by Ian Cochrane | May 3, 2018 | Africa, Europe, Oceania, Utopia
Grandma was a short, stooped lady fond of telling stories in her Scottish brogue. In that blue, white and green MacDonald tartan pinny over a floral dress, she cooked up batches of potato scones, fried fruitcake and black pudding. No one in her family had seen...
by Ian Cochrane | Feb 22, 2018 | Africa
I am in Namibia, 350km northwest of the once colonial centre of German West Africa, Windhoek; on the edge of the 2000km Namib Desert – the oldest in the world I’m told. From the setting sun my gaze drifts north and way down to the road at the toe of this great...
by Ian Cochrane | May 30, 2014 | Africa
`…didn’t you ever want to know what was on the other side of the mountain?’ – James Hilton, Lost Horizon. Funny to find an Antipodean neighbour way out here: a beanie-clad, mumbling, red-head New Zealander in the middle of Africa; him...
by Ian Cochrane | Mar 23, 2014 | Africa
There’s another white dual cab propped on the wrong side of the road. I wind down the passenger’s window to ask if all’s OK. A khaki-clad man pauses, narrow-eyed and hesitant way out here, water bottle pulled from an open, dust-laden tailgate....