Lex began his career in the then-little-known Sabi Sand Game Reserve, bordering South Africa’s Kruger National Park. Armed with a notebook and binoculars, he spent his days recording everything from flowers and trees to lions, elephants, and buffalo. It was here that he developed his signature approach to guiding: combining a sense of fun with a deep knowledge of the wilderness and a genuine desire to connect people with the natural world. He also volunteered with the Mammal Research Institute at the University of Pretoria, monitoring radio-collared elephants relocated from Kruger into the reserve.

His curiosity soon took him farther afield, including to Marion and Amsterdam Islands in the sub-Antarctic, where he studied fur seal population dynamics and encountered penguins, orcas, albatrosses, and some famously challenging weather. He eventually returned to the Sabi Sand as a wildlife manager and safari guide, beginning a career that would take him throughout South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe.

Over the years, Lex has worked as a wildlife cameraman for documentaries, become a renowned leopard photographer, authored books on southern African wildlife, and co-owned a safari guide-training business that grew to become the largest of its kind in the world. Decades of guiding have done nothing to diminish his enthusiasm for wildlife and wilderness—something that comes through in every journey he leads.