Throughout the summer months, bands bring colour, rhythm, and tradition to streets and festivals across Northern Ireland. Their music is unforgettable, but so too are the painted emblems carried on their drums — bold, intricate artworks that turn each parade into a moving gallery of sound and image. From the largest bass drum to the smallest side drum, every emblem tells a story of place, heritage, and pride.
When the sun pushes its warmth against stone, and the cliffs or granite outcrops shimmer in the rising heat, small shapes often appear as if conjured from the rocks themselves. The rock hyrax — known in South Africa by its Afrikaans name, the dassie — is not a creature that dominates its landscape with size... Continue Reading →
Etosha lies in the north of Namibia, a wilderness shaped around its vast central pan — a salt flat so large it can be seen from space. This pan, stretching more than 120 kilometers across, dominates the park, its edges fringed by savanna, mopane woodland, and scattered waterholes that draw life from miles around. When... Continue Reading →
Southbroom sits on South Africa’s subtropical east coast, where the sea folds into a wide sweep of golden sand. The coastline here is known for its remarkable biodiversity and rich marine life. Estuaries spill into calm shallows, rocky outcrops break the waves into ribbons of white, and the dunes rise behind it all like a... Continue Reading →
Long-billed and deliberate, ibises are a patient presence along South Africa’s wetlands, lawns, and city parks. From the brassy call of the hadeda to the gleam of the glossy ibis, these birds thread water and land with equal grace. This piece follows their tracks — history, habitat, and the small human stories that gather around their slow work.
Just a short drive from Cape Town, in the sheltered waters of Simon’s Town, lies one of South Africa’s most beloved natural attractions — Boulders Beach, home to a thriving colony of African penguins (Spheniscus demersus). Known affectionately as the "jackass penguin" for its donkey-like bray, this species is the only penguin native to Africa... Continue Reading →
Somewhere between a whisper and a spark, the sunbird moves. Not loudly. Not with drama. But with the quiet certainty of color born from light. The sunbird is a small, nectar-loving bird found throughout parts of Africa, Asia, and Australasia. Roughly the size of a large hummingbird, its slender frame and curved bill are built... Continue Reading →
The river doesn’t fall—it disappears. One moment, the Zambezi flows broad and smooth; the next, it vanishes into a crack in the earth, dropping with such force that the ground seems to tremble. The local name is Mosi-oa-Tunya — “The Smoke That Thunders” — and nothing captures it better. You see the mist before the... Continue Reading →
In the tall acacias and sunlit grasslands of southern Africa, there's a flicker of movement—quick, grey, and curious. A young vervet monkey skitters along a branch, pausing just long enough to glance back at the troop. Below, a mother cradles her infant against her chest as she scampers between trees. The world of vervet monkeys... Continue Reading →
A landscape of wind and light, Sossusvlei reveals its beauty in quiet details — the shift of shadow, the trace of a hoofprint, the unspoken rhythm of time.
The Footstep Chronicles 