Safari 2025 - Technically Not!

There's a pretty strong argument that the word Safari, although meaning a journey to hunt for wild animals, should be solely associated with doing so in Africa. Over time, of course, this definition has loosened considerably and I'm pretty happy to call this upcoming trip a Safari.

I'm really stepping out of my comfort zone this time. Twice - at least - my friends have planned trips here and I've declined on both occasions. The first time, I simply couldn't afford to go, but the second time I felt that it just wasn't a country I wanted to actually visit. Fred, in particular, keeps going back but constantly tells me that he doesn't like the place and there have been many pronouncements of "Never Again" over the years.

And, where is this place? India.

Now, India is a very big country and, as always, our time will be limited. This calls for careful planning and considerable sacrifice. Here's the basic plan for our trip:

• Fly out from Heathrow on February 25th to Delhi
• Overnight in Delhi
• Drive to Agra for two nights to see Taj Mahal, etc
• Boat Trip on Chambal River - looking for crocodiles and gharial
• Haiderpur Wetlands - Lots of birds
• Three lodges in and around Jim Corbett National Park -  six days looking for Tigers!!!
• Manila and Sattal in the Himalaya Foothills around Nanda Devi - scenery and more birds
• Drive back to Delhi for one night
• Fly to Leh in Ladakh
• Six days to explore:
• Khardung La and Tanglung La - High road mountain passes above 17,000 feet!
• Tso Kar - High mountain lake for rare birds
• Hanle - Possible to see a Pallas's Cat
• Plenty of time to look for Snow Leopard, Tibetan Fox, Wolf, Lynx, Red Fox, etc.
• Back to Delhi for one more night
• Return to Heathrow and then home on March 23rd

So, Agra is as far south as we get, but primarily this is Northern India in the extreme. For me, the highlight will, of course, be Corbett. In some ways, tigers are the only thing that make me want to go to India enough to finally do so.

Having said that, there's plenty more to be seen. This is the Himalayas. Nanda Devi is the highest mountain entirely in India and then we head even deeper into the mountains by going to Ladakh.

Leh, at more than 11,000 feet is our starting point. This is technically the low point between the western end of the Himalayas and the Karakoram range to the north, the valley of the Indus River. As we land, we might glimpse the summit of K2 at more than 28,000 feet. We'll head out wherever the roads are open. I've no real expectation of seeing either the snow leopard or Pallas's cat, but there is hope always.

That Elephant Encounter - Video

One of the things that I never - well almost never - manage is to take any video while I'm on safari. Once in a while I'll remember that I have my phone in my pocket and even more rarely I'll remember that video is a thing.

I'm just not a videographer. Photos are what work for me and I don't even have to think about taking them, it is just automatic. And that applies whether it is reaching for the big camera, the compact camera or the phone - indeed it is sometimes a case of reaching for all three to capture as much information and variety of shots as possible.

The point is, for the most part, I have to rely on others to capture video for me and, luckily, Emmy is often there to pick up the slack. Here is his short clip from our first proper elephant encounter from Akagera in Rwanda.

Safari 2024 - Trip Report

So, the 2024 safari to Rwanda and Tanzania is now over and we are all safely back home. It is, as usual, time to complete my trip report and start work on the book of the trip. As always, this is a fairly long and involved process, made simpler by my writing more than ten thousand words while away. I'm working on the final layout of the large-format book and, as I am still in the process of working on the whole series as a set of paperbacks, I am working on that version at the same time.

Each report gets longer and more rambling than the last and I should apologise for that in advance. I've broken it into what I hope are logical sections and it is all at the link on the right or by following this link HERE.

On Safari 2024

This is just a quick reminder to everybody that I'm off on safari again. I leave on the morning of 14th of February and won't be back on the island until the 10th of March.

We are travelling to Rwanda, but starting our actual safari across the border in Tanzania. We'll be exploring the southern shores of Lake Victoria as far as the Serengeti before turning round and coming back to finish with five days in Rwanda.

You might get me on email, WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger if you need something urgent, but clearly I won't be able to do much until I get back. I will be roaming in a very expensive country, so don't expect me to answer the phone.

The Communications Conundrum

The Year in Review

After more than three years at home, 2023 marked my return to travel and an epic return to Africa. The trip was the hardest we'd ever had together and it left me simultaneously drained and re-invigorated. On the one hand, I now hated the process of travelling and decried the failings of confused airline personnel. On the other, I had seen some magnificent mammals and birds and the new camera and lens combination had performed magnificently.

I had, as has become a habit, started work on the write-up for my coffee-table book about the trip whilst I was there. It gives me something to do on a very hot afternoon. I can sit on the veranda and work on my laptop for an hour or so every couple of days and be almost ready to go with the text as soon as I get back. I finished the book in record time and found myself really enjoying the writing process, almost more than the holiday itself.

Once I started, I couldn't stop. I'd always had a desire to write a novel, but also wanted to write an autobiography of sorts. I combined the two and, having satisfied myself that I could actually do it, buried the autobiographical novel in the depths of my hard drive to never see the light of an embarrassing day. But I had ideas flooding my brain and just kept on going. By August I had pretty much burned myself out for a time, having written and published 3 full novels on Amazon. I stalled in the fourth novel, however and only managed to come back to it at the end of the year, publishing it at the very end of December.

Meanwhile, I created a paperback version of my travel book and then went on to publish three small volumes of photographs, again on Amazon. Frankly, writing and publishing is addictive. As the year turns over, I have started another novel and words are flowing pretty well. So, 2023 is all about words. More than 300,000 published words if we are counting.

As for the rest of my year, I guess it has been much like any other. My blood-pressure has been brought under control by medication and my general mood seems to be improving, probably thanks in part to taking Vitamin D. I am indeed a year older and the aches and pains are probably to be expected. Nothing life-threatening though. I continue to work as usual, spreading my time out between the workshop in Maughold and my regular customers.

My friends and I have made plans to return to Africa in February once more. Again we will be in Tanzania - around the shores of Lake Victoria with a few days in Rwanda, a new country for me to add to the list.

The Conundrum

So, for all my personal success in getting words onto the page and out into the world, there remains the increasingly difficult problem of personal communications. I have written at length here in the past about my anxieties and mental health issues. It isn't something that just goes away and, indeed, it seems to come and go as time passes.

For much of the second half of 2023 I have had very severe problems with personal communications. I've always had issues with using the telephone. I'm always very happy to answer a call and get stuff sorted. I just always find it difficult to make an outgoing call. It's a problem that I've always been conscious of, but I do try my best to work around it. Sometimes, however, I just can't do it. This year has been particularly bad and this communications anxiety - for wont of a better word - has spread to other forms of communication as well.

I now find it almost as difficult to respond to an email, Whatsapp, Facebook or text message. I normally get there in the end, but at the very least it can take a couple of days for me to simply work up to formulating a reply. It's not always like that, of course. On some days I can respond quickly and simply to an incoming message as soon as I get the chance and spontaneous questions are far more likely to get a quick answer.

I'm far from convinced that it is something that I will ever get over. I can only apologise to anybody who has expected a response from me and not received one. For anybody who needs a more immediate response, then probably best to call me on my mobile. If I don't come back to you, then leave it for an hour or two and try again. If I answer, everything will be fine. If I don't then I may just be unable to return the call. Don't feel that you are bugging me, it probably is helping.

The Upgrade

If 2022 was the year of the camera, then 2024 is the year of the computer.

I last built myself a new desktop computer at the very end of 2017. I went all-out to build something that was close to state-of-the-art for the time in the hope that it would last me a while. I've had a couple of upgrades in the intervening six years, but it has worked pretty much flawlessly for that time.

Still, the art does advance and I was starting to find that some software was beginning to feel a little sluggish. I've discovered the power of Topaz Photo AI and frankly the processing power needed for it to work well is staggering. I had the graphics card, but the main processor and memory were lacking. Even some of the new features of Adobe Photoshop push the old system to its limits.

Anyway, over the last few months I've built up a set of new components and created a totally new PC tower that should hopefully keep me going for another few years. I don't think I've ever done a rundown of my hardware, so here goes.

It's now an AMD Ryzen 7 7700 processor with 32Gb of DDR5 memory on an ASUS B650 mainboard. Storage is provided by a 1TB Crucial NVME SSD as a main drive with a pair of 4TB Samsung 870 SATA SSD drives for data and main backup. I use an external 4TB portable hard drive for secondary backup.

Display is provided by an AMD Radeon 6600 Graphics card that drives three 32-inch ViewSonic monitors at 2560x1440 pixels. I run Windows 11 Professional and it is as up-to-date as possible.

I still have my 14-inch Huawei laptop that I use for diagnostics and travel as well.

Into 2024

So, another year has passed and we are all alive and reasonably well. I've a great holiday to look forward to in February and am keen to keep on with my writing.