Happy new year and here's hoping your year has lots of inspiration and adventures of the African kind in it!

It's that time of year again, and it seems to have crept up so quickly (or maybe I'm just getting old!).  Now at the end of our second year in business at Matson & Ridley Safaris, Andy and I wanted to thank you for your support and to wish you a wonderful Christmas and new year.  I've put together this short video (scroll down to see it), which I hope you'll enjoy, sharing a few special memories of my adventures with you in the last couple of years in Botswana, Kenya and Namibia.  Thanks to all who shared their photos for this, but in particular a big thanks to all the people who made these journeys so wonderful in Africa's most incredible wild destinations!

Ever dreamed of getting up close to endangered Mountain Gorillas?  This has always been on my 'wish list' to do one day, ever since I read Dian Fossey's 'Gorillas In The Mist'.   Such close relatives to us, I really can't imagine what it will be like to be eye to eye with wild gorillas, but I imagine it will feel a lot like meeting a long lost family member!

I'm getting very excited about my upcoming safaris in 2016, which are set to be in some of Africa's most spectacular wilderness areas!  As always when you book with Matson & Ridley Safaris, the whole experience are specially hand-designed by me every step of the way to ensure that your hard earned dollars are spent as ethically as possible, to maximise benefits flowing back to African people and their wildlife.  And of course, I choose the areas and camps I want to go to based on the best I can find in terms of wildlife experience, exclusivity, camp feeling and local culture - so you get a mind-blowing African journey that will change your life.  Most groups I take are between 8 and 12 people, so you get to know people really well.  Imagine yourself spending time with like minds on the savannah while watching elephants and then spinning a few yarns under the starry night sky by the campfire later - life doesn't get much better really!

One of the most enjoyable things I get to do as a zoologist is talk to kids about elephants.  Kids give you instant feedback.  There are no inhibitions, just a whole lot of questions, and when it comes to elephants, frankly, kids just get it.  You don't have to convince children to appreciate and want to conserve animals.  

In the world of elephants, it's not often that you see conservationists celebrating.  President Xi Jinping of China's announcement on Friday last week that China will join the USA in enacting near total bans on domestic ivory trade is... I think... worth cracking the bubbly over.  We don't entirely know the detail yet, and there is no timeline, other than what was in the White House's statement, which includes agreement between China and the USA to work together in "joint training, technical exchanges, information sharing and public education".  But this could be a winning combination.

It had been a few years since I'd been back to Namibia, the desert land where I studied black-faced impalas for my PhD, later planning a reintroduction for the subspecies to their historic range in the far north west.  

f you love elephants and would like to know more about their plight and what you can do to help conserve them in the wild, please come and join me at one of the following events in early October in Singapore and Melbourne.  Bookings are not required.

Friends in Melbourne and Singapore, I'm coming your way to talk elephants in early October so if you're around please come along to see some beautiful elephant images an update from me on all things elephantine!  More details of the events are coming soon, but for now put these dates in your diary!  All of my books will be available at these events.

There is a reason why Kenya's Maasai Mara is so famous.  Not only is this World Heritage Site Kenya's most visited reserve, famous for its high density of herbivores and predators, it also protects one of the planet's last great migrations of mammals, including about 2 million wildebeests, and a thousands of gazelles and zebras, which visit between July and October.