The Apartheid Museum in Joburg

Must be good if I spent 5 hours inside!

Hwange National Park

Our last 3 nights in Zim were at the main camp of Hwange, a massive park in the western part of Zim. We stayed in their old but adequate self-catering chalets but spent most of our time travelling around our corner of the reserve. In our 6 drives, probably averaging about 4 hours each, we came across only 6 other cars and got to experience some of the best game viewing I've ever had. A big male lion chasing some warthogs, a pride of lion with cubs playing, a big bull elephant charging us, a huge herd of a hundred buffalo, wild dogs, honeybadgers, crocodiles, hippos and much more.

Victoria Falls (or climbs)

If anyone is reading this and planning to visit Vic Falls any time soon; please take my advice and stay at Lokathula Lodge (part of Vic Falls Safari Lodge). Very good value and well designed self-catering thatched units away from the tourist mess of the town. The Zambezi was extremely full, which sadly made rafting impossible, but gave us a really full on waterfall experience.Standing overlooking the highest drop of about 100m was like being in torrential rain. Serious spray that was climbing at least 50m above us. We decided to be a bit adventurous and signed up for a full day canoe safari on the Upper Zambezi. This took us from about 26km up river of the Falls and finished, quite fortunately, about 5km from certain death. Lots of hippos and elephants along the way which was quite exciting, but the sight of a massive croc sliding into the water next to us really got the hearts going. Carol flew back to Joburg from Livingstone (in Zambia) but before that she organised to fly over the falls in a microlight. Brilliant!

Kariba

We'd booked a little houseboat, a captain and a chef, and spent 2 nights on the water, the first in the truly unbelievable Matusadona National Park. I might be overselling (or over-exaggerating) just a bit, but as we approached the shore there were hippos and elephants tapdancing at the waters edge. We set off on our little tender boat soon after arriving and did some game viewing and fishing, with Jax having the most success. I think the best thing about spending time on a houseboat like that is the forced relaxation. Meals suddenly appear, fishing rods are prepared and you really are treated like royalty. The second night was spent at Antelope Island, before making our way back to Kariba Town, to board our overnight ferry that travels from west to east across the length of the dam. Highlights for me were really getting to appreciate the size of the dam, watching game on the banks of the islands and mainland and swimming in the refreshing water, somewhere in the middle of the dam.

Harare

The main reason for our Zim trip was Peggy's 90th birthday and we celebrated in style with a great lunch at Dandaro Village. In our few days in Harare we explored a bit, visiting the huge pink granite dome of Dombashava and the Ballyvaughan wildlife rehab centre. Since the change from the gazillion zim dollar notes to the US$, the shops are once again full of stuff, the petrol stations seem to have petrol and things are apparently a bit easier.

ZimBOBwe

Jax, her mom, English Paul and myself just spent a couple of weeks up in Zim. A total of 6800km (including our drive from the coast up to Joburg) and an awesome experience. The roads were a lot better than I anticipated and as long as we dodged the occasional pothole, frequent police checks and everpresent cattle riots, we sailed along happily. We chose to travel up through Botswana and then into Zim via Plumtree, trying to avoid the chaos of Beit Bridge on Good Friday. Unfortunately the rest of the planet had the same idea and it took us 7 hours and a real appreciation of African organisation to get across the border into Botswana. We spent a night in Bulawayo, then travelled up to Harare for a few days to celebrate Jackie's gran's 90th birthday. From there we headed for Kariba, where we rented a houseboat for 2 nights and then crossed the length of the dam, a total of 280km, on a 22 hour ferry trip. Next was Vic Falls for a few days and Hwange National Park to finish. Highly, highly recommended! Pics and other stuff to follow.