Blog Posts in Category: Wildlife

Overlanding Day 4: Drive to Walvis Bay and Sunset Dune Tour

Alastair BegleyLandscape, Namibia, Overlanding, Wildlife Short Link

I thought the main event of the day was going to be our sunset dune drive from Walvis Bay, and that the drive there was just going to be a mode of travel, but how wrong I was, as it was absolutely stunning with contrasting scenery from gorges, to water formed landscapes, to mountains and then desert.  The Drive In my head the drive was just a means of transport, and my excitement was for our afternoons activity. Very quickly we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn for the second time of our trip, this time there were road signs to mark the occasion, unlike the first time were we had to rely on the GPS on the second morning of our trip. Within a very short period of leaving our wonderful camp at Bushman’s Desert Camp, we encountered our first surprise, as the road descended into a gorge, the so called Gaub Pass. It was amazing driving within this gorge which was so clearly formed by water, but now in a landscape totally devoid of water. This was going to be a theme which continued for the next 90 minutes,. Read the full article…

Overlanding Day 2: Lake Oanob Resort to Sesriem & Sossusvlei

Alastair BegleyNamibia, Overlanding, Wildlife Short Link

Today was a day where we packed an awful lot into a single day, and had a fantastic, if not slightly tiring, time while doing it. It also happened to be Christmas Day, not that it really felt like it due to the heat and the activity packed day. We drove from Lake Oanob Resort to Sesriem via the Spreetshoogte Pass. Once we were at Sesriem we first explored the canyon, before returning to the campsite for an early dinner and then heading out to the dunes for some photography and then to climb Dune 45 for sunset Lake Oanob We woke up fairly early knowing that we had a long drive ahead of us, while also wanting to make the most of the day when we arrived. Our day stated off wonderfully watching two Southern Masked Weavers building a nest, while sat eating our breakfast overlooking Lake Oanob. Breakfast and packing up the truck was not the quickest affair, given that it was the first time we were getting used to everything, but we were on the road by 7:30. The journey to Sesriem via the Spreetshoogte Pass The. Read the full article…

Overlanding Day 1: Windhoek to Lake Oanob Resort

Alastair BegleyNamibia, Overlanding, Wildlife Short Link

Today our plan was simple, collect the 4×4, do some shopping and take a short drive down to Lake Oanob Resort to start our trip. Summary: Our plan largely went as expected, the pickup from Bushlore took longer than expected, we had assumed two hours and it took closer to three, but in fairness there was a lot of information for them to share about their very well thought out vehicles, lets just hope we don’t need to use the high lift jack! On our way out of Windhoek we stopped in a supermarket to pick up some food for the next week and some other general missing items we had already left behind or decided were not good enough (power adapters and a hat). Again this took quite a while but eventually we were ready to set off down to our destination, to sort out the van and enjoy dinner. While were were driving down south on one of the few tar rods in Namibia, we quickly saw plenty of wildlife, including boks&baboons, along with plenty of stunning scenery. As were were arriving I remembered that there was an. Read the full article…

Boulders Beach Penguins

Alastair BegleySouth Africa, Wildlife Short Link

With a short window until we had to be at Cape Town airport to head to Namibia, we had time to visit the classic Boulders Beach to see a colony of African Penguins which are unfortunately an endangered species, in 1910 there was an estimated 1.5 million African Penguins, but only around 10% remained at the end of the 20th century. The uncontrolled harvesting of penguin eggs (as a source of food) and guano scraping nearly drove the species to extinction. We arrived later in the morning as we had a slower start to the day after the previous day’s wine tasking, stopping en route in Stellenbosch for some brunch and excellent coffee. This unfortunately meant that we didn’t have time to head down to swim in boulders beach, just having enough time to go and see the Penguins from the boardwalks over Foxy Beach. It really was quite remarkable seeing penguins in their natural habitat, especially as this area is so surrounded by a residential area. The species of the bird is Spheniscus demersus, and this colony has grown from two breading pairs in 1982 to around 2200 penguins. Read the full article…

Drachenstein Lion Park

Alastair BegleySouth Africa, Wildlife Short Link

On a non-flying day I decided to head to the Drachenstein Lion Park, which is a sanctuary for lions who have been rescued from persecution by humans, but which are unable to be released into the wild due to having been bred in captivity. Prior to going I did some research, and it does appear that this lion park is regarded as actually being a sanctuary for the lions, who are well looked after and now have the minimum of direct human contact. It was wonderful to see the lions, who all had lots of space, but I was sad at the same time reading the stories of what humans had done to these lions (and one tiger).

Autumnal Munich

Alastair BegleyBavaria, Landscape, Wildlife Short Link

I had a friend visiting for a few days, and our sunset objective for the first day was in the centre of Munich, so we spent the days walking back to Munich from Unterföhring, via the Isar and Englischer Garten. Despite having missed the best autumnal colours, the trees were still beautiful and we were able to enjoy the brilliant conditions while also seeing some beautiful wildlife including Buzzards and a Kingfisher (I think…).

2024 in 100 Photos

Alastair Begley100 Photos, Alpinism, Arco, Austria, Bavaria, France, India, Landscape, Mountain Biking, Paragliding, Rock Climbing, Scrambling, Ski Touring, Skiing, Via Ferrata, Walking, Wildlife Short Link

It seems hard to believe that another year has passed by, but having just had another overindulgent Christmas and new year it is somehow already time to summarise the year in another 100 photos. It was a very busy year with both free time activities and work with many more business trips for me than usual. Winter The year started off with the ski season, we did a lot of alpine skiing and certainly made the most of our Tirol cards, I think I did around 25 days overall! Becky’s skiing has continued to improve and this led us todo our first ski tour on the Kleiner Gamsstein. Unfortunately the snow over the winter was difficult for ski touring, especially for beginners so there was limited ski touring for both Becky and me. I managed one ski mountaineering weekend, but we suffered with terrible snow conditions as well as weather. It was nonetheless enjoyable to spend a weekend high in the mountains. Spring It soon turned to spring, which was unfortunately a bit of a washout along with the start of the summer. This resulted in us not spending that. Read the full article…

Marmots above Saas Fee

Alastair BegleySwitzerland, Wildlife Short Link

After our four days in the Bernese Oberland, we were in need of a rest day which was thankfully forced on us by the weather anyway. To make the most of the day, we decided to head up to Spielboden to see the Marmots in a brief window without any rain towards the end of the day. We didn’t quite know what to expect, but went armed with some nuts which were bought from the tourist office and were very surprised. To say the Marmots were tame would be an understatement, as they quite aggressively came up to us demanding more food which was certainly a surprise. This wasn’t so good for the photography from my point of view, but the others have some entertaining photos of humans and marmots together. I aimed for some marmots which were in the landscape, which seemed more natural, even if it was still very staged. After an hour of fun it started raining and we had to get back to the lift before it shut, so we made a hasty retreat back to Saas Fee for the evening.