Books

Paths of the Tracker
Journeys to beginnings

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1 edition (August 5, 2018), Paperback, 330 pages, 6 x 0.8 x 9 inches, ISBN-10: 1985080508, ISBN-13: 978-1985080508.

The Wanderers
Tales of Wandering in the African Bush

Safari Press (2015), Hardcover, ISBN-10: 1571574778, ISBN-13: 978-1571574770. ......................................................................................................................................

The Wanderers (Ltd Ed)
Tales of Wandering in the African Bush

Long Beach (2015), 226 pages, color photos, 6x9, hardcover Volume 83 in the Safari Press's Classics in African Hunting Series 1st edn, ltd to 500 signed, numbered, & slipcased copies ISBN: 978-1-57157-449-7.

Paths of the Tracker
Journeys to beginnings

 

"The scenes are taut with tension, and the writing is clear and poignant. There's a sense of resonation that reverberates throughout the book, and I was delighted. Take for instance, "He felt a new sense of nostalgia for dimensions of his life that had been there, at some point, but had become obscured by his lifestyle and the people he was surrounded with" (157). Powerful and delicious. There was a particular mode of intimacy that Mr.Hoffman offered through Craig, operating within a close psychic distance and allowing us to empathetically connect with him." - Judge, 27th Annual Writer's Digest Self-Published Book Awards 

When young Craig Steward got an unexpected invitation from his long-lost uncle to attend his book launch at a posh London club, he had no idea how much the carefully nuanced calibration of his trendy lifestyle in his native Johannesburg would be disrupted.

Henry le Roux had accepted his dying sister’s last request, to take young Craig in hand, with a mixture of self-doubt and resentment. How was he going to re-arrange his vagabond life so that he could have the effect on Craig that Catherine was asking? When he finally decided to ask Craig to accompany him on an expedition into those remote parts of Africa where he had spent several of his vagrant years, it was more out of witless desperation than any desire to have the young man with him.

Young Craig Steward quickly found out that the expedition with his bush-hardened uncle Henry le Roux was nothing like the safaris on which he and his jet-set friends would occasionally embark in their trendy four by fours. It turned downright extreme when they abandoned Henry’s ancient bush vehicle and struck out on foot into hinterlands untouched by civilisation. It became a desperate struggle for mere survival as Africa engulfed them in its ancient heaves and twists.

Each man, as he fought to survive the physical ordeal, was swept along on a life-changing spiritual journey.

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1 edition (August 5, 2018), Paperback, 330 pages, 6 x 0.8 x 9 inches, ISBN-10: 1985080508, ISBN-13: 978-1985080508.

The Wanderers
Tales of Wandering in the African Bush

This is the story of the wanderings of two lifelong friends who had the courage to live their dreams in some of the last remaining wilderness areas left in southern Africa. The days when you could wander freely throughout the Dark Continent on your own, in search of great adventure, were fading fast when South Africans Hoffman Theron van Zijl and Gerhard Bolt came of age and set out on a series of adventures, together and on their own, in the 1970s and 1980s.

Their main goal was to hunt dangerous game, but they were just as interested in exploring untrammeled country in search of true, untouched wilderness. This book revolves around one of these adventures, a trip they took together to the Zambezi Valley in Mozambique in 1989. True to form, the friends booked their hunting trip with an outfitter, but were able, once they got there, to wander off and explore on their own, on foot, with only native trackers as their companions. What follows is a series of adventures in pursuit of elephants, bad-tempered buffalo, and a charging lion, as well as a fascinating glimpse of a landscape and a people whose way of life would soon vanish forever.

The Mozambique trip is liberally spiced with flashbacks, in the form of stories told around campfires and during tea breaks, from other adventures the friends experienced both together and on their own. These range from rescuing a fishing village from a marauding hippo to a hilarious attempt to call in a lion with an electronic call, to an encounter with a mysterious medicine man who may or may not have transformed himself into an elephant.

The author and his companion were both driven by a fascination with the undiscovered reaches of their mysterious continent, Africa, and for the life lived by the great hunter-explorers of the first part of the twentieth century. As they matured they came to understand that their longing was for the spirit of the distant and untouched African bush as much as it was for the hunt itself. And as their means grew and their companionship deepened, their expeditions became ever more ambitious and daring, but less results-oriented and more satisfying. This wonderful book will lead you to wish you could have joined the two friends in their adventurous wanderings.

Safari Press (2015), Hardcover, ISBN-10: 1571574778, ISBN-13: 978-1571574770.

The Wanderers (Ltd Ed)
Tales of Wandering in the African Bush

“This wonderful book will lead you to wish you could have joined the two friends in their adventurous wanderings.” - Safari Press

This is the story of the wanderings of two lifelong friends who had the courage to live their dreams in some of the last remaining wilderness areas left in southern Africa. The days when you could wander freely throughout the Dark Continent on your own, in search of great adventure, were fading fast when South Africans Hoffman Theron van Zijl and Gerhard Bolt came of age and set out on a series of adventures, together and on their own, in the 1970s and 1980s.

Their main goal was to hunt dangerous game, but they were just as interested in exploring untrammeled country in search of true, untouched wilderness. This book revolves around one of these adventures, a trip they took together to the Zambezi Valley in Mozambique in 1989. True to form, the friends booked their hunting trip with an outfitter, but were able, once they got there, to wander off and explore on their own, on foot, with only native trackers as their companions. What follows is a series of adventures in pursuit of elephants, bad-tempered buffalo, and a charging lion, as well as a fascinating glimpse of a landscape and a people whose way of life would soon vanish forever.

The Mozambique trip is liberally spiced with flashbacks, in the form of stories told around campfires and during tea breaks, from other adventures the friends experienced both together and on their own. These range from rescuing a fishing village from a marauding hippo to a hilarious attempt to call in a lion with an electronic call, to an encounter with a mysterious medicine man who may or may not have transformed himself into an elephant.

The author and his companion were both driven by a fascination with the undiscovered reaches of their mysterious continent, Africa, and for the life lived by the great hunter-explorers of the first part of the twentieth century. As they matured they came to understand that their longing was for the spirit of the distant and untouched African bush as much as it was for the hunt itself. And as their means grew and their companionship deepened, their expeditions became ever more ambitious and daring, but less results-oriented and more satisfying. This wonderful book will lead you to wish you could have joined the two friends in their adventurous wanderings.

Long Beach (2015), 226 pages, color photos, 6x9, hardcover Volume 83 in the Safari Press's Classics in African Hunting Series 1st edn, ltd to 500 signed, numbered, & slipcased copies ISBN: 978-1-57157-449-7.

The Wanderers interview