Inveterate Traveller, Extreme Sportsman & Author of

Adventures in Africa

A Journey of Discovery and Survival

"Lying on a beach near Mombasa, full of confidence from 6 months hitching through Egypt, Sudan and Kenya, John felt the urge to push himself as far outside his comfort zone as possible. One place in Africa filled any sane person with dread – eastern Zaire, now called Congo. What could be more dangerous than crossing war-torn Uganda and trying to paddle the Zaire River in a dugout canoe? 

John Moorhouse, a young and naïve, recently qualified dentist sets off from Manchester in 1980 to backpack to Cape Town on a self-imposed budget of three dollars a day in a world without ATMs, mobile phones or Sat Navs. 

With humour and sensitivity, he describes his many life-threatening adventures and the remarkable people he met; paying homage to their culture and beliefs and the amazing hospitality he received from the tribespeople, expatriates and missionaries who helped him on his perilous journey of self-discovery.

A year later he returned to the same beach mentally and physically exhausted, having survived renegade soldiers in war-ravaged Uganda, hepatitis in Burundi and cholera in Zaire."