I’d been to South Africa only once before, early last year as the tour photographer for the musician Passenger. That trip was a rollercoaster of emotions; from the utter despair of losing a hard drive (containing a very important music video) to the sheer joy of being surrounded by a massive pod of dolphins off the coast of Cape Town. Mix that with the weirdness of sitting down for dinner with South African actor Sharlto Copley with an absurdly huge pile of prawns on the plate in front of him. (District 9 fans you’ll know what’s up).
So recently, when the opportunity came up to explore South Africa once again, there was no hesitation. I knew the weirdness factor would still be present with my bestie Melissa Findley on the crew, and I could already feel the goosebumps of that Table Mountain view. And as long as I didn’t lose or break anything it’d be an improvement on the last trip. (Spoiler alert: I did. Sorry Jewelszee.)
Editor’s Note: A version of this article and accompanying photos originally appeared on Jarrad Seng’s travel blog, Life in Transit, and was republished with permission from the content creator.
Cape Town is just one of those cities you can never get enough of. For me, it’s up there with some of the prettiest places in the world. Cape Town is the kind of place you don’t mind waking up at 3am to hike up a mountain for sunrise. Okay, I kind of minded. Only for you Table Mountain, only for you.
Penguins on the beach. ‘Nuff said.
Then there was the night missions with Hloni and Luke. You know you’re going to get along when Instagram strangers are up for a midnight hike up Table Mountain. Either that or get murdered, I guess. Happy to report these gents are all class.
We headed up north near the border of Botswana for the final part of the trip – three days in the Madikwe game reserve. I’ll never get over the magic of witnessing African wildlife in the… wild. There’s something very special about seeing zebras, lions, giraffes and rhinos in the flesh – animals you never imagined you would ever see outside of movies and picture books when you were little.
These are my favorite kind of trips – traveling with a bunch of like-minded creatives who share the same kind of passion, wanderlust and just that little hint of craziness (an essential in this industry). A huge thank you to Lauren Bath and South Africa ANZ for getting me on board and a week I won’t forget anytime soon. And thank you to the rest of the travel party – an incredibly talented bunch who took the trip to the next level. I’ll always treasure the sneaky rooftops, the great scorpion invasion of 2016 and Meli’s cute-but-actually-kinda-scary meltdowns at every elephant, penguin or generally any sighting of another living thing. You can find all their work here: Lauren Bath, Jewels Lynch, Melissa Findley, Luke Tscharke , Matt Donovan, Miles Gray.