Featured Articles
Recent articles & short stories by publisher's writer's
Dumbstruck in Malawi
By Nick Yell
Dumbstruck in Malawi
A number of years back I decided to unleash my newly-found yachting skills on the peace-loving people of Malawi. I figured that commanding a yacht on a lake, albeit rather a big one, would be safer than careering straight out to sea.
So I rounded up some victims (one girlfriend, one old school friend and his partner), located the only known working keelboat in the region, and headed north. My girlfriend and I decided to drive up to Harare, fly to Lilongwe and then meet our travelling partners on the boat off Salima. It was a holiday that I desperately needed. I’d broken-up with my fiancée three-months before, just recovered from a raging bout of hepatitis, and then been ‘retrenched’ from the ad agency I worked at — in fairness, my boss did offer me a job in the mailroom, I just couldn’t tolerate licking all those envelopes.
Read more...
Down Carnarvon Way
By Nick Yell
Down Carnarvon Way
We called Pieter at quarter-past six on a Sunday evening. It had been a long day in the saddle, a day of crossing thick sandy rivers, perilous rocky passes and dodging aardvark holes in the fading light. And, even though dirt track motor bike riding across the often exacting Karoo landscape is what myself and a group of friends do for fun, come the end of a day, we like to rest-up in comfort somewhere. Preferably at a place that has powerful hot showers, clean fluffy towels and comfort food and drink aplenty.
We’d actually been hoping to make it to Vosburg, where our accommodation (and a venison braai) had been pre-booked, but a challenging 36 kilometre detour we’d taken earlier in the day, which loosely followed a wayward railway track, had cost us nearly three hours — and a good few litres of sweat. So when we’d arrived in Carnarvon at sunset, we were in desperate need of a place to stay. And that’s what Pieter of the Lord Carnarvon guest-house, with no prior notice, was able to offer us; and so much more. Not only were we cosseted in the well-renovated Victorian house (built in 1886 by Frans Carel Te Water), complete with a roaring fire in the lounge plus heaters in our en-suite bedrooms, Pieter also “made a plan” and served us a three-course dinner which included springbok medallions in a special batter and a well-matched red blend called 1659. And with Pieter filling us in on some of the local and guest-house history around the fire later, it just kept getting better all the time.
Read more...
