Day 19 - Rundu Up at 5am this morning for the long drive to Namibia. Uneventful drive and border crossing at Mohembo (country #43). We continued on to Rundu, our base for the night. It’s always a surprise when crossing borders how much the scenery and environment changes, particularly African borders which largely derive from random imperial edicts. Namibia is hot, hot, hot though (well into the 30s) and really dry, a welcome change after the past week. After stopping for money and supplies in Rundu, we went to the Sarasungu campsite just outside town, located on the Okavanga River, which is the border with Angola. Exhausted from the long, hot journey I had a few beers to cool down, a shower and an unusually disappointing meal (small piece of overcooked chicken, and boiled potato - ... read more

Day 5 - Great Zimbabwe A mammoth day today. We got up in the pitch dark to pack the tents and truck and head north to the border at Beit Bridge on the Limpopo River. This is a very busy border crossing on the main N1 road all the way to Cairo and the main transit to Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi. We exited South Africa easily enough but the queue on the Zimbabwe side stretched all the way back to the bridge. The visa process didn’t take long all things considered and within 2 hours we were on the road again. The rumoured $80 fee for Irish passports didn’t materialise as I was charged $55, same as the British. Entering Zimbabwe, our first destination was the Great Zimbabwe ruins near Masinga. The road there was fairly ... read more

I've made a book on Blurb.com with photos and commentary of my trip to Ethiopia in April. Blurb are currently having a photobook competition so I've decided to enter the book in the Travel section. The short list is determined by public vote so I need people to log on and vote for this book before November 9th. Click here to vote for Undiscovered Ethiopia. If you're not already registered with blurb.com, you'll need to do so but this will only take a few seconds - you only need to input your email address, a username and password. The link above will also allow you to preview the whole book and also purchase a copy if you're interested. Book description Mention Ethiopia and inevitably the images conjured up are of drought, dese... read more

A 3 hour bus journey from Mostar on Friday (through more great mountain scenery) brought me to Sarajevo. Now this was a total change of pace from Mostar, a sprawling city that speads west from the old town to the communist monstrosities of the new town and beyond. The city's heart lies in Bascarsija (the Turkish quarter, still have no idea how to pronounce this) and the adjacent Ferhadija (the Austrian quarter) which lie north of the river. These are surrounded on all sides by hills covered with red-roofed houses and countless minarets from the neighbourhood mosques. It was from the summit of these hills that the Serbs wrought so much carnage during the three year siege. Bascarsija is characterised by a maze of cobbled alleyways and courtyards, filled with jewellery and antique shops, cafes and ... read more

Byron's Pearl of the Adriatic has a hefty reputation to live up to but does so instantly as soon as you step through Pile Gate and gaze down the Stadun at the Clock Tower at the far end. Perfect marble covered steets, uniform buildings on either side, side-streets and alleyways at every turn and endless bars and restaurants spilling out onto the pedestrianised town. If the perfect old European city had to be designed from scratch, it would probably look a lot like Dubrovnik. I had originally intended to start my last trip here but instead opted for Venice and there are a lot of similarities between the two old city states at either end of the Adriatic (just swap water for marble). Both impossibly attractive, great to wander around but inevitably hugely popular. Arrived fairly ... read more