About Us

The guy and chick in this story are John and Tina Botton. We met through a mutual friend while on a boating weekend, sailing hobies around Hartebeesport Dam. That was back in 1980. We were married in 1984 and have raised two wonderful children in Nick (now 26, married and father of twins) and Jossie (now 24). We have always had a passion for travel and enjoyed regular trips to many and varied destinations around South Africa. These ranged from camping trips in Magaliesberg, to family jaunts in the Kruger National Park. The Garden Route became a favourite haunt when Tina’s folks moved to George in the early 80’s. Some of our most memorable adventures have been visits to the Kgalagadi  National Park and to Namibia.

During all this time, we would often sit around the camp fire late at night and share our desire for doing a road trip around Southern Africa, visiting all the places that we have read about in magazines, seen documentaries on, on TV or heard about from friends. We had so little time back then, but now that has all changed and the planets have aligned in our favour enabling us to start living that dream, but maybe I’m getting ahead of myself here… maybe a short biography on each of us first……….

I,  (John) was born in Pretoria and grew up around the Vaal Triangle and Johannesburg. After leaving school, I embarked on a career (chosen for me by my parents), as a fitter and turner. I was employed by Eskom as an apprentice. Having had a taste of working life in the industrial sector, I decided that my creative side was being neglected,  so I re-invented myself as a video producer (self taught) and started making video productions for the local businesses, which included weddings and other such projects, to make ends meet. Later on I joined Wits University  and had a fulfilling career as a producer  making academic documentaries and educational drama series for the local broadcaster. While there, I stumbled on my passion for photography under the guidance of Chris who ran the in-house darkroom/photographic production department. I would spend hours in the darkroom, never tiring from the thrill of watching the latent image appear on the paper during the development process. My second revelation while at Wits,  was discovering my love of literature and writing, while reading for a degree through UNISA. I started writing short stories and attempted a novel and screen play (both incomplete) without much success. But the seeds were sown, I was hooked. Now, many years later I find myself having both time and means to pursue both of these passions. Watch this space…

I, (Tina) was born in Blantyre, Nyasaland (now Malawi) in 1956.  My parents met and married in Salisbury, moving to Blantyre soon after. My first friend ever was a male bullmastiff call Butch, inseperable and incomplete, unless we were together lol….cementing my love for bullies then and now.    After schooling in three, hmm or was it four….different countries, we settled in South Africa.  After finishing College, I went to Germany to study Hotel Management, under the guidance of Uncle Fritz and Aunty Ruth, my Dad’s cousin and his wife.  My passions, which are many and varied, include food and people.  I just love talking, sharing and learning, how better to do it than finding a common interest like ‘food’.  As John mentioned above, his love is photography and writing, so with mine being people and food, I think we have a winning combination which will guide us along our journey in the months to come……………