The final stint

Embarking on the last leg of our jouney we left Plettenberg bay, driving along the Garden Route stopping over for one more night. It is certainly a nice drive, with some nice towns, but hardly the most interesting bit of South Africa. From around George we drove into the country going through the small Karoo, which was a nice drive.















From there we went via a couple of wineyards to Gaansbaai to do the Great White cage dive. Even if visibility at this time of the year is pretty poor, we did get a good look at a couple of them. They are very impressive, but the water was seriously cold.... From Gaansbaai we headed towards Franshoek visiting the penguin colony at Bettys Bay en route.



































































After spending the night in Franshoek we went to Cape Town to sell the car. This was something we feared somewhat, having had a bit of hassle with Drive Africa earlier, but everrything we completely smooth!

Having sold the car we spent the remaining days in Cape Town being proper tourists. We shopped, went to Robben Island, Table Mountain, Cape of good hope, on a Township tour, and we out in Cape Town. This was a nice easy ending to our amazing trip.































































The End.... I suppose

Back in the RSA

After reentering South Africa we went to Nelspruit to have our gearbox repaired. Something they did in about 5 hours, something to Dodo's of Mozambique failed to do in 5 days. We also had a leaf spring repaired, which turned out to be broken in two (that explained the thumping noise when hitting potholes I suppose...).

Hereafter we went back into vacation mode and headed for Kruger National Park. We are running a bit short on time, so we only had 3 days and 2 nights in the park. Even if this was a bit short, we saw 4 of the big 5 (Leopards were a no show), and especially had some great white rhino and buffalo sightings. We spent the nights in Balule and Satara, the first of which was great compared to the Disneyland like camps of the Kruger (they are very nice, but extremely big and well equipped, compared to what we've been used to).












































































































































After leaving the park we headed back to Nelspruit to have our Visa extended (South Africa
being the first country to give us any hassle at all on this front, not really what we expected), and there after straight to Watervall Boven. This is a rock climbing mecca, and as our guest, Simon, is an enthusiastic climber this was a must. We all had a very enjoyable day there, with climbs to challenge us all!

Rushing on to the Drakensberg we spent a few days in the Royal Natal national park, where we hiked and enjoyed life at the great campsite at Mahai. We also managed to put a traditional Danish Christmas party together, complete with Herring, Meatballs, Ris ala mande, Home baked rye bread and Aebleflaesk. To complement this Simon had brought a bottle of Danish Schnaps. After a full day of hiking the night ended with us drinking Jameson and Pernille falling asleep (and by the way if she ever mentions Winnie in a drunken rant, it is OF COURSE Mandela she's talking about....).










































Leaving the beautiful Drakensberg region we drove through Lesotho to the top of the infamous Sani Pass, where we spent the night at the backpackers which is by the highest pub in Africa. This place is fantastic. The landscape is some of the best we've seen, and the pub have their own Ale, brewed in Nottingham. We had another interesting night at the bar, and the next morning we did a quadbike ride on the mountain.
























































Driving back into South Africa, down the very rough road of the Sani Pass, we went back to the coast. The next two days we spent in uMkomaas and Shelly Beach, diving the world famous Aliwal Shoal and Protea Banks. Aliwal was great for the reef formations and quite a few raggedtoothed sharks. Protea is just fantastic for sharks. We saw Tigersharks, Hammerheads, Blacktipped, Zambezis (Bullsharks), Guitarsharks and Duskies, all in all well over a hundred!

From here on we went on to our final destination in the company of Simon, the Transkei/Wildcoast. We stayed a couple of days in Coffee Bay at the Coffee Shack. This is a very nice place, where we relaxed, did a bit of hiking and just had a few drinks and so on. Hereafter we dropped Simon off in East London, where he jumped on a Johannesburg bound bus. We continued to Grahamstown where we spent the night in South Africas oldest jail, which has been transformed to a hostel. You simply get an old cell for a room, something which brought a few unpleasent thoughts to Pernilles mind.




























Currently we are in Plettenberg Bay on the Garden Route, from where we drive on today. We have to be in Cape Town in 5 days time and want to go to the Winelands and do a Great White cage dive before, so we are a bit busy.

Thanks for all the comments, and we look forward to seing most of you quite soon back in Denmark.

First out of three legs back to Cape Town

The day Morten left, our car was left at Toyota in Lilongwe for its third and hopefully final service. On the first of November Simon (a friend of Christians' from Sønderborg) arrived to Lilongwe. The plan was that he would stay with us for the next month, which would allow us to cover Mozambique, Krueger National Park, Drakensberg, and the Wild Coast with him.

On the same day that Simon arrived we started on our way south. This meant that we could make it to the beautiful (not really - nice campsite though) border town of Dedza. Upon Simons arrival we knew that we had several days of transport ahead of us, so with our first day getting us to the border we were hoping that we would be able to make it to Vilankulo within the following two days. After two days on Mozambiques highway - which was in no condition to be categorized as a highway - and one night in Chimoio at Pink Papaya we drove into the Beach town of Vilankulo. Out of this drive, Pink Papaya was probably the biggest experience... Imagine a guesthouse/dorm, where everything is pink, even the staff is wearing pink. This place was run by an elderly German couple where the man ran around in his Kimono in the morning. Everything here was pink, even the fluorescent lights were painted pink - just for that extra touch of pink.

We arrived in Vilankulo, with only our 5th gear broken. After a couple of days of assessing the situation we decided to get Isac, the brother of Dodo - the local junkie, whom by the way also has the only reliable workshop in town - to look at it. Isac was very helpful and decided to start taking the gearbox apart friday morning and assured us that he knew the problem and would be able to get new parts from SA and get it to run again by saturday noon. This would be app. 36 hrs after they started with the car. Trustworthy as the man seemed we chose to believe it, and went out on our first dive on 2 Mile Reef saturday morning. Now, when we say our first then you just know that we didn't get the car on the saturday. As the famous saying goes, which we by now have learnt from heart: "This is Africa...!" - we ended up getting the car on the tuesday, still without a fifth gear.

This delay from the mechanic gave us several good days in Vilankulo. After having a look around Vilankulo, we had decided to stay at Baobab Beach, this was the slightly more backpacker option with camping and a nice bar :-)

By the time we left Vilankulo (on the wednesday) we had had 4 dives along 2 Mile Reef. In these dives we saw 1 blacktipped reefshark and a couple of seaturtles, the biggest of which had a diameter of over 1m. We also got a chance to visit several of the islands in the Archipelago de Bazaruto, climb the sanddunes on Bazaruto, snorkel along the reefs of the islands, go for a trip in a traditional Dhow, and have several memorable nights in the bar. During the early hours of the morning we got fairly acquainted with the bar staff as well as an English couple, a South African ranger and a dude from Botswana. All of these people contributed with entertaining stories of their experiences in Africa. The most important thing that we have learnt from these days is: "This is Africa, there is no plan, there's only a vague idea".

After Vilankulo our next stop was Tofu/Tofinho/Barra or Coconut Bay. This decision we pretty much left until the last minute in the car, but we opted for scenario where we went a couple of days to Barra followed by a couple of days at Coconut Bay. At Barra we got the option of staying at a slightly nicer place to do some diving and celebrate Pernilles birthday. Both of which we did in style, even though we did not manage to get the staff to sing "Beautiful Pernille'eee". After the celebrations we went out on a Ocean Safari where we got the opportunity to snorkel with 2 Whalesharks as well as 25 or so Dolphins. After the stories we had heard from other travellers we felt very fortunate to have seen the

whalesharks. At Barra we also had 3 dives at a diveshop where everything was taken care of. We pretty much just had to show up, get in the boat, and when told to jump - then jump.

After 2 nights at Barra we decided to take some dives further south at a place called Cocnut Bay. Here the dives would almost be half the price of our previous dives and the place itself more secluded. Indeed it was both of those things, we were almost the only ones there, except a rookie flyfisherman (whom during our 3 night stay, never seemed to catch anything...) at the campsite.

All in all our diving around Tofu was a success with the sightings of a couple of Whalesharks, and on our second to last dive a small (1.5m) Manta Ray in the distance. Both of the animals have this majestic look, when they move gracefully around in the water next to us clumsy divers. On one hand, having seen them, we are ready to leave, but on the other hand, we could easily spend more days here in the hope of seeing more of either and perhaps some sharks.

We will be making our way towards Nelspruit in SA, just outside the Krueger National Park. Hopefully we will be able to get our trustworthy Hilux fixed. Ohh, did I forget to mention that we have also determined the cause for a recent clonking noise from the rear of the car. It seems that one of the leaves in our right leaf-spring suspension has snapped in half and was hitting the axle.

Stay tuned for our next report, where we expect to write a bit about Krueger, Drakensberg, a certain Danish Julefrokost (Christmas dinner), and of course the most recent news regarding our trusted Hilux.

As we cannot agree on the title, this is about us going to South Luangwa and Malawi...

Having left our short stint at a life in luxury behind, we soon headed towards Malawi. The drive through Zambia is rather long and tedious, but after a couple of days we made it to the border. The crossing went smoothly and we subsequently headed towards Nkhata Bay on the shores of Lake Malawi. Mayoka village on the shore is truly a great place to stay. We did a couple of pretty nice dives in the lake, and just hung around drinking Carlsbergs and relaxing.

After about three days we went down to Lilongwe to pick up Thomas' friend Morten, who was joining the trip for two weeks. Having picked him up, we went straight back to Zambia towards South Luangwa National Park.

We spent three days exploring the park based at Flatdogs Camp (a flatdog is a croc), and got to see most of the usual suspects (all the antelopes, warthogs, elefants, hippos, buffaloes etc.) But the highlights were probably the elefants and hippos that came straight through camp every night. It is kind of interesting braai'ing spareribs with a hippo grazing about 20 meters from you! Another great sighting were a herd of about 500 buffaloes during a walking safari, you feel sort of small and surrounded in such a situation (especially as there were 20 elephants behind us as well). And finally we got to see a family of 8-9 lions guarding a killed buffalo from the vultures and other carrions.

From the Luangwa valley we went north back into Malawi, instead of the more traditional south route. This was a very remote and nice way to travel, and the roads were not as bad as we feared. We overnighted in Mzuzu in Malawi, before heading up to the Nyika Plateau the next day. The scenery at the plateau is stunning, and the campsite nice and remote. At no time during our three days there were there more that five other people in the park, great! The wildlife is different from other parks, as it is open grass land. But there are many antelopes, and supposedly a lot of leopard (not sure I believe that though....).

Next stop was Mayoka Village at Nkhata Bay again. This time around we made a bit of an impression with the staff and other guests. Unfortunately this was partly due to a couple of relatively long nights at the bar, where we had a bit too much Danish Water (Carlsbergs, and even Carlsberg Elephant beers among those.... ouch). The first night Morten unfortunately took a bit of a tumble down a rock leaving him with a quite a few cuts and bruises, though no stitches or anything. Christian also managed to stub his toe pretty badly, so our extensive first aid kit came into a bit of use again, good thing we had it with us! But all in all we had a great time at this great place. And it must be added that Mayoka is build right into the rocks, so the pathways are a bit tricky, especially in the dark and "late on".

After leaving one of the most relaxing places so far on our trip, we are now back in Lilongwe. We just put Morten on a plane (after having been to the doctor to get his cuts cleaned and some penicillin....), and now we are waiting of our next visitor, Christian's friend Simon.

In two days we will cross into Mozambique to do some diving, and a bit more relaxing, and then it is back to South Africa.

The Royal Treatment

Since our rafting and canoing experience we have had the pleasure of Thomas parents' company. They arrived at the beginning of this month in Livingstone. The course of their holiday with us was planned out from the beginning, which meant we had an itinerary with all the activities clearly described with pick-up and drop-off times. We though had kept a little surprise for them in our backhand, which was a trip the Livingstone Island shortly after arriving at the Royal Livingstone Hotel (where we would be staying the first 2 nights).

The Royal Livingstone was a colonial style haven for us in comparison to the Fawlty Towers where we had been staying so far in Livingstone. Not at all to say that the Fawlty Towers were bad. But when your room is situated with a view out over the Zambezi, with Zebras and Giraffes grassing on the lawn in front of you and staff tending to your every need, then it's just something a little more exclusive.

Anyhow, the first day of their holiday with us we took a boat out to the Livingstone Island in the middle of the Victoria Falls (this was only possible due the low water now in the dry season). Practically standing on the edge of the Falls we could look over to the Zimbabwean side as well as look at the waterfall on both our left and right side. After a short tour of the Island we were allowed to go for a swim in a pool 0.5m from where the water drops into the gorge - which we had rafted a few days earlier. After the swim we had high tea on the Island and were then sailed back to the hotel.



















The following morning - after having enjoyed the breakfast buffet - we were taken to the airstrip from where we were to go for our helicopter spin over the Victoria Falls. This was very exciting especially because it was the first time for the 4 of us (Christian P. had tried it before). Unfortunately we could not fit in the 'chopper' so we decided to cluster the risks in such a way that if one of the 'birds' fell down then it would take out a large part of the Pedersen family or a big part of the Fløjgaard family. The Pedersen family took off first and Pernille and Christian were left with a very annoying lady. We all approached the situation with a bit of a laugh, and after taking the piss on her (which she didn't find amusing), and giving her - what in football would haven been a completely legal - shoulder push we did let her have the seat in front. During the entire flight we had a lot of fun with her, this combined with the incredible scenery of the waterfall and the flight through the gorge (just meters above the river) made this one of the most memorable experiences so far.






































In the afternoon that day we went to the small Mosi-o-tunya National Park to go on an Elephant-back safari. It was very interesting to try this and see the baby elephants interact with the larger ones. Unfortunately we did not see that many animals, but we got to sit on the elephants whilst they were crossing parts of the river. The dot over the "i" was when after the walk we were allowed to feed the elephants and pet the small one.

The following day we were transferred via the Kazungula Ferry to Chobe Game Lodge. This was the first of 3 all-inclusive lodges we visited during this trip. The lodge is located at the Chobe Riverfront inside the Chobe Game Reserve (GR), which is known for its buffalo and elephant sightings. During our visit we had a couple of game-drives and a boat cruise with our guide, Mr. Bean. On the boat we got an excellent view of the elephants drinking in the Chobe river, spraying water on themselves and crossing over to Namibia. The first time you get quite surprised when you see several 'snorkels swimming after each other through the water. On the game drives we saw a leopard leaving its kill, and the carcass immediately being swarmed with vultures (including Lappet-faced Vultures). After our sundowners we were lucky enough to see 4 African wild dogs followed by 4 male lions. On top of those we also saw several antelopes.




























From the Chobe Game Lodge we went to Kasane airport from which we flew to Moremi GR and stayed at Camp Okuti. Which at times employed 3 times as many people as were staying. The flight in the small Cessna was quite a rough one and made some of us a bit woozy, but after being met at the small airstrip by James (who would be our future guide) ready with cold towels and drinks this condition improved. At the lodge we were greeted by a committee of all the staff, ready to wish us welcome and carry our bags - on their heads. As with the Chobe Game Lodge we also here had a couple of game drives and a boat trip. Again we were lucky to see 4 Wild dogs with a kill, which was devoured by a Hyena and Jackal afterwards. We were also fortunate enough to see a leopard in a tree and later on a Cheetah with a kill as well. Unfortunate for the Cheetah it was chased away by Vultures. This was only the 5th sighting of cheetah this year in the area. We were also very lucky to spot lion cubs, from the distance though. On the boat ride we had some nice sundowners whilst watching a Marabou stork colony.






















































































The next stop on our journey with the Pedersen family was our last stop as well. The last two nights we spent at the newly established Xudum Game Lodge a bit deeper into the delta. This was supposed to be another step up on the luxury ladder with private pools instead of those common shared pools ;-) Upon arrival the chalets had an incredible location and were huge inside. Unfortunately the showers didn't work too well and the pools they hadn't finished building. But the service was still good, and they certainly did their best to make Thomas' birthday a memorable one - with several verses of "Happy B'day" (in local language) as well as a couple of "Beautiful Thomasy...". Upon request we can deliver this video when we return to DK. Game-wise we saw another cheetah sitting atop of a termite mound and on the second day we also followed a lion, which was doing its best to sneak up on a couple of zebras and and some tsesebes.
























































On the 8th we all transferred back to Livingstone together. After the 3 of us had picked up our Hilux at the Royal Livingstone, then we met up with Thomas' parents at the airport and said our goodbyes.

Within the coming days then we will start making our way up to Lilongwe to meet Morten, one of Thomas' friends.

Again thanks for all your comments from back home, it is nice to hear from you. Stay tuned.