African Travel, Safaris and Tours in South and East Africa

AFRICAN TRAVEL GATEWAY is a complete source of information on Africa, we are a broker of incoming tours and African safaris, specializing in tailor-made African Travel, adventure safaris and tours throughout South and East Africa. Our coverage of large parts of the African continent, including South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Tanzania and Zanzibar, combined with our knowledge of the regions and our African travel experience is what gives us the confidence to say that we can offer an educated choice when it comes to compiling clients' utmost African travel adventures!

African travel products featured on this site include over 400 pages of information on the following areas:
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Planning, booking & implementing “tailor-made tours and safaris in Africa”
Portfolio of “special interest and adventure tours”
A selection of “recommended tours in South Africa & African safaris”

Whether you are looking for an African safari, golfing, car hire, flight information, hotel accommodation, guest house lodging, adventure tours or a carefully constructed combination of the above - then you've come to the right place! We plan, book and implement tailor-made African safaris and holidays of all sorts for all sorts of budgets. So whether you know what you want, or if you don't have a clue, ask us, we can help!

The Highest Garbage In The World

Mount Everest attracts thousands of visitors each year that leave thousands of kilos of all sorts of garbage without much of a fuss.
Famous mountains like Mount Everest, Aconcagua and others that in addition to their celebrity status are relatively easy to reach or at least, approach them, in contraposition to others that are harder to get to, like K2 or Cerro Torre, literally suffer the contamination caused by thousands of enthusiastic tourists and generally well equipped and qualified climbers that constantly try to reach the summit.
These particular developments are causing local contamination to an alarming degree because after each expedition the snow and rocks are left littered with valuable things like tents, oxygen bottles, climbing gear and equipment and even corpses, like in the case of the late climber Mallory, who seems to have been first up there, before Hillary, but died on his way down.
Since these elements don't constitute natural components of the area and are not easily degraded by nature, it becomes evident that tourists, sherpas and climbers are causing an unique sort of contamination.
Of course, climbing gear is necessary to get to the top of such mountains, but we should keep in mind that leaving such traces is bad for the local environment, no matter what and it would be foolish to assume that since it is "just" a bottle or tin can, a broken tent or a rope that we leave behind it won't have any impact. A lot of people think that one cigarette does nothing to the environment, but if you star adding up the "one" cigarette that they are having moment after moment, then things change. Any sort of non-degradable garbage has a negative effect in our world.
It would be ideal to have at least some sort of disposable and biodegradable gear that once used could be assimilated back to nature instead of littering the pristine ground of such high places. Plus, it would lessen the risks and workload of those in charge of cleansing the area periodically. It is ironic that people who love nature have become the main cause of contamination at the roof of the planet, plus, that they are far from self-sufficient there because they need others to take their garbage out of there, if it is ever taken; this should change, and we should lead by our example.

About Adventure Racing

Why are all races survival of the fittest? The fastest always wins. Boring!
What if we could make a leap in evolution. Use our intelligence. Survival of the smartest. Now that is the pinnacle of the human race.
Come evolve to a higher form of life in a new outdoor challenge. Adventure racing transcends everything you have experienced before.
Adventure racing is done in teams of 2 to 4 people usually with at least one of each gender, travelling together navigating through various checkpoints by multiple disciplines. It can involve any type of self propelled activity, from mountain biking to skiing, from trekking to abseiling, from kayaking to horse riding, from coasteering to in-line skating. Races vary in length - anywhere between a short course event of a couple of hours (such as the AROC Sport Adventures) to an expedition length race of 10 days (races like the Eco-Challenge, Southern Traverse and Subaru Primal Quest).
Adventure racing is not just about being fit. It involves resilience, perseverance, teamwork, adaptability and strategy. Most importantly, it is about having fun with friends, taming the urban environment or thriving in our amazing wilderness. You can choose your own pace but you will always be challenged, both physically and mentally. You will need to work together as a team.
The race starts - you have a map, a team and an objective. You race against your judgment. This way or that way? On foot, on bike, on water. Strategy is everything. Before the race starts you need to decide on your team composition. Do you build your team based on speed, on navigation ability, on problem solving skills, on stamina or on who can be cool under pressure? Issues of gender fade away. Mixed teams are proving to be among the worlds best combinations. At last a chance to test whether women can read maps and if men will ever ask for directions!
Adventure racing condenses a myriad of lifetime experiences into a short intense race period. But at the same time adventure racing requires you to use your life experiences to succeed. Now you have an opportunity to enjoy your health and fitness like never before. Come and join us for some recreation, exploration and invigoration through adventure races and outdoor challenges. Find out more about the AROC Sport Adventures - click here.

Finding out more about adventure therapy

Proceedings of previous International Adventure Therapy Conferences
The proceedings from the past 4IATC's provide a comprehensive overview of approaches to adventure therapy and working theraputically outdoors.
Research on adventure therapy: where to find resources?
Given that a lot of adventure and outdoor therapy (adventure, wilderness, and nature therapy) practice has developed out of the Outdoor Education movement, outdoor therapy related research papers tend to be found amongst Outdoor Education journals and wider literature. Also, outdoor therapy has common factors with other outdoor and adventure programming factors (e.g. risk management) so wider outdoor related research and literature is relevant when developing outdoor therapy interventions. The following journals are where you would source some outdoor therapy related texts.
Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning (JAEOL)The purpose of this international journal is to promote dialogue, research, thinking, understanding, teaching and practice in the field of adventure education and outdoor learning.
Article example, which for a limited period is freely available to download from the JAEOL website of Taylor & Francis (please click on article title to download): Russell, K. C., & Farnum, J. (2004). A concurrent model of the wilderness therapy process. Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning, 4 (1): 39-55.Journal of Experiential Education (JEE)This American journal is a peer-reviewed, professional journal presenting a diverse range of articles in subject areas such as outdoor adventure programming, environmental education, therapeutic applications, research and theory.
Article example:Neill, J. T. (2003). Reviewing and benchmarking adventure therapy outcomes: Applications of meta-analysis. Journal of Experiential Education, 25 (3), 316-321.
Australian Journal of Outdoor Education (AJOE)
This peer-reviewed journal is devoted to the scholarly examination of issues in the field of outdoor education.
Article example:Crisp, S. (2003). Publishing spurious research findings won't build a profession: Response to Brand's (2001) evaluation of the Wilderness Enhanced Program Australian Journal of Outdoor Education, 7(2), 2003
Therapy Today: Outdoor Cure
Therapy Today (The Magazine for Counselling & Psychotherapy Professionals) published a themed edition titled 'Outdoor Cure: Therapeutic processes and the outdoors' in December 2005. The articles published in this themed edition offer an overview of some of the different approaches taken to working therapeutically in the outdoors. The following articles are freely available in Therapy Today's Archive (to access the article click on the article title).
Outdoor cure: There is a growing interest in adventure and wilderness therapy. For over a decade, Kaye Richards and Jenny Peel have developed practice, training and research in this area. Here, they report on the innovative and compelling ways of working offered by adventure and the outdoors.
Ecolimia nervosa? Consumption, sources of nourishment, eating problems and ecopsychology are intimately connected. By Mary-Jayne Rust
Transactions on the rock face: Nick Ray, adventure therapist and psychotherapist, works with clients both inside the therapy room and out in the natural environment
Other related articles published in this themed edition and available to purchase include:
Wild at Heart: another side of ecopsychology. By Nick Totton
Bleeding hearts and forget-me-nots: Victims of torture are finding healing through working in the Medical Foundation's Garden Project where they are empowered to communicate and regenerate in self-chosen ways alongside their therapists. By Claire Pointon
Ecopsychology and supervision: Colluding with the splitting off of ecological concerns is unhelpful to both supervisee and client. By Sue Weaver.

Kathmandu Sprint Series – Melbourne Race Report 05

Sunday 13th February saw a capacity field of 51 teams descend upon Yarra Bend Park just 10 minutes out of Melbourne CBD.

At registration the male, female and mixed teams of two were issued with their pre-marked maps and course description and given approximately 45 minutes to plan their route and mark up an intended course. Teams must collect all of the checkpoints in order by either foot, bike or boat as described in the course notes. The mass start saw 102 competitors running up the hill to Yarra Bend lookout to collect their first checkpoint. Teams jostled for position so as not to get caught behind the pack. In the excitement a number of teams over shot the mark only to retrace their steps and take a place in the middle of the bunch. Another three checkpoints were collected on route to the run/kayak transition. The 4.5km foot stage took the top teams under 30 minutes to complete with only five minutes between the first 25 teams! With such a tight pack everyone was pumping like mad (teams were required to inflate their own kayaks) to be first on the water for the 2.5km paddle back to the start/finish transition area. Tri Dubai (Simon Knowles and Chris Leigh) were first off the water having over taken, Ice Monsters (Kate Reeves and Sam Maffett) on the water. Teams replaced kayaks with one Mountain Bike for a ‘Ride and Tie’. Teams then had to ride and run around a 3km course while staying within 100m of each other. This gave Endurance Freaks (Josh Street and Andrew Wolstencroft) a chance to finish the stage with the leaders.Another MTB was collected on their way past the transition area before completing a 10km ride around the park, including a small stretch on Yarra Boulevard. Two hours into the race, and there was still only three minutes separating the top four teams.The 2km paddle and 1km portage proved to be the deciding factor with Tri Dubai creating a six minute gap between themselves and Ice Monsters in 2nd place. Team Franzke (Ian & Carolyn Franzke) moved in to third place just ahead of Endurance Freaks. Tri Dubai maintained their lead on the 3.5km run that took them over Kane’s Bridge and past Dights Falls. However Team Franzke were over taken by Endurance Freaks who reclaimed third. The positions stayed the same for the final 6km MTB sprint with Tri Dubai completing the course in 2hrs 51min, 2nd Ice Monsters 2hrs 58min and 3rd across the line was Endurance Freaks in 3hrs. 1st, 2nd & 3rd places in each category walked away with over $2,000 of prizes supplied by Kathmandu. Full results and photos can be found on the website: www.maxadventure.com.au“Thank you very much for a great day. Anthony and I had our first lesson in adventure racing and it was fantastic fun. We are looking forward to more and have plans to do the longer races. Your team was great and made the day very easy for us enjoy other people with similar interests in a safe environment.” Greg“Thanks again for organising a great event in Melbourne. You did a great job with the course design at Yarra Bend.” Cameron