We met on a hike in the Magaliesberg in October 1995. Roger was a pilot in the Air Force and I was a systems analyst/programmer. We had the same interests and soon decided to shack up together. We got married on the 31st March 1999. The 1st of April was a more suitable day but we feared no-one would take us seriously! We have 3 sons between us. Roger became an airline pilot and I moved to SAP consulting.
From the start our lives together were filled with fun and adventure. As a first for both of us we went on a scuba diving course together. Subsequently we have dived in the Red Sea, Comoros, Seychelles, Zanzibar and Mozambique, as well as many South African dive sites, but mostly Sodwana Bay.
Hiking adventures included wonderful places like Mount Kenya (our first high altitude trek), Mount Kilimanjaro, Everest Base Camp, Naukluft and Fish River Canyon in Namibia, and Ben Nevis in the UK, not to mention all the local trails.
River rafting took us down the Orange River, with a short foray on camel back, much to Roger’s disgust because of an experience he had in Egypt while in the Air Force. We also went ‘tube-ing’ down the Storms river with some ‘interesting’ moments (camp-fire stories…).We even did a tandem paragliding jump off Lion’s head in Cape Town. A birthday present from Roger to me and yet another ‘interesting’ episode…
All of that being said and done, we both have a keen interest in wild life and the natural environment and its conservation. This led us to enroll in a nature guiding course at Africa Nature Training (ANT) in 2009. During that year we became good friends with the couples in our group and we started formulating the idea of a ‘year of travelling’. We were keen on exploring our own beautiful country first. The idea started taking shape and before long we bought an off-road trailer. We used our Desert Wolf for a number of trips and soon realized that it would be more convenient to have a motorhome if we were going to be travelling for a year. It was not long before we heard about AC Motorhomes and after a meeting with Hein we were convinced that this was the way to go! Check out the ‘Ufudu!’ tab for details of our build.
Roger approached Comair with a request for a year’s sabbatical and we are VERY grateful that it was granted. Thank you Comair! With this and our youngest son Kevin who finished school at the end of 2012, we started planning in earnest.
Our South African Road Trip started in October 2013 and ended in September 2014.
In the ensuing years we continued to travel and hike whenever we could and continued blogging.
2019
We have since moved on and Roger is now an ex-airline pilot and I am a part-time SAP consultant. We hope to continue travelling and having many more awesome experiences.