It's not the years you clocked, it's the road you took to get here. And maybe the books you wrote along the way, writes 'Karoo Space's Chris Marais.

Sometime back in 2003, I was standing toe-to-toe with a Sutherland sheep farmer after his deeply rutted middelmannetjie road had nearly ripped the guts out of my wife Julienne's little low-slung Toyota Conquest sedan.

We'd come to do a magazine story on some aspect of the guy's farming enterprise, but the issue of his bad road took precedence and we ended up yelling at each other. As much as I hate to admit it, he had the last word:

"Get yourself a blerry bakkie, man!" he shouted as he turned and stormed back into the shearing shed.

So the next week I walked into a dealership in Sandton and traded in my beloved Corsa Lite for a brand-new metallic-grey Isuzu KB 250 double-cab bakkie. It was (and still is) the kind of vehicle that wants to leave the city traffic and head out into the open road. Parked there in our garage in Wendywood, the bakkie was nothing less than a call to adventure. A call we could not resist.

Namibia calls

In the spring of 2004, after much plotting and planning, Julienne and I drove out of Joburg and headed west on the N14 towards Upington, where I bought...