David Attenborough has been accused of betraying wildlife. So let’s ask his major critic to remake the greatest of all television programmes… Death on Earth A Natural History by George Monbiot Episode 1 GEORGE: I am now standing at the heart of the Ordovician extinction – and even here, it is ghastly. All around… [Read More]
All one! All one! The crowned cranes are back…
Sacred Combe Safari III Day 8 It’s at this stage of the trip that I get all elegiac. Or if you prefer, soppy. It’s the last full day. In my little hut at Crocodile Camp I felt as if I would be staying in the heart of the Valley forever; now we were back at… [Read More]
Another day of wild excess in the Luangwa Valley…
Sacred Combe Safari III Day 7 There are some days when the Valley goes mad. Chucks everything at you all at once, no thought of saving something up for a nice surprise later on. All at once, crossing the wooded savannahs of the Luangwa Valley was like crossing Liverpool Street Station during the rush hour…. [Read More]
How I inveigled this really nice bird into my bathroom…
Sacred Combe Safari III Day 6 How I love my hut. On these trips I get to spend four nights in the same small hut out in the middle of the Luangwa Valley in Zambia and it’s never long before I feel a sense of ownership. True, it offers frail protection from the bush, and… [Read More]
Sacred Combe Safari III What the hell day is it today? There are moments on the Sacred Combe Safaris when even the most harassed and pressured of us becomes time-rich. Sometimes these periods are close to being the best part of the trip: idle hours in a hut which has no luxury but its location:… [Read More]
Drinks all round – a thousand seriously big ones…
Sacred Combe Safari III Day 5 We have all heard a good deal about the loss of biodiversity: but as I keep saying, we are also and crucially losing bioabundance. And though a good sighting of some rare and lovely thing does our hearts good, a glorious sight of biological plenty has the same profound… [Read More]
Unexpected guests drop in for drinks in the Luangwa Valley…
Sacred Combe Safari III Day 4 And now we walk. We won’t see a vehicle for the next five days. Walking – walking towards camp — we stopped for tea. As we did so, three elephants, two females and a young male, walked towards us. So we shifted ground and started again. Tea tastes better… [Read More]
I have a tail to tell about the Luangwa Valley…
Sacred Combe Safari III Day 3 There are moments very dear to the professional safari guide, occasions that showcase both knowledge and skill in the same dramatic moment: so that it seems that the guide himself had personally called the lovely beast into being. Moffat Mwanza was about to have just such a moment as… [Read More]
Pushing on doggedly as far as the Luangwa River…
Sacred Combe Safari III Day 2 They arrived in darkness and dined in darkness, the sounds of the bush all around them, but no one had any idea what the damn place actually looked like. They were weary after 24 hours of aeroplanes followed by a two hour drive, and most of that in the… [Read More]
And now for something thrilling about metatarsals…
Sacred Combe Safari III Day 1 Two rivers have flown through my adult life: the Liffey and the Luangwa. I mostly know the Liffey from obsessive rereading of Ulysses; I know the Luangwa from my obsessive need to return to the Luangwa Valley. If a book or a place is deep enough and rich enough… [Read More]