It started with a hippo.

Julie was painting one in her bush-studio when we spoke, hip-deep in colour and conversation, the air around her alive with birdsong. I was curled on my sofa in Spain, Halloween glitter still stuck to the rug from the weekend with my partner’s kids. Two very different corners of the world, stitched together by a shared love of wild places.

“I’m doing some conservation paintings,” she told me, brush in hand. “Selling them helps fund projects back home in Zimbabwe.”

That line, back home, carried both pride and pain.

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From Rhodesia to the Bush

Julie is third-generation Zimbabwean and fifth-generation South African, descended from the early settlers who arrived in what was then Southern Rhodesia. Her childhood memories are filled with wide skies, open land, and a country that once worked. Then came the corruption, the farm seizures, the empty shelves. “There was no food in the shops,” she said matter-of-factly. “We moved to Botswana and got my mum out before it got worse.”

Unlike the people who turned a blind eye or played the system, Julie’s family refused to bend their values for survival. “We weren’t the kind to become corrupt to get by,” she said. “So we left. But Zimbabwe never leaves you.”

It’s a theme that runs through her story: loyalty to land, even when that land no longer gives back.

The Girl Who Cycled for Rhinos

Long before hashtags or GoFundMe campaigns, Julie embarked on an expedition that would make modern influencers sweat.

In 1987 she pedalled from Scotland to Zimbabwe, yes, on a bicycle (INSERT link to Cycling Cotswolds to Netherlands), to raise money for rhino conservation. “There was a lot of poaching in the Zambezi Valley,” she explained. “We wanted to bring the world’s attention to it.”

The expedition raised a million pounds and enough awareness to spark new projects on the ground. She and her teammates cycled a hundred miles a day through Europe and North Africa (INSERT an Egypt post), crossed the Nubian Desert amid war and meningitis outbreaks, and eventually reached home to a hero’s welcome. “We met politicians, royalty, even the Pope,” she laughed. “But we were just two kids from Zim.”

They published a book, Extinction Is Forever, though she admits it didn’t capture the whole story. “One day I’ll rewrite it,” she said. “This time my way.”

Life Off-Grid in the Greater Kruger

Julie now lives I the Greater Kruger area, along the Olifants River. Her studio and home are off-grid; her neighbours are hyena, lion, and the occasional leopard. “I didn’t walk this morning,” she said lightly. “There’s a lion around.”

She laughs at the casual danger of it all, though she’s clear-eyed about the risks. “The leopard are worse than the lions,” she quipped. “They’re the silent ones.”

Her days are divided between painting, guiding, and keeping her little patch of bush alive. When locals began dumping rubbish nearby, she hired Levi, a jobless Zimbabwean, and together they cleaned truckloads of waste. “Now we get leopard kills there,” she grinned. “The wild came back.”

She leads small walking safaris focused on birds and botany. “I can do twenty species from my deck in two hours,” she told me proudly. She doesn’t rush; guests stop to listen, learn, and feel the rhythm of the bush. “It’s not a fitness walk,” she said. “It’s a conversation with nature.”

Guiding in a Man’s World

To understand Julie’s story, you need to know how unusual she is. She’s one of only five women ever to hold Zimbabwe’s professional guide licence, a qualification that begins, absurdly, with hunting training. “The ethos was you had to learn to protect your clients,” she explained. “So we trained as professional hunters before specialising as guides.”

She passed easily but faced a harder battle: sexism. “Even after I qualified, camps refused to hire me. They’d say, we don’t employ women.”

She tells it without self-pity, only quiet defiance. “I was a ground-breaker, but it wasn’t easy. Not because I couldn’t do the job, I was strong and fit, but because of the mentality.”

Even now, she says, male guides, black and white alike, get preference. “That’s why I work for myself. Out here, I answer to no one but the bush.”

The Safari You Don’t See

Julie’s honesty pulls no punches. “Travelers see the beautiful lodges,” (INSERT Tanda Tula) she said. “They don’t see the politics, the greed, the overdevelopment.”

Victoria Falls, she says, is a prime example. “They’re overbuilding it. We conservationists have fought for years to protect that environment. It used to be wild.”

Her words echoed something I’ve often felt: the disconnect between what tourists experience and what locals endure. We post sunset photos, not power cuts. We celebrate “untouched wilderness,” rarely realising how fragile and fenced-in it’s become.

A Simpler, Wilder Way

Julie’s antidote to all that is refreshingly simple. She runs what she calls “backpacking safaris”, guests bring their own tents and sleeping bags, she provides everything else: the guiding, the cooking, the heart. “They just pitch where I tell them, it’s safe, and then they focus on the wildlife.”

No crystal-glass gin bars, no Wi-Fi, no air-con hum between you and the lions. “People think camping’s cheaper,” she said, “but actually it’s richer. You sit by the fire and you hear the bush. In a lodge, you’re sealed off from it.”

Her disdain for pretentious luxury camps is palpable. “Ninety thousand rand for three nights,” she scoffed. “I could cook a better meal myself. Safari shouldn’t be about linen napkins, it’s about listening.”

She tells of setting up little hides in the bush to watch birds, of sitting still for hours until the forest breathes around you. “If you’ve got the right guide,” she said, “you don’t need the Big Five to have a big experience.”

What Keeps Her Hopeful

Amid all the stories of collapse and corruption, Julie still finds light in the smallest things, a breeding pair of broad-billed rollers nesting near her camp, the return of hyena tracks on her cleaned-up trail, Levi’s steady job.

“Hope is a stubborn thing in Africa,” she said softly. “You can’t measure it in money or power. It’s in the people who keep showing up.”

She still dreams of taking travellers across borders, South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, on slow, meaningful journeys. “If they’re willing to rough it a bit, we can go anywhere,” she said. “There are places with no electricity, no fences, just stars.”

My Reflection

When our call ended, I sat for a long time staring at my notes. I’d expected to interview a guide; instead I’d met a living map of Southern Africa’s soul.

Julie’s life is a reminder that conservation (Insert link to Conservation Safari) isn’t a concept, it’s a daily decision. It’s a woman in her sixties cutting trails by hand so leopard can pass again. It’s saying no to corruption even when you’re hungry. It’s a blind dog curled at her feet and a painting of a hippo waiting to be finished.

Most of all, it’s what travellers rarely see on safari: the grit beneath the grandeur, the quiet heroism that keeps the wild alive.

If You Go to Hoedspruit…

Seek out experiences like Julie’s walking trails, slow, personal, and grounded in respect. You’ll spend less than a night in a luxury lodge, but you’ll leave richer for it.

Because real adventure isn’t about seeing everything…it’s about truly seeing.

You can get in touch with Julie on WhatsApp on +27 645360858 or on email at julieamedwards@gmail.com