About Us & The Blog

Wandering off Track is not just about taking the gravel road instead of the tarred high-way. It is about two people who decided that getting married, building a career, buying a house, getting a dog and having kids (not necessarily in that order but you get the point) seems like a lot of work and to what end? Do not get me wrong – there is NOTHING wrong with following that route and as many of my relatives and friends have proven – it is rewarding and can be absolutely amazing. However, at this stage in our lives we feel like impostors; scared to be caught out for not thinking about building a career and climbing that corporate ladder. Also, kids scare me and they are like a house mortgage, a very long-term commitment.

We reached that unavoidable fork in the road where you need to start thinking about what you want out of life. For us the options were a life of unknown yet mostly predictable issues or a life filled with uncertainty and adventure. The latter option chose us.

So who are the we and the I that is referred to?

Clayton and Karien (who will be doing most of the writing and blogging and therefore the ‘I’) met in 2004. They went to the same high school where Clayton was the rugby-jock. Karien was a semi-goth, rebel-without-a-cause-wannabe, hardly ever at school and thus oblivious to the existence of this amazing human-being who will become her best friend. After dating for 6 years they eventually got engaged and married 2 years later in 2012, on a beach barefoot in the sand in Langebaan, South Africa.

The basics:

Clayton Ernest Urtel

Age: 31 Birthday: 17 January