Hi everyone from Cape Town at the end of the road for our year of traveling. Over the last week and a bit we have been steadily heading south, with our last stop after Swakopmund in Namibia being the Namib desert. We took a dune walk with a local bushman guide into the dune fields where the Tsauchab River is blocked by the world's largest sand dunes. The dunes are progressively marching inwards towards the mountains as successive adjacent dunes join up across the river bed when dry. This creates small pockets of dead trees every thousand years or so as the terminus of the river is pushed further inland. Our walk took us to the most recent patch of tree remains which look quite spooky when marooned out in the dune fields. On the same ... read more

Hi everyone from Livingstone and Victoria Falls, Zambia. Since leaving Zanzibar we have been steadily traveling south by west, encountering Malawi first after leaving Tanzania. We have been doing quite a bit of driving over the last couple of weeks, but along the way in Malawi we had the opportunity to stop at a number of local villages. At one place in particular we were able to consult with the local witch doctor for his take on how our futures will pan out. We were each ushered into a dark mud brick hut individually, to consult the man along with his translator as well as the odd stray chicken which wandered in from the porch. Not too surprisingly the doctor only had very general good news to report, and we are pleased to announce that we ... read more

Hi everybody, we have now come to the end of our time in Egypt. Since our last post we grabbed an overnight bus from Luxor to the Sinai peninsular, stopping initially at Sharm El-Sheikh to look into some diving options for Simon. We heard that Sharm was a bit of a strange place, being the Russian package tourists beach resort of choice. We were certainly not disappointed in this as we found everything really overpriced and overrun by hordes of heavy and pale Russians. We stayed at the cheapest place that we could find as most accommodation in town was at least US$70+ a night, leaving us sleeping in a straw hut on the top of a cliff at Shakes Bay just outside of town. Simon's main reason for stopping there was to complete some dives ... read more

Hello from Egypt. We have now fled the drizzle of northern Europe to arrive to 35+ degree temperatures and cloudless blue skies. Since we last posted we had a good week trotting around London, picking up the last bits and pieces we need for Africa, as well as enjoying the welcome hospitality of friends and family in the city. Suitably refreshed after some time sitting inside on a couch and binging on satellite TV we were rearing to go when the time for our flight to Egypt arrived. We arrived at 2am to find the streets of Cairo alive with locals wandering around, drinking tea and smoking sheesha pipes at night to beat the heat of the day. It is also Ramadan for all of September, which means that everyone comes out at night to eat ... read more

Hi, since our last posting we have continued our travels through eastern and central Europe, in particular taking in Vienna in Austria, Krakow in Poland, Prague in the Czech Republic, finally finishing up in Berlin. Vienna had on display all the monumental buildings from the Hapsburg's dynasty's time in power in Europe. We wandered around the Hoffberg palace complex and unfortunately learnt that the Spanish Riding School as well as all the opera singers were on holiday for the following three weeks :-( We did however delve into the Empress 'Sissi' museum as well as spending some time checking out the massive Schloss Schönbrunn summer palace, and finally seeing the over decorated coffins kept on public display in the family crypt. One of the cuisine highlights of Vienna was the Wurst Stand which would sell you ... read more