“As the heat of the day finally loosens its grip, I gaze out across the golden grasslands and the deep green trees that define Namibia’s wild heart.”
So begins John’s reflection after returning from the Woodlore Tracking Safari in Namibia with Ray Mears in November 2025 and in those first few words, you can already feel it. The stillness. The space. The scale.
“The setting sun melts into amber, crimson and burnt orange. Thunderheads gather — dark, towering, magnificent, releasing shimmering columns of rain into the distant plains. The “little rains” arrive like a quiet blessing after the long, unforgiving summer. The land seems to exhale, grateful for the cool relief after the long, unforgiving summer.”
As we look ahead to our next Namibia expedition in 2016, Woodlore’s Dan Hume unearths some unseen photos from his last visit to this remarkable country.
Isaac, one of our bushman guides, and Ray pause under the shade of a tree for a few moments before continuing to look for leopard tracks
The following post was written by Woodlore’s Fundamental Instructor and Head of Operations, Dan Hume.
Following the success and popularity of our 2012 expedition, in October 2014 we will be returning to the African bush to run our Tracking in Namibia Expedition with Ray Mears once more.
We will base ourselves in the Erindi Private Game Reserve; a beautiful and unique area ten times the size of Manhattan, located in central Namibia. The reserve boasts a staggering and truly exceptional variety of African species. As just one example to give you some idea, we frequently saw black and white rhino in the same morning which, as you will probably know, is almost unheard of throughout the rest of Africa.
Please have a look at the photographs below, taken during our last trip:
The early morning and late evenings are the best time for tracking
This is the focus of our time spent in Africa; out on the ground, tracking in the bush. The students in the picture above have just picked up the trail of an Aardwolf that passed by the night before.
The Ray Mears & Woodlore Bushcraft Blog 