East Africa | Southern Africa
East Africa | Southern Africa
I grew up in the Winelands region close to Cape Town in South Africa. I was fortunate enough to grow up in a family with a love for history and reading, and a witty grandfather with a love for nature and a knack for storytelling.
I completed &Beyond’s Inkwazi Ranger Training course in early 2010 and fulfilled a childhood dream of living and working in the bush. After guiding in the Kalahari and Karoo for a couple of years, I returned to &Beyond Phinda Private Game Reserve in 2012. I spent the next 10 years exploring this magical corner of Maputaland, met my wife and started a family. In 2018 I did a full circle and returned to the Inkwazi Ranger Training School as a guide trainer. It afforded me the opportunity to help mentor guides in Botswana, South Africa and India.
In early 2022 the Lombard family embarked on a new adventure and moved to East Africa to join the &Beyond Mwewe Ranger Training team. After living in the Masai Mara and the Serengeti for six months, we eventually settled in a small town between two of Africa’s highest mountains, Kilimanjaro and Meru.
My current role provides me the opportunity to explore some of Africa’s most iconic and wild places and contribute to the development of some of Tanzania and Kenya’s finest guides.
Let me take you on a truly once-in-a-lifetime wildlife experience in search of the world’s largest population of wild mountain gorillas.
Let him guide you on a journey-of-a-lifetime
13 years, and counting…
I divide my time between our home close to Arusha, Mwewe Ranger Training school in the Serengeti, and travelling to the various &Beyond lodges and camps in East Africa.
East Africa, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Zambia.
Running, birding in the garden and having a quiet beer with friends and family.
My awareness, curiosity and love for a good story.
Walking, birding, trail running, history and photography.
Ethiopia and Madagascar.
Northern Botswana and Kenya.
Probably the sighting that had the biggest impression on me as a trainee guide was watching a pack of African wild dog catch and kill a kudu…
… while having to fend off a clan of hyena and eventually losing it to a coalition of male lions. More recent highlights include a cheetah kill at &Beyond Klein’s Camp, finding a coalition of five male lions at Kichwa Tembo, mountain gorillas in Rwanda, turtles hatching at Mnemba Island and catching a Peter’s twinspot and black-and-white colobus monkeys in the garden at home.
Anyone with a willingness to wake up early, head out on a safari before sunrise and still have enough in the tank for a drink around the fire later that evening.
Too many to mention. Following a pride of lions hunting after dinner, having a beer in Chobe National Park, sunrises in the Masai Mara or looking for African broadbill in Zululand in winter.
I am petrified of house rats. I’m talking terrifying city rats that grow to the size of a small antelope and can kill you with a mere touch of that hairless tail.
African wild dog – social, intelligent and relentless
African broadbill – elusive, unique and reminds me of the Forests of Zululand where I spent most of my guiding career
Patience always prevails