Our adventure in South Africa officially comes to an end today. Who knew 12 months could go by so fast? But what an incredible year it was! We visited a total of 12 countries, 16 UNESCO world heritage sites, saw some old friends and made some great new ones. Continue reading “Out of Africa”
Spencer and I arrived in Australia at Perth Airport, but we spent most of our time in Perth’s little sister city, Fremantle. Fremantle is a low-key, historical town that is all about good food, good beer, and chill beach vibes. We could have happily never left. Continue reading “Fremantle and Around”
For four days, Spencer and I drove up and down the Indian Ocean coastline in Western Australia, in an area named the Coral Coast. We braked for kangaroos, fought off hoards of flies, and enjoyed some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. Here are a few of the highlights of our whirlwind tour.
The town of Lancelin is home to huge dunes of fine, white sand piled high as far as the eye can see. In the adventurous Australian spirit, we rented a pair of sandboards and trudged up the slippery slopes of the giant dunes, and then sandboarded right back down. Stand-up sandboarding proved to be more difficult than either of us expected (the dunes put some ski slopes to shame in height and gradient), and usually ended in a spectacular crash less than halfway down the dune.
Sitting down, on the otherhand, allowed the board to pick up some erious speed without the risk of eating sand. It was a blast, with the only downside being the sand that managed to cake itself onto every inch of our bodies. Still worth it.
The Pinnacles National Park is a place unlike anywhere else on earth. Out of the yellow sand rises an army of sandstone columns. These pillars, of varying sizes and shapes, dot the desert landscape, making it look like the surface of a sci-fi planet. It is a mesmerizing and beautiful place.
Hutt Lagoon would be a fairly uninspiring body of water off the side of the highway if not for the fact that it is Pepto-Bismal pink. The flamingo-tinted lake gets its color from algae that produce Beta Carotene and thrive in the super-saline waters of the lagoon.
Western Australia has no shortage of geological oddities, including the stromatolites of Cervantes. Stromatolites are essentially living fossils – they are rock-like features that are made by a single-celled organism called cyanobacteria, the earliest complex life form on earth. Fossils of these bacteria colonies exist all over the world, but Australia is home to some of the only living stromatolites left in the world. They aren’t terribly exciting to look at, but it is fascinating to try and grasp just how long these creatures have been chugging along.
Our northernmost destination on the drive was Kalbarri National Park, a testament to water’s ability to carve nature and the rugged beauty of Australia. With deep red sandstone gorges and stunning oceanside cliffs, Kalbarri is a treasure chest of incredible Australian sights. On the ocean side of the park, towering cliffs plummet into the water below. We hiked down one to find our own private beach.
Further into the interior of the park, the Murchison River has carved deep red sandstone gorges into the landscape. It is a strikingly beautiful place, but we did not check out any of the longer hiking trails because the temperature was topping 100 degrees and the merciless flies were insufferable.
Of course, all other attractions in Western Australia are secondary to its primary draw – the beaches. It was hard to wrap our head around the fact that for hundreds of miles from Perth northward lies a line of nearly unbroken, unpoilt beaches. Across the entire length of the country, white sand spills into shimmering, turquoise waters.
Driving along, we could pull off at countless hidden beach turnoffs, each as perfect and quiet as the last. So many happy hours were spent snorkeling over the reefs and simply laying out on the sand under the hot sun.
One fantastics afternoon in Kalbarri was spent on a rented boat, that we rode up the Murchison River. Spencer captained the boat to a spot near an island, where we jumped off and swam to shore to cool off.
It was so hard not to fall in love with Western Australia.
With beaches, history, culture, and great food and drink, there is so much to do in Cape Town. Somehow, with so many things to explore in one short trip, we stumbled upon what might just be the best possible way to spend a gorgeous spring day in the Mother City. Continue reading “A Perfect Day in Cape Town”
What an exciting weekend we’ve just had! A relaxing country getaway, a charming old mining town, and a quick safari – we did a lot in just 3 days. Continue reading “Weekend Wanders”
No matter how you slice it, Johannesburg is a big, sprawling city. And as much as we like it here, sometimes we just want to get out of the concrete jungle and amongst real nature. There are a few great parks near us, like the Emmerantia Dam and the Johannesburg Botanical Gardens, or the grassy Delta park where we went on a 5k Park Run this weekend. But still, I was anxious to get outside to enjoy the spring weather, so on Sunday we packed a picnic and drove 45 minutes out of town to the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Gardens.
Continue reading “Back to Nature: Walter Sisulu National Botanical Gardens”
Traveling without a detailed itinerary can be exciting and the best way to experience a country. It can also be foolish and even downright dangerous, as we learned on our recent trip to Lesotho.
Wedged between Zimbabwe on one side and South Africa on the other, the Tuli Block is a narrow strip of land on the south-eastern edge of Bostwana. It is where we finished up our Botswana road trip, and despite the crippling effects of a drought, it is also where we had some of our most exciting animals encounters to date.
My favorite African animal is the rhinoceros, so I was very excited that our first night’s stay in Botswana was that the Khama Rhino Sanctuary. Khama is a wildlife sanctuary east of the Kalahari that is committed to saving the quickly vanishing rhino.
There is a place in the middle of Botswana that is unlike anywhere else on earth. It covers an area the size of Connecticut, and it is as featureless and devoid of life as the surface of the moon. These are the Makgadikgadi Pans, one of the largest salt flats on earth. It is also where we spent a night as far removed from the rest of world as is possible on this planet. Continue reading “Makgadikgadi Pans”
Johnson Geographic 