A SNAPSHOT

Will was born in the UK but has spent most of his professional career working in Namibia’s safari industry, most recently for Ultimate Safaris as a member of the company’s award-winning guide team. Namibia is very much Will’s second home, and having worked as a national guide there he has an intricate knowledge of this multi-faceted hidden gem of a country.

RECENT TRAVEL EXPERIENCE

Will has just returned from an extensive trip to South Africa. He started in the Mother City of Cape Town for an intense injection of culture and good food, before heading north-east to the game reserves around Kruger, Phinda, and KwaZulu-Natal.

EXPERT DESTINATIONS

South Africa.

AFRICAN COUNTRIES VISITED

Namibia, South Africa, Botswana, Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

WILL’S BIOGRAPHY

Will grew up in Bristol, and he had plenty of opportunities to travel from a young age. These experiences kindled a profound love of travel that has guided Will throughout his professional career. After leaving high school, he travelled with Raleigh International to Borneo for a 10-week expedition. During this time, he was privileged to see (among other amazing things!) wild orangutans and pygmy elephants in the Danum Valley Conservation Area. Will had also proposed to travel throughout Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, but unfortunately a nasty dose of dengue fever curtailed these plans. Once fully recovered, he returned to South-East Asia and travelled extensively throughout Thailand and Laos before attending university in Nova Scotia, Canada.

The call of the wild persisted, however, and after only a year in academia Will found an opportunity to indulge his passion, trading the classroom for the bush to join a field guide training programme in South Africa’s Kruger National Park. On graduating as an FGASA (Field Guides Association of Southern Africa)-qualified guide, Will was recruited by Erindi Private Game Reserve in the highlands of Central Namibia. Here he worked for five years, conducting game drives and walks, working as a member of the wildlife tracking and monitoring team, and later taking on the specialist role of cheetah reintroduction within the reserve. Erindi was also where Will met his wife, and together they moved on to a management role with Wilderness Safaris at Etosha’s Ongava Game Reserve. Will returned to guiding in 2016 as a national tour guide for Ultimate Safaris, one of Namibia’s top tour companies, a position that allowed him to explore every corner of this diverse and unique country.

Finally, in 2018, Will took a year out and moved to the Canary Islands to fulfil a lifelong dream of becoming a diving instructor. After that, he returned to the UK to join the Yellow Zebra team.

MOST MEMORABLE EXPERIENCE

Working in Erindi Private Game Reserve in Namibia, I was privileged to work alongside the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) in their efforts to reintroduce rehabilitated cheetahs into the reserve. My job was to track and monitor the cheetahs after their release to relay vital information back to CCF. One day, after a routine operation to replace a defunct tracking collar on one of the cheetahs, the cat was struggling to metabolise the anaesthetic. She had awoken as expected but was unable to move, and I could sense her fear and vulnerability in that moment. The vet had left after the operation and I was alone with the cat, but they had given me some fresh liver to bolster her strength once she woke up. I was left with no choice but to hand feed the liver pieces to the cheetah before backing off and taking shade under a nearby tree to monitor her. This small measure of sustenance was enough to kickstart her metabolism, and I will never forget how, once she was up and moving, she calmly came and sat beside me, only a couple of feet away, in the somewhat limited shade of the same scrubby acacia. We sat together until sunset before going our separate ways and shared a special bond for several years until the day she died.