Baobab Trails: A journey of wilderness and wanderings

Clive Walker has changed the face of conservation in South Africa and devoted his life to the preservation of our wildlife and natural heritage. Baobab trails is the story of his journey, spanning more than forty years, told through his experiences with some extraordinary and remarkable personalities – the likes of Ian Player, David Shepherd, Kuki Gallman, Eric Rundgren, Blythe Loutit, Iain Douglas Hamilton, Johannes Naari, Lloyd Wilmot, Conita Walker, Peter Hitchin’s and Anthony Hall-Martin to name but a few. Clive’s contact with baobab trees and their presence, combined with his desire to retrace his steps, as well as record and capture these remarkable trees, their size, human history and his own adventures upon first encountering them, means that these remarkable trees are woven into his autobiography, with the skilful assistance of Sally Antrobus. Many baobab trees are associated with famous 19th-century travellers, hunters, traders and explorers who left their names on the tree trunks, camped under them or used the trees for a variety of purposes, revealing a great wealth of interesting history. His journey covers a large spectrum of the southern African landscape – an amazing 45 000 km – and identifies and records forty trees through photos and art. For Clive Walker, these forty trees represent the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Endangered Wildlife Trust. The baobab peace trails enables readers to follow their own trail in locating these amazing specimens, which include five of the largest known baobabs, located throughout southern Africa; in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Limpopo, Namibia and Botswana. This represents the first ever detailed collection of historical baobab trees. With grateful thanks to SAPPI for funding the books.