All roads lead to De Rust
… and other true stories The Karoo dorpie of De Rust was a blip on my radar – a stopover town en route to Cape Town, a place to pause to visit the Meiringspoort waterfall, and not much more. That
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Category: Environment
The green jewel of the east coast
Kwelera National Botanical Garden takes shape We’re standing in the middle of a wetland deep in the cultivated portion of the Kwelera National Botanical Garden. But there is no water, just a thick covering of invasive solanum, ready to
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3 fabulous (and free) trails
Being close to nature – especially walking through it – is the number one way that I sustain myself. It clears my busy head, fills me with energy and lifts my mood. Whether it’s the physical exertion or closeness to
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The high stakes of climate change denial
I’m steaming. This is not because the temperature is topping 35C (95F), but because a handful of the cleverest people I know are reciting the narrative that climate change is nothing alarming, just part of the normal cycle of Earth’s
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Wilderness man
Connecting with a legend of conservation, Paul Dutton, at his Shangri-La It’s a big and blue day on the beach at Salt Rock on KwaZulu-Natal’s North Coast, the kind when the air shimmers and you can see right through the
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Evergreen joys
Christmas, for me, is about being with people I care about. On the big Day, we gather to eat together, often under the milkwood trees, each contributing a favourite dish. And we always have a tree – never a plastic
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A few of my favourite things
My most favourite things right now are a small inverter, two water tanks and a sense of humour. It’s been hard to keep the latter when the foremost givens – access to clean piped water and a reliable electricity supply
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I’m planting trees. Are you?
Every single time I do an Internet search, I am planting trees. Yes, you read that correctly. And you might have noticed that I did not say, “Every time I Google.” That’s because I changed my Internet browser from Google
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Taking a walk with Nomama Mei
Nomama Mei and I are walking, and talking, along the shore of the Kwelera Nature Reserve, now part of the new Kwelera National Botanical Garden. Mid-sentence, she crouches and strokes a plant with wide, green leaves, just emerging from the
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Freeing ourselves from supporting harm
Could giving up buying new clothes be the biggest personal change you can make for the environment? That’s what The Guardian asked in an article on the growing number of people moving away from fast fashion to second-hand clothing. I came
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