Dune 45 – Sunrise above Namib desert

The giant red dunes of Namib desert belong to the worldwide tallest of its kind. They pile up at Sossusvlei, were Tsauchab River disappears in the sand of Namibia. Only one of those sand heaps may be climbed, that is the dune at kilometre 45. It rises up some ~170 metres high and is built by 5-million-year old sand deposits of the Kalahari.… Read More

Small Stinkers – The seal puppies of Cape Cross

If conditions are good, then life in Africa becomes literally exuberant. One of those places is Cape Cross, where about 250.000 brown fur seals romp about the cold but rich in nutriment waters of Benguela Current. The home of one of the largest seal colonies of the black continent has a large kindergarten full of cute seal puppets, but out in the water lie great white sharks in ambush… Read More

The hippo baby of St. Lucia

Around St. Lucia, in the very East of South Africa, climate becomes tropically sticky and doesn’t let you sleep well. Where Swaziland isn’t far away and the waters of the Indian Ocean surge, the cohesive coastline scatters creating a lagoon landscape being an El Dorado for hundreds of hippos.… Read More

A hot Night in Hukuntsi… Stories from Kalahari Desert

Magic Kalahari, a land of contrasts – up in the north, where Okavango River seeps away, it can be as green and lush as it can be red brown and dry in the south. Being spread over several ten thousands of square kilometres it is home to one of the world’s largest game population.… Read More

Okavango Delta – The Course of River and Time

In March 2003 the city of Maun used to be a village, but now, 12 years later, it’s a town, even Botswana’s third largest town. Without interruption the sky above Okavango Delta, that locals refer to only as The Delta, gets cut by airplanes carrying hundreds of tourists that want to see what the Delta looks like from above.… Read More

Makgadikgadi – The Salt Pan with Zebra Crossings

When travelling Botswana by car then kilometres pretty much pile up on the clock as many roads lead around the national parks. One of those national parks is the Makgadikgadi salt pans area in the northeast of the country. Coherently seen they are the largest of its kind on planet Earth.… Read More

Chobe River – Botswana’s Elephant Paradise

Chobe River and Zambezi, Botswana’s north is pretty much under the influence of water making the local vegetation literally running to leafs. That place is paradise to the most likeable pachyderms of the world: Elephants… Read More

The Gannets of Cape Kidnappers and the Trans Tasman Flight

Seabirds are little miracles of evolution and New Zealand is home to a lot of them. At Muriwai Beach and the Cape Kidnappers in Hawke’s Bay I spent days with the second rarest gannet species in the world, the Australasian gannet, who is a master aviator and swift as an arrow hunter when it comes to fish.… Read More