Under The Baobab Tree

Jane Chidgey is a fiercely independent, happily single city-dweller when she meets Peter Phillip, a director of the mining company where she worked as a PA.

Seemingly overnight, this never-married woman of a certain age abandons her life in Melbourne for life with the man of her dreams in the Limpopo Valley in the far north of South Africa. Instead of catching the tram to work, she finds herself driving an old Land Rover across the veld, tracking cheetahs and coming to grips with the impoverished lives of the local people.

With great honesty, wit and warmth, Jane tells of her transformation from independent career woman to ′Lady of the Lodge′ on a wildlife reserve and the resultant culture shock. She introduces us to the many colourful characters who populate her new life, the awe-inspiring wildlife that becomes a part of her daily existence, and of the ambitious cheetah re-wilding project she and Peter start up on the reserve. Fascinating, funny, heart-warming and at times deeply moving, this is the wonderful tale of a woman who fell in love twice: first with a man, and then with Africa.