#My horses are in their prime at the age that most wild horses die

[isthehorsevideocute]

Absolutely sick to death of listening to people insist that all horses should be running free on the American plains instead of being "slaves" for riding and pulling. Firstly, the populations of horses on the American plains are feral and invasive. They originate from domestic populations, and on top of that very few are actually related to the first horses that were brought by colonizers. Most are related to or just straight up are ranch horses that got loose. Secondly, the vast majority of domestic horses would die in a matter of days if you tossed them out there because they don't have the traits that set them up for survival that feral population have due to natural selection. And third, even for the populations of horses that are adapted to that kind of environment, their life expectancy is cut in half compared to domestic horses. When feral horses are adopted into domestication, their life expectancy doubles. That's because being in the wild with little to no human intervention is not the sunshine and rainbows you see when you watch Spirit. Wild populations go through annual periods of starvation where many horses die and survivors are skin and bones (literally emaciated) until the seasons change and there's grass again.

If you think I need to chuck my middle aged horses out to "be free" you best be prepared to throw your dogs and cats out on the streets to live among the feral populations of those animals.

[ashes-and-ashes]

Just A Splintered Fairytale

So this was something I wrote ages ago back in 2018, when I was still a Tumblr fetus trying to make a name for myself. I’ve come a long way since then but I still love this - even if it’s painfully cliche :)

Read till the end?

~

Once upon a time, in a great castle in a kingdom called Elsewand, a king and a queen had a royal baby. The child was very beautiful, with eyes like grass and hair like night, skin that was delicate and fair and lips as red as blood. However, during childbirth, the Queen fell into a deep faint, and did not rise again. She was pronounced dead the next day, and the kind sought to find a new wife.

The child had a stepmother, who was a wicked woman. She too was very beautiful, and the magic mirror told her this every day, whenever she asked it.

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the loveliest person in the land?”

The reply was always; “You are, your Majesty,” and the Stepmother would smile, content.

The stepmother was very cruel to the young child. She forced hours upon hours of hard labor on the young child, calling the child “Blanc” instead of the royal titles expected of royalty.

One day, the stepmother went down to her mirror, as she did every day. She called out, “Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?”

However, this time, the mirror did not say the expected response. “Blanca is the fairest in all the land, majesty.”

The stepmother was furious and, wild with jealousy, began plotting to get rid of her rival. Calling one of her most trustworthy servant, she bribed him with a rich reward to take Blanc into the forest, far away from the Castle. Then, unseen, he was to bring the heart of the dead child back to the stepmother. The greedy servant, attracted to the reward, agreed to do this deed, and he led the innocent child away.

However, when they came to the fatal spot, beside a river and under a tree, the man’s courage failed him and, leaving the shivering child sitting beside a tree, he mumbled an excuse and ran off. Blanc was left all alone in the forest.

Night came, but the servant did not return. Blanc, alone in the dark forest, began to cry bitterly. The noises echoed in the dark woods, shrieks and moans and the sound of chattering animals. The noises were so loud that sleep was nigh impossible, bringing nightmares and dark thoughts.

At last, overcome by tiredness, Blanc fell asleep curled under a tree.

The sleep was fitful, waking Blanc from time to time with a start. The darkness seemed to jeer, with great glowing eyes that pierced into Blanc’s slumber, the noises allowing no rest. It was cold, bitterly so, and Blanc lay huddled, wrapped around the small tree.

At last, dawn woke the forest to the song of the birds, and Blanc too, awoke. A whole world was stirring to life and the child was glad to see how silly the noises had been. However, the thick trees were like a wall, and as Blanc rose, a small path caught just on the edge of vision.

Blanc walked along it, hopefully. On and on, the path lead till the path opened onto a clearing. There stood a strange cottage, with a tiny door, tiny windows and a tiny chimney pot. Everything about the cottage was much tinier than it ought to be. Blanc pushed the door open.

“l wonder who lives here?” the child said, peeping round the kitchen. “What tiny plates! And spoons! There must be seven of them, the table’s laid for seven people.” Upstairs was a bedroom with seven neat little beds. Going back to the kitchen, Blanc had an idea.

“I’ll make them something to eat. When they come home, they’ll be glad to find a meal ready.”

Towards dusk, seven tiny men marched homewards singing. But when they opened the door, to their surprise they found a bowl of hot steaming soup on the table, and the whole house spick and span. Upstairs was Blanc, fast asleep on one of the beds. The chief dwarf prodded the child gently.

“Who are you?” he asked. Blanc told them the story, of the evil stepmother and the huntsman and the forest, and tears sprang to the dwarfs’ eyes. Then one of them said, as he noisily blew his nose:

“Stay here with us!”

“Hooray! Hooray!” they cheered, dancing joyfully round the bed. The dwarfs said to Blanc:

“You can live here and tend to the house while we’re down the mine. Don’t worry about your stepmother leaving you in the forest. We love you and we’ll take care of you!” Blanc gratefully accepted their hospitality, and next morning the dwarfs set off for work. But they warned the child not to open the door to strangers.

Meanwhile, the servant had returned to the castle, with the heart of a roe deer. He gave it to the cruel stepmother, telling her it belonged to Blanc, so that he could claim the reward. Highly pleased, the stepmother turned again to the magic mirror. But her hopes were dashed, for the mirror replied: “The loveliest in the land is still Blanc, who lives in the seven dwarfs’ cottage, down in the forest.” The stepmother was beside herself with rage.

“The child must die! They shall be burned with poison, tied to a stake!” she screamed. Disguising herself as an old peasant woman, she put a poisoned apple with the others in her basket. Then, taking the quickest way into the forest, she crossed the swamp at the edge of the trees. She reached the bank unseen, just as Blanc stood waving goodbye to the seven dwarfs on their way to the mine.

Blanc was in the kitchen when there was a sound door: KNOCK! KNOCK! The child remembered the dwarf’s advice, and called out suspiciously,

“Who’s there?”

“I’m an old peasant woman selling apples,” came the reply.

“I don’t need any apples, thank you,”

“But they are beautiful apples and ever so juicy!” said the velvety voice from outside the door.

“I’m not supposed to open the door to anyone,” said the child, who was reluctant to disobey the dwarves.

“And quite right too! Good child! If you promised not to open up to strangers, then of course you can’t buy. You are a smart child indeed!” Then the old woman went on.

“And as a reward for being good, I’m going to make you a gift of one of my apples!”

Without a further thought, Blanc opened the door just a tiny crack, to take the apple.

“There! Now isn’t that a nice apple?” The Old Witch smirked.

Blanc bit into the fruit, and suddenly, fell to the ground in a faint: the effect of the terrible poison taking hold instantly.

From behind the door, the wicked stepmother listened. Thump! It was the sound of a body hitting the ground! Chuckling evilly, the wicked stepmother hurried off. But as she ran back across the swamp, she tripped and fell into the quicksand. No one heard her cries for help, and she disappeared without a trace.

Meanwhile, the dwarfs came out of the mine to find the sky had grown dark and stormy. Loud thunder echoed through the valleys and streaks of lightning ripped the sky. Worried about Blanc, they ran as quickly as they could down the mountain to the cottage.

There they found the child, lying still and lifeless, the poisoned apple next to Blanc’s outstretched hand. They did their best to rouse the child, but it was no use.

They wept and wept for a long time. Then they laid the small body on a bed of rose petals, in a crystal coffin in the middle of the forest. Each day they laid a flower there, in shades of blue and pink, red and purple.

Then one evening, they discovered a strange young man admiring Blanc’s lovely face through the glass. After listening to the story, the Prince (for he was a prince!) made a suggestion.

“If you allow me to take the body to the Castle, I’ll call in famous doctors to combat this peculiar sleep.” But the dwarves were suspicious, and did not permit the prince to take away Blanc’s body.

Everyday, the prince came to the coffin. For 3 years, everyday, he would ride his horse out to gaze upon that sleeping face. He would talk to the sleeping figure, telling stories. A young boy, born to be a prince, thrust into a dangerous world. Years spent hiding, burying his true self. A battle, in some far off land, from which he would surely die in. As the years passed, the child began to grow. Blanc’s eyes darkened into a deep blue sea, hair turning even darker, lips turning even redder and skin paling. The child was a child no longer, someone in the prime of youth.

Finally, the prince went to the head dwarf.

“I have come here everyday, for nought but 3 years. I have watched this child grow, from a child into an adolescent, and though I try to fight it, I have fallen in love. My father has summoned me off to war, though, and I will not be able to return until we have won the battle, or until I have died. I understand that you will not be parted, but if you please, may I just be permitted to grant just one kiss?”

The head dwarf considered this for a moment, then nodded. “Very well. But understand, I only grant your request because I have seen how much you care for Blanc.”

The prince nodded, and leaned down. First, he swept the raven hair off of Blanc’s face, then, he turned that cold face up and kissed Blanc. Suddenly, a crack of lightning tore through the clearing, the light illuminating the forest. A faint gasp sounded, and suddenly, the figure in the coffin sat up. Blanc had come back to life.

With hands braced on the coffin, Blanc started to cough. Each heave was deep and rattling, until a drop of blood and a piece of apple fell from red lips. The prince rushed over, draping his cloak around Blanc’s shoulders, grabbing those icy hands. “Are you…are you alright?”

Blanc’s voice was hoarse. “You…I remember you.” The prince felt the grip around his hands tighten. “You were the one who talked to me, who told me all those stories about yourself. While I was…while I was asleep. You stayed with me.”

The prince nodded. “I did.”

Blanc shrugs, eyes dancing around the clearing. “Why did you? Why did you stay?”

The prince looked down, at their entwined hands. “Because I fell in love. And I don’t know why, but I did.”

Tears sprung to Blanc’s eyes, as the prince leaned forwards, and they were kissing again, in that dark forest in the middle of nowhere.

The prince smiled, his hands grasping Blanc’s. “Will you…will you come back with me? Back to my kingdom?”

Blanc nodded, still grasping his hand. “Of course. If you will have me…I have nowhere else to go.”

The prince just laughed, lifting Blanc up onto his horse. “Then we shall go. I would like to introduce you to my father, to gain his approval.”

So Blanc smiled, calling out a “farewell” to the dwarves, who were shining with happiness.

As the two of them rode off through the forest, the Prince turned over to Blanc. “I…I feel embarrassed for this, but I never got to learn your name.”

Blanc looked down, holding the Prince’s hand even tighter. “They villagers used to call me Blanc, because of my white skin, and that I was born on the coldest day of the year.”

The Prince nodded. “So, should I call you Blanc then?”

Blanc just smiled. “Blanc is not my real name, however.” He looked up, icy blue eyes gleaming in the cold winter’s day. “My name is Kieran, the Eldest Son of the King of Elsewand.”

[domestic-harry]

hiii lisa! so i really love how you've been linking fics to songs and i was wondering if you could do a rec list based off of your top 25 most listened to songs! (i know that's a lot so you don't have to if you don't want to lol)

Iris by Goo Goo Dolls

And I’d give up forever to touch you 

Where Your Heart Is: Louis is ready for his brand new adventure. So what if he suffers from a genetic condition that prevents him from being touched? College is going to be awesome. It has to. Karma kind of owes him right now. Forget about his overprotective mother, or Liam– his entirely too chipper step brother– or his mess of a roommate. Forget about the gloves he has to wear at all times. He’s here to expand his knowledge, write and drown himself in books – No matter how distracting ‘Hallway Boy’ may be– The obnoxious, flirty frat wannabe determined to become the bane of Louis’ existence.

Don’t Let Me Go by Harry Styles

Seems like these days I watch you from afarJust trying to make you understand 

Emperor’s New Clothes : Harry’s a pop star and Louis isn’t, and there’s a non-disclosure agreement where there used to be a relationship.

Somebody to Love by Queen

I just gotta get out of this prison cellOne day (someday) I’m gonna be free, Lord!

Atlas At Last : He doesn’t know what he had been expecting out of the road trip itself besides burping contests and too much shitty gas station food with Oli and Stan, but in the brief moment before Harry ambles up his driveway, Louis idly wonders if this is about to become some sort of Gay Coming of Age story.Maine to California in ten days. In which Zayn’s an open-shirt hippie they meet somewhere in Ohio, Liam’s the pastor’s son running away from home, and Niall’s the number they call on the bathroom wall.It’s 1978. Harry and Louis are just trying to get to San Fran in time for the Queen concert.

Right Now by One Direction

You know I can’t fight the feelingAnd every night I feel itRight nowI wish you were here with me

Love Is A Rebellious Bird : AU in which the boys still make music. Louis is the concertmaster of the London Symphony Orchestra, Harry is the New! and Exciting! interim conductor/ex-cello prodigy who “has made Mozart cool again” according to Esquire Magazine (Louis hates him immediately, which is definitely why he internet stalked him in his dark bedroom late at night that one time), and Niall is the best. Zayn and Liam are around too.

Tiny Dancer by Elton John

But oh how it feels so realLying here with no one near

Never Gonna Dance Again : Louis is a spy and Harry is a dancer. The only real thing they know is each other. 

Wait by M83

Give your tearsTo the tide

Into the Blue : AU. In which Louis is Harry’s scuba instructor and quite happy to provide the requested special treatment, pun fully intended. It can’t be all that difficult to convince Harry that they’re on the same page, right? Also, Niall and Liam may or may not be dating, and Zayn is surrounded by emotionally stunted idiots. He bears it with dignity.

Just Hold On by Louis Tomlinson

If it all goes wrongDarling, just hold on

You Are The Blood : A seventh-year Hogwarts AU in which Niall gets all the girls, Liam goes on a journey of self-discovery, Zayn falls in love, Harry wants something more, and Louis tries to figure out once and for all why he, a Muggleborn, was sorted into Slytherin. 

What Kind Of Man by Florence + The Machine 

And with one kissYou inspired a fire of devotion that lasts for twenty yearsWhat kind of man loves like this?

Baby Heaven’s In Your Eyes : A sixth form!AU where Harry is the fucked up bad boy with too many problems, Louis is the perfect rich boy with too much money and their schools are right across from each other. They meet at a party and that’s the last (and maybe the only) thing they need.

I’ve Just Seen a Face by Jim Sturgess

I’ve just seen a face,I can’t forget the time or placeWhere we just met

Nameless Night : For their 18th birthday, every person receives a letter that reads a simple date. That is the date you’ll meet your soulmate. Harry and Louis have different beliefs, live in different worlds and have different dreams, hopes and fears. Yet, they’re not so different from each other when it comes to love. When their paths cross, there is no doubt they belong together. Except for that one, essential difference: they didn’t receive the same date.

If I Could Fly by One Direction

I’ve got scars, even though they can’t always be seenAnd pain gets hard, but now you’re here and I don’t feel a thing

Butterfly Gun : Harry has never been much of a fighter, but—as always—where Louis Tomlinson is concerned, a lot of things stop being true.1940’s AU. Even after six years apart, they can’t forget their shared wartime childhood. 

Jumpin’ Jack Flash by The Rolling Stones

I’m Jumpin’ Jack Flash

Escapade : In the grand scheme of things, finding a date for a wedding should be no problem for Louis Tomlinson. He’s rich. He’s handsome. He’s reasonably well behaved. But when the wedding is for his lifelong best friend (and former boyfriend), and is happening in under a month, finding a date for the ceremony and accompanying festivities becomes more of an adventure than he ever could have planned for. 

18 by One Direction

Long before we both thought the same thingTo be loved and to be in loveAll I could do is say that these arms were made for holding youI wanna love like you made me feel when we were 18

Red Brick Heart : Uni AU. Harry had turned up at the halls of residence expecting fun, new friends, and maybe a life experience or two. What he doesn’t expect is a surprise roommate who’s loud and dramatic and obsessed with tea and is maybe, actually, all he’s ever wanted.

Half A Heart by One Direction

I’m half a man at bestWith half an arrow in my chestI miss everything we doI’m half a heart without you

Never Be : The one where Harry Styles moves to Connecticut from England for nine months as a part of a study abroad program, and he just so happens to move in with Louis Tomlinson and family.

Fallingforyou by The 1975

I don’t wanna be your friend,I wanna kiss your neck

Relief Next To Me : AU. What happens when a baker and a graphic designer meet via a very specific Craigslist post? Fate, friendship, food, and maybe more. 

Closer by Tegan and Sara

Here comes the breath before we get a little bit closerHere comes the rush before we touch, come a little closer

The Night Sky is Changing Overhead : Harry is a tattoo artist, Louis is a drama professor, and they meet during an argument at a café.

Wild Horses by The Rolling Stones

Faith has been broken, tears must be criedLet’s do some living after we dieWild horses couldn’t drag me away 

Soft Hands, Fast Feet, Can’t Lose : American Uni AU. Harry Styles is a frat boy football star from the wealthy Styles Family athletic dynasty. A celebrity among football fans, he knows how to play, he knows how to party, and he knows how to fuck (all of which is well known among his legion of admirers).Louis Tomlinson is a student and an athlete, but his similarities to Harry end there. Intelligent, focused, independent, and completely uninterested in Harry’s charms, Louis is an anomaly in a world ruled by football. A bet about the pair, who might be more similar than they originally thought, brings them together. Shakespeare, ballet, Disney, football, library chats, running, accidental spooning, Daredevil and Domino’s Pizza all blend into one big friendship Frappucino, but who will win in the end? 

No Control by One Direction

PowerlessAnd I don’t care it’s obviousI just can’t get enough of you

Switch Out the Batteries : Two years after meeting in a sex shop, Harry’s just returning to Louis from a month-long tour in the States, and they come up with a wholesome bonding exercise.

Ship to Wreck by Florence + The Machine

Did I drink too much?Am I losing touch?Did I build this ship to wreck?

Young & Beautiful : Louis, to his horror, attends an elitist university in which the name Zayn Malik means something, Niall Horan doesn’t stop talking, there are pianos everywhere, and Harry Styles, only son of a drug-addled, clinically insane ex-rocker, has a perfect smile and empty eyes.

Asleep by The Smiths

Deep in the cell of my heartI really want to goThere is another worldThere is a better world 

Here In The Afterglow : 1970’s AU. In a tiny town in Idaho, Louis’ life is changed forever by the arrival of a curious stranger. 

From the Dining Table by Harry Styles

We haven’t spoke since you went awayComfortable silence is so overratedWhy won’t you ever be the first to break?Even the phone misses your call, by the way

These Inconvenient Fireworks : Future AU in which nobody tries out for X Factor but the boys end up finding one other eventually anyway. Louis is a jaded bastard who owns a cat named Duchess and teaches drama to teenagers, Harry is an idealistic aspiring photographer/part-time footy coach, Zayn teaches English lit and wears leather jackets, Liam saves people from burning buildings, and Niall is Niall.

Skinny Love by Bon Iver

And in the morning I’ll be with youBut it will be a different kindAnd I’ll be holding all the ticketsAnd you’ll be owning all the fines

Pull Me Under : AU. As the first British footballer to come out at the prime of his career, it helps that Louis Tomlinson is in a long-term, committed relationship. Even if that relationship is fake.

He’s a Pirate from the Pirates of the Caribbean Soundtrack

Instrumental 

Resist Everything Except Temptation : The one where Louis is the commodore’s son who is forced to become a part of Harry’s crew when he is captured.

Sunburn by Ed Sheeran

You scarred and left meLike a sunburn 

Empty Skies : For three years, Harry has been running from his past. Now, he is moving to London and pledges to fulfil his only dream – making it big in the music industry. Not everyone has a place, though, and the competition is tough. As is his past catching up on him.Louis is part of the biggest boy band of the world, and getting there had meant a lot of hard work, as well as sacrificing parts of his heart and soul. He’s still happy. Maybe not as happy as he could be, but who is he to complain?

Pine Trees by Jake Bugg

You can sit in the pine treesYou can feel at homeYou can breathe a sigh of silence in the woods

May We Stay Lost On Our Way Home : On March 31st, Harry Styles disappears. Though many speculate, only two people know where to find him: Niall, his former guitarist, and Zayn, who follows where Niall leads.The fact the biggest boy band in the world broke up two weeks earlier might be related to the disappearance. The fact Harry meets a fairy named Louis in the woods is a whole other matter.

Colors by Halsey

Everything was greyHis hair, his smoke, his dreamsAnd now he’s so devoid of colorHe don’t know what it means

Gods & Monsters : The instructions were simple: seduce and destroy Harry Styles. Not once did they discuss the option of Louis actually falling in love. So, naturally, that’s exactly what he did.

[jonathanbelloblog]

Mountains Climbed Lions Tamed

The bad thing about starting out on your first great South African off-road driving and safari adventure is that you and your camouflage pants, lug-soled hiking boots, and zebra-trimmed bush hat look unbelievably stupid clomping through the gleaming marble lobby of Cape Town’s prestigious Table Bay Hotel. Hmm. Those childhood “Tarzan” movies might not have been the best source of wardrobe tips.

Once outside, we blend in so much better. Lining the hotel’s circular drive are a row of rugged Land Rover LR3s, one in Zambezi silver and four in Tangiers orange (painted in the livery of the recent G4 global adventure challenge), each accompanied by official instructor/guides dressed in matching uniforms of blue long-sleeved shirts and gray trousers. Behind them is a coterie of Land Rover North America handlers, complete with camera crew ready to record the five-star safari ahead.  

This is why we’d traveled halfway around the world. Automobile Magazine had been invited to join a band of well-heeled American adventurers who’d ponied up $8995 each (not including airfare) for the privilege of being terrified into a state of adventure nirvana for the next six days and nights. They are dressed like me, with the exception of a Bottega Veneto handbag here and a pair of Gucci loafers and Prada sunglasses there.

No, you will not meet beer-swilling, skinny-dipping, Jeep Rubicon- type revelers on the Land Rover trail. Our fellow travelers are retired captains of industry and entrepreneurs in aircraft maintenance and real-estate development. But make no mistake: over the course of the next week, in between the gourmet meals and fine wines of the Western Cape, men and women alike will slip from luxurious 1000-thread-count cocoons to muscle their pricey SUVs over perilous mountain passes, to ford rivers presumably teeming with crocodiles, and to part the dense swamp- grass home of black mambas, puff adders, and spitting cobras. Then drink.

There are a few off-road paradises left in the world, and Land Rover knows where to find them, partly because its stalwart products have already blazed those trails and can still be found merrily rolling along where pack mules fear to tread. If you own a Land Rover, you have the keys to it all, and Land Rover culture encourages you to partake.   Dealerships (called Land Rover Centres) have little on-site mountain test courses to try before you buy. Afterward, you can attend one of three magnificent off-road driving schools—at the Quail Lodge in Carmel Valley, California; at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina; or at Fairmont Le Chateau Montebello in Quebec. The next stop is a full-blown Land Rover Adventure.

South Africa, a country three times the size of Great Britain, is perfect for adventure. It splits the frigid Atlantic from the warm waters of the Indian Ocean at the Cape Point, and depending on which side you’re on, offers subtropical vegetation, rugged mountain ranges, semi-desert, rain forest, scrubby bushveld, and perfectly groomed vineyards.   Its cities are modern, the political climate is fairly stable given its tumultuous past, its little towns are quaint, and the well-marked road system of the Western Cape is in better shape than Michigan’s. All that, and wild elephants in the backyard, too.

  What could be more perfect? That would be our guides, the staff of Kwa-Zulu Natal Land Rover Experience, the world’s first franchised Land Rover off-road training group, led by the irrepressible Rob Timcke, a chain-smoking, Red Bull-slugging firecracker. Timcke is a born raconteur who nevertheless inspires utter confidence in his ability to bring everyone back alive.   Not just a talker, Timcke was raised in a hunting camp in the old Eastern Transvaal on the Mozambique border, where his first language was Zulu. He spent time in the Congo during the really bad years as a South African army intelligence officer and became a professional hunter until 1993, when Communist Party leader Chris Hani was murdered and trophy hunters stayed home. Next, he set up tourist dives to view tiger and great white sharks. Without the cage.  

Timcke then jumped into teaching people the fine art of off-road driving. “I was always a bush person,” he says, “never a sea person. After nine years of getting really seasick, I found some idiot of a bank manager to buy my operation.” His cohorts include his stunning Akrikaaner wife, Carina. (“I slept my way into a job,” she cracks. “Unfortunately, my previous job paid much more.”)   Her brother Pierre Versfeld and top fly-fishing guide Antony Diplock complete the group. Diplock is not a big talker, but then he lives alone on an island near Namibia and, at the age of eighteen, participated in the tribal coming-of-age circumcision ritual with his boyhood Zulu friends. He doesn’t need to talk much.

Handshakes and hellos out of the way, we climb behind right-hand-mounted steering wheels and head south in convoy. To acclimate us to driving on the wrong side of the road, Timcke has sent us down the coast road past the rugged Twelve Apostles mountain chain flanking our left and the beach towns of Camps Bay and Llandudno on our right.   We climb the Chapman’s Peak toll road clinging to seaside cliffs and rumble through the shrubby natural fynbos (“fine bush”) habitat of the Cape of Good Hope nature reserve splashed with the bright spikey blooms of protea.

South Africans are rightfully proud of this, the densest of the world’s six floral kingdoms, counting between 8500 and 9000 species packed in an L-shaped area centered around Cape Town, no more than sixty miles wide. The camera car just misses a turtle in front of us. “Ooh, a fynbos tortoise,” chuckles Timcke. “They’re quite rare.”

The plan for a brief mountainside sojourn in the dirt is scratched due to a hard, fast storm blowing in from the south. This brings fond memories to Timcke: “Carina and I ran a safari in Botswana. We were camping when massive, massive thunderstorms rolled in. You could see lightning for miles.   She was setting the table with white linen, and I noticed the ground was alive. Scorpions and spiders. ‘You take me home and you take me home now!’ she yelled. This other time we were scouting in Zambia, and I sent her out to check the depth of the river crossing. She was chest-deep and turned and yelled, ‘What if there are crocs?’ I told her, ‘Don’t splash.’ ” What a gal.

We carry on to the mountain-ringed Cape Winelands surrounding Paarl, Franschhoek, and Stellenbosch (founded by Dutch and Huguenot settlers in the late 1600s) for a world-class lunch at Bosman’s Restaurant at Grande Roche, Africa’s only Relais Gourmand.   We taste the superb wines of Grand Roche, Boschendal, and Spier. Instructors become chauffeurs. Back in Cape Town, a native choir welcomes us to dinner at the prime minister’s historic residence. It seems that there’ll be no end to the eating and drinking. And drinking.

Real off-roading comes early the next day, and it is very, very good. Our LR3 has a 300-hp V-8 that shifts through a six-speed manu-matic and a hill-descent control system that won’t let the vehicle roll downhill unchecked with your foot off the brake—which is most helpful when it gets dicey. Terrain response allows the perfect tractive selection with the spin of a knob. I select the rock icon to climb into the pines, spotting a mongoose and a few klipspringers, which look like tiny reindeer perched on clothespins.   It looks like Colorado, I think. Baboons run out. Colorado, but with baboons. A sentry male barks and moves toward us, menacing, while the rest of the troop flees. “I raised four baboons,” says Timcke. “They ran loose at our safari lodge. The males are domineering and see humans as other primates. There will be one alpha male and lots of beta males. My mom, they hung on her leg. My dad was the dominant male. At maturity, they challenge the troop. This one, he’d demonstrate his strength to the weaker part of the troop. That would be my sister. He eventually nipped her, drew blood, and I got out the revolver and shot him.” OK, then.

Once through the forest, we dive into a thicket of grass and find that the rain has made a lake of our trail. Knowing that an LR3 can push through water high enough to break over the hood, I press confidently along, completely forgetting I am on highway tires. No problem. We come out in the fynbos, a riotous blast of purple, pink, yellow, and blue spikes, flowers your florist would die for.

Back to Stellenbosch for an open-air Indonesian and Cape Malay buffet with delicacies such as springbok saut and gnu stew. (I made that last one up.) In the city center, there’s a great crafts market, but I’ve decided to not tell you about buying the Congolese mask from the Zairian merchant, whom I somehow bargained up from 280 to 300 rand, about fifty dollars. Rob is suffused with mirth as I climb in with my precious cargo. The guy was sweating. He pleaded. I felt sorry for him. Forget it.

Luggage stowed, we head for an overnight in the coastal town of Knysna. We of course go the longest, most difficult way. There is a dirt trail all the way from Cape Town to Knysna, but we don’t patch into it until we turn off just west of Mossel Bay on Route 327, pass ostrich farms that line the road on both sides, and head into the Centre Valley of the Western Cape, the arid red earth and rocklands of the Little Karoo.

In the distance, two wild ostriches haul tailfeathers across the bleak plain. “Damn quick little buggers,” says Rob. “Sixty kph [37 mph] at full speed.” The road turns to lane, the lane to trail, and soon we are climbing past a sign that reads, ‘Men remove dentures, ladies fasten your bras.’ It’s the oxwagon autobahn, the path of Dutch settlers between 1689 and 1869. If they could do it, so can we.

We see wild Boerperds—native horses—and the most colorful birds imaginable. When we can look. Because now we are creeping downhill. The rocks are loose and have sharp edges, it is scary steep, and in some places the holes are so deep that both rear wheels lift off the ground in a pirouette straight from hell, which gives me shallow breathing. As I crawl from that horror, I loosen my sweaty stranglehold on the wheel, letting it spin free in my hands.

“You mustn’t do that or the ruts in the road will dictate where your tires will be,” Rob corrects me. I forgot he was even there, focusing as I am on the sharp rocks that line the downward slope of this path. I feel six inches too close to everything—the steering wheel, the pedals, the brakes, God. “Take the brake off,” says Rob. Huh?   I have to unhook all ten toes from their death grip on the pedal. I don’t want to. But the LR3 slowly finishes the gradual descent without my feet. We are at Bonniedale, a 1650-hectare guest farm that was named one of the top 4×4 destinations in South Africa for two years.   It’s open to the public for anything from a day’s driving fun to camping and horse trekking. Nico Hesterman, a former conservation officer, and his wife, Danette, have lived in this wilderness for eighteen years and have a traditional outdoor barbecue, or braai, waiting in camp for us. A cold, Namibia-brewed Windhoek lager would have to wait ’til that evening.  

We were sorely ready for the rain forest town of Knysna and its ultraluxurious, ultrachic Pezula Resort. Again we arrive with the camouflage pants, lug-soled hiking boots, and zebra-trimmed bush hats, tromping through someone’s hushed art gallery of a hotel lobby.   But this time, we throw ourselves on the nearest beer bottle, nearly weeping with relief for having made it thus far unscathed. Okay, maybe that really nice lady with the Bottega Veneto bag and Gucci loafers, who rode serenely down that same awful hill, confident in her young son’s ability at the wheel, sipped white wine.  

IFTTT

[jesusvasser]

Mountains Climbed Lions Tamed

The bad thing about starting out on your first great South African off-road driving and safari adventure is that you and your camouflage pants, lug-soled hiking boots, and zebra-trimmed bush hat look unbelievably stupid clomping through the gleaming marble lobby of Cape Town’s prestigious Table Bay Hotel. Hmm. Those childhood “Tarzan” movies might not have been the best source of wardrobe tips.

Once outside, we blend in so much better. Lining the hotel’s circular drive are a row of rugged Land Rover LR3s, one in Zambezi silver and four in Tangiers orange (painted in the livery of the recent G4 global adventure challenge), each accompanied by official instructor/guides dressed in matching uniforms of blue long-sleeved shirts and gray trousers. Behind them is a coterie of Land Rover North America handlers, complete with camera crew ready to record the five-star safari ahead.  

This is why we’d traveled halfway around the world. Automobile Magazine had been invited to join a band of well-heeled American adventurers who’d ponied up $8995 each (not including airfare) for the privilege of being terrified into a state of adventure nirvana for the next six days and nights. They are dressed like me, with the exception of a Bottega Veneto handbag here and a pair of Gucci loafers and Prada sunglasses there.

No, you will not meet beer-swilling, skinny-dipping, Jeep Rubicon- type revelers on the Land Rover trail. Our fellow travelers are retired captains of industry and entrepreneurs in aircraft maintenance and real-estate development. But make no mistake: over the course of the next week, in between the gourmet meals and fine wines of the Western Cape, men and women alike will slip from luxurious 1000-thread-count cocoons to muscle their pricey SUVs over perilous mountain passes, to ford rivers presumably teeming with crocodiles, and to part the dense swamp- grass home of black mambas, puff adders, and spitting cobras. Then drink.

There are a few off-road paradises left in the world, and Land Rover knows where to find them, partly because its stalwart products have already blazed those trails and can still be found merrily rolling along where pack mules fear to tread. If you own a Land Rover, you have the keys to it all, and Land Rover culture encourages you to partake.   Dealerships (called Land Rover Centres) have little on-site mountain test courses to try before you buy. Afterward, you can attend one of three magnificent off-road driving schools—at the Quail Lodge in Carmel Valley, California; at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina; or at Fairmont Le Chateau Montebello in Quebec. The next stop is a full-blown Land Rover Adventure.

South Africa, a country three times the size of Great Britain, is perfect for adventure. It splits the frigid Atlantic from the warm waters of the Indian Ocean at the Cape Point, and depending on which side you’re on, offers subtropical vegetation, rugged mountain ranges, semi-desert, rain forest, scrubby bushveld, and perfectly groomed vineyards.   Its cities are modern, the political climate is fairly stable given its tumultuous past, its little towns are quaint, and the well-marked road system of the Western Cape is in better shape than Michigan’s. All that, and wild elephants in the backyard, too.

  What could be more perfect? That would be our guides, the staff of Kwa-Zulu Natal Land Rover Experience, the world’s first franchised Land Rover off-road training group, led by the irrepressible Rob Timcke, a chain-smoking, Red Bull-slugging firecracker. Timcke is a born raconteur who nevertheless inspires utter confidence in his ability to bring everyone back alive.   Not just a talker, Timcke was raised in a hunting camp in the old Eastern Transvaal on the Mozambique border, where his first language was Zulu. He spent time in the Congo during the really bad years as a South African army intelligence officer and became a professional hunter until 1993, when Communist Party leader Chris Hani was murdered and trophy hunters stayed home. Next, he set up tourist dives to view tiger and great white sharks. Without the cage.  

Timcke then jumped into teaching people the fine art of off-road driving. “I was always a bush person,” he says, “never a sea person. After nine years of getting really seasick, I found some idiot of a bank manager to buy my operation.” His cohorts include his stunning Akrikaaner wife, Carina. (“I slept my way into a job,” she cracks. “Unfortunately, my previous job paid much more.”)   Her brother Pierre Versfeld and top fly-fishing guide Antony Diplock complete the group. Diplock is not a big talker, but then he lives alone on an island near Namibia and, at the age of eighteen, participated in the tribal coming-of-age circumcision ritual with his boyhood Zulu friends. He doesn’t need to talk much.

Handshakes and hellos out of the way, we climb behind right-hand-mounted steering wheels and head south in convoy. To acclimate us to driving on the wrong side of the road, Timcke has sent us down the coast road past the rugged Twelve Apostles mountain chain flanking our left and the beach towns of Camps Bay and Llandudno on our right.   We climb the Chapman’s Peak toll road clinging to seaside cliffs and rumble through the shrubby natural fynbos (“fine bush”) habitat of the Cape of Good Hope nature reserve splashed with the bright spikey blooms of protea.

South Africans are rightfully proud of this, the densest of the world’s six floral kingdoms, counting between 8500 and 9000 species packed in an L-shaped area centered around Cape Town, no more than sixty miles wide. The camera car just misses a turtle in front of us. “Ooh, a fynbos tortoise,” chuckles Timcke. “They’re quite rare.”

The plan for a brief mountainside sojourn in the dirt is scratched due to a hard, fast storm blowing in from the south. This brings fond memories to Timcke: “Carina and I ran a safari in Botswana. We were camping when massive, massive thunderstorms rolled in. You could see lightning for miles.   She was setting the table with white linen, and I noticed the ground was alive. Scorpions and spiders. ‘You take me home and you take me home now!’ she yelled. This other time we were scouting in Zambia, and I sent her out to check the depth of the river crossing. She was chest-deep and turned and yelled, ‘What if there are crocs?’ I told her, ‘Don’t splash.’ ” What a gal.

We carry on to the mountain-ringed Cape Winelands surrounding Paarl, Franschhoek, and Stellenbosch (founded by Dutch and Huguenot settlers in the late 1600s) for a world-class lunch at Bosman’s Restaurant at Grande Roche, Africa’s only Relais Gourmand.   We taste the superb wines of Grand Roche, Boschendal, and Spier. Instructors become chauffeurs. Back in Cape Town, a native choir welcomes us to dinner at the prime minister’s historic residence. It seems that there’ll be no end to the eating and drinking. And drinking.

Real off-roading comes early the next day, and it is very, very good. Our LR3 has a 300-hp V-8 that shifts through a six-speed manu-matic and a hill-descent control system that won’t let the vehicle roll downhill unchecked with your foot off the brake—which is most helpful when it gets dicey. Terrain response allows the perfect tractive selection with the spin of a knob. I select the rock icon to climb into the pines, spotting a mongoose and a few klipspringers, which look like tiny reindeer perched on clothespins.   It looks like Colorado, I think. Baboons run out. Colorado, but with baboons. A sentry male barks and moves toward us, menacing, while the rest of the troop flees. “I raised four baboons,” says Timcke. “They ran loose at our safari lodge. The males are domineering and see humans as other primates. There will be one alpha male and lots of beta males. My mom, they hung on her leg. My dad was the dominant male. At maturity, they challenge the troop. This one, he’d demonstrate his strength to the weaker part of the troop. That would be my sister. He eventually nipped her, drew blood, and I got out the revolver and shot him.” OK, then.

Once through the forest, we dive into a thicket of grass and find that the rain has made a lake of our trail. Knowing that an LR3 can push through water high enough to break over the hood, I press confidently along, completely forgetting I am on highway tires. No problem. We come out in the fynbos, a riotous blast of purple, pink, yellow, and blue spikes, flowers your florist would die for.

Back to Stellenbosch for an open-air Indonesian and Cape Malay buffet with delicacies such as springbok saut and gnu stew. (I made that last one up.) In the city center, there’s a great crafts market, but I’ve decided to not tell you about buying the Congolese mask from the Zairian merchant, whom I somehow bargained up from 280 to 300 rand, about fifty dollars. Rob is suffused with mirth as I climb in with my precious cargo. The guy was sweating. He pleaded. I felt sorry for him. Forget it.

Luggage stowed, we head for an overnight in the coastal town of Knysna. We of course go the longest, most difficult way. There is a dirt trail all the way from Cape Town to Knysna, but we don’t patch into it until we turn off just west of Mossel Bay on Route 327, pass ostrich farms that line the road on both sides, and head into the Centre Valley of the Western Cape, the arid red earth and rocklands of the Little Karoo.

In the distance, two wild ostriches haul tailfeathers across the bleak plain. “Damn quick little buggers,” says Rob. “Sixty kph [37 mph] at full speed.” The road turns to lane, the lane to trail, and soon we are climbing past a sign that reads, ‘Men remove dentures, ladies fasten your bras.’ It’s the oxwagon autobahn, the path of Dutch settlers between 1689 and 1869. If they could do it, so can we.

We see wild Boerperds—native horses—and the most colorful birds imaginable. When we can look. Because now we are creeping downhill. The rocks are loose and have sharp edges, it is scary steep, and in some places the holes are so deep that both rear wheels lift off the ground in a pirouette straight from hell, which gives me shallow breathing. As I crawl from that horror, I loosen my sweaty stranglehold on the wheel, letting it spin free in my hands.

“You mustn’t do that or the ruts in the road will dictate where your tires will be,” Rob corrects me. I forgot he was even there, focusing as I am on the sharp rocks that line the downward slope of this path. I feel six inches too close to everything—the steering wheel, the pedals, the brakes, God. “Take the brake off,” says Rob. Huh?   I have to unhook all ten toes from their death grip on the pedal. I don’t want to. But the LR3 slowly finishes the gradual descent without my feet. We are at Bonniedale, a 1650-hectare guest farm that was named one of the top 4×4 destinations in South Africa for two years.   It’s open to the public for anything from a day’s driving fun to camping and horse trekking. Nico Hesterman, a former conservation officer, and his wife, Danette, have lived in this wilderness for eighteen years and have a traditional outdoor barbecue, or braai, waiting in camp for us. A cold, Namibia-brewed Windhoek lager would have to wait ’til that evening.  

We were sorely ready for the rain forest town of Knysna and its ultraluxurious, ultrachic Pezula Resort. Again we arrive with the camouflage pants, lug-soled hiking boots, and zebra-trimmed bush hats, tromping through someone’s hushed art gallery of a hotel lobby.   But this time, we throw ourselves on the nearest beer bottle, nearly weeping with relief for having made it thus far unscathed. Okay, maybe that really nice lady with the Bottega Veneto bag and Gucci loafers, who rode serenely down that same awful hill, confident in her young son’s ability at the wheel, sipped white wine.  

IFTTT

[eddiejpoplar]

Mountains Climbed Lions Tamed

The bad thing about starting out on your first great South African off-road driving and safari adventure is that you and your camouflage pants, lug-soled hiking boots, and zebra-trimmed bush hat look unbelievably stupid clomping through the gleaming marble lobby of Cape Town’s prestigious Table Bay Hotel. Hmm. Those childhood “Tarzan” movies might not have been the best source of wardrobe tips.

Once outside, we blend in so much better. Lining the hotel’s circular drive are a row of rugged Land Rover LR3s, one in Zambezi silver and four in Tangiers orange (painted in the livery of the recent G4 global adventure challenge), each accompanied by official instructor/guides dressed in matching uniforms of blue long-sleeved shirts and gray trousers. Behind them is a coterie of Land Rover North America handlers, complete with camera crew ready to record the five-star safari ahead.  

This is why we’d traveled halfway around the world. Automobile Magazine had been invited to join a band of well-heeled American adventurers who’d ponied up $8995 each (not including airfare) for the privilege of being terrified into a state of adventure nirvana for the next six days and nights. They are dressed like me, with the exception of a Bottega Veneto handbag here and a pair of Gucci loafers and Prada sunglasses there.

No, you will not meet beer-swilling, skinny-dipping, Jeep Rubicon- type revelers on the Land Rover trail. Our fellow travelers are retired captains of industry and entrepreneurs in aircraft maintenance and real-estate development. But make no mistake: over the course of the next week, in between the gourmet meals and fine wines of the Western Cape, men and women alike will slip from luxurious 1000-thread-count cocoons to muscle their pricey SUVs over perilous mountain passes, to ford rivers presumably teeming with crocodiles, and to part the dense swamp- grass home of black mambas, puff adders, and spitting cobras. Then drink.

There are a few off-road paradises left in the world, and Land Rover knows where to find them, partly because its stalwart products have already blazed those trails and can still be found merrily rolling along where pack mules fear to tread. If you own a Land Rover, you have the keys to it all, and Land Rover culture encourages you to partake.   Dealerships (called Land Rover Centres) have little on-site mountain test courses to try before you buy. Afterward, you can attend one of three magnificent off-road driving schools—at the Quail Lodge in Carmel Valley, California; at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina; or at Fairmont Le Chateau Montebello in Quebec. The next stop is a full-blown Land Rover Adventure.

South Africa, a country three times the size of Great Britain, is perfect for adventure. It splits the frigid Atlantic from the warm waters of the Indian Ocean at the Cape Point, and depending on which side you’re on, offers subtropical vegetation, rugged mountain ranges, semi-desert, rain forest, scrubby bushveld, and perfectly groomed vineyards.   Its cities are modern, the political climate is fairly stable given its tumultuous past, its little towns are quaint, and the well-marked road system of the Western Cape is in better shape than Michigan’s. All that, and wild elephants in the backyard, too.

  What could be more perfect? That would be our guides, the staff of Kwa-Zulu Natal Land Rover Experience, the world’s first franchised Land Rover off-road training group, led by the irrepressible Rob Timcke, a chain-smoking, Red Bull-slugging firecracker. Timcke is a born raconteur who nevertheless inspires utter confidence in his ability to bring everyone back alive.   Not just a talker, Timcke was raised in a hunting camp in the old Eastern Transvaal on the Mozambique border, where his first language was Zulu. He spent time in the Congo during the really bad years as a South African army intelligence officer and became a professional hunter until 1993, when Communist Party leader Chris Hani was murdered and trophy hunters stayed home. Next, he set up tourist dives to view tiger and great white sharks. Without the cage.  

Timcke then jumped into teaching people the fine art of off-road driving. “I was always a bush person,” he says, “never a sea person. After nine years of getting really seasick, I found some idiot of a bank manager to buy my operation.” His cohorts include his stunning Akrikaaner wife, Carina. (“I slept my way into a job,” she cracks. “Unfortunately, my previous job paid much more.”)   Her brother Pierre Versfeld and top fly-fishing guide Antony Diplock complete the group. Diplock is not a big talker, but then he lives alone on an island near Namibia and, at the age of eighteen, participated in the tribal coming-of-age circumcision ritual with his boyhood Zulu friends. He doesn’t need to talk much.

Handshakes and hellos out of the way, we climb behind right-hand-mounted steering wheels and head south in convoy. To acclimate us to driving on the wrong side of the road, Timcke has sent us down the coast road past the rugged Twelve Apostles mountain chain flanking our left and the beach towns of Camps Bay and Llandudno on our right.   We climb the Chapman’s Peak toll road clinging to seaside cliffs and rumble through the shrubby natural fynbos (“fine bush”) habitat of the Cape of Good Hope nature reserve splashed with the bright spikey blooms of protea.

South Africans are rightfully proud of this, the densest of the world’s six floral kingdoms, counting between 8500 and 9000 species packed in an L-shaped area centered around Cape Town, no more than sixty miles wide. The camera car just misses a turtle in front of us. “Ooh, a fynbos tortoise,” chuckles Timcke. “They’re quite rare.”

The plan for a brief mountainside sojourn in the dirt is scratched due to a hard, fast storm blowing in from the south. This brings fond memories to Timcke: “Carina and I ran a safari in Botswana. We were camping when massive, massive thunderstorms rolled in. You could see lightning for miles.   She was setting the table with white linen, and I noticed the ground was alive. Scorpions and spiders. ‘You take me home and you take me home now!’ she yelled. This other time we were scouting in Zambia, and I sent her out to check the depth of the river crossing. She was chest-deep and turned and yelled, ‘What if there are crocs?’ I told her, ‘Don’t splash.’ ” What a gal.

We carry on to the mountain-ringed Cape Winelands surrounding Paarl, Franschhoek, and Stellenbosch (founded by Dutch and Huguenot settlers in the late 1600s) for a world-class lunch at Bosman’s Restaurant at Grande Roche, Africa’s only Relais Gourmand.   We taste the superb wines of Grand Roche, Boschendal, and Spier. Instructors become chauffeurs. Back in Cape Town, a native choir welcomes us to dinner at the prime minister’s historic residence. It seems that there’ll be no end to the eating and drinking. And drinking.

Real off-roading comes early the next day, and it is very, very good. Our LR3 has a 300-hp V-8 that shifts through a six-speed manu-matic and a hill-descent control system that won’t let the vehicle roll downhill unchecked with your foot off the brake—which is most helpful when it gets dicey. Terrain response allows the perfect tractive selection with the spin of a knob. I select the rock icon to climb into the pines, spotting a mongoose and a few klipspringers, which look like tiny reindeer perched on clothespins.   It looks like Colorado, I think. Baboons run out. Colorado, but with baboons. A sentry male barks and moves toward us, menacing, while the rest of the troop flees. “I raised four baboons,” says Timcke. “They ran loose at our safari lodge. The males are domineering and see humans as other primates. There will be one alpha male and lots of beta males. My mom, they hung on her leg. My dad was the dominant male. At maturity, they challenge the troop. This one, he’d demonstrate his strength to the weaker part of the troop. That would be my sister. He eventually nipped her, drew blood, and I got out the revolver and shot him.” OK, then.

Once through the forest, we dive into a thicket of grass and find that the rain has made a lake of our trail. Knowing that an LR3 can push through water high enough to break over the hood, I press confidently along, completely forgetting I am on highway tires. No problem. We come out in the fynbos, a riotous blast of purple, pink, yellow, and blue spikes, flowers your florist would die for.

Back to Stellenbosch for an open-air Indonesian and Cape Malay buffet with delicacies such as springbok saut and gnu stew. (I made that last one up.) In the city center, there’s a great crafts market, but I’ve decided to not tell you about buying the Congolese mask from the Zairian merchant, whom I somehow bargained up from 280 to 300 rand, about fifty dollars. Rob is suffused with mirth as I climb in with my precious cargo. The guy was sweating. He pleaded. I felt sorry for him. Forget it.

Luggage stowed, we head for an overnight in the coastal town of Knysna. We of course go the longest, most difficult way. There is a dirt trail all the way from Cape Town to Knysna, but we don’t patch into it until we turn off just west of Mossel Bay on Route 327, pass ostrich farms that line the road on both sides, and head into the Centre Valley of the Western Cape, the arid red earth and rocklands of the Little Karoo.

In the distance, two wild ostriches haul tailfeathers across the bleak plain. “Damn quick little buggers,” says Rob. “Sixty kph [37 mph] at full speed.” The road turns to lane, the lane to trail, and soon we are climbing past a sign that reads, ‘Men remove dentures, ladies fasten your bras.’ It’s the oxwagon autobahn, the path of Dutch settlers between 1689 and 1869. If they could do it, so can we.

We see wild Boerperds—native horses—and the most colorful birds imaginable. When we can look. Because now we are creeping downhill. The rocks are loose and have sharp edges, it is scary steep, and in some places the holes are so deep that both rear wheels lift off the ground in a pirouette straight from hell, which gives me shallow breathing. As I crawl from that horror, I loosen my sweaty stranglehold on the wheel, letting it spin free in my hands.

“You mustn’t do that or the ruts in the road will dictate where your tires will be,” Rob corrects me. I forgot he was even there, focusing as I am on the sharp rocks that line the downward slope of this path. I feel six inches too close to everything—the steering wheel, the pedals, the brakes, God. “Take the brake off,” says Rob. Huh?   I have to unhook all ten toes from their death grip on the pedal. I don’t want to. But the LR3 slowly finishes the gradual descent without my feet. We are at Bonniedale, a 1650-hectare guest farm that was named one of the top 4×4 destinations in South Africa for two years.   It’s open to the public for anything from a day’s driving fun to camping and horse trekking. Nico Hesterman, a former conservation officer, and his wife, Danette, have lived in this wilderness for eighteen years and have a traditional outdoor barbecue, or braai, waiting in camp for us. A cold, Namibia-brewed Windhoek lager would have to wait ’til that evening.  

We were sorely ready for the rain forest town of Knysna and its ultraluxurious, ultrachic Pezula Resort. Again we arrive with the camouflage pants, lug-soled hiking boots, and zebra-trimmed bush hats, tromping through someone’s hushed art gallery of a hotel lobby.   But this time, we throw ourselves on the nearest beer bottle, nearly weeping with relief for having made it thus far unscathed. Okay, maybe that really nice lady with the Bottega Veneto bag and Gucci loafers, who rode serenely down that same awful hill, confident in her young son’s ability at the wheel, sipped white wine.  

IFTTT

[humofun-blog]

Bob Hawke's 'big life': conversations with an Australian legend

Reading Wednesdays with Bob, the latest biography of former prime minister of Australia and Labor party heavyweight Bob Hawke, written with Derek Rielly, is a total joy, but it is also an exercise in mourning.

When it comes to politics, they just don’t make them like him anymore. These days, politicians seem to be scripted within an inch of their lives, repeating the same old boring soundbites, but in Derek Rielly’s affectionate look-back at the Hawke government, Hawke is the diametrical opposite of the modern politician.

Rielly meets me in a North Bondi cafe, overlooking the ocean. He may as well be carrying a surfboard under his arm. In truth, he looks part amphibious. Better known in the surfing world for founding Stab magazine, he also has a deep and abiding love of Australian politics. Growing up in Western Australia, Rielly was the child of a politics lecturer and current affairs were discussed around the dinner table. It was the years of Australia’s America’s Cup win, the deregulation of the economy, debates about uranium mining and the conservation of Antarctica, promises to eradicate child poverty and talk of a treaty with Indigenous Australians. It was a time when members of Hawke’s cabinet were all household names.

Part of Hawke’s appeal was personal charisma, accompanied by an honesty that Rielly reckons we don’t see too much of anymore. Now 88, he is just as vivid, profane, honest, hilarious and profoundly himself.

“Bob was a unique personality and people actually trusted him,” Rielly says. “He’d go, ‘Listen, we’re going to have to all pull together.’ And they’d go ‘Yeah, yeah Bob, we’ll do it for you’.”

This biography of Hawke was originally pitched as a roadtrip narrative, with Rielly accompanying Hawke back to WA as he campaigned for Bill Shorten in the 2016 federal election. It became more modest due to Hawke’s uncertain health. Each Wednesday for a year, Rielly would bring Hawke a cigar (only one – they were too expensive for Rielly to buy one for himself) and a topic to be discussed: love, the economy, the Middle East, the environment, Keating, family, the trade union movement. The book is comprised of these conversations at Hawke’s house in Northbridge, Sydney, interspersed with reflections from Australian public figures such as Richard Woolcott, John Howard, Kim Beazley, Gareth Evans, Ross Garnaut and John Singleton.

The title riffs off the hugely successful self-help book Tuesdays with Morrie, in which a younger man spends time with his dying professor, soaking up the wisdom of a life well-lived. Here though, Hawke’s wisdom is a little less saccharine.

On the issue of euthanasia, for example, he says: “If I was to lose my marbles … I don’t expect it to be a pillow pressed exuberantly over my nose, but I’m sure she [his wife, Blanche d’Alpuget] could organise something with a family doctor.”

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 Queen Elizabeth II and then Australian PM Bob Hawke at the running of the Queen Elizabeth Stakes, 1988. Photograph: The Sydney Morning Herald/Fairfax Media via Getty Images

And on the right way to die: “On a golf course. Blanche’s stepfather did it that way. He completed a round of golf and he was sitting in the cart, filling in the card. Fell over dead. I reckon that was pretty cute.”

Today’s politicians, Hawke says, “are frightened by people” and Trump is particularly on the nose: “This bloke’s insane … he’s just a passing aberration.”

The quips from Hawke’s contemporaries are possibly even more amusing, peppered with curses and hilariously caustic observations of their friend and colleague.

Yes, Wednesday’s with Bob is undoubtedly a fan book. Even the cover has a strong element of myth-making to it. There’s Hawke, silver quiff under a cloud of cigar smoke, looking raffish, like a slightly younger, happier Samuel Beckett.

Rielly, who had no personal connection to Hawke, had to get past a series of gatekeepers – not the least Hawke’s wife, the highly accomplished writer and biographer Blanche d’Alpuget – to secure the interviews.

“The first time I interviewed Bob, I was pretty nervous. I had three recording devices in my bag. I just didn’t want to fuck it up. I was dressed in a suit and everything,” says Rielly, who looks very much to be a T-shirt kind of guy.

“I get to the house, all the doors were open, then I see Bob and, honestly, it was like an old friend. So approachable and friendly. And he was like, ‘You got a cigar?’”

The cigar acted like an egg timer on the interviews. “I would go to his balcony at three in the arvo and the sun would get a bit lower. It was winter and he’d have a cigar, and by the end of cigar the sun would get quite low and he’d be finished and [the interview] was done for the day.”

In one chapter, Rielly’s interview is momentarily interrupted so Hawke can urinate down a drainhole on the balcony into the garden below.

As well as telling the story of the Hawke government, Rielly “really wanted to tell the love story of Blanche and Bob, because it feels like a very mature love story that has played out very cartoonishly in the press”.

So what about the infamous bathrobes on the cover of Woman’s Day?

“The story behind that is that they were at the Hyatt in the Rocks [in Sydney], and the photographer said, ‘Can you just put this on? Just one shot.’ And that’s followed them around.”

Blanche appears throughout Rielly’s book, often ducking in and out of the house with her personal trainer and offering wordly asides.

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 Then prime minister Julia Gillard (centre) with Bob Hawke (right) and his wife Blanche D’Alpuget (left). Photograph: Tracey Nearmy/AAP

“Her book, [1982’s] Robert J Hawke, convinced many that he was the right leader for the party,” says Rielly. “In many ways she is more responsible for his success than [Hawke’s former wife] Hazel. They’ve been married for 22 years, lovers for 40, friends for 50. It’s not just a flash-in-the-pan affair – and it’s incredible to see people that age so in love.”

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And also so in lust.

“She’d go to the shops or the optometrists, and he would come up behind her and nuzzle his head in her boosies and say, ‘Who is this vision of loveliness?’

“They are very physical people – still very hot for each other. They are both deeply intelligent. There’s this incredible sexual attraction but intellectual attraction too. It was the first woman he’d ever met who he could talk trade unionism with.”

Hawke’s was a big life: a Rhodes scholarship mixed with a love of the racetrack, drunken nights with embassy staff in Jakarta in the 1970s, insults, feuds and bloodletting, and wild behaviour such as receiving diplomats in the nude at poolside meetings and banishing the Singaporean prime minister to a frigid Canberra courtyard because he objected to Hawke smoking a cigar.

Stories of Hawke’s boozing run right through the book but they run alongside tales of discipline as well, when Hawke gave up the booze for 13 years while in politics.

“The drinking thing was so important to him,” says Rielly. “He didn’t want to do a shitty job as PM or embarrass his country so he gave up his great love, drinking. He didn’t drink until 1992 – it was Hazel’s birthday. Then he rediscovered how great it is.”

And now? “He’s so old now, you just go off drinking naturally as you get older. He used to only have one drink a night but that drink was a massive bucket of wine.”

The big life continued after he left office. At his 70th birthday party in 1999, wine was served from the genitals of nude sculptures. At the same party, Hawke’s great mate, advertising mogul John Singleton, gave him a quarter share in what looked to be an unpromising racehorse. The horse, Belle de Jour, went on to win millions for its owners in the 2000 Golden Slipper.

“I wouldn’t have given it to him if I knew how much he was going to fucking make,” says Singleton now.

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Singleton – who doesn’t share Hawke’s politics but created many memorable Labor advertising campaigns – has some of the best lines in the book.

On how Hawke coped with being deposed as Labor leader by Paul Keating, Singleton says: “No quivering lip like that wuss Fraser. No self-important speeches like with Gough and these other cunts. Fucking cop it on the chin and move on.”

Afterwards, aged 68, Hawke moved into Singleton’s Birchgrove mansion and learned how to live without all the prime ministerial trappings. “He learned how to buy milk and everything. You give them money, they give you milk,” says Singleton.

Hawke too had a withering side.

“It would have been scary in 1980s to be on the receiving end,” says Rielly. For example, there was his description of party rival Bill Hayden as “a lying cunt with a limited future”.

“People were a bit stronger in the 80s than they are now. Back then they would say, ‘mate, you’ve been a total dickhead’. It’s just strong leadership – if you don’t like it, get out.”

For all that though, Rielly believes Hawke most loved talking about his mother and father.

“When he talks about his dad, his parents, you forget he is a man of 88,” Rielly says. “His eyes open so wide, it’s almost like he shrinks into this gorgeous loving child, a bright boy. He just talks about how he loved him so much and how he felt very loved and how he couldn’t wait for him to get home and he’d bounce down the street. Couldn’t wait to feel his dad’s arms around him.”

• Wednesdays with Bob by Derek Rielly and Bob Hawke is available now through Macmillan Australia

December 25, 2017 at 11:38PM http://ift.tt/2DRZ8Xh

[krissysbookshelf]

Free Ebooks (7/21/17)

    PLEASE REMEMBER THAT THE FREE PRICING IS ONLY A SPECIAL FOR THE DIGITAL FORMAT OF THE BOOK THAT IS LISTED AND IS ONLY AVAILABLE FOR A LIMITED TIME, SO BE SURE TO PURCHASE THE E-BOOKS BEFORE THE PRICE RETURNS TO ITS NORMAL LISTING. (Unless you want to buy them at full price:)

  Don't forget to check my Free Ebook page on Pinterest for more Free Ebook titles and genres not listed below!

    My T-Rex Gets a Bath by Chloe Sanders: “My T-Rex Gets a Bath” is about a mischievous dino named Rex and his buddy, Tom. This is a great book about the importance of good hygiene and something kids can learn from (in a delightful rhyming format).

This book is Free on July 21, 2017

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    Crystal Magic by Madeline Freeman: When she moves in with her aunt, Kristyl hopes to leave the past behind. But her classmate, Owen, may know more about her — and her powers — than she knows about herself…

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    DASH Diet For Beginners by Emma S. Fisher: This book is all about the DASH diet—what it is and how you can try it for yourself. “DASH” simply means Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension, which as the name denotes, is a diet that is designed to naturally and effectively boosts your body’s nutrients to lower blood pressure. By reading this book, you’ll have an idea as to what this diet is all about and how you can start practicing it today. It also contains a lot of diet plans and recipes to help you through this new and healthier way of living.

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  Paleo Diet for Beginners by Emma S. Fisher: In this book, you will learn why Paleo is one of the top diets of this generation. You will understand how the “modern man’s diet” has caused a man to regress from being agile, athletic, and lean, into being sluggish, inactive, and overweight, and why going Paleo is the solution to achieving your goals such as eating healthy and losing weight.

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  Instant Pot Fish & Seafood Cookbook by Alex Baker: This is a cooking book that teaches you everything you need to know about cooking fish and other kinds of seafood using instant pots. Consumption of seafood is extremely healthy and provides multiple benefits. Seafood contains healthy fats like omega 3, fatty acids and proteins that are very important for your dietary needs.

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  Sean O’Casey by Gary O’Connor: The writer whose greatest creation was himself… Sean O’Casey was an Irish playwright who formed a strong nationalist identity both in his plays and in his personal identity. Sean O’Casey’s life is as rich and layered as any play, yet in this skillfully crafted biography, Garry O’Connor reveals the man behind the myth and all his glorious contradictions.

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  Mother of Ten by JB Rowley: What happens to children robbed of family? Myrtle’s first three children grew up without any knowledge of their mother after Myrtle was forced to give them up when they were still toddlers. In this sequel to Amazon #1 best seller, Whisper My Secret, JB Rowley explores what happened to the three half-siblings she never knew.

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  Essential Oils For Pets by Nancy McWatkins: Essential oils are not only useful for us, but also for pets! Learn in this eBook about the most effective and useful essential oils as well as other herbal oils that can be used for alternative therapy!

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  Paws and the Tails of Happiness by Kostas Dimitriadis: Dogs and cats have conquered our hearts for countless reasons, the most important of these being our profound need to see ourselves through different eyes. Nature’s eyes, our little friends’ eyes, look at us in such an innocent and pristine way, a way so deeply etched inside us that it moves and overwhelms us.

This book is Free on July 21, 2017

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  Gardening: Container Gardening 3-in-1 Boxset by Louise Harvey: Three books in one. Louise Harvey presents beginner guides on three wonderful house plants – The Orchid, Air Plants, and the Bonsai. All three plants present their own unique challenges. Louise provides her unique insight into how she cultivates each one in an easy-to-follow format, for the complete novice.

This book is Free on July 21, 2017

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  The Scarlet Peacock by David Field: A dramatic re-telling of the rise and fall of one of Henry VIII’s most powerful followers. Thomas Wolsey began life as the son of a butcher, but his wit and wiles saw him rise to one of the highest positions in England. This was a path that earned him jealousy and scorn from some in the treacherous life of the royal court, and ultimately led to his tragic downfall…

This book is Free on July 21, 2017

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  The Martian Wars: The Fall of Nova (Part 1) by Jake Beebe: This is Earth in the waning days of the twenty-first century. The United States of America is now Nova, ruled by a decrepit prime minister and the Novan Council. There is a vaccine for old age, but it is administered to the young, who will live to be three hundred years old, while the elderly are forsaken. Mars has been colonized, but the early promise of a new world has given way to a reality of resources brutally exploited by the home planet.

This book is Free on July 21, 2017

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  The Lighthouse In Space by Saurabh Dashora: Insanity grips you when you are alone. Insanity grips you faster when you are alone in space 2.5 light years away from Earth. Engineer Calwin is assigned to the Lighthouse In Space against his wish. The previous Engineer’s sudden and mysterious death left no other choice. But Calwin already wants to embrace death, unable to cope with the loss of his wife. The mysterious woman on the Lighthouse, however, does not want him to die. The mysterious woman Calwin can see only in his dreams.

This book is Free on July 21, 2017

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  Futurism & Fantasia by Audrey Sharpe & 10 others: Riveting tales of old magic, new enemies, and galactic mayhem. Read the first chapters from new and upcoming titles in Science Fiction and Fantasy, presenting a glance into worlds shaped by ancient rites, sassy spacefarers, and addictive characters.

This book is Free on July 21, 2017

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  Fey Touched by Erin Zarro: The Fey are genetically-engineered humans and the Fey Touched are those who hunt the ones who kill people for their souls. A Fey Queen is on the run, not wanting an arranged marriage with forty males of her Clan. A Hunter searches through the stream of time to find her missing sister using an addictive drug. Another Hunter is falling in love with his enemy. And then the Hunters start dying of a mysterious illness.

This book is Free on July 21, 2017

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  The Viking (Book 1) by Marti Talbott: At not yet fifteen, Stefan excitedly boarded a longboat to take part in his first Viking raid, only to find himself alone and stranded in Scotland.

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  You’re the Rogue That I Want by Samantha Holt: Red never shies away from a challenge. Never. But when Miss Hannah St. John strides into his life demanding—yes, demanding—he help her, he’s certain she’s more challenge than even he can handle.

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  Protection by Elle Thorne: Grizzly bear shifter Grant Waters wants curvy Chelsea O’Reilly. He has since they met, except he’s worried his secret may be too much for her. Hair stylist and curvy girl Chelsea gets butterflies when Grant’s around, but she’s got her own baggage. Not to mention, she thinks that Grant would be better off with the local, stunning, curvy, widowed-way-too-early Mae Forester.

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  Grizzly by Katharine Belle: Enjoy THREE romance, action, and drama packed shifter books in this bundle. FUR AND SMOKE: War is coming as Jack and his friends join a new shifter clan with a plan to destroy the hunter network that has been tracking Jack since his youth. In order to keep a tight ship, the clan has rules. Always follow the shifter code, never challenge their leader Ian. And most importantly, Ian’s younger sister Elle is entirely off-limits.

This book is Free on July 21, 2017

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  Ethereal Knights by Addison Moore: *A paranormal wonderland!* Angels are among us, and on Paragon island, they’re everywhere. Logan and Gage Oliver are smitten by the new girl in town, Skyla Messenger. But suddenly an entire faction of angels is out to kill her. Logan and Gage will do anything to keep Skyla safe, even risk revealing their own angelic identities.

This book is Free on July 21, 2017

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  The Enforcers: NOAH by Anastasia Wilde: Noah Reilly has hit rock-bottom—until a human vet rescues him from a bear trap and saves his mangled leg. Mina Reston doesn’t know the wolf she saved has a human side—until hunters come after her shifter son. Forced to go on the run, she turns to Noah for protection and finds a love and strength she never expected—if they can all survive…

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  Horizon MC by Clara Kendrick: Hold on tight and don’t let go — five books of motorcycle club romances are roaring down the road, headed straight toward you!

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  Christmas with Angel: Last Chance (Book 1) by Lexi Post: After eight years apart, Lacey and Cole can now spend Christmas together. When Cole returns to the ranch, he expects to take Lacey to his mother’s. But Lacey isn’t happy, as Cole’s mother is who kept them apart to begin with. And then all plans change when Lacey finds herself protecting her horse, Angel, from Angel’s former abusive owner, who’s willing to kill to have his horse back.

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  The Sculptor’s Model by Lulu Fairhazel: Beatrice Carpenter needs a male model, like, yesterday. If she loses out on this exhibition opportunity, she might never become the world-famous artist she’s always dreamed of being. She’d find it a hell of a lot easier to concentrate if the construction workers next door would just stop drilling! But it turns out one of them might be the solution to her problem…and more.

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  Forever Perfect by Lexy Timms: USA Today Bestselling author Lexy Timms brings you a beautiful love story, packed with heat and romance, that will have you begging to fall in love with Dr. Layton.

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  Totlandia: The Onesies: Fall by Josie Brown: Mothers in Pacific Heights become intensely competitive as they vie for spots in the most prestigious children’s playgroup in all of San Francisco.

This book is Free on July 21, 2017

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  My Bad Boy Neighbor by Desirae Clark: A good girl, a bad boy, and a bet. Nerdy Astrid gets her life turned upside down when notorious Kai moves in across the street. A walking chick magnet if there was one, Kai starts to notice Astrid, and not in a way she ever wanted to be noticed. Will Astrid ever get rid of him? Or will she give in to what he wants?

This book is Free on July 21, 2017

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  Girl Undercover: The Adler Conspiracy (Parts 1-12) by Julia Derek: LAPD Detective Gabi Longoria returns home one night to a nasty surprise—her husband has been brutally killed. A note next to his body says: “Rats always get what they deserve.” In the process of finding his killer, she meets a mysterious man who claims an evil corporation killed her husband—what’s worse, he also claims they’ve developed a master race to replace all of humankind…

This book is Free on July 21, 2017

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  Whiskey’s Gone by Susan Russo Anderson: Fina Fitzgibbons gets a call from a Brooklyn Heights lawyer asking her to find Whiskey Parnell, Trisha’s office manager. Fina interviews named partners, artists, and painters. Her quest for the missing single mom takes her to DUMBO, Carroll Gardens, Coney Island, and Brighton Beach. But in the end, a vicious surprise awaits her as the final piece of the puzzle comes crashing down.

This book is Free on July 21, 2017

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  Skeletal by Katherine Hayton: Daina Harrow is dead. Now that her teenage bones have been unearthed, join her spirit in the coroner’s court as he cross-examines the people who knew her and loved her, hated her and tortured her, to tease out the truth behind her devastating death.

This book is Free on July 21, 2017

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  The Red Hot Empress: The Annie Szabo Mystery Series by Meredith Blevins: The spicy Szabo women would like to kick back with a lover, a good movie, and a few laughs, but life has something else in mind. One meeting with an extraordinary boy leads them headlong into another wild, and hair-raising, adventure. “A madcap dash through San Francisco’s Chinatown and the crumbling Haight-Ashbury district with a cast of bona fide eccentrics!” ~ Kirkus Reviews

This book is Free on July 21, 2017

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  Harold Shipman: The True Story of Britain’s Most Notorious Serial Killer by Ryan Green: The story of Britain’s most notorious serial killer, Harold Shipman, from his upbringing, his victims, his trial, and his motivations. Shipman killed no less than 218 of his patients, making him Britain’s most prolific serial killer.

This book is Free on July 21, 2017

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  Storm at Sunset by Ian Hall: The story of an RAF pilot whose work is not done after the close of WWII. He is sent with his squadron to the Far East, where their task is to bring those kept in internment camps back home. But the war isn’t over in these far flung corners of the jungle, and the squadron soon finds itself in a fight to survive…

This book is Free on July 21, 2017

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  Family Matters by Laurinda Wallace: When kennel owner Gracie Andersen receives a strange gift from her troubled uncle, she is drawn into the investigation of her cousin’s accidental death of 20 years ago. No one wants her digging up the past and someone intends to stop her. With her black Lab, Haley, by her side, they’re on the trail of a killer in the village of Deer Creek.

This book is Free on July 21, 2017

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[eddiejpoplar]

AUTOMOBiLE Flashback: Mountains Climbed Lions Tamed

The bad thing about starting out on your first great South African off-road driving and safari adventure is that you and your camouflage pants, lug-soled hiking boots, and zebra-trimmed bush hat look unbelievably stupid clomping through the gleaming marble lobby of Cape Town’s prestigious Table Bay Hotel. Hmm. Those childhood “Tarzan” movies might not have been the best source of wardrobe tips.

Once outside, we blend in so much better. Lining the hotel’s circular drive are a row of rugged Land Rover LR3s, one in Zambezi silver and four in Tangiers orange (painted in the livery of the recent G4 global adventure challenge), each accompanied by official instructor/guides dressed in matching uniforms of blue long-sleeved shirts and gray trousers. Behind them is a coterie of Land Rover North America handlers, complete with camera crew ready to record the five-star safari ahead.  

This is why we’d traveled halfway around the world. Automobile Magazine had been invited to join a band of well-heeled American adventurers who’d ponied up $8995 each (not including airfare) for the privilege of being terrified into a state of adventure nirvana for the next six days and nights. They are dressed like me, with the exception of a Bottega Veneto handbag here and a pair of Gucci loafers and Prada sunglasses there.

No, you will not meet beer-swilling, skinny-dipping, Jeep Rubicon- type revelers on the Land Rover trail. Our fellow travelers are retired captains of industry and entrepreneurs in aircraft maintenance and real-estate development. But make no mistake: over the course of the next week, in between the gourmet meals and fine wines of the Western Cape, men and women alike will slip from luxurious 1000-thread-count cocoons to muscle their pricey SUVs over perilous mountain passes, to ford rivers presumably teeming with crocodiles, and to part the dense swamp- grass home of black mambas, puff adders, and spitting cobras. Then drink.

There are a few off-road paradises left in the world, and Land Rover knows where to find them, partly because its stalwart products have already blazed those trails and can still be found merrily rolling along where pack mules fear to tread. If you own a Land Rover, you have the keys to it all, and Land Rover culture encourages you to partake.   Dealerships (called Land Rover Centres) have little on-site mountain test courses to try before you buy. Afterward, you can attend one of three magnificent off-road driving schools—at the Quail Lodge in Carmel Valley, California; at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina; or at Fairmont Le Chateau Montebello in Quebec. The next stop is a full-blown Land Rover Adventure.

South Africa, a country three times the size of Great Britain, is perfect for adventure. It splits the frigid Atlantic from the warm waters of the Indian Ocean at the Cape Point, and depending on which side you’re on, offers subtropical vegetation, rugged mountain ranges, semi-desert, rain forest, scrubby bushveld, and perfectly groomed vineyards.   Its cities are modern, the political climate is fairly stable given its tumultuous past, its little towns are quaint, and the well-marked road system of the Western Cape is in better shape than Michigan’s. All that, and wild elephants in the backyard, too.

  What could be more perfect? That would be our guides, the staff of Kwa-Zulu Natal Land Rover Experience, the world’s first franchised Land Rover off-road training group, led by the irrepressible Rob Timcke, a chain-smoking, Red Bull-slugging firecracker. Timcke is a born raconteur who nevertheless inspires utter confidence in his ability to bring everyone back alive.   Not just a talker, Timcke was raised in a hunting camp in the old Eastern Transvaal on the Mozambique border, where his first language was Zulu. He spent time in the Congo during the really bad years as a South African army intelligence officer and became a professional hunter until 1993, when Communist Party leader Chris Hani was murdered and trophy hunters stayed home. Next, he set up tourist dives to view tiger and great white sharks. Without the cage.  

Timcke then jumped into teaching people the fine art of off-road driving. “I was always a bush person,” he says, “never a sea person. After nine years of getting really seasick, I found some idiot of a bank manager to buy my operation.” His cohorts include his stunning Akrikaaner wife, Carina. (“I slept my way into a job,” she cracks. “Unfortunately, my previous job paid much more.”)   Her brother Pierre Versfeld and top fly-fishing guide Antony Diplock complete the group. Diplock is not a big talker, but then he lives alone on an island near Namibia and, at the age of eighteen, participated in the tribal coming-of-age circumcision ritual with his boyhood Zulu friends. He doesn’t need to talk much.

Handshakes and hellos out of the way, we climb behind right-hand-mounted steering wheels and head south in convoy. To acclimate us to driving on the wrong side of the road, Timcke has sent us down the coast road past the rugged Twelve Apostles mountain chain flanking our left and the beach towns of Camps Bay and Llandudno on our right.   We climb the Chapman’s Peak toll road clinging to seaside cliffs and rumble through the shrubby natural fynbos (“fine bush”) habitat of the Cape of Good Hope nature reserve splashed with the bright spikey blooms of protea.

South Africans are rightfully proud of this, the densest of the world’s six floral kingdoms, counting between 8500 and 9000 species packed in an L-shaped area centered around Cape Town, no more than sixty miles wide. The camera car just misses a turtle in front of us. “Ooh, a fynbos tortoise,” chuckles Timcke. “They’re quite rare.”

The plan for a brief mountainside sojourn in the dirt is scratched due to a hard, fast storm blowing in from the south. This brings fond memories to Timcke: “Carina and I ran a safari in Botswana. We were camping when massive, massive thunderstorms rolled in. You could see lightning for miles.   She was setting the table with white linen, and I noticed the ground was alive. Scorpions and spiders. ‘You take me home and you take me home now!’ she yelled. This other time we were scouting in Zambia, and I sent her out to check the depth of the river crossing. She was chest-deep and turned and yelled, ‘What if there are crocs?’ I told her, ‘Don’t splash.’ ” What a gal.

We carry on to the mountain-ringed Cape Winelands surrounding Paarl, Franschhoek, and Stellenbosch (founded by Dutch and Huguenot settlers in the late 1600s) for a world-class lunch at Bosman’s Restaurant at Grande Roche, Africa’s only Relais Gourmand.   We taste the superb wines of Grand Roche, Boschendal, and Spier. Instructors become chauffeurs. Back in Cape Town, a native choir welcomes us to dinner at the prime minister’s historic residence. It seems that there’ll be no end to the eating and drinking. And drinking.

Real off-roading comes early the next day, and it is very, very good. Our LR3 has a 300-hp V-8 that shifts through a six-speed manu-matic and a hill-descent control system that won’t let the vehicle roll downhill unchecked with your foot off the brake—which is most helpful when it gets dicey. Terrain response allows the perfect tractive selection with the spin of a knob. I select the rock icon to climb into the pines, spotting a mongoose and a few klipspringers, which look like tiny reindeer perched on clothespins.   It looks like Colorado, I think. Baboons run out. Colorado, but with baboons. A sentry male barks and moves toward us, menacing, while the rest of the troop flees. “I raised four baboons,” says Timcke. “They ran loose at our safari lodge. The males are domineering and see humans as other primates. There will be one alpha male and lots of beta males. My mom, they hung on her leg. My dad was the dominant male. At maturity, they challenge the troop. This one, he’d demonstrate his strength to the weaker part of the troop. That would be my sister. He eventually nipped her, drew blood, and I got out the revolver and shot him.” OK, then.

Once through the forest, we dive into a thicket of grass and find that the rain has made a lake of our trail. Knowing that an LR3 can push through water high enough to break over the hood, I press confidently along, completely forgetting I am on highway tires. No problem. We come out in the fynbos, a riotous blast of purple, pink, yellow, and blue spikes, flowers your florist would die for.

Back to Stellenbosch for an open-air Indonesian and Cape Malay buffet with delicacies such as springbok saut and gnu stew. (I made that last one up.) In the city center, there’s a great crafts market, but I’ve decided to not tell you about buying the Congolese mask from the Zairian merchant, whom I somehow bargained up from 280 to 300 rand, about fifty dollars. Rob is suffused with mirth as I climb in with my precious cargo. The guy was sweating. He pleaded. I felt sorry for him. Forget it.

Luggage stowed, we head for an overnight in the coastal town of Knysna. We of course go the longest, most difficult way. There is a dirt trail all the way from Cape Town to Knysna, but we don’t patch into it until we turn off just west of Mossel Bay on Route 327, pass ostrich farms that line the road on both sides, and head into the Centre Valley of the Western Cape, the arid red earth and rocklands of the Little Karoo.

In the distance, two wild ostriches haul tailfeathers across the bleak plain. “Damn quick little buggers,” says Rob. “Sixty kph [37 mph] at full speed.” The road turns to lane, the lane to trail, and soon we are climbing past a sign that reads, ‘Men remove dentures, ladies fasten your bras.’ It’s the oxwagon autobahn, the path of Dutch settlers between 1689 and 1869. If they could do it, so can we.

We see wild Boerperds—native horses—and the most colorful birds imaginable. When we can look. Because now we are creeping downhill. The rocks are loose and have sharp edges, it is scary steep, and in some places the holes are so deep that both rear wheels lift off the ground in a pirouette straight from hell, which gives me shallow breathing. As I crawl from that horror, I loosen my sweaty stranglehold on the wheel, letting it spin free in my hands.

“You mustn’t do that or the ruts in the road will dictate where your tires will be,” Rob corrects me. I forgot he was even there, focusing as I am on the sharp rocks that line the downward slope of this path. I feel six inches too close to everything—the steering wheel, the pedals, the brakes, God. “Take the brake off,” says Rob. Huh?   I have to unhook all ten toes from their death grip on the pedal. I don’t want to. But the LR3 slowly finishes the gradual descent without my feet. We are at Bonniedale, a 1650-hectare guest farm that was named one of the top 4×4 destinations in South Africa for two years.   It’s open to the public for anything from a day’s driving fun to camping and horse trekking. Nico Hesterman, a former conservation officer, and his wife, Danette, have lived in this wilderness for eighteen years and have a traditional outdoor barbecue, or braai, waiting in camp for us. A cold, Namibia-brewed Windhoek lager would have to wait ’til that evening.  

We were sorely ready for the rain forest town of Knysna and its ultraluxurious, ultrachic Pezula Resort. Again we arrive with the camouflage pants, lug-soled hiking boots, and zebra-trimmed bush hats, tromping through someone’s hushed art gallery of a hotel lobby.   But this time, we throw ourselves on the nearest beer bottle, nearly weeping with relief for having made it thus far unscathed. Okay, maybe that really nice lady with the Bottega Veneto bag and Gucci loafers, who rode serenely down that same awful hill, confident in her young son’s ability at the wheel, sipped white wine.  

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[jonathanbelloblog]

AUTOMOBiLE Flashback: Mountains Climbed Lions Tamed

The bad thing about starting out on your first great South African off-road driving and safari adventure is that you and your camouflage pants, lug-soled hiking boots, and zebra-trimmed bush hat look unbelievably stupid clomping through the gleaming marble lobby of Cape Town’s prestigious Table Bay Hotel. Hmm. Those childhood “Tarzan” movies might not have been the best source of wardrobe tips.

Once outside, we blend in so much better. Lining the hotel’s circular drive are a row of rugged Land Rover LR3s, one in Zambezi silver and four in Tangiers orange (painted in the livery of the recent G4 global adventure challenge), each accompanied by official instructor/guides dressed in matching uniforms of blue long-sleeved shirts and gray trousers. Behind them is a coterie of Land Rover North America handlers, complete with camera crew ready to record the five-star safari ahead.  

This is why we’d traveled halfway around the world. Automobile Magazine had been invited to join a band of well-heeled American adventurers who’d ponied up $8995 each (not including airfare) for the privilege of being terrified into a state of adventure nirvana for the next six days and nights. They are dressed like me, with the exception of a Bottega Veneto handbag here and a pair of Gucci loafers and Prada sunglasses there.

No, you will not meet beer-swilling, skinny-dipping, Jeep Rubicon- type revelers on the Land Rover trail. Our fellow travelers are retired captains of industry and entrepreneurs in aircraft maintenance and real-estate development. But make no mistake: over the course of the next week, in between the gourmet meals and fine wines of the Western Cape, men and women alike will slip from luxurious 1000-thread-count cocoons to muscle their pricey SUVs over perilous mountain passes, to ford rivers presumably teeming with crocodiles, and to part the dense swamp- grass home of black mambas, puff adders, and spitting cobras. Then drink.

There are a few off-road paradises left in the world, and Land Rover knows where to find them, partly because its stalwart products have already blazed those trails and can still be found merrily rolling along where pack mules fear to tread. If you own a Land Rover, you have the keys to it all, and Land Rover culture encourages you to partake.   Dealerships (called Land Rover Centres) have little on-site mountain test courses to try before you buy. Afterward, you can attend one of three magnificent off-road driving schools—at the Quail Lodge in Carmel Valley, California; at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina; or at Fairmont Le Chateau Montebello in Quebec. The next stop is a full-blown Land Rover Adventure.

South Africa, a country three times the size of Great Britain, is perfect for adventure. It splits the frigid Atlantic from the warm waters of the Indian Ocean at the Cape Point, and depending on which side you’re on, offers subtropical vegetation, rugged mountain ranges, semi-desert, rain forest, scrubby bushveld, and perfectly groomed vineyards.   Its cities are modern, the political climate is fairly stable given its tumultuous past, its little towns are quaint, and the well-marked road system of the Western Cape is in better shape than Michigan’s. All that, and wild elephants in the backyard, too.

  What could be more perfect? That would be our guides, the staff of Kwa-Zulu Natal Land Rover Experience, the world’s first franchised Land Rover off-road training group, led by the irrepressible Rob Timcke, a chain-smoking, Red Bull-slugging firecracker. Timcke is a born raconteur who nevertheless inspires utter confidence in his ability to bring everyone back alive.   Not just a talker, Timcke was raised in a hunting camp in the old Eastern Transvaal on the Mozambique border, where his first language was Zulu. He spent time in the Congo during the really bad years as a South African army intelligence officer and became a professional hunter until 1993, when Communist Party leader Chris Hani was murdered and trophy hunters stayed home. Next, he set up tourist dives to view tiger and great white sharks. Without the cage.  

Timcke then jumped into teaching people the fine art of off-road driving. “I was always a bush person,” he says, “never a sea person. After nine years of getting really seasick, I found some idiot of a bank manager to buy my operation.” His cohorts include his stunning Akrikaaner wife, Carina. (“I slept my way into a job,” she cracks. “Unfortunately, my previous job paid much more.”)   Her brother Pierre Versfeld and top fly-fishing guide Antony Diplock complete the group. Diplock is not a big talker, but then he lives alone on an island near Namibia and, at the age of eighteen, participated in the tribal coming-of-age circumcision ritual with his boyhood Zulu friends. He doesn’t need to talk much.

Handshakes and hellos out of the way, we climb behind right-hand-mounted steering wheels and head south in convoy. To acclimate us to driving on the wrong side of the road, Timcke has sent us down the coast road past the rugged Twelve Apostles mountain chain flanking our left and the beach towns of Camps Bay and Llandudno on our right.   We climb the Chapman’s Peak toll road clinging to seaside cliffs and rumble through the shrubby natural fynbos (“fine bush”) habitat of the Cape of Good Hope nature reserve splashed with the bright spikey blooms of protea.

South Africans are rightfully proud of this, the densest of the world’s six floral kingdoms, counting between 8500 and 9000 species packed in an L-shaped area centered around Cape Town, no more than sixty miles wide. The camera car just misses a turtle in front of us. “Ooh, a fynbos tortoise,” chuckles Timcke. “They’re quite rare.”

The plan for a brief mountainside sojourn in the dirt is scratched due to a hard, fast storm blowing in from the south. This brings fond memories to Timcke: “Carina and I ran a safari in Botswana. We were camping when massive, massive thunderstorms rolled in. You could see lightning for miles.   She was setting the table with white linen, and I noticed the ground was alive. Scorpions and spiders. ‘You take me home and you take me home now!’ she yelled. This other time we were scouting in Zambia, and I sent her out to check the depth of the river crossing. She was chest-deep and turned and yelled, ‘What if there are crocs?’ I told her, ‘Don’t splash.’ ” What a gal.

We carry on to the mountain-ringed Cape Winelands surrounding Paarl, Franschhoek, and Stellenbosch (founded by Dutch and Huguenot settlers in the late 1600s) for a world-class lunch at Bosman’s Restaurant at Grande Roche, Africa’s only Relais Gourmand.   We taste the superb wines of Grand Roche, Boschendal, and Spier. Instructors become chauffeurs. Back in Cape Town, a native choir welcomes us to dinner at the prime minister’s historic residence. It seems that there’ll be no end to the eating and drinking. And drinking.

Real off-roading comes early the next day, and it is very, very good. Our LR3 has a 300-hp V-8 that shifts through a six-speed manu-matic and a hill-descent control system that won’t let the vehicle roll downhill unchecked with your foot off the brake—which is most helpful when it gets dicey. Terrain response allows the perfect tractive selection with the spin of a knob. I select the rock icon to climb into the pines, spotting a mongoose and a few klipspringers, which look like tiny reindeer perched on clothespins.   It looks like Colorado, I think. Baboons run out. Colorado, but with baboons. A sentry male barks and moves toward us, menacing, while the rest of the troop flees. “I raised four baboons,” says Timcke. “They ran loose at our safari lodge. The males are domineering and see humans as other primates. There will be one alpha male and lots of beta males. My mom, they hung on her leg. My dad was the dominant male. At maturity, they challenge the troop. This one, he’d demonstrate his strength to the weaker part of the troop. That would be my sister. He eventually nipped her, drew blood, and I got out the revolver and shot him.” OK, then.

Once through the forest, we dive into a thicket of grass and find that the rain has made a lake of our trail. Knowing that an LR3 can push through water high enough to break over the hood, I press confidently along, completely forgetting I am on highway tires. No problem. We come out in the fynbos, a riotous blast of purple, pink, yellow, and blue spikes, flowers your florist would die for.

Back to Stellenbosch for an open-air Indonesian and Cape Malay buffet with delicacies such as springbok saut and gnu stew. (I made that last one up.) In the city center, there’s a great crafts market, but I’ve decided to not tell you about buying the Congolese mask from the Zairian merchant, whom I somehow bargained up from 280 to 300 rand, about fifty dollars. Rob is suffused with mirth as I climb in with my precious cargo. The guy was sweating. He pleaded. I felt sorry for him. Forget it.

Luggage stowed, we head for an overnight in the coastal town of Knysna. We of course go the longest, most difficult way. There is a dirt trail all the way from Cape Town to Knysna, but we don’t patch into it until we turn off just west of Mossel Bay on Route 327, pass ostrich farms that line the road on both sides, and head into the Centre Valley of the Western Cape, the arid red earth and rocklands of the Little Karoo.

In the distance, two wild ostriches haul tailfeathers across the bleak plain. “Damn quick little buggers,” says Rob. “Sixty kph [37 mph] at full speed.” The road turns to lane, the lane to trail, and soon we are climbing past a sign that reads, ‘Men remove dentures, ladies fasten your bras.’ It’s the oxwagon autobahn, the path of Dutch settlers between 1689 and 1869. If they could do it, so can we.

We see wild Boerperds—native horses—and the most colorful birds imaginable. When we can look. Because now we are creeping downhill. The rocks are loose and have sharp edges, it is scary steep, and in some places the holes are so deep that both rear wheels lift off the ground in a pirouette straight from hell, which gives me shallow breathing. As I crawl from that horror, I loosen my sweaty stranglehold on the wheel, letting it spin free in my hands.

“You mustn’t do that or the ruts in the road will dictate where your tires will be,” Rob corrects me. I forgot he was even there, focusing as I am on the sharp rocks that line the downward slope of this path. I feel six inches too close to everything—the steering wheel, the pedals, the brakes, God. “Take the brake off,” says Rob. Huh?   I have to unhook all ten toes from their death grip on the pedal. I don’t want to. But the LR3 slowly finishes the gradual descent without my feet. We are at Bonniedale, a 1650-hectare guest farm that was named one of the top 4×4 destinations in South Africa for two years.   It’s open to the public for anything from a day’s driving fun to camping and horse trekking. Nico Hesterman, a former conservation officer, and his wife, Danette, have lived in this wilderness for eighteen years and have a traditional outdoor barbecue, or braai, waiting in camp for us. A cold, Namibia-brewed Windhoek lager would have to wait ’til that evening.  

We were sorely ready for the rain forest town of Knysna and its ultraluxurious, ultrachic Pezula Resort. Again we arrive with the camouflage pants, lug-soled hiking boots, and zebra-trimmed bush hats, tromping through someone’s hushed art gallery of a hotel lobby.   But this time, we throw ourselves on the nearest beer bottle, nearly weeping with relief for having made it thus far unscathed. Okay, maybe that really nice lady with the Bottega Veneto bag and Gucci loafers, who rode serenely down that same awful hill, confident in her young son’s ability at the wheel, sipped white wine.  

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