A few days ago, I received the dreadful news my good friend Shane Kidd of the town of Chimanimani in eastern Zimbabwe had been killed in a car accident. He had died three weeks earlier while driving a notoriously tight and twisty stretch of road between Chimanimani and Mutare along the Biriwiri River. Before the shock and the enormity of the news had settled upon me, I regretfully responded, “Shane must have had died as he lived, fast and furious.” I know that stretch of road well, having myself driven at reckless speed along it, hoping to shave off minutes from the sometimes two hour drive. Shane was renowned for the fast speeds he managed to coax out of his various vehicles.

It wasn’t until that night of hearing the news, when in bed did the immensity of the grief fall upon me and swamp my thoughts. I couldn’t believe he was dead and he was no longer alive. I’d always thought of Shane as invincible. Sadly, it was twenty two years ago when I saw him last, when I visited Chimanimani. We never remained in touch and as far as I’m aware, he didn’t use social media. However, through the years, via conversations and contact with our mutual friends, I have been aware of what he was up to and how he was doing. With sleep eluding me, I found myself wondering about his last moments of life and hoping against hope he didn’t suffer. I could easily imagine how he would have faced his impending death, with his customary courageous impassiveness, uttering in his distinctive deep voice with his Zimbabwean lilt (which I was always envious of), “Oh fuck!”

Shane and I forged a strong friendship in 1990, deep the Mozambican wilderness of the Chimanimani mountains. I inveigled myself onto a prized four day ‘mountain trip’ with him and Doug Van de Ruit. In those days, crossing the border from the Zimbabwean side of the mountains to the far more extensive and wilder Mozambican side was strongly frowned upon by the authorities. This meant these trips were clandestine by nature and undertaken by invite only. Since neither of them knew me, I felt privileged to be joining them.

As it transpired the four days I shared with them in the Chimanimani wilderness fundamentally changed my life.

I was twenty seven years old then and I was working as the Chief Instructor at the small Outward Bound Centre at the foot of the Chimanimani mountains. I’d been working in the outdoors for just under ten years in the UK, Lesotho and South Africa, and because of my meteoric rise through the Outward Bound ranks, I believed I knew just about all I need to know about how to have an adventure.

I clearly remember this particular trip with Shane and Doug as if it were yesterday. I smile as I write this, recalling the horror on their faces when they saw me turn up at our meeting point with my humongous rucksack on my back, packed full of everything I thought was necessary for a safe exploration of the mountains. I was dressed for the occasion too with hefty mountaineering boots. Shane and Doug on the other hand were minimalists and the lower the weight they could get away with carrying with the better. Not only this, each sported sockless tackies (tennis shoes), the lightest footwear which afforded some protection from the terrain they could find. I remember how they humorously jibed at the amount I was carrying throughout the for days we tramped steep rocky paths, down long grassy ridges, rock hopped up deep river valleys and fought through large swathes of montane rainforest. The salient lesson I learned from the outset of this trip was the one of simplicity. Ever since this one experience, I’ve carried with me Shane and Doug’s voices when I pack for my own adventures. “Is it useful? Do you need it? How much does it weigh?”. To this day, I will never pack anything for one of my expeditions which will not usefully serve me. I refuse to pack items in the vain hope I might find a use for them.

Over the four days we explored deep into the incredibly wild and complex mountainscape of the Mozambican Chimanimanis, I realised I was quite literally having the time of my life. There were no legally obtainable surveyed maps of the area, easily the same in area as the English Lake District. Our only reference was an inaccurate hand drawn map which had been preciously handed down through the generations to when Doug took possession of it. On this paper treasure were names of locations which held the quality of the mythical about them; St George’s Cave, Two Tarns, Bald Ridge, Gossamer Falls, Mevumosi River, Martin’s Falls, Tucker’s Falls, Kurisika Cave, Eastern Lakes, Poacher’s Cave and the Valley of the Apostles. Without making a fuss about it, the three of us embarked on a true adventure. We had an idea of what we wanted to see, but no certainty about attaining any of our goals. This is when I discovered adventure is about quality, not grandeur. There was no flamboyance in how Shane and Doug viewed the experience. It was simply what it was, an exploration of the Chimanimani wilderness.

We slept under the stars or in caves (although I was carrying a huge canvas bivvy sheet which I never used). We cooked on small open fires and brewed our tea and coffee on a battered trangia stove. We were walking by 5am every morning, just before sunrise, to beat the heat. We always stopped a few hours later for breakfast of cheese and crackers, and this had to be beside a pool we could swim in. Each of the day’s route would have a purpose to it. Find a rare and endangered prehistoric Cycad, or get to the base of a previously unknown waterfall, look for a rare species of butterfly and one day on this trip, find a fabled elephant trail up from the deep Mevumosi River gorge, through the thick rainforest to the lush highlands of the Eastern Lakes. We generally succeeded and on this occasion, we were delighted to walk the trail elephants of old would have used through their migratory wanderings. It was important we arrive at our next camp for the night by midday, when we would eat a meagre lunch of biltong, then strip naked to spend the rest of the afternoon exploring a particular river system, delighting in swimming in deep tannin coloured pools and leaping off implausibly high rocks into the clear water below. Every afternoon, we became joyful adolescents again. Through Shane and Doug I embodied the importance of adding value to an endeavour through having a purpose for each day. To this day, I will never take myself off into the wilds simply to see what might happen. I’ll always have a question I’d like to resolve or a curiosity to assuage. I learned too the unmitigated joy to be experienced in the wild through unrestrained playfulness. In fact, though them I learned a true adventure is one where playful curiosity is a vital component.

Sharing time with Shane and Doug in these wild mountains I learned the value of companionship and how incredibly rich this can be when shared through adventure, time together immersed in wildness and the intimacy of sharing the simplicity of life, eating, sleeping, activity. The quality of the adventures we shared created unbreakable bonds between us and we’re forever connected because of these. I know from speaking to people who have spoken to Shane and Doug, there are stories which the have recounted where I’ve featured as a crucial protagonist. This is because we created unforgettable shared memories through the powerful intimacy our times in the mountains evoked. When I’m struggling with one of my depressive episodes, I’ll often take myself out with Shane and Doug in my mind and relive of the many happy days we shared in the mountains. I recall with uncanny clarity everything about the route for the day, some of the conversations, the experiences, the pools we swam in, the distinct dry herby aroma of the bush and the joyful sound of the many mountain streams. Since that first trip into the mountains with them, I determined there would be meaningful depth to the time I shared with companions in the outdoors. This has powerfully remained the case.

Shane was a good few years older than me and he was a soldier in the Rhodesian Light Infantry (R.L.I.) during the final years of the brutal and bitter civil war which eventually saw the emergence of Zimbabwe. Doug too was conscripted into the army but did not experience the war as Shane did. The RLI were an elite counterinsurgency fighting force where it wasn’t uncommon for units to be sent into battle three or four times a day by helicopter or low level parachute deployment. Shane was always proud of his service, particularly being one of the RLI elite. To perform in this fighting unit, he would have been a fearless and incredibly strong soldier. The civil war ended in December 1979 and as far as Shane was concerned, it ended for him too. He threw himself into becoming a Zimbabwean, without rancour or disparagement. I admired Shane for the effortless ease he related with all sectors of Zimbabwean society.

On our mountain trips, our conversations sometimes turned to those days of ‘the war’. Instead of speaking of battles fought or individual moments of fighting, the conversations centred on the unforeseen outcomes of serving in a conscript force. Namely, the friendships which were forged through adversity, the unusual experiences which highlighted the bizarreness of human life and the capacity for seeing the good even when moments looked bleak, possibly hopeless. As a young man who’d not experienced being ‘called up’ to fight, I was fascinated by these conversations. Through listening to Shane and Doug recount their experiences of war without bragging, I learned something of the power of humanity to shine through even when it was evident at times, the purpose was to kill or be killed.

Through Shane and Doug, I learned about maleness, about being a man. In their company I felt male and enjoyed this feeling. This was something we never spoke of and I certainly didn’t approach this subject with them. In our current modern age where gender and what this means for so many, is a hotly debated issue, I hold onto the embodiment of the qualities I gained from Shane and Doug of what it means to be a man. As deeply as I search within myself as I write this, I cannot think of anything toxic in the maleness these two men espoused. I think I gained from them the knowledge it is OK to be a man and fulfil this role in whatever way you see fit in the hope you do no harm. Shane was wonderfully artistic, He wrote well and he was widely read, incredibly well informed on current issues. He had a deep love for the people of Zimbabwe which eventually saw him imprisoned in horrendous conditions without trial during the 2000s. He even suffered mock executions. He believed in the inherent good of the Zimbabwe people and the potential of the nation. It’s through many conversations I had with him about these issues which helped me form my views about what nationhood means for me and this is why I think I feel so at home here in Scotland.

I have missed Shane through the years. I have missed his wicked sense of humour and brutal irreverence. I was in never in any doubt what his opinion was on matters, but equally, even if he teased me good humorously, I knew he respected me too. There are so many funny anecdotes I would like to share about Shane because he was that one person who managed to make us laugh. I’ll tell one.

During mountain trips in the rainy season, Shane would insist on drying his invariably soaking tackies by the cooking fire every might. We would watch him as he continuously shifted them around the flames, always holding them dangerously close. Being Zimbabwean made, these shoes were not strongly made and one night, much to Shane’s consternation the glue holding his tackies together melted leaving him with useless piles of plastic and leather. The next day he insisted he could walk the route barefoot and refused the smallest of offers of assistance. However, in the end we persuaded him something needed to be done because he was holding us up with is painful hobbling on the schist covered paths. Doug fashioned him a pair of flops from his karrimat which did the trick. So it was, Shane completed the rest of the mountain trip with these incongruous flops much to our great amusement.

I’m sad not to have reached out to Shane before he died to make contact with him. I will forever regret this. However, when I embark on my big kayak journey at the end of August, Shane will be very much with me, because the philosophy I live by in the wild has been largely formed through the times I spent with him and Doug.