Climbing Mount

Africa is home to some of the best adventure travel destinations in the world. So whether you’re after a full-on adventure holiday, or just want to chuck some adrenaline-inducing activities in with your volunteering, Africa is the perfect place to do it.

Ever since Chris Moyles, Cheryl Cole and a bunch of other celebrities climbed Tanzania’s Kilimanjaro for Red Nose Day 2009, the mountain’s been getting a lot of coverage. But you don’t have to be a celebrity to take on the tallest mountain in Africa. And getting to the summit of this awe-inspiring mountain is a real challenge, so this is one trip that will be big on satisfaction.

Of course, there’s no need to push yourself that hard though! Slightly more laid-back travellers can opt for a little hiking instead. The views are almost as stunning, but you don’t have to put quite so much effort in. The Ngorongoro Crater is certainly a good place to start, offering fantastic trekking and unforgettable wildlife.

South Africa is undoubtedly one of the best adventure travel destinations in the entire world. The coast is ideal for all kinds of water sports, so whether you’re a surfer or a scuba diver, a sailor or a water skier, this is the perfect place for you.

This incredible country certainly caters for the adrenaline junkies too. South Africa boasts both the highest commercial bungee jump and the highest commercial abseil in the world. At Bloukrans Bridge those with a seriously adventurous side can bungee jump off the bridge, plummeting a massive 216 metres towards the Bloukrans River below. While at Table Mountain, travellers can take in spectacular views as they abseil 112 metres off one of South Africa’s most iconic landmarks.

It’s odd, you wouldn’t really think of Uganda as a top adventure travel destination – but it is. You should head to Jinja, a city that has become known as the adventure capital of East Africa, offering bungee jumping and even the chance to zip wire across the Nile.

Or for something that will really get the adrenaline pumping, why not try white water rafting? This is one the best places to do it in the entire world and you can take a short half-day trip or a full on three-day one, depending on how much time you’ve got. There’s something for every level too – so whether you’re a beginner or an expert, there’s something to suit.

Finally, it’s worth taking time to try the local quad biking. It’s not one of those activities that travellers tend to plan for, but it’s more than worth a go. And aside for getting your pulse racing, it’ll also show you the spectacular countryside.

Victoria Falls isn’t just famous for Sherlock Holmes-related reasons – it’s also the perfect place for a spot of adventure. You can try your hand at bungee jumping, river boarding, canoeing, abseiling and speed boating – and that’s only the beginning. So if you’re travels are taking you through Zambia, make sure the Victoria Falls are high on your to-do list!

For something even more vertigo-inducing, Kenya offers fantastic climbing. And as challenging climbs go, Mount Kenya is a pretty impressive adversary! It’s the biggest mountain in the country, offering magnificent views from its three main summits and loads of exotic wildlife on the way up. Just be sure not to rush – while any strong walker can take on Mount Kenya, going up too quickly can cause altitude sickness.

Or, for something that will allow you to cool off and set your pulse racing all at the same time, travellers should head for Mombasa and the coast. Its miles of white sandy beaches offer everything from surfing to jet skiing and scuba diving to snorkelling, making Mombasa a great place to unwind, with a dash of adventure thrown in for good measure.

Thrill seekers in Ghana are advised to head for the Kakum Canopy Walkway – a set of seven bridges that look down on the lush rainforest canopy of the Kakum National Park. The dramatic walkway starts off at ground level, but the rainforest below gradually drops away to leave you suspended 100 metres above the ground, swaying precariously in the wind as you walk. The Kakum National Park is home to hundreds of species of butterflies and tropical birds, which are difficult to spot from the forest floor, but from the walkway you can clearly see them dotting the forest canopy with vivid splashes of colour.

The climb to the top of Mount Bishop and Clerk, the highest point on Tasmania’s Maria Island, is said to reward adventure travellers with panoramic views over the top of the island’s eucalypt forests and out across the Pacific Ocean.

To the north, we’re told, lies the Australian mainland; to the south, over the distant horizon, lies the icy landscapes of Antarctica.

We take it on trust. Because the peak we’ve conquered on this tiny island off the coast of Tasmania, which in turn is an island off the coast of mainland Australia, is a cloud-covered triumph.

We hear the ocean and the wind, we can even smell its Antarctic purity, but we can see not much further than arm’s length. That’s enough, though, to peer warily over the edge of the peak and see the beginnings of a sheer drop that leads to oblivion.

A few steps back from the edge sits the climb’s other reward: a stash of chocolate and extra water that our guide Ben has lugged with him from the morning’s departure point, Bernacchi House.

Bernacchi House provides a warm welcome for participants in the three-night, four-day Maria Island Walk. Having spent the previous two nights camping out, guest arrive at Bernacchi House to be greeted by an open fire in the hearth, a sumptuous dinner, and a blissfully warm shower. A deep and restful sleep follows as surely as night follows day.

Not that the previous nights’ camping out involved much hardship. In fact, the tents we slept in were more like up-market huts, complete with polished timber floors and screened windows. Each of these huts are positioned discreetly among the gum trees, connected via boardwalks to the dining hut, where we feasted like bush royalty.

A copy of the menu souvenired after our first night on Maria Island reminds me of just how well we ate: Shitake mushroom soup, followed by grilled quail with a spiced couscous and an eggplant ratatouille, then chocolate mud cake with a berry coulis and cream.

Wildlife abounds on Maria Island. Kangaroos, wombats and wallabies are everywhere, making Maria Island a great destination for travellers keen to experience Australian fauna in its natural state.

The island is also home for the elusive 40-spotted pardalote, a very shy bird endemic to the region and much loved by amateur and professional bird spotters.

A colony of fairy penguins also call the island home, and these can be spotted on a night walk from Bernacchi House.

Walking on Maria Island gives us time to be part of this natural environment, rather than merely look at it. We amble along deserted beaches, wander through paddocks where pug-nosed wombats graze unconcernedly, and we take time to enjoy phenomenon such as the magnificently patterned Painted Cliffs.

Embracing the prevailing weather conditions is part of the experience, and although the postcard views largely eluded us, the overcast skies and occasional drizzle added a moodiness that was both melancholic and atmospheric. 

We learnt to pay attention to the detail rather than the big picture. We photographed fossilised sea creatures, feeling a million years of history as we ran our fingers over the fossil’s Braille-like crust; and we listened out for the call of the elusive 40-spotted pardalote.

Maria Island has heartbreaking tales aplenty. It used to be penal colony, and its museum in the small settlement of Darlington includes copies of newspaper reports alerting Tasmania’s free settlers to the details of yet another convict breakout.

The escapees ranged in age from 17 to 21-years-old, young Irish and English men who advised family back home that they, too, should get themselves transported to Tasmania because despite the bleak conditions, the new lives that could be built on the other side of the world were infinitely better than the ones they’d left behind.

The guided four day Maria Island Walk is a quirky blend of history and nature, food and wine, luxury and adventure. It leaves a small footprint, thanks to the eco-friendliness of the base camps at Casuarina Beach (day one) and White Gums (day two) and the mindfulness of our guides who ensure we leave nothing behind but footprints.

At the end of each season, both camps are dismantled and the island is left to winter alone.

Getting to Maria Island Walk is an adventure in itself.

On the day of departure, we’re collected from our hotel in Hobart and kitted out with a backpack, waterproof jacket, a head torch, a silk sleeping sheet and a packed lunch.

Then there’s a short drive to the seaside town of Triabunna, where we board a charter boat and cruise across the Mercury Passage to Maria Island. The boat weighs anchor a few metres offshore and we clamber into a dinghy for final leg of the journey.

It’s a special beginning to an experience none of us wants to end.

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If you decide to make traveling over Indonesia do not ever forget to stop by Mount Bromo, the mother of active volcano in East-Java, Indonesia. Bromo Caldera is the youngest caldera from well-known Tengger Caldera a volcanic massif extending from Semeru volcano with 16 km width. The massive Tengger volcanic complex dates back to about 820,000 years ago and consists of five overlapping stratovolcanoes, each truncated by a caldera. The volcano has summit elevation 2329 meter, latitude: 7.942°S and Longitude: 112.95°E 112°57′0″E last eruption was on 2007.

An overlapping cluster of post-caldera cones was constructed on the floor of the Sandsea caldera within the past several thousand years. The youngest of these is Bromo, one of Java’s most active and most frequently visited volcanoes. Bromo is the most favourite and most visited by the tourists.

Cold, those things are the first you will be feel when you get-off from the car and step-down your foot print in the land of Bromo. The temperature around 10oC – 0oC, the lowest temperature usually held in the morning just before sun rise. That is why we suggest you to prepare warm cloth, glove and wear cotton trouser before heading to Mt. Bromo. The visitor usually starting their tour in the very early morning at 03.30 AM, the first destination of their trip is to witness the sunrise from the peak of Mount Penanjakan 2774 above sea level, as this mountain is the highest mountain in surrounding area. To reach this mountain you should pass the sand of sea (looks like desert) planted with dry bush every where combining with the flying sand every which way blow by the that is potentially make the visitor hard to breath and easily get lost especially in the darkness.

There will be narrow path and curve ascend road en rout to Penanjakan mountain and of course you should have sufficient driving skills to devote it. To avoid un-expect thing happens, usually visitors use the jeep4×4WD to reach Penanjakan mountain that is driving by local people who know this area intimately. They are very nice to the visitor and very hospitality makes you feel like at home.

The sunrise will take place at around 05.20 – 05.40 AM depend on season, the best time to see the sunrise would be around at May – September (no rainfall within that month).

After sunrise usually people then moves back down to sand of sea to explore bromo crater. There will be an option to get the crater, first you can do it by easy walk or if you wish to try how to feel in horseback then you can ride it with only USD 7-9 go and fro start from the jeep parking place and it takes 15-20 minutes on horseback to get to stairways of Mount Bromo, then you should step up the stairways till reach the rim of the crater (1.392 above sea level). There are 250 stairways from the first step till the last steps, but sometimes people have different number in counted of the stairways (I was found there were 248 stairways, but my mate have calculated 246), looks so strange but its real.

Beside Mount Bromo, East Java has also amazing place to go. That is Kawah Ijen (Ijen Lake). The Ijen volcano is located in the east of Java province of a group of small stratovolcanoes constructed within the large 20-km-wide Ijen (Kendeng) caldera. The last eruption was on 1999The north caldera wall forms a prominent arcuate ridge, but elsewhere the caldera rim is buried by post-caldera volcanoes, including Gunung Merapi stratovolcano, which forms the 2799 m high point of the Ijen complex. Immediately west of Gunung Merapi is the renowned historically active Kawah Ijen volcano, which contains a nearly 1-km-wide, turquoise-colored, acid crater lake.

Summit Elevation: 2799 m 9,183 feet Latitude: 8.058?S 8?3′30″S Longitude: 114.242?E 114?14′30″E

Picturesque Kawah Ijen is the world’s largest highly acidic lake and is the site of a labor-intensive sulfur mining operation in which sulfur-laden baskets are hand-carried from the crater floor. Many other post-caldera cones and craters are located within the caldera or along its rim. The largest concentration of post-caldera cones forms an E-W-trending zone across the southern side of the caldera.

Coffee plantations cover much of the Ijen caldera floor, and tourists are drawn to its waterfalls, hot springs, and dramatic volcanic scenery.

You may be needed at least 3 days journey to grab all the beautiful things of both Mount Bromo and Kawah Ijen. Bellow arrangement will showed how the itineraries going;

From Bromo to Ijen

This package is the most favorite tour for visitors who wish to make their trip in very short. The pretty of sun rise and the beautiful landscape of sea-sand along with live picture of the whole shape of mt. Semeru vision from the highest spot of Penanjakan 2774 asl. So, prepare yourself to have unforgettable experience that never imagine before.

Connecting trip from Bali to Yogya, or from Yogya to Bali :

From Yogya: Take a train or domestic flight through Surabaya, end of tour at Ferry Terminal to catch a boat to Bali

From Bali : Take a boat to cross the Bali strait to Ketapang Terminal, end of tour at Surabaya air port / Train station to Yogya.

Day 1 >> Surabaya – BromoMeet with our guide at Surabaya air port signing JavaBush or written your name on the page. Our private comfort coach then takes you to Mt. Bromo, en routing to rural settlement and hilly road with green coloring of paddy field along the way will make your eyes fresh. If the time permitted we can stop at Madakaripura water fall, this spectacular waterfall lies hidden at the end of a deep valley in the foothills of the Tengger range. The water has cascades from the dense forest above. The primary attraction is natural environment that is encircled by 7 waterfalls and caves. Check in the hotel located at the last village, which it is facing to smokes Bromo crater.

Day 2 >> Bromo – IjenWake up at very early morning, making short preparation for Sun Rise tour, and then the private jeep 4×4WD will drive you up to Penanjakan Mountain 2774 asl as the highest place to the Sun Rise and amazing view of mountain range. You may become live witnesses how amazing Bromo view that spread in your naked eyes, the sun with pink color ray with gold-yellow silhouette drift on slowly from east horizon. It will grab you in to the different atmosphere and unforgettable moment that you never imagine before. After that, proceeding drive back to Bromo crater to witness the crater from closed. Back to the hotel for breakfast, short back packing and heading to Ijen volcano in Bondowoso. Around 5 hours drive en routing flat and hilly curves road, stop for picture taking would be an option subject to your interest. Check-in the Ijen Resort hotel and stay overnight.

Day 3 >> Ijen – Surabaya / Ferry Terminal BanyuwangiEarly in the morning, well before sunrise, we drive a short way to the start of the trail that leads up to the active, beautiful crater of Kawah Ijen volcano (about 1 hr climbing) with its famous blue acid lake (the most acidic in the world!) and the hot, partly liquid sulphur deposits.The fumaroles are so hot that sulphur comes out as green vapour. The vapour is collected by large pipes, through which the vapor condenses, and at the exit you see red rivulets of liquid sulphur, which then freeze to solid deposits.  These deposits are quarried, in order to obtain huge blocks of pure sulphur. Ijen’s sulphur deposits are infamous for the local workers who quarry the sulphur with primitive, health-devastating methods,- an incredibly difficult job. Gas-masks are provided for your visit to the crater. After plenty of exploration time, we leave the Ijen Plateau transfer to Surabaya airport or other destinations.

Finally, I wish have a nice journey and safe trip.

See you in Bromo..

On a gorgeous morning following a good sleep after last night’s cooking lesson I woke up at about 6 am and stepped out on the balcony of my hotel room. The sun was just coming up, and the sky was filled with shades of purple and pink. Far away I could see the outline of a strip of land: the Italian mainland, more precisely the Region of Calabria, was visible on this clear day for the first time. The aerial distance between Taormina and the southern tip of Italy is about 40 kilometres, and this sunrise view across the Ionian Sea was simply gorgeous.
I decided to get up early and take a stroll through beautiful Taormina, before the hustle and bustle of the day would kick in. My hotel, Hotel Villa Nettuno, is located on the north side of town on Via Pirandello, outside of the city’s gates. I really enjoyed the location since it was quieter and yet just steps away from the amazingly busy Corso Humberto, Taormina’s main street in a pedestrian area.
Having strolled through the northeastern Porta di Messina I reached a still quiet piazza in front of the Palazzo Corvaja, seat of the first Sicilian Parliament and today the location of Taormina’s tourist office. A few of the locals were already up, taxi drivers were getting ready for their first fares, while the pedestrian street of Corso Humberto was still almost completely devoid of people. I reached Taormina’s main square: Piazza IX Aprile which features a large panoramic terrace facing the Mediterranean and Mount Etna. Two churches, San Giorgio and San Giuseppe, adorn this square, and the famous Torre dell’ Orologio (”clock tower”), featuring the Porta di Mezzo gate, and the famous Wünderbar Café anchor this public space on its western side. I could even see most of the volcano today on this relatively clear day. There are not many views that compare with the beautiful vista that spread out in front of me from this lookout point.
My walk on the Corso Umberto continued to the western edge of town where I passed through the Porta di Catania, the western city gate featuring the coat of arms of the Municipality of Taormina. From there I walked to a small park which features another beautiful lookout point that faces straight towards Mount Etna. After absorbing this gorgeous picture and trying to burn it permanently into my retina I started to make my way back, this time along the Via Roma, the picturesque road on the southern edge of town high above the coastline of the Ionian Sea. No wonder Taormina is such a popular tourist destination, the physical beauty of this town and the surrounding area is stunning.
Well, after this hour long walk I definitely deserved my breakfast and reviewed a bit of Italian grammar on the gorgeous terrace of the Hotel Villa Nettuno before I made my way to the Babilonia Language School. Punctually at 9:30 our lesson started and our grammar teacher Carlo familiarized us with the “preposizioni semplici” – the contracted Italian prepositions that are formed from a combination of the actual preposition together with the article. Prepositions are always complicated topics in any language, and Carlo patiently and succinctly explained to us the usage of “in” or “per” to express time in different contexts. We continued with a variety of games to help us remember the use of Italian prepositions, a fun and effective way to learn and retain complicated linguistic concepts.
Just before noon I had an opportunity to complete another interview: Alessandro, Babilonia’s director, connected me with Donatella Rapisardi, a local Taormina based artist, who provides some of the Pottery Decorating Classes for Babilonia students. For millennia, Sicily has been at the confluence of cultures: the Phonecians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Swebians, Spanish and French have all left their imprint in this culturally rich area, and pottery has been an important craft in Sicily for many centuries.
I met Donatella at the local Hotel del Corso, right on Corso Umberto, where she offers pottery decorating classes on the rooftop terrace with a perfect view of the Palazzo del Duca Santo Stefano with Mount Etna as a backdrop. The weather was gorgeous, the sky was blue: I cannot imagine a more scenic location for pottery painting than Donatella’s rooftop retreat.
Donatella Rapisardi is a gifted local artists who works in a variety of media. She also heads an organization called the “Grupo Artistico de Perseo” which organizes various exhibitions and art projects throughout town and the entire region. The group consists of five permanent artist members and a number of other affiliated artists that are coordinated by Donatella and her team. In addition to ceramics, Donatella also creates mosaics using marble and different types of stone) and handles wood restoration.
She explained that the pottery decorating lesson starts with plain terracotta pieces such as vases or tiles on which students apply the design they wish to paint. Two different types of processes are used for pottery painting, Donatella explained in her machine gun Italian: “lavorare a freddo” means that the pieces are painted without firing them, and “lavorare a caldo” refers to painted pottery pieces that are fired in a kiln to preserve the painting.
Traditional Sicilian colours such as blue, yellow and green are often used in the ceramics decorating process, although the students are completely free to create their own design and colour choices. Donatella guides them, makes suggestions and gives the students advice when they need it. She also explained that the tiles offer an advantage since they are easy to handle and transport and they offer a great surface for landscape images.
The course includes three lessons per week, and is particularly popular with Babilonia language students from Japan and the United States. Donatella added that Japanese students in particular are extremely precise and detail-oriented and very gifted when it comes to applying decorative painting to pottery. This may have something today with their exposure to the popular Japanese tradition of calligraphy.
Often Donatella’s students become her friends and she invites them into her home and does a culinary exchange: Donatella will create a variety of Sicilian specialties while her students prepare various tasty treats from their home country. She indicated that to this day she receives emails from some of her Japanese students from years ago, and she enjoys it every time when she receives international correspondence from her previous students.
After having lived in Umbria, another beautiful region of Italy, Donatella moved back to Taormina several years ago which she really enjoys and which inspires her creativity. She also teaches children’s art courses and volunteers for some local schools. She showed me a couple of pieces that had been completed by students and three of her own works of art. I mentioned I would have loved to see her studio to see more of her own art. Maybe next time.
Following this interesting side trip another excursion was waiting for me: punctually at 2:30 pm eleven people were assembled in front of the Babilonia Language School, ready to go hiking on Mount Etna whose summit is located at an altitude of over 3200 m. Peppe Celano, Babilonia’s social activities coordinator and one of the language teachers, was ready to introduce us first-hand to Sicily’s highest mountain and an active volcano.
As a matter of fact, Mount Etna had just erupted a few days ago on April 30, but unfortunately I did not see it. The eruption was only a few hours long, and one of my co-students saw the red lava stream at night! So today we would see Europe’s largest volcano up close.
Peppe had rented a small van and a small passenger car to carry all the participants. Our drive to the parking lot on the southern flanks of Mount Etna took about an hour and twenty minutes. We drove through local towns such as Giarre and Zafferana Etna where Peppe explained that near this area the Arabs used to cultivate saffron, hence the name.
The day was overcast and rather cool, a windproof jacket and a nice sweater were definitely in order. We parked our vehicles on a rather isolated parking lot and got ready for our climb. The lower part of our climb took us through a forested area where the leafs were just starting to come out. Not surprisingly, at almost 2000 m of altitude, the plant growing cycle is a little slower, even on a subtropical island such as Sicily.
Peppe explained that the local fauna includes chestnut, oak and birch trees which have all existed here since before the last ice age. We walked single file along a steep narrow path that was punctuated with many roots and stones, right along a precipice with many lookouts towards the famous “Valle del Bove” (Valley of the Ox), site of layers upon layers of lava flows.
Our steep hike continued for about an hour and took us from 2000 m in altitude to 2400 m to an area with a perfect view, facing the recent lava flows in the Valle del Bove. The summit area of the volcano stretched out right in front of us. Our area was a side summit designated by a cross and a broad natural ledge that our group used as a perfect posing area for our group shots of our conquest of Mount Etna. We spent about half an hour at the top of this side summit, chatting, snapping pictures and generally enjoying our mountain adventure.
On the way down three ladies, one from Switzerland, one from Germany and one from Austria (me) raced down the mountain in about 20 minutes. Coming down was a heck of a lot easier than going up, and almost sprinting down this steep mountainous pathway was rather exhilarating in itself. Once all the other mountaineers arrived we set off to visit a local winery. The “Murgo” vineyards were just about 15 minutes away, located in the fertile foothills of Mount Etna and many people in our group bought red, white and sparkling wines. An animated discussion followed in the van and by 7 pm we had arrived back in the school.
After a brief refreshment back at the hotel, a group of us met at a local pizzeria called “Trocadero”, right next to the Porta di Messina, where we were going to have a nice dinner. For some of us this Thursday evening was our last night in Taormina; I was going to leave tomorrow night to go to Milazzo while another person was going on an excursion to the Eolian Islands. Most of our group members were leaving Taormina this weekend, and we were all commenting how much we have been enjoying our experience.
Everyone around the table was a German speaker: we had three folks from Germany, two from Switzerland and myself, originally from Austria. Given the linguistic differences throughout the German-speaking countries, we all mentioned that each one of us has to speak “Hochdeutsch” (Standard German) in order to be understood by the rest of the group. All of us speak fairly strong dialects that would essentially be incomprehensible to German-speakers from other regions, so we get by, speaking the standard version of our language. For me this exposure to other Europeans was really enjoyable. Having lived more than 20 years in Canada, I hardly ever come in contact with German speakers, so this experience of enjoying a nice meal, speaking in my mother tongue, was a definite treat.
By 9:30 pm I started to get really tired since I had already gone on a one-hour walk through Taormina before breakfast, followed by another walk through town to meet Donatella, the pottery decoration artist, capped off by a short yet strenuous hike up Mount Etna. And tomorrow was after all going to be my last day in Taormina, so it was time to rest.
One thing is for sure, when you come to Taormina for language studies you definitely don’t get bored.