Patricia Glyn made her name as a broadcaster on South African radio and TV where she hosted news and actuality programmes, did profile interviews, music shows, quizzes and documentaries.
During the 13 years she was on air, Patricia spent her vacations enjoying the great African outdoors. She hiked in wilderness areas, walked 500 kilometres through Zimbabwe at a rate of 50 kilometres per day, canoed sections of several of Africa’s great rivers, climbed Kilimanjaro twice, and Aconcagua (the highest mountain in the Southern Hemisphere) once – all but the last 300 metres when the team was beaten back by a killer storm.
In 2003, Patricia decided to make adventures her living and she spent three months at Mount Everest, reporting on the Discovery team’s efforts to stand on top of the world. Her daily journal describing life on this great mountain was later published as a popular book called Off Peak.
Her next adventure was a 2 000 kilometre walk from Durban to the Victoria Falls in the footsteps of her ancestor, Sir Richard Glyn, who got to the Falls soon after David Livingstone. The two thousand kilometre journey took her along the old hunter/trader routes to the interior of Africa, often off-road and often in Big Five territory. Footing with Sir Richard’s Ghost is the book Patricia wrote about this odyssey and it is a best-seller in South Africa.
In 2011 Patricia spent two months in the Kalahari with a family of Khomani Bushmen, taking them back to places where they lived and roamed before they were evicted from what is now the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. It was a moving and memorable expedition during which the two elders of the family taught their youngsters about important heritage sites and rituals. Patricia learned a great deal about their traumatic history and fast-disappearing culture and her latest illustrated presentation is about this journey. Her book about this life-changing trip is called What Dawid Knew: A Journey with the Kruipers. It is published by Picador Africa.