2010 African Adventure

In the past 2 years, I’ve been collecting in the Kalahari desert of South Africa 3 times, so now have the logistics worked out to offer ongoing trips there. On this 10 day trip we’ll spend 5 days in the Kalahari, where we’ll collect unusual quartz specimens: scepters, hoppers, and inclusions of many colors. Picture being the first collectors to see a locality like Hallelujah Junction … with an abundance of crystals just lying on the ground! 

The areas we collect in are owned by a group of indigenous people. For most of the localities we’ve visited, we were the first non-indigenous people to ever see the sites. I have a lease on an area of about 10,000 acres, which is riddled with small pegmatite dikes throughout 2.4 billion year old rocks. 

This is adventure travel, but with a high degree of comfort.  Our ‘bush’ vehicles will be Crew cab Toyota/Mitsubishi 4X4’s, 4 - 5 people per vehicle.   


Bob & Carole loading quartz matrix plates. Abundant white material on which I parked the truck is all quartz crystals.

For the collecting portion of the trip, we will stay at a guesthouse on a Kalahari ranch, where the owners provide hearty breakfasts & dinners. We’ll drive about 50 miles into the desert each day. Expect daytime temperatures between the high 70’s and low 90’s, Fahrenheit. 

The trip begins in Cape Town. We will pick you up at the airport, and have a couple lazy days of hiking and game viewing while we overcome the jet lag of a 9 hour time difference from the US west coast. We’ll hike to the Cape of Good Hope, (cross that off your ‘1000 things to do before you die’ list!), where the Atlantic & Indian oceans meet. Hike with baboons in the Table Mountains, and swim with penguins at the shore. We stay at a comfy B&B perched on a cliff beside the ocean.

Cape penguins on beach.

Next stop is SpringBok, the gateway to the Kalahari. This will be the only long day of driving, approximately 7 hours. We’ll stay at a posh guest house, in unique cabins built by thatching around granite boulders.   

Housing, Kalahari style.

Stop one in the Kalahari is at a rose quartz pegmatite.   The owners quarry the brilliantly pink stone for a variety of uses.   This is the only commercial locality on our itinerary.   Collect all you want, they will ship it to you.  After leaving their quarry, we won’t see paved roads again for 5 days. 

Yes, it really is this pink!

We’ll check in to our desert home, and spend the afternoon chasing quartz float in nearby hills. These hills are saturated with pegmatite dikes, in some places, one every 500 ft.! Weathering has left these hills blanketed in scattered quartz crystals. On our last trip, I found red, yellow, green, and purple scepters.


Red quartz scepter matrix, just lying around in the desert. Bob's foot (size 9) for scale. This piece is garden rock, we left it there.

On our five days in the desert, we’ll visit a different locality each day. Two are just a stone’s throw from our vehicle, two require a hike similar to that to Spruce, and one requires a steep 2 hour hike. We’ll leave before daybreak for the long hike, to take advantage of the cool morning temperatures.

Our departure will be thru Augrabbies National Park, a major cataract on the Orange River, on the Namibian border. On our way out of the desert, we’ll visit a private mineral museum with local specimens for sale. 


Bob in big pocket of red scepters. Note pocket density!

Logistics: We fly in to Cape Town, and out of Upington.  We’ve flown both KLM and South African Air, and prefer the latter. Two days exploring the Cape peninsula, 2 days enroute to the Kalahari, 5 days desert collecting, last day enroute to your flight home via Johannesburg airport. You will find a lot of crystals, the best of which we’d advise taking as carry-on luggage. We can also prepare a larger shipment for airmail shipment home, for about $8/kilo.

Price: Depending on how many people go, price will be in the range of $2300 to $2800/person. This includes collecting, accommodation, most food, tools, and local guides. Accommodation assumes twin beds, two people per room.  All rooms have private bath facilities. A single room of your own would cost about $40/night more. Airfare is about $2000 per person.

The areas we will collect in are non-malarial. There are few insects in this extremely dry climate anyway. The only danger we encountered was the occasional scorpion, but there are poisonous snakes in the area.The local people are friendly. Cities in S. Africa are high crime areas, so we avoid them. Our only time in cities will be within the safe confines of Cape Town and Jo’burg airports. S. Africa’s political intrigue has not affected travel there at all.

On our last trip, we added an optional big game photo safari, on the other (eastern) side of South Africa, on private land adjacent to Kruger National Park.  We saw lions, leopards, rhino, elephants, water buffalo, fabulous birds, and many smaller animals. This option adds 4 days to the trip, and costs about $1500/person. Kruger is a low incidence malarial area, but we recommend taking anti-malarial drugs. Accommodation and dining is at a luxurious lodge adjacent to a water hole where animals visit daily.

2010 Trip dates: April 1 to 10

To Book: send us (check or PayPal) a $900 deposit, which is refundable until we gather enough people to run the trip.  Once we meet the 4 person minumum, we’ll let you know to book your airfare, and the deposits become non-refundable, as we must pay in advance for the lodging, 4X4 rentals, etc. The balance of the trip fee is due 30 days prior to the trip. We will only take people known to us, as some of the folks you’ll meet on the trip are Bob’s business contacts. Shoot us an email if you’d like more info or photos.  We also have specimens for sale.

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Adventures in Australia
Combine California's best beaches, the rugged beauty of the Oregon coast, add abundant exotic wildlife and some great rock digging: That's Australia's south coast! We'll hunt calcite, selenite, smoky quartz, spectacular fossils, and geodes while camping with kangaroos, koalas, and emus.

We pick you up in Melbourne and travel through the heart of Australia's gold rush country. Their rush was bigger than California's, and produced picturesque towns with beautiful architecture.

We'll explore the "bush", with its abundant wildlife, camp at private mining sites, and experience the real Australia. You'll easily fill your carry-on luggage with good specimens, and we'll ship the rest home for you. Dig, hammer, and collect your way across our favorite stretch of Australia!

• $1900 per person for 9 days, mostly camping.  If you prefer comfort to camping, we can arrange accomodations ranging from 'onsite vans' (clean, individual trailers at RV parks which sleep 6) to plush B&B's, for an additional $100/night/unit (approximate). 

Same trip plus opal digging at Andamooka available to adults only.

• $2300 per person for 13 days.

The fine print: Prices are in US dollars and do not include airfare. Email us for a sample itinerary and  Aussie photo album.   Trips are custom designed to the interests of participants. Current round trip airfare prices between Seattle and Australia start at $1200. Trips are scheduled anytime we have a party of 3 to 5 who want to go.  Best travel months are Feb. - April, and Oct - November. 

2009 trip dates: November 15 - 30