitz from...

Magical tree house in the Baviaanskloof

By Roxanne Reid
As a child I dreamed of climbing the Magic Faraway Tree to find a different world among its branches.Spending a night in a magical tree house  in the Baviaanskloof recently made me feel like a kid again as I explored its crooked corners and mismatched colours, discovered the secret garden below. You’ll find the Speekhout Tree House 19km east of the Nuwekloof Pass, on the Willowmore side of the UNESCO World Heritage Site that is the Baviaanskloof in South Africa’s Eastern Ca...

Kolmanskop: why to visit Namibia’s ghost town

By Roxanne Reid
Diamonds so plentiful you could pluck them by the fistful off the open ground. And then they were gone. People lived and worked here, but the wind and sand have swept them away too. This is Kolmanskop, Namibia’s ghost town.  It’s a bleak windswept patch on the edge of the Namib Desert in south-western Namibia, some 10km inland from Lüderitz. It was once a grand town where 1300 people lived, some of them so wealthy they could afford to make their life in this isolated place...

Soar in a hot air balloon over Sossusvlei in Namibia

By Roxanne Reid
It was cold there in the desert before dawn, our lips blue, noses pinched. But we didn’t mind. Wrapped in warm jackets and beanies, we were about to soar in a hot air balloon over Sossusvlei in Namibia in time to see the sun rise over the dunes. 

After a 05:30 pickup and bone-rattling ride in an old Uri to the launch site near Kulala Desert Lodge on the Kulala Wilderness Reserve, we found our pilot Denis already in the basket and puffing flames into a fully inflated balloon...

The thrill of a sunset drive in the Kgalagadi

By Roxanne Reid
If you only have two or three days in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, you want to make the most of your time there. Going on a guided sunset drive is a great way to do that, leaving the camp behind to watch the sun set in natural surroundings and spot nocturnal animals after dark.  The Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park is part of the greater Kalahari and stretches across the border between South Africa and Botswana. We recently spent just 48 hours in the Kgalagadi on a jaunt a...

48 hours in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park

By Roxanne Reid
In some 40 visits to the Kalahari we’ve racked up about 400 days. And they’ve always been exhilarating. But on a recent trip around the Northern Cape’s arid parks, we had only 48 hours in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. We were worried it wouldn’t be enough. We were wrong. Our first sighting the afternoon we arrived was my favourite kind – a meerkat family. Mom, dad and three kids were at the entrance to their burrow, all alert and standing tall.

We sat quietly and althoug...

Why to love the Skilpad chalets in Namaqualand

By Roxanne Reid
There are just four chalets in the Skilpad section of the Namaqua National Park near Kamieskroon in the Northern Cape, but lots of reasons to love them.  The Skilpad (tortoise) chalets are set apart in a landscape that’s naturally peaceful, just the sound of birds or the breeze. Two are set a little closer to each other, which is perfect if you’re a group of four sharing a holiday. I’ve rarely seen SANParks chalets that are better maintained or more lovingly ca...

17 things to do at Augrabies Falls National Park

By Roxanne Reid
Some 120km west of Upington in the Northern Cape is a landscape that could be from another planet. Although it’s the Augrabies Falls that lures visitors here, you’ll also find arid-adapted animals and plants, fascinating rocks, hikes and more. Here’s my pick of 17 things to do at Augrabies Falls National Park. 1. See the Augrabies Falls  Walk along the boardwalk in main camp to the six viewing decks for different perspectives of the wonders of the 90m high Augrabies F...