Elephant-back Safaris in the Okavango Delta

In 1994 I flew to Maun in Botswana to set up a documentary for the BBC Natural History Unit on the Elephant-back Safaris, which Randall J Moore had recently started to run in the Okavango Delta.

Randall introduced me to his lead elephant, a mature male called Abu, who was highly trained and responsive. An Africa elephant, Abu had been born the Kruger National Park. After the adults in his herd were culled, he had captured as a calf and shipped to a safari park in America. Randall found him in a bad way, living in a barn in an area too cold for his well-being.

Abu was brought back to Africa with two other trained elephants called Cathy and Benny. After looking for a  home first in Kenya and then Knysna in the Cape, Randall brought them to Botswana in 1990. They were joined by Bibi, a trained African elephant from a zoo in Ceylon, and a number of juveniles who helped to make up a small, captive herd.

The documentary, Dawn to Dusk on Safari, presented by the naturalist and wildlife artist Jonathan Scott, was first shown on BBC 1. We'd often see it repeated on television in South Africa.

Abu has sadly died but Cathy and the herd still thrive. You can read more about them on the website for Abu's Camp.

Sketching in the Okavango Delta ~

Macateer, that camp where I spent time sketching in the western delta ~

jotting down impressions,

trying to paint the bush as darkness fell,

...sketching vignettes of

horses and wildlife

to add to maps I drew of the area

Sketches from the Okavango Delta ~

I first went to the Okavango to ride horses with PJ and Barney Bestelink.

It is wonderful being on a horse as you can cross both the water-meadows and dry islands.

I then took friends on to stay at Tchau, a camp on the Borro River run by Jez Lye.

The camp looked out over the flood plain.

We slept in large tents on an island, standing in the shade of Jackalberry trees.

The location of the Okavnago Delta in Botswana

Please let Sophie Neville know if you would like to use any of her artwork.
sophie@sophieneville.co.uk

A recent review from a rider ~

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous! 

"Ride the Wings of the Morning" is a fabulous read and within a couple of pages I was transported to the African bush. The places and the characters are captured brilliantly. It brings to life some of the reality of life in the bush and the ridiculous situations that you do find yourself in...

Sophie writes with such wit, humility and perception. I did chuckle out loud several times! Even my non-horsey husband enjoyed it as he has had to be dragged around Africa ...   ~ Jane Dawson

The ranch where I wrote 'Ride the Wings of Morning'

Horizon Horseback Safaris

Triple 'B' Ranch

The Waterberg

Limpopo Province

South Africa

Book Club comments about 'Ride the Wings of Morning'

'I loved it. It made me laugh. I now know Sophie's family are totally dotty. I enjoyed it.'

'I absolutely loved it.'

'It's terribly important that it is true story.'
'Much more facinating.'
'It's too acute for it to be made up.'
One reader said she sees 'a miniscule part of life that so funny...'

'I don't know one end of a Springbok from another but I love the illustrations.'

'I think it's fantastic; a great book to have by the bed. I kept dipping in.'

'I've spent a lot of time in Africa. I find the letter format a bit disruptive for a long read but it was good fun to dig in and out of. I think the family are hysterical. It's fascinating.'

'It has certainly whetted my appetite for travel.'

'There's an endless demand for animal stories.'

'Tamzin (Sophie's sister) writes very well - it reads well.'

'I don't do letters. They don't keep me awake. Because I have arthritis in my hands I found the paperback too long and too heavy physically - it is very heavy. Literally too heavy weight-wise for holiday reading. I didn't like the double spacing, but I thought the drawings were lovely - what a way to live.'

'The letter format would make it a good train book, perhaps best on Kindle.'

'This book made me feel I wanted to go on an adventure and I liked reading about the Army wife. It's a book you can pick up and put down but I prefered Funnily Enough.'

It was agreed that whilst ride the Wings of Morning stretches the reader into new dimensions on a physical level, Funnily Enough stretches one spiritually.

'I've enjoyed it more than Sophie Neville's first book.'

'My mother loved the first book ~ Funnily Enough. She's quite particular, very particular about what she'll read, and she was really thrilled with it.'

A review published on Amazon ~ by Katy B

While the majority of her friends and family were following a more conventional path of marriage, having children and earning their livings in the UK, Sophie took off to South Africa to move on from her years of ill health suffering from the debilitating effects of CFS.

This exchange of letters between Sophie in Africa and two of her sisters and a few of her friends in the UK, chronicles her amazing adventures and new life, whilst at the same time giving a parallel account of 'normal life' back home in the UK through the sisters' and friends' letters.

It is this juxtaposition of Sophie's life against what is going on elsewhere which serves to highlight just how extraordinary and exceptional her adventures were. While others were dealing with sleepless nights, childcare issues and settling in to domestic early married life, we can live the dream vicariously of what might have been for us too, if we had made the same choices as Sophie as she lived in a country where apartheid was still the norm, where the animals and wildlife were wonderfully diverse, unpredictable and beautiful and where her adventures with the horses and safari work add humour and great interest.

The book is fantastically illustrated by Sophie and includes a great variety of drawings, maps, cards sent home for Christmas and other occasions and cartoons, all of which are eye catching and contribute to the enormous pleasure of this book.

But it is not all whacky humour and eccentricity - Sophie explores some of the more difficult questions of life here too, just as she did in her first book, 'Funnily Enough'. But this time although there is some reference to her strong and inspirational Christian faith, she deals more with human issues of relationships, and her honest concern and ever present worry - 'I long to be loved and in love'. Buy this book and read it - you will enjoy it!