I approached this plant in a fashion that reminded me of might-time training manoeuvres during national service. But this was August 2015 in South Africa’s Namakwa National Park, and if I put my children to the side, there’s no place I would rather have been. With rains having started early here in the western and northern Cape province, it’s worth a reminder that the Cape floral kingdom is the smallest, and by a galactic mile the most diverse of the six kingdoms on the planet. When nature’s timing is right, this is the most spectacular flower show around.

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  A goldsmith on the backstreets of Kumasi, the ‘capital’ of Ghana’ Ashanti kingdom. It’s a major, sweaty industry for this tropical country, but the majority of the shiny metal found on the streets is of the plated, cheap variety. A raw, cultural gem, Ghana is all colorful kente cloth, vests and expensive western labels. More for travellers than tourists.

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  Memories. I’m sure it’s fair to say that the most striking ones are usually visual, which got me thinking about the early 20th century American-born idiom that a picture is worth a thousand words. In this case, while many are familiar with the structures in this image, the memories are mine. These are the historic and iconic multi-coloured beach changing huts on Cape Town’s Muizenberg beach. It was 5.30am, and the just-rising sun was striking them hard and flat. I had gone for a walk with the woman who was to become the mother of my children, and had no idea at the time how much I’d love being a father. Since that day eight years ago there have been a couple of great white shark incidents off Muizenberg, largely overshadowed by gradual, welcome and tasteful development in an area that has needed it. And I’ve had to approach the courts for fair access to my children.

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  Tracking black rhino is best done in daylight, although, as we found to our athletic surprise, not when they’re mating. So, once done dropping TV cameras and tripods and frantically climbing and crashing through the finest long-thorned trees in Zululand, we dusted ourselves off and I snapped this photograph. It’s not remote Serengeti, but probably the finest all-round wildlife experience in South Africa.     Dyes on display at the Tibetan Refugees Center, Darjeeling, India. Loved that town; the tea estates,  the chanting monks and the distant peaks. It even had a steam railway running through town.         On life’s curious and instructional journey I found myself married for ten months. On a challenging honeymoon in Madagascar, in between glorious cups of light tea – coffee was thankfully hard to find –  we came across these Malagasy Gals looking up at the jetty, doing what they apparently do every day.

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