At one stage, the Portuguese were a great seafaring nation. They explored many undiscovered parts of the world and were the first recorded European nation to land on the southern part of Africa. Diogo Cão put up a stone cross on the west coast in 1486. The cross still remains at the area, bordering on the Namib desert, known as Cape Cross. Bartolomeu Diaz put up another cross on the shoreline of the Eastern Cape in 1487.
For many generations the United States has been the mecca for the dispossessed. What most people don’t know is that South Africa has also been a haven for immigrants, both legal and illegal, since the 1600s.
I’m not normally a person who is obsessed with ‘what ifs?’ In hunting around for a theme for this week’s blog, I decided to trace my life back and speculate on what may have occurred if what actually happened hadn’t happened!
Today we live in an increasingly chaotic and troubled world where a culture of lies and fake news has become the norm. Most of the time we simply don’t know who or what to believe in. It seems that we’re reaching a crisis point, a tipping point where life could either improve or grow infinitely worse!
When I was growing up, I would often hear older people complain that the youngsters of my generation were running wild and that the disciplines they were brought up to obey when they were young, made them what they were – fine outstanding citizens, models of society etc., etc.
Throughout the years that I’ve been writing professionally, 61 years by the way, I’ve always been amused and somewhat irritated by stories, particularly movies, that center their storyline around a writer’s block. I’ve never once had a writer’s block. Maybe that’s why, as my wife says, I never stop talking – unless I’m writing!
My wife Hero and I have recently come back from the Republic of Ireland after spending a busy ten days with my son Greg, his wife Louise and his three children, Erin, 17, Kai, 13 and Ryan ,10. They live in Dublin and we’ve been there a few times but we’ve never been to the west coast.
Having explored the facets of my life which involved Mountains, Beaches and Wildlife, I wondered what other major influences were worth writing about, I came up with books.
Having climbed the highest mountain – in South Africa that is – and swum in three oceans, I now turn to my third choice, wildlife.
This blog is dedicated to the memory of Bruce Rigney, who passed away 18th August 2023. Bruce was the supervising editor of all my blogs as well as providing all the photos attached to each blog. He will be sorely missed as both a good friend, a colleague and an invaluable senior member of the ExoBrain team.