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NEWS: TDA 2017 Route Update

Due to an unstable security situation in Ethiopia the last few months, and with a state of emergency still in place, the TDA realised the need to make plans for a new adventure in Africa.

TDA has confirmed that the tour will not cycle through Ethiopia. 

The participants will instead make their way to Nairobi from Khartoum where the tour will re-commence on an exciting new route that includes two new countries they have never offered before. 



The Lakes in Kenya, West of Nairobi

You can see the breakdown of the new sections on the TDA website via their latest post  titled "5 Reasons We Are Excited about the New African Route"

My Gap Year | 2016

At the end of 2015, after 39 years in the Mining Industry, I decided to take my well-earned Retirement.
My last Employer was Randgold Resources, for whom I had worked as an expatriate Geotechnical Engineer for approximately 4 ½ years, at their Kibali Gold Project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). There Randgold took a Project still in the Exploration Phase, to a fully fledged Gold Mine, producing 640 000 ounces of gold in its first full year of Production.


My last flight out of Doko International Airport in the DRC
en route to Entebbe in Uganda on my way back to South Africa


Kibali Gold Project

Although I must admit, at the moment I consider my status more one of “Regrouping” than that one of Retirement, as a consequence of which, my wife Judith and I decided to take a “Gap Year” while residing at our new house in Prince Albert, which is situated in the Groot Karoo, for the whole of 2016.
This Blog is a reflection of Judith’s and my Retirement/Regrouping escapades, so that family, friends and anyone else interested can keep up to date with what we have done, are currently doing, or what we are planning to do.

Remember, this humble blog should be taken tongue-in-cheek and not too seriously at all.

After all, “life is too short to worry about the little things”.

Cheers, Mike T