Tusk & Tyre overlanding

30/08/2026

Most people come to Augrabies for the waterfall.

But behind that 56-metre drop is a much bigger story.

Ancient rock. An 18-kilometre gorge. A mighty river whose modern flow has been changed by dams and irrigation. Indigenous names and knowledge that existed long before European travellers arrived. The enormous floods of the Orange River. And the story of Riemvasmaak, forced removal, return and land restitution.

This three-minute film looks beyond the postcard and into the history written into the landscape itself.

Which part of the Augrabies story surprised you most?

23/08/2026

Once called the “silent park,” Zinave National Park is now one of Mozambique’s great wildlife comeback stories. Elephants returned, lions came back on their own and rhinos completed the Big Five. Could a damaged ecosystem really rebuild itself?

16/08/2026

Everyone comes to Vilanculos for the islands and the marlin. But down the beach at Chibuene, people were trading gold and glass beads across the Indian Ocean a thousand years ago, the oldest known trading port in southern Africa. Paradise Island still has a 250-room hotel standing empty since 1975. And Bazaruto holds the last surviving dugong herd in the western Indian Ocean, maybe 300 animals left, one gillnet away from trouble. There's more to this stretch of coast than the postcard.

08/08/2026

Winter mornings in Matjiesfontein don't ask for much. Just that you're up before the light is, standing in the cold with the whole Karoo going quiet around you. Then the sky does this. No filter, no trick. Just the sun coming up over the mountains and setting the clouds on fire for about ten minutes before the day turns ordinary again. If you've never watched a Karoo winter dawn from the middle of a dirt road, put it on the list. Some things are worth freezing for.

Stay safe. Be humble. Make a difference.

07/08/2026

Seven kilometres north of Massinga you turn right, and then it's thirteen kilometres of dirt down to the sea. That road is the whole reason Morrungulo is still quiet. I was there in April, after the school holidays and two months before the whales come through, and the camp was empty. Nobody on the grass, nobody on the sand, nobody in the water. Look properly at those palms though. They're not wild bush. They're a plantation, and the same trees are dying further up this coast.

Music: Meditation by Sue Condie Stephenson, A follower and supporter of Tusk & Tyre Overlanding, used with permission.

06/08/2026

06/08/2026

Sterkfontein is not an easy dam to photograph badly. Cold clear water, almost no silt in it, and the whole Drakensberg sitting across the far shore. On the two dark mornings the cloud had settled into the valleys below the escarpment and left the Amphitheatre floating on top of it, which is the sort of thing you get maybe twice a season if you happen to be standing in the right place.

That same escarpment is where the water comes from. It gets pumped 460 metres up and over from the Natal side, water that was meant to end up in the Indian Ocean. Sitting there at first light watching it, you would never guess any of it arrived by machine.

05/08/2026

Sterkfontein Dam holds 2.6 billion cubic metres of water and has no spillway. Not a small one. None at all. The catchment is too small to ever fill it, so almost everything in there was pumped 460 metres up and over the Drakensberg from the Natal side, water that was meant to end up in the Indian Ocean and now runs the other way toward the Atlantic. It sits 25 kilometres out of Harrismith on the R74 and it hardly ever gets used. Nothing gets released until the Vaal drops to 18 percent. What I did not know until I started digging was why it ended up in this particular valley, and what is still sitting under the water.

27/07/2026

The Lord Milner, Matjiesfontein ,matjiesfonteinmoment

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26/07/2026

There's a black bowler hat on the piano in the Laird's Arms at Matjiesfontein, and nobody wears it anymore. It belonged to Johnny Theunissen. Born in the village, entertainer at the Lord Milner for more than 35 years, bugle blower on the red London bus, pianist, and lay preacher. He died in March 2024 at 56. This one's for him. A bonus video from our Matjiesfontein series, filmed where his hat still sits.

Video credits: A follower of Tusk & Tyre and a fan of Johnny Theunissen

The Lord Milner, Matjiesfontein