Travel Stories
My First Botswana Disaster (I Mean, Adventure)
In 2008, a friend casually asked if we'd like to join a tour to Botswana. "Casually" — as if he'd asked us to pop round for a braai, not venture into one of Africa's great wildernesses. We'd done Namibia. We'd done "local." Botswana? That was for other people. Braver people. People who owned more jerry cans.We said yes. Hesitantly. Like someone agreeing to a bungee jump while quietly hoping it gets cancelled....
Continue reading →Savuti
A Place of Legends, Dust, and Devastating Disappointment
When you hear the word Savuti, something stirs deep inside you. Visions rise up: hard-core Africa, dramatic skies, stunning sunrises bleeding into impossible sunsets. You can almost hear it — faintly, somewhere in the back of your mind — the opening bars of The Lion King....
Continue reading →Encounters of the Wild Kind
Africa: Where Everything is Trying to Meet You (Whether You Like It or Not)
Africa: Beautiful, Unhurried, and Occasionally Lethal When you come to Africa, you will find beauty in the most unexpected places — stunning landscapes, extraordinary wildlife, and people who will make you feel genuinely welcome. There's a saying that the Swiss invented the watch, but Africa owns the time. So leave your schedule at the border, pack your patience, your small talk, and your friendliness, and prepare to slow right down.
Continue reading →Excursion to ZambiaVictoria Falls, Unexpected Helicopters, and the Many Faces of Council Tax
We had always wanted to see the mighty Victoria Falls. We expected to be impressed. We did not expect quite everything else that came with it.In early spring 2010, we set course for the Sesheke border post, deliberately avoiding the Kazungula pont where one spends quality time jockeying for position between enormous trucks in a queue that operates on its own philosophical understanding of time.
Continue reading →The Great Gonarezhou Tour
Late 2025, my mate Larry drops the kind of suggestion that ruins a perfectly good retirement plan: "Let's tour Gonarezhou." It was bucket-list material, so obviously we said yes immediately, because that's how bad decisions start.
The Welder of Ghanzi
A Story About a Broken Car, a Reluctant Hero, and the World's Most Relaxed Engineering Solution
One very early September morning in 2010, we left Upington in the dark and headed up the N14. The sun was just peering over the horizon as we hit that long, famously straight stretch of tar between Upington and Olifantshoek — the kind of road that makes you feel like you're driving on a ruler.
Continue reading →Temporarily Immobilized
They say — and "they" are sometimes annoyingly correct about most things — that if you've never gotten stuck, you haven't tried hard enough. A wise old Kalahari farmer once put it more simply: the heaviest thing you can take into the Kalahari is hard tyres. He was, as we shall see repeatedly, absolutely right.
Continue reading →Before you hit the road
Travelling through Southern Africa isn't simply about driving from one destination to another. It's about the unexpected moments—the flat tyres, the broken welds, the campfire conversations, the wildlife encounters and the people you meet along the way.The stories on Optoer are based on real journeys across Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia and South Africa. Some will make you laugh. Some might save you from making the same mistakes I did. Others simply celebrate the incredible places this part of Africa has to offer.Whether you're planning your first overlanding adventure or simply enjoy travelling from the comfort of your chair, I hope these stories inspire you to take the road less travelled.Happy travelling,
Peter Rau
To Blow or Not to Blow
Everything You Never Thought You'd Need to Know About Tyre Pressure
So You Want to Go Into the Wild
A Completely Unofficial Guide to Not Embarrassing Yourself (Or Getting Eaten)
Your Passport:
The First Hurdle Before you start dreaming about sundowners and lion sightings, check your passport. Is it still valid? Not just valid, but valid for at least six months? Because nothing deflates the excitement of a bush adventure faster than a border official calmly informing you that your paperwork is, in his professional opinion, not going to be sufficient to leave the country. You will have to turn around, drive home, and explain to everyone why you're back so soon. The lions will have to wait.