Overland South Africa tour
Safari Name: SAZINBOT
Distance travelled: Approx 4,100 kilometres
Safari dates: Arrival – 31st December, Departure – 13th January
Overland safari enquires - contact cheapflights@southafrica.to |
31st December – Charlie arrived on time into Johannesburg, it seems in the run up to the Soccer World Cup 2010 all airlines into South Africa seem to be running on time. We had a leisurely full English breakfast before setting off towards Numbi Gate at the Kruger National Park.
Our journey took us through the Drakensburg Mountains, we passed massive pine and eucalyptus plantations broken by breathtaking views of dams, presumably very well stocked with trout and boasting some incredibly beautiful lodges. Travelling through this part of South Africa one could be mistaken for thinking they were in Canada or Europe.
After having called ahead and tried to secure a room for the evening and being told there were none available we chose to risk it, and turned up at the Numbi Gate, armed with smiles and quick wit as we tried our luck and were given a camp site at Pretoriuskop. We arrived and settled in just after 16:00 and opted for a short game drive. We passed by numerous bird life, stopped and chatted with several people driving their own vehicles looking for anything, suddenly a leopard tortoise! Needless to say a couple of photos later and we were again on our way! Well the leopard tortoise stood us in good stead for a little more than ten minutes later we spotted a female leopard with cub.
We stayed with the leopards for around half an hour, took countless photographs and enjoyed the spectacle before setting off to our camping spot. On the menu this evening roast chicken, and settled in to see in the New Year with a bottle of Champagne.
1st January – We were up around 05:00 and were on the road again by 06:00 making our way north towards Latara Rest Camp, it is a long drive of around 160 kilometres but what a day we had.
After spotting our leopards the day before, Charlie turned to me and said, “What are you going to lay on for me today?” To which I replied, “How about some rhino?”
Well disappointment, half an hour into our drive, we spotted our first elephant, I had been wrong. A loan bull was walking down the road directly at us looking very relaxed when considering that right in its way was our Land Rover. At the last moment our bull turned off the road and shook its head as if to say, “I was here first!”
Back again on the search for these rhino, to be perfectly honest I held no hope of actually spotting one. Some 10 minutes after spotting (well it was not hard to miss) the elephant bull we turned off the road towards one of the numerous pans, we had not been gone two minutes and there on the side of the road were mother, calf, and presumed father. Three white rhino, an elephant and the night before two leopards. Charlie turned and asked “How are you doing this, are you lucky or a witchdoctor?”
What next, well we only had lion and buffalo to go to complete our big five checklist, would we do it? Personally I have never once seen the big five in any 24-hour period but at the rate that we were going I now believed it may be possible.
Setting off on our way we stopped and spoke with an American couple who told us around 10 kilometres back they had spotted lionesses resting in the mid morning heat, and wow what heat we had, at just after 10:00 the temperature had soared to 35 degrees centigrade, to spot these cats all we had to do was look at the base of every tree we went past. We spotted numerous plains game - zebra, impala, kudu, water buck, common duiker, steinbuck, stopping at each to take photographs we held little hope of finding the lion until around a corner and there were two vehicles stopped, was this what we were looking for? Yes, there they were seven lionesses, very relaxed, annoyed only by numerous flies buzzing around their heads.
Only one more to go, the seemingly illusive buffalo. Not far from the lion we saw where a herd of buffalo had crossed the road only a short time before our arrival - even so there was just no sign of them. Stopping for a short drinks break and chatting with a local guide, he suggested that the herd that we had missed was at least 400 strong. Well we would just have to look harder. Setting off determined as ever we came across three more rhino, I could not believe our luck, six rhino in one day, along with our other sightings we were onto a winner and I was sure we would find buffalo.
We came to a small bridge crossing and as always looked from our vantage point down at the river line and there it was, a loan “dugga boy”, a bull buffalo. The word dugga means mud. These animals have got their nick name from the mud that they role in, in order to rid them selves of parasites such as ticks and helps them in keeping cool (elephants use the same technique). We had done it, the big five well within a 24 hour period, we could now relax and get to our camping spot.
We arrived, set up camp, took the front right wheel of the landy to try and stop an annoying squeak that had developed, had a shower and set off for a sundowner in the park. We found a lovely site on the banks of a river and took in the scenery. With no expectations on our drive back to camp we spotted a male leopard! Unbelievable, three leopards in two days, numerous elephant, one buffalo bull and several other sightings during the afternoon, seven lionesses, and in total seven white rhino…we were certainly spoiled for choice!
We settled in for a dinner of stew and rice and discussed the possibilities for tomorrow, I wanted to see Nyala, Charlie was content with seeing anything that we could find.
2nd January – Latara Rest Camp to Falcon College (Zimbabwe)
We set off early destination Punda Maria gate. We did not see much on our drive but closer to the gate came across three female Nyala...unfortunately the bush was too thick for a decent photograph so for now I am yet to get one on film, there will be other chances. The next surprise was to be stopped around 10 kilometres from the gate by the National Parks police who checked our parks permit and reminded us that the speed limit was 40kph.
We arrived at the Beitbridge border post at 12:30 and much to my surprise we cleared both sides in around 20 minutes! What a breeze and surely a record for what is described as Africa’s busiest border crossing. So now, destination Falcon College, Esigodini.
We arrived at Falcon just past 18:00 and met up with Tony and Joan Bancroft for a couple of drinks, once we said good-bye we went to the school pool and had a thirty minute swim and then made our way to Quiet Waters, Falcon’s private game reserve. At the campsite we met Patrick who decided that he liked our company and just would not leave us alone so we obliged and offered him a beer, asking if he was enjoying it he merely answered, “It is okay”.
3rd January – Falcon College through to Bulawayo. We had a leisurely start, and set off on a game drive of Quiet Waters. They had obviously had loads of rain as the bush was green and very thick, and we did not actually see any game at all. We did sit for half an hour or so at the Fish Eagle retreat overlooking Longdens dam which whilst not full was beautiful. The “Weir” wall had been raised by one meter since I was last in Quiet Waters….and a new weir has been built, as far as I know it is still to be named.
There is a new venture starting up in Quiet Waters called “Quest for Africa” – designed for school leavers who want a gap year and whom can enrol and learn all sorts of stuff from mechanics, cooking, tracking, bush skills and management etc, what a fantastic initiative.
Charlie was very keen to walk around the school so we toured Tredgold house the various school buildings and halls and arrived at Tony and Joan’s house a little after 12:00 and had a braai with them, Gordon MacDonald joined us for a drink and we chatted a while before he had to be off making his rounds on Quiet Waters. Setting off again we headed for Bulawayo and met up with Martin Sanderson and Andy Laing for a hearty dinner.
4th January – Bulawayo and the Matopos. Charlie and I set off for Bulawayo at 08:00 and made a beeline for the Central Police station so that we could obtain our vehicle police clearance in order to exit Zimbabwe. The police were operating at their usual VERY SLOW pace and we finally got out of there at 09:30, all done and sorted. Back to Martin's house to collect him and we set off for a day in the Matopos.
We did not see vast amounts of game in the park and certainly no rhino, the game ranger at the main gate told us that ten days previously a poacher had been shot and killed in the park and that the poachers accomplice had escaped…I cannot help wonder if this is all an internal operation and if the National Parks staff are involved in all the poaching being carried out, I guess I will never know.
We had a lunch at Mpophoma Dam, smoked muscles fresh salad and we had jaffle irons in which we cooked up some cheese & tomato sandwiches finished off by a very welcomed cup of tea – all very civilised!
After lunch we visited Nswatugi Cave, which contains beautiful friezes of giraffes, elephants and kudu, on the road about 200 meters from our parking space we saw a black mumba crossing the road…poor Charlie was frozen with fear. Martin whilst working for the Natural history museum in Bulawayo had a friend that did an excavation in this cave and uncovered a bushman skeleton, female and whom lived in the Stone Age. What was fascinating was that the way that the body had been laid to rest with artefacts scattered in close proximity definitely meant this was a burial rather than just a “lucky find”.
Charlie and Martin decided that they would make their way by foot through the bush, the arrangement being that I would drive around and pick them up, the heavens opened up so we made our way towards Rhodes Grave in the hope that the rain would be over in half an hour. We stopped set up our camping stove, made a cup of tea and ate biltong, unfortunately this was going to be our last adventure in the Matopos for today as the heavens blackened up further with loads of lightning and thunder and we set off back to Bulawayo.
5th January – Bulawayo up to Victoria Falls. As Charlie had not seen Rhodes Grave, Martin and Charlie set off on their own, whilst I stayed in Bulawayo to try and dry off our kit, wet from the previous days rain.
Once Charlie and Martin arrived back home, just past 11:00 we packed up the vehicle and started up to Victoria Falls. We arrived just after 18:00 and went for a drink at the Victoria Falls hotel. As luck happened Russell Longhurst and his long-term lady friend Lindsay were walking into the hotel at the same time so we had a few drinks with them. Russell had just proposed to Lindsay – CONGRATULATIONS to you both, fantastic news!
We stayed the evening with Cathy and Sharon so went to their house and introduced ourselves, dropped off our bags and then went to the Boma Restaurant. Russell, Lindsay and I had the warthog, kudu and buffalo whilst Charlie stuck to tradition and had a pork sausage, warthog and buffalo…the teasing will not stop, and nor had the rain!
6th January – Victoria Falls sites and activities. Today we went into Victoria Falls to find a bank to change money for Charlie and to find an Internet café. An old school friend of mine, Chetan Gopal runs his family business (Spar Supermarket) so I went to find him, which I did and arranged to meet up at the Boat Club at 18:00 this evening. When we were done we set off to walk around the Falls and walk onto the Bridge to watch the bungee jumpers.
Charlie made some reservations for us to do the flight of the Angels which took off at 16:30…I am not sure that I have words to describe how beautiful that flight is suffice to say have a look at the photos posted on www.chimhavira.com to see for yourself.
When we were done with the flights and had viewed “our video” we set off towards the boat club to meet Chetan, have a few drinks and dinner. Our waiter was called Manson. Manson was just brilliant, as we had a sip left in our glasses another drink would appear he also set our fire for us and after dinner did our washing up…suffice to say he got a nice tip when we left!
Chetan arrived and we spent a couple hours chatting with him, getting his perspective of life having managed a supermarket through the Zimbabwean currency crashes, it was fascinating to hear how the Zimbabweans managed through these times and why they felt compelled to stay put and deal with the situation at hand. I take my hat off to these incredibly brave and resilient people.
7th January – Victoria Falls to Caprivi Strip (Namibia via Botswana). We left Cathy and Sharon just after 09:00 and made our way to wards the Kazangula border post. Travelling through these small border posts is just fantastic, so quick, efficient and friendly if only all crossings could be like this!
We drove through the Chobe National Park towards Ngoma Gate, which would take us through to Namibia. Through the Chobe we saw a breading heard of Elephants, around 12 in total crossing the road and two buffalo bulls. It is always a treat to see these animals.
Ngoma gate border post was the same as the Kazangula crossing, it was a breeze and the officials were the friendliest that I have ever encountered, offering us advise and explained what their recommended places to see were. We were definitely looking forward to staying in Namibia. We drove into Katima Mulilo where we had to pay for our vehicle insurance and road tax before backtracking 12 kilometres and turning onto a dust road. The road had recently been graded so the verges were covered with loose sand. A vehicle travelling towards us meant driving on the verge and we skidded right off the road! Lesson learned.
We arrived at Kaliza Camp spot overlooking the Zambezi River, now this was civilised camping and the first time that we had actually slept in the roof tent on the whole trip! The camp is run by an ex Zimbabwean couple, Danny and Val. There was only one other vehicle in the camp so we pretty much had the place to ourselves. At this section of the river the Zambezi is probably 400 meters wide, Danny explained that in 2008 the river flooded and was at its peak 30 kilometres wide! Trying to imagine the water height and volume that Kaliza camp had to cope with was mind-boggling.
8th January – Caprivi Strip. By 08:00 in the morning Charlie had reminded me at least 50 times that it was his birthday. Whilst settling our bill Val gave us a personal recommendation to go and visit Ngepi Camp, we set off through the Caprivi Strip not knowing what to expect other than the camp was sure to be special.
The Caprivi Strip is not that exciting if you are driving from one end to the other, there are a number of villagers that we travelled through. One observation is that these people take time and effort in their hut construction. These homes looked tidy and well kept in contrast to the Botswana and Zimbabwean villages we passed through.
Most of the day we spent driving and arrived at Ngepi Camp around 17:00. We were shown a free camp site (Camp 6) where we set up our roof tent and arranged our camp before setting off to see what made this camp so special, infact Ngepi had won a “Best camp 2008” prize (I am not sure of the exact prize name, but you get the idea). The first was the “Throne” – a toilet built into a throne type chair overlooking the Okavango, the next room was an iron bath tub again overlooking the Okavango…a real novel idea and certainly something very different to any other camps we had visited. Charlie and I settled by the “Crocodile cage” swimming pool to relax, have a beer and wash the days dust off in the pool.
As it was Charlie’s birthday we celebrated with a bottle of Champaign which Charlie and brought with him from the UK. We are definitely doing this trip in style. It was at this point that a storm hit our little camp, nearly blew the roof tent off the Land Rover and it was fair to say we both thought we were going to be sleeping in the cab this evening. Infact the storm skirted our camp; we had a few splashes of rain but nothing much to get excited about and the wind died down just as quick as it had come up.
9th January – Our day took a leisurely start, we had breakfast, broke camp and made our way to the Mohembo Border crossing which would take us back into Botswana, destination Maun. We arrived into Maun around 17:00 and made our way directly to the airport where Charlie booked a three seater Cessna for a flight over the Okavango Delta tomorrow.
Once our flight had been booked we did some shopping, looked for a cash machine and made our way to the Old Bridge camping grounds. As we had done the previous nights we set up camp, Charlie set about writing up his diary. As the previous nights the camp was quiet with one other tent….Josh walked by and said hello, an American guy and he came over to chat with us joined a couple minutes later by his wife Nicole. An amazing couple, Nicole was doing some peace/care work in Ethiopia whilst Josh had been making a living with his carpentry skills…both then decided that they would like to tour Africa….on their bicycles (Nutters!!!). As Charlie and I have previously driven from London to Cape Town we got chatting about common places that we had driven/ridden through.
As Charlie had booked a three-seater plane and there were only two of us he decided to offer either Josh or Nicole to join us on the flight in the morning. After a 2-minute discussion Josh gratefully took up the offer, Nicole would spend the hour shopping for needed supplies in Maun.
10th January – Okavango Delta flight and onto the Central Kalahari National Park. The four of us set off towards the airport, Josh and Nicole sitting in the back of the Land Rover. Our flight took off at 09:30 and lasted for an hour…what can I, say it was just amazing to fly over this wilderness. We saw all sorts of animals, elephants, a huge heard of Buffalo, giraffe, hippo, a crocodile, bush buck, and sitatunga to name but a few. This flight was fantastic but towards the end Josh and I felt a little nauseous and were quite happy to get back on the ground.
Nicole met up with us again and off we went back to the Old Bridge Camp where we said our good-byes and Charlie and I headed off towards Khumaga Wildlife Camp in the Makgadikgadi, unfortunately when we got to the Boteti River we found it to be flooded and impassable, the second issue was that we had not made a pre booking so if we had been able to pass the river we would not have been able to stay. On recommendation we made our way to the Central Kalahari National Park, entered at Matswere Gate destination Deception Valley Campsite.
The Central Kalahari National Park we found to be a very special place with massive herds of Oryx and Springbok…these were not all that we saw: we spotted the Black-backed jackal, blue wildebeest and bat eared fox. We found our camping site which comprised of a shower with no water and a toilet…no fences and on reading the literature we were both amazed to find that people entering this park can actually leave their vehicles but are encouraged not to venture more than 100 meters from their cares for safety reasons.
Charlie and I set about putting up camp and finding some fire wood in the nearby bush and set a fire…out of the corner of my eye, movement…shocks and horrors a scorpion around 12 centimetres long, poor Charlie, he froze at the site of it and from then on looked at the ground every time he took a step and inspected his seat every time he sat down. We settled in for a dinner of chicken strips, rice and mixed vegetables. When we retired to the roof tent for the night we were still wondering if the park had lions.
11th January – Central Kalahari onto Martins Drift. We had set the alarm clock for 04:45 in the hope to pack up camp and be game viewing by 05:30 at the latest hunting for the illusive cheetah that Charlie was so desperate to see. The alarm went off but the weather had changed for the worst and it was raining quite heavily, we decided to sleep in and set off around 07:30 instead. The ground was slippery to drive on as the black cotton clay of Deception Valley was now wet but the Land Rover handled it beautifully sometimes we were driving at 90 degrees to the road, all very exciting.
Up ahead we spotted two safari vehicles so we decided to take a little off road and spotted three lion, two massive males. This had now answered last nights question, “Yes, there are lions in the park.” Very big-bodied lions at that. We watched them for around twenty minutes and until they had disappeared from our site and carried on looking for the cheetah…no such luck this time we arrived at the Matswere Gate without seeing one at 11:00.
On the road out of the camp we stopped and spoke with a German couple who were very worried about the mud having previously gotten stuck and two vehicles travelling together one of which was driven by a Swedish person that was travelling towards Cape Town.
Back on the main road again we stopped at one of the dried out pans very similar in fact to the Makgadikgadi pan but on a smaller scale. It is just amazing to see an area where no vegetation grows, very surreal.
We made good time and arrived at Kwa Nokeng rest camp at Martins Drift border crossing where we camped the night. A German couple were in camp that night and were travelling towards the Makgadikgadi so they were very interested in chatting to us and getting some local advise on road conditions, diesel availability etc.
We had a very good pasta dinner and chatted amongst ourselves on what was now our last nights camping.
12th January – onto Johannesburg. The drive to Johannesburg from Martins drift is just over four hours, we had passed through the borders and arrived back in Johannesburg mid afternoon. We unpacked the Land Rover, gave it a once off wash to get the Kalahari sand/mud off and relaxed. For dinner we had a braai with salad and cheese bread. My family were all very excited to hear off all the little stories that we had to tell them and sat down to a show of photographs before we all retired after what had been a brilliant safari.
13th January – Shopping and meeting up with friends. Charlie’s family have in the past been involved in jewellery and Charlie still has a fascination with sparkly stones so we went off to Lakeside Shopping centre to see about purchasing some “Pebbles”.
Once we were done Charlie and I drove off towards Cullinan to visit our friends Stephan and Renee. Renee was unfortunately called to perform an emergency caesarean on a bitch and managed to save all six puppies so we were unable to see her.
Stephan, Charlie and I sat having a lunch and catching up on old times and stories before headed back to Johannesburg, picking up Charlie’s luggage and dropping him at the airport for his flight back to a cold London.