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Tuesday the 18th of November

Exclusive Books, Rosebank

He passed the village where the bullock had been slaughtered and went on and walked throughout the night.

Thursday the 14th of November

He could smell the smoky mushroom smell of the bowl and the sharp clean tang of the soured milk. 

Friday the 8th of November

His progress was slow because of the swelling of his legs. 

Thursday the 7th of November - Port Alfred

Cowie River Mouth

A little way upstream he found a place where pure water flowed. 

Wednesday the 6th of November

He ate the shellfish he had brought. They had no taste, no smell. 

Tuesday the 5th of November, 1782. Somewhere between Kleinemonde and Port Alfred.

The fire was dead.

Monday the 4th of November

There were the marks of a beast upon the sand.

Thursday 31st of October, 1782 - Fish River Mouth

Fish River Sun Country Club, 2013.

The men were painted with red clay and armed with lances and shields. They examined the castaways and talked and debated among themselves and then the stoning began. The castaways knelt and bled and begged for mercy and the men came in among them. They took Mr Williams and dragged him to the river and threw him into it. Mr Taylor and the boy escaped unnoticed to the edge of the dune forest. They watched as Mr Williams struggled to his feet chest deep in the stream. He tried to swim for the far side. The men stoned him as he swam and a rock struck him on the head and then another and he sank and the men shouted to see it.

The Walk

It started at Lambasi in northern Pondoland and it ended not far from what we now know as Port Elizabeth. It is a hike that every South African should have the privilege of taking. For the survivors of the Grosvenor, as they clambered onto the rocks in 1792, they might as well have crash landed on Mars. 

Walk takes the reader, step by step, day by day, on the castaway's horrific journey. While indisputably fiction, it steers a good deal closer to the historical truth than most nonfiction found on the shelves.

Walk is tale of suffering rivaling Aspley Cherry-Garrard's The Worst Journey in the World. It is the true story of a boy's survival in the face of impossible odds. It is a haunting parable on the meeting of Europe and Africa.