We're going to travel in Africa, and we're taking YOU with us. Coming soon.

This year, Grays and I have made it our mission to travel. Not overseas - I am genuinely not interested in leaving Africa and have never been overseas. I've made many opportunities, resources, time and savings to make the trip possible... But I just don't want to. Not yet! I really want to work my way from the inside out. Graeme has been to the United Kingdom (I did marry a Brit after all) and he's been to Cannes, South of France and all of that. Fancy!

See, my dad is also a Brit and came to Africa (Rhodesia at the time) as a young boy. He's told me the very best stories about his travels, lake Kariba, the Zambezi river, Okavango, Malawi, Mozambique and everywhere else he's been. As a youngster, after continually being kicked out of boarding schools (a soutie in an Afrikaans school - not ideal)  he packed a backpack and traveled all over Africa selling merchandise to tourists and getting by. I want to do the whole Kingsley Holgate thing, but not as extreme. I just want to see Africa and show our boys everything there is to see here before leaving our continent. You know? My dad has all these badges and buttons and copper bangles from all over Africa. I'm super jellies!

We want to follow the Zambezi and see all the towns, villages and cities it flows through. The 2,574-kilometre-long river rises in Zambia and flows through eastern Angola, along the eastern border of Namibia and the northern border of Botswana, then along the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe to Mozambique, where it crosses that country to empty into the Indian Ocean. Isn't that magnificent?

So we're busy making big plans and doing loads of research at the moment. This year, we are traveling to the Zambizi via  Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. With our children, as a family. Together!

You don't understand guys. The way I grew up... My dad used to take us in to Mozambique for weeks at a time. No plans, no bookings - just a paper map with some notes, loads of fresh water, a portable shower (a bag with a nozzle you could hang from a tree), malaria medication, a Land Rover, a roof rack, two tents and some broken Portuguese. And NOT the touristy Mozambique that you know now. We went from 1998, when you couldn't purchase a can of coke or a loaf of bread. When restaurants meant sitting on the side of the road on dirty plastic chairs and waiting as they slaughtered your chicken. When fishermen put their nets out to bring you kgs and kgs of tiger prawns in exchange for canned beans or a cassette tape. When they ran to break oysters off the rocks because they'd never seen a white person before. When my dad had to check abandoned roads for landmines and often found some. When you get stuck all the time, everywhere. When artillery and rusted tanks was a playground for children. When dozens of excited kids jumped on to our landy as we looked for places to sleep, just happy to see a car or people at all. When you picked sunflowers off the side of the road and everything smelt like mangoes and cashews and everyone was excited because they were starting over. There was no trade in Maputo. There were half broken, abandoned and vandalised buildings and shipwrecks. It was beautiful and honest and real. 

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We're working on a post called "All the times my parents tried to kill me", but I need to go home and kidnap our family photo albums first. Times when I was trapped at the river mouth and my dad had to carry me on his shoulders through millions and millions of jellyfish. When we swam amongst hippos and crocodiles and parks board chased us out the water. When I had swam to a tree near our camp and as the river tide came in and the ocean joined we swam for our lives amongst sharks. When cutting your foot on a coral reef and side-stepping lion fish was a regular day. Almost drowning. Being rescued by rubber ducks. Falling asleep and getting lost in paper white sand dunes so high you could never find your way back. Being instructed not to look up as your dad tracks a leopard at your bush camp. In the dark. Going hunting for poachers with your father and pulling snares off of decomposing flesh and rotten bones. Locals performing rituals and slaughtering goats at your camp. We did buy them the goat to thank them for their hospitality, but guys. Being knocked off your feet in a village in the dark because there are no lights. There is no water or ablution facilities. Being knocked to the ground by a man on a bicycle at full speed really does hurt. Waking up to discover you've been sleeping on little, black, deadly scorpions for hours. Living and playing amongst baboon spiders. Honestly, when I think back to everything right now - my parents were downright irresponsible, but we loved it. We loved every single minute of it. 

And I sit here in my little suburb with my two perfect children and our tiny garden and our blow up swimming pool and it's not enough. It's heartbreaking. I don't want to take them to Paris, I want to take them on a river safari. To see elephants and chase zebras and warthog. I want them to get as close as they can to a giraffe (don't do this at home - I got pretty close once) and I want them to swim in the river and look out for crocodiles and hit a stick to the ground wherever they go to warn snakes. I want them to play with dung beetles and see flocks of flamingos turn the entire sky pink. Heck, I want this too. So we're doing it. The boys are old enough now - Noah is five and Ben will be 4. Just old enough to catch a whole shoebox full of sand lions.

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Africa is magical. You can have a real life, Jock of the Bushveld African adventure which is exactly what I want. We're still busy discovering Cape Town and all its regions in the next couple of months. We're planning a trip to Knysna and more along the Garden Route, the Wine Route. We're going to Zululand a bit more to explore the Midlands, do some trout fishing, eat sugar cane and experience farm life too.

I'm going to be talking a lot about this in the coming months. I'm going to give you loads of ideas on where to go, when to book, how much it costs and all of that too, if you like? I'm going to track our travels in case my boys want to re-enact their first African trip in their adult lives, with their own children. If you have ANY suggestions for me even if its "DON'T MISS THIS RESTAURANT IN ZAMBIA" or whatever it is - tell me and I will add it to our itinerary. The husband is a clever little designer, so he's going to make a pretty map with info graphics as we travel. 

We're so excited and I can't WAIT to take my boys out of our suburb and in to Africa - where the wild things are.