Africa 2006

[Sir Eric]

It's nearly a year old, but I thought I had posted this stuff here.
Anyway, here's a cut and paste I did for another site.

We did a 20 day camping tour through 4 countries. We started in Johannesburg, then went to Botswana to the Okavango Delta (my favourite part of the whole trip), then Chobe NP, Then crossed over into Zimbabwe to Victoria Falls, down through Zimbabwe staying at various places. We then went to Mozambique to the coast to Vilankulos, where we spent Christmas, then onto Tofo. After that we crossed back into South Africe to Kruger NP, and then back to J/burg.

South Africa
We started the tour in a backpackers in a suburb of Johannesburg. Met some of the locals. "Hey mate. How safe is it here?", "Is very safe, you can go anywhere, so long as you dont go out at night".[lol]

This is the happy bus of Aussie fun. Our tour was all Aussie, with the exception of a chinese pom with a heavy manchester accent, and a indian kenyan.

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Botswana
I really enjoyed Botswana. The people are very friendly. The Delta is a truly beautiful place to visit.

One of a family of 5 giraffes we saw by the side of the road on day 2 as we we heading to Maun, near the Okavango Delta.

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A typical village in Bostwana. We would be driving along the road looking at these village huts and every know and again you'ld see one with a satelite dish poking out of the side.

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We arrived at the Okavango Delta on about day 3 of the tour. We then got into a Mokoro, which is their traditional canoe, and we were then taken to our campsite about 40 mins away.
This photo is taken from our mokoro as we head nervously along looking out for Hippo's

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The Delta is a very beautiful place. The place is so idyllic and picturesque... and extremely hot.
We would go for a game walk at 5am until 9am, then sit under trees until 5pm and go for another walk.

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Being a Delta there was no shortage of birdlife. And being a bird lover, I was in Avian heaven. During this trip I managed to see 72 birds and photograph 52 of them.

Birds in this shot include; Marabou Stork, Great White Pelican, Yellow Billed Stork, Great White Egret,
and Spur-Winged Goose.

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This is me trying to use a mokoro. This was taken on a trip to the Hippo pool, about 500 metres away where we set up camp. The Hippo's weren't too keen to see us and were showing aggressive behaviour, like charging at the mokoro's. We all freaked out whilst the locals pissed themselves laughing. Turns out that Hippo's will only attack the mokoro's if they are by themselves, not in groups.

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On the last night the locals put on a bit of a show. They sang and danced to some traditional African songs. In return we all got up and sang the Aussie national Anthem.

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A shot from the last mornings game walk. We hiked about 3.5 hours before we saw anything.
The land was very similar to the outback. Dry, dusty, extremely hot and filled with Aussies going "Hot enough for ya mate?"
We ended up spending 4 days in the Delta.
We saw loads of birds. We learned how to track some of the animals, what the medicinal uses for some of the plants were. We saw Hippos', Elephants. Tracked Wilderbeast, Water Buffalo, and Zebra on foot.

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Chobe NP
A very beautiful place. We stayed in a campsite on the banks of the Chobe river. It had an electric fence around it to keep the animals out at night. We saw a warthog run along the outside of the fence, and 2 minutes away from the camp a herd of Elephants were seen taking their evening constitutional.

The following shot of a large herd of female and juvenile Impala was taken on a river cruise along the Chobe river.
We saw tonnes of animals such as Hippos', Crocs', Impala, Kudu(?), Babboon, and Elephants, as well as lots of birds on this cruise. Absolutely fantastic!

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Further along the river we saw this bunch having some dinner.

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The next day we went through a drive into Chobe NP.
The following piccie is of the first wild Lion we saw. We got within 10 metres of this guy.

I has this piccy on my desktop for sometime.

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The NP runs along the river which we cruise along the previous night, which is the same river we stayed next too..
We saw quite a few Impala, vultures, Lions and Elephants.

The below picture is of a herd of Elephants that we saw as we were leaving the park. They had a very small baby with them. When we turned up the older Elephants herded around the baby and promptly moved he/she on, whilst one of the older ones gave us the Elephant equivalant of 'Bugger off ya bunch of furriners', by waving her trunk and flapping her ears at us.[lol]

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Zimbabwe

Victoria Falls

We stayed at Vic Falls for about 2.5 days. Did some shopping. The shop sellers were REALLY persistant, and all seemed to have a brother with a shop directly opposite us who would give us a great deal, very cheap, special price.

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One of the things we did, which was my wifes absolute favourite experience being the Elephantphile that she is, was to ride Elephants through the Zimbabwean bush.
The ride took us past a dam where we saw Impala, Waterbuck, Zebra's and a wildcat.
I took the photo below of my wife on the left, heading out from the lodge. The Elephant that Mrs SE is riding is the mother of the small one.

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Antelope Park
This is a place about half a days drive from the border with Mozanbique. They aim to be the first successful place to successfully re-release Lions back into the wild.
The Lion walk we went on had 3 Lions. All were related, about 5 years old. We had a bit of a sit down with the head guide before the lions arrived. The lions weren't tame, they were however, so use to having people around them that we were able to pat and have photo's with them.
We were given VERY strict instructions on what and what not to do. One lady during the walk forgot that we weren't allowed to crouch in front of the lions, and came very close to having a lion pounce on her. Saved only by the quick hands of a guide who pulled her up by the scruff and 2 other guides who grabbed the lion.

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Me with one of the Lions.

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The afternoon after the Lion walk we got to go meet some 4 month old Lion cubs. They had just had a feed so some of them weren't too keen on playing. Mrs SE and myself made a friend with one of them who would play with us. We nicknamed him the little fella. He even followed us around when we stopped playing with him.

Here's me playing with the little fella.

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Naptime after a big feed.

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The little fella played a bit rough sometimes. The guides told us that if they bite you or your clothing then you have to whack em on the nose.

Here's Mrs SE having to let the little fella know not to bit her jacket. All was promptly forgiven and another game of chase the dirty rag was started.

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My favourite African bird, the Malachite Kingfisher in silhouette. It took me nearly 30 mins to get close enough to this guy to take his picture. I was in a canoe chasing him up and down the flamin' lake trying to get close enough.[lol]

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Mozambique
We spent about 6 days here, but I took very few photo's of the place. For us it was the least liked part of the trip. Probably cause we spent the time at coastal villages doing snorkelling, and other water activities which we do all the time here.

I think this is Down-town Maputo.

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South Africa return
We then headed back into South Africa and straight into Kruger NP. We spent about 2 days here. It's one place that everyone should go to when in SA.

Kruger NP is a huge park that you drive yourself through.
We saw TONNES of animals just trying to get to the campsite.

Below are shots taken over the 2 days we were there.

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[Matrix]

Cool. :) As you might know I've been in South Africa myself last February, but I've only seen wild animals in the Addo Elephant park, which was no more than an ennobled zoo. As a [u]human</u> geographer I'm more interested in people than in animals anyway. [tongue] A few friends of mine stays two weeks longer and they also went to the Kruger NP.

[Shabbaman]

quote:Originally posted by Sir Eric


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Is that a war elephant coming for you?

[Socrates]

Very nice pics. :) The guys I wanna see someday are (wild) elephants. Those are the animal which seems the most interesting.

[Furiey]

I went to southern Africa in 2004, did some travelling in South Africa, then Victoria Falls/Zambia then Chobe/Botswana. One of the things I particularly remember are the Elephants crossing the river. Swimming across playing as they went, wresting and ducking each other. Sometimes only a trunk would be visible. It really is worth seeing them, and watching from the boat in Chobe gave a different outlook to travelling by truck. Walking is also worth doing, again you get a different viewpoint on the wildlife.

Victoria Falls was nearly dry when I was there in 2004, with only a trickle running over on the Zambian side, and only the Zimbabwe end had any real water. I could walk across the bed of the river! This was a stark contrast to my previous visit in 1988 when the river was in full flood and the falls raged from one end to the other and the spay made the surrounding countryside feel like rainforest.

Not been to Okavango delta though, it was so flooded it was inaccessable on my 1987/88 trip and the last trip didn't unfortunately go there.

[socralynnek]

Very nice. We want to go to South Africa next year...we are more interested in animals than in humans...

[Sir Eric]

quote:Originally posted by Shabbaman

quote:Originally posted by Sir Eric


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Is that a war elephant coming for you?


[lol]

He seemed to thing he was. [charge]

He's one of a group of elephants that crossed the road very close to our bus. He didn't like us too well. He did a lot of ear waving, foot stomping and charging.
We even had a small calf have a charge at the bus. Guess the little fella was just practicing.

[Sir Eric]

quote:Originally posted by kryszcztov

Very nice pics. :) The guys I wanna see someday are (wild) elephants. Those are the animal which seems the most interesting.


Do you mean out of a National Park?

[Sir Eric]

quote:Originally posted by Furiey

I went to southern Africa in 2004, did some travelling in South Africa, then Victoria Falls/Zambia then Chobe/Botswana. One of the things I particularly remember are the Elephants crossing the river. Swimming across playing as they went, wresting and ducking each other. Sometimes only a trunk would be visible. It really is worth seeing them, and watching from the boat in Chobe gave a different outlook to travelling by truck. Walking is also worth doing, again you get a different viewpoint on the wildlife.

Victoria Falls was nearly dry when I was there in 2004, with only a trickle running over on the Zambian side, and only the Zimbabwe end had any real water. I could walk across the bed of the river! This was a stark contrast to my previous visit in 1988 when the river was in full flood and the falls raged from one end to the other and the spay made the surrounding countryside feel like rainforest.

Not been to Okavango delta though, it was so flooded it was inaccessable on my 1987/88 trip and the last trip didn't unfortunately go there.


Do you go with tour groups or by yourselves when you're over there?

[Sir Eric]

quote:Originally posted by socralynnek

Very nice. We want to go to South Africa next year...we are more interested in animals than in humans...


I'm with ya mate! Animals don't sign MPP with other animals and launch co-ordinated invasions!![swordman]

[digger760]

Great Photo's a write up. Did some camping myself in Zimbabwe once, I'll never forget the sound of the lions roar during the night (Glad we slept on an island of the Zambeze river), or the sound of the hippo's talking to each other.

Did you do the white water rafting at Victoria falls?

[Sir Eric]

quote:Originally posted by Matrix

Cool. :) As you might know I've been in South Africa myself last February, but I've only seen wild animals in the Addo Elephant park, which was no more than an ennobled zoo. As a [u]human</u> geographer I'm more interested in people than in animals anyway. [tongue] A few friends of mine stays two weeks longer and they also went to the Kruger NP.


Nice read.

One thing that we didn't like about our trip was that we spent the vast majority of time on the tour bus. Which was good. It offered us protection in a foreign land, however, it also gave us a very 'unreal' sense of what the African people are like.

We did get to spend some time with the locals from time to time, which was good to get some insight on how they live, but I think we may do it a little differently when we go back in '09

[Furiey]

The 2004 trip I was on my own and went with a tour group, at least we only used the bus for major journeys, through Kruger, Zambia & Botswana it was smaller vehicles.

The 1987/88 trip was an overland trip by truck travelling down from London to Zimbabwe. It took 5 months and we camped out for all but a few special occasions. This was really good for meeting the local people, and much better being able to do so in the middle of nowhere where they didn't get tourists. In the towns, like everywhere else in the world everybody was out for whatever they could get. Even 20 years later the memories are so strong. In comparison the 2004 trip was just skimming the surface.

I did the white water rafting at Vic Falls in 88. Absolutely fantastic. 2 of the 4 boats overturned throwing everyone into the river, mine was completely submerged but surfaced upright much to my amazement as I remember being underwater hanging on for grim death trying to work out which way was up.

I fell in love with Africa back then, there are so many places in the world I want to visit, but I keep getting drawn back to Africa.

[Sir Eric]

quote:Originally posted by digger760

Great Photo's a write up. Did some camping myself in Zimbabwe once, I'll never forget the sound of the lions roar during the night (Glad we slept on an island of the Zambeze river), or the sound of the hippo's talking to each other.

Did you do the white water rafting at Victoria falls?


The night sounds are great. Lots different to hearing possums at each other on the telephone line [lol]

We didn't have too much time at Vic Falls. I wanted to do the rafting, but after the Elephant ride we ran out of time.

Some rough chicks from WA went on the rafting. They said it was great.Pretty rough, but a lot of fun.They had a brazilian couple who talked themselves up as seasoned rafters, in the front of the raft, who ended up crapping their dacks on the harder bits. [lol]

I can't talk though. I crapped my dacks on the Cessna during the fly-over of the Delta. I HATE flying and the wife talked me into going. [rant] The little thing bounced all over the place. But I'm glad I did it. The view was awesome.

[Sir Eric]

quote:Originally posted by Furiey


The 1987/88 trip was an overland trip by truck travelling down from London to Zimbabwe. It took 5 months and we camped out for all but a few special occasions. This was really good for meeting the local people, and much better being able to do so in the middle of nowhere where they didn't get tourists. In the towns, like everywhere else in the world everybody was out for whatever they could get. Even 20 years later the memories are so strong. In comparison the 2004 trip was just skimming the surface.


That would have be one awesome trip. [beer1]

What route did you take?

[Furiey]

Countries in order:

France
Spain
Morocco
Algeria
Niger
Nigeria
Cameroun
Central African Republic
Zaire (as it was then)
Rwanda
Burundi
Kenya
Zanzibar
Tanzania
Malawi
Zambia
Zimbabwe

All the routes to Botwana were flooded and the bridges were out so we didn't get there and getting to South Africa at the time was very difficult so we didn't get there then either.

[socralynnek]

Two and a half months...then we'll go to South Africa (3 1/2 weeks)...we'll be doing a trip by rented car and stay in small B&B guesthouses. I hope we get to know the South African people over there. But I know it is not representative as probably most of those house owners are either rich & white or even foreigners. But maybe better than hotels.

[Matrix]

You could've seen this. ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM

[Sir Eric]

That's a great little video.

[digger760]

Amazing..and it looks like the little fella survived.