In the last month I've been fortunate to lead two groups of intrepid travellers to experience up close the majesty of the mountain gorillas of Rwanda.  Words do a pretty poor job of explaining how it feels when you're just metres away from one of our closest relatives in the wild green heart of Africa, but I'm going to give it a go in this blog. There's a reason why this experience is so high on many peoples' wildlife bucket lists.  It's very, very special.  And I can't tell you how impressed I am with the country of Rwanda.  I can't believe it's taken me this long to visit!  

Those of us who are regular African safari addicts know that there's a lot more ways to experience the sights, sounds and smells of the African bush than you can have on regular game drives.  Ever considered hot air ballooning over the Namib Desert dunes or the Maasai Mara savannah, experiencing the wetlands of the Okavango by mokoro (traditional wooden dugout canoe) or my latest favourite, sleeping under the stars in a 'sky bed'?  

Winter has arrived in the southern hemisphere and the safari season is upon us!  The green grasses of the wet season across Africa's great savannahs have dried off to a custard colour perfect for hiding lions (though less effective at hiding these big cats as it's shorter now - perfect for game viewing!).  I always get a little bit excited when I feel the weather turn, wondering what surprises await me and my safari groups when we set foot on the rolling African plains.  Every safari has so many highlights and you never know what you will experience until you set out in the early dawn light.  One day it might be a leopard stretching out in a tree, the next a newborn baby elephant.  One thing's for sure, the morning game drive is rarely dull!  Just the fact that you are out there while sun has yet to rise and the predators are still hunting is enough to make the hairs on my arms tingle with excitement.

Can you believe that there are no domestic laws in Australia regulating the sale of ivory and rhino horn?  Australia is a party to CITES which means we are beholden to international law preventing the importation of ivory and rhino horn.  But you'd be amazed at how much of the stuff gets in!

Due to a last minute cancellation I have a place available on my epic Rwanda-Tanzania safari this August for a single lady sharing.  This is the trip of a lifetime and only available at this price due to the cancellation.  If you have always dreamed of seeing the Serengeti's Great Migration and/or trekking with the mountain gorillas, this is an unbelievable opportunity to join me and a lovely small group of 8 people in this truly spectacular wilderness, but only available for the next week!  

It's not often that I get to share good news about things happening in the world of elephants but occasionally the sun does shine and things look a bit brighter!  

Recently at a talk I gave at a school in Singapore, a child asked me why we couldn't just chop off all the elephants' tusks, because then the poachers would have nothing to kill them for.  It's not the first time someone's raised this idea.  After all, female Asian elephants don't have tusks at all and that doesn't seem to hold them back.  You may have seen the pink tusked elephant doing the rounds on facebook last year, with the suggestion that colouring elephants' tusks bright pink would prevent poachers killing them.  Unfortunately neither of these ideas are the answer to the poaching crisis, and there's a number of reasons why it's not that simple.

Wildlife conservation is all about people.  That's one of the most important things I've learned in my two decades of working in wildlife conservation.  If you provide benefits to the local people who live with wildlife, benefits that directly translate to an improvement in their living conditions through employment, income and projects like schools and clinics, the people become advocates for the wildlife because they recognise them as assets and wildlife conservation follows.  But what is an 'ethical' safari?  You've heard me talk about it before.  That's what we specialise in at Matson & Ridley Safaris - life changing journeys that make a difference.  But what is it that we actually look for when choosing the areas and camps that we send our guests to? 

Just when you thought African safaris couldn't get any more exciting, along came horse riding in the Okavango Delta!  I'm kicking off the new year by announcing the first of the safaris I'll be leading NEXT year (2018) and it's a real cracker!  This one already has people signed up so don't dally if you are keen. 

We are very excited to announce that our family is moving back to Australia later this year, with Andy's appointment as CEO to a ground-breaking new foundation, Citizens of the Great Barrier Reef.  We will be based in far North Queensland in Cairns, close to nature and not far from where I was born and raised a rather long time ago now.  It's a great place to raise our two young boys, Solo (now 7) and Shep (just 3 years old) and we're excited about exploring the reef and the rainforest with them after 4 years living abroad in Asia and Europe.