The enormous elephant herds residing in Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park may be one of the world's most amazing wildlife spectacles, but each dry season this giant population is pushing the park closer to a crisis point. Prolonged periods of drought, increased human encroachment and decades old reliance on artificial water supplies have created catastrophic effects in the park that threaten its elephants, along with many other species. Until a humane solution is found for Hwange’s elephant overpopulation problem, it will remain a park in peril.
Madagascar: See this Eden before it vanishes
Published in the Globe and Mail
Travel is often a search for the unique on journeys to far-flung destinations: The more different from our own world a place is, the more alluring it becomes.
Few destinations match this profile more than Madagascar, the world’s fourth largest island, which lies 400 kilometres off Africa’s southeast coast. It is considered by some scientists to be the eighth continent because of its ecology, and travellers willing to journey far off the beaten path to reach it will discover flora and fauna – much of it now endangered – found nowhere else on earth.
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Exploring French Polynesia’s Hidden Islands
Published in the San Francisco Chronicle
When considering the optimal wine-making terroir - the unique qualities of the environment that influences the wine it produces - it's a safe bet that a coral atoll in the middle of the Pacific doesn't typically come to mind.
Yet, I'm on Rangiroa, French Polynesia's largest atoll, sipping a lovely Vin de Tahiti blanc de corail produced on a nearby motu (islet) by Domaine Dominique Auroy, an award-winning winery.
Surrounding me is the Tuamotu Archipelago, a scattering of more than 100 islands and atolls spread over an area the size of Europe. And serving me is the Paul Gauguin of vintners, perhaps the only man in the world who routinely turns coral into wine - 40,000 bottles annually.
"In the beginning, my friends thought it was a joke when I quit a good wine industry job in France and came out here in just 10 days," says vineyard manager Sébastien Thepenier. He had never been to the South Pacific before responding to the online ad that changed his life.
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Falling for Livingstone
Published in the San Francisco Chronicle
As infinity pools go, this one might be a little too literal for comfort.
Pressing my back against a rocky ledge just beneath the surface, I glance over my shoulder into the abyss - towering plumes billowing from the immense cauldron of Batoka Gorge 300 feet below. Just a few inches of granite prevents me from being swept by the current over the edge of the world's largest waterfall.
I'm in Devil's Pool, a natural formation on the Zambian lip of Victoria Falls. During the dry season, from September to December, a rock barrier forms an eddy, allowing adventurous tourists to safely swim right up to where the Zambezi becomes a chasm twice the height of Niagara Falls.
It's about as close as you can get to this Natural Wonder of the World and live to talk about it.
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With Sky at Your Back: Heliskiing in BC
Published in the Dallas Morning News
NEAR GOLD BRIDGE, British Columbia — “To be honest, I am not here to visit Canada. I came here to go heli-skiing. If the best skiing was in North Korea, I would go there.”
So says Frank Naumann, a taciturn, middle-aged software engineer from Coburg, Germany, as we sip lagers and watch the snow swirling outside. Today was supposed to be Naumann’s first chance to finally realize a lifelong dream of heli-skiing in the Canadian Rockies. But Mother Nature has gone and dumped all over his deep-powder debut.
“Don’t worry, Frankie, we’re still looking good for tomorrow,” shouts veteran heli-ski guide Matt Valade from across the bar at Tyax Wilderness Resort, a recently renovated 29-room luxury log lodge with a large dining room and a state-of-the-art spa on the shores of Tyaughton Lake, 200 miles north of Vancouver. “Make sure you bring your powder legs,” Valade adds. “You’re going to need them.”
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Mozambique’s Ethereal Island Outpost
Published in the Globe and Mail
ILHA DE MOCAMBIQUE, MOZAMBIQUE — Squinting in the cavernous darkness – through a cross-shaped slit chiselled into the foot-thick stone wall – I can see nothing but dazzling Indian Ocean azure. Nearly 500 years ago, a Portuguese priest likely stood in this exact spot within the Chapel of Nossa Senhora de Baluarte, yearning for the arrival of a caravel from Lisbon – dreading the sight of a Dutch warship or Arab pirate dhow.
Perched on the eastern edge of Ilha de Mocambique (Mozambique Island), this masterwork of Manueline vaulted architecture is considered to be the Southern hemisphere’s oldest still-intact European building.
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Are you game for safari school?
Published in the Toronto Star
MASHATU RESERVE, BOTSWANA—It’s growing dark and you’re lost in the African bush with a Land Cruiser full of nervous guests. The nocturnal predator shift is starting. What do you do?
If you’re Alden Trollip, you must not panic or you risk failing your mid-term exam. Just moments earlier, the 20-year-old from Johannesburg was tracking a black-backed jackal and confidently fielding questions from fellow students playing the part of safari clients.
But his practice game drive in eastern Botswana’s Mashatu Reserve, 33,000 hectares of pristine wilderness bordering South Africa and Zimbabwe, has gone seriously off course.
Desperately scanning the dusty terrain with a hand-held spotlight for the faint tire tracks that lead back to base camp, Trollip inadvertently drives us into the middle of a herd of grazing elephants that materialize in the dusk like a thicket of giants. One adult female trumpets her extreme displeasure as we inadvertently come between her and her panicky offspring.
African Safaris That Help Save Animals' Lives
Published in the Huffington Post
Tracking rehabilitated cheetahs and leopards through the African bush as they learn to hunt and survive again in the wild. Riding on the backs of rescued elephants on a sunset stroll to their favourite watering hole, where they finally feel safe from poachers. Observing and interacting with wild orphaned chimpanzees as they begin new lives on their rainforest island sanctuary.
Sound like your kind of a safari? Then consider visiting one of these extraordinary wildlife rescue and rehabilitation centers, funded in large part by their often luxurious guest accommodations. You'll also sleep well knowing that a large portion of what you pay goes directly toward the compassionate care and protection of some of Africa's abandoned, abused, injured and orphaned animals.
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