Pilanesberg National Park

Alastair BegleySouth Africa, Wildlife Short Link

As we booked our flight to Johannesburg from Victoria Falls separately from our flight back to Germany, we did not want to risk a 4 hour connection, so ended up with a 28 hour connection. To make the most of this time we headed north west from Johannesburg to Pilanesberg National Park, hoping for a final hurrah with some wildlife, prior to heading back to start a new job. Our flight was very prompt, but immigration to South Africa was unfortunately not, so our timing went out the window, which was then not helped by having to go to Lufthansa to sort out an issue with my seat an then Hertz, who’s pace was glacial. This resulted in our ETA at Pilanesberg being 20:30, much later than I wanted, and honestly regretted not bailing the day before when we discussed it due to the wonderful wildlife we had already seen. Here the sunrise a lot earlier than it had in Namibia and Botswana, so we did not enjoy our 4:40 alarm call, for a 5:15 meeting time for the game drive. The weather was unfortunately not that great for photography,. Read the full article…

Overlanding Day 20: Victoria Falls Flight of Angels

Alastair BegleyLandscape, Zimbabwe Short Link

Unfortunately today marked the end of our overloading adventure through Namibia, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The plan was for us to start the day with an early morning helicopter ride over Victoria Falls, however the weather had some other ideas. After a few hours of waiting for the low cloud to lift, we had some brief excitement when another group took off, but they were back 2 minutes later, as the visibility was so poor. At this point the provider took us back to our hotel room so that we could pack up and check out, before bringing us back, so that we could hopefully fly later in the morning. Thankfully as we were heading back to the Heliport, we saw both helicopters starting their engines, definitely a good sign. When we arrived we were informed that it all looked good and we would be on the next wave, in our own helicopter. This turned out to be even better than expected, as it meant that we were both on the left hand side as I was in the front seat which resulted in us doing multiple circles in the. Read the full article…

Overlanding Day 19: Victoria Falls (Devil’s Pool and the falls)

Alastair BegleyLandscape, Zambia, Zimbabwe Short Link

Today was the first day in almost three weeks where we haven’t changed accommodation, which was a nice change of pace. Although this was slightly hampered by waking up at 05:20 feeling a bit worse for wear after our beers and late night. We started the day heading to the Devil’s Pool, a pool right at the top of Victoria Falls where you can swim in the Zambezi and look over the edge of the falls, while you are being nibbled at by small fish. It really was quite an experience. After swimming in Devil’s pool they provided us with a really rather good breakfast, before we headed to the Zambian side of Victoria Falls. Here was really spectacular when we arrived in the sun, as there were beautiful rainbows and it was all pretty quiet – probably because most things you read say no to bother with it, but I am glad Becky was very keen to. After finishing the main circuit on the Zambian side, we walked over the border and over the bridge to the Zimbabwean side of the falls, which are definitely more impressive, with a. Read the full article…

Overlanding Day 18: Senyati Safari Camp to Victoria Falls

Alastair BegleyBotswana, Wildlife, Zimbabwe Short Link

Unfortunately today was the day where we had to give our truck back, to end the self-drive section of our overlanding trip. We had a lie in and woke up naturally, which was a nice change to the past few days. After getting up we packed our things, before heading into Kasane for breakfast and then headed to Bushlore to give the truck back. Bushlore took us to the border, where immigration was very quick and easy and we were picked up by a taxi from Victoria Falls. This was all very smooth and we then made good time to get to Victoria Falls, which enabled us to chill out before our dinner cruise on the Zambezi. The dinner cruise was very civilised, with great food, an open bar and some wildlife thrown into the mix. After the cruise, we met up with a group of cyclists who we had been constantly bumping into over the previous week for one beer, which turned into many beers and getting back to out hotel after midnight, which was less then ideal for the early start the next morning.

Overlanding Day 17: Ihaha Camp to Senyati Safari Camp (Chobe National Park)

Alastair BegleyBotswana, Wildlife Short Link

Today we started the day with a morning game drive, which was the quietest drive we have had so far but we saw our biggest crocodile and had a lovely experience with a family of elephants, where the baby just wanted to play with his cousin, while the cousin just wanted to sleep. When we arrived in Kasane we enjoyed some good coffee, before having Chobe Bream for lunch, quite a contrast from the last few days in the wilderness! In the afternoon we did a sunset river cruise which was wonderful with elephants playing in the river, and more importantly, hippos in great light on the ground and a hippo yawning in great light in the river. Morning Game Drive After watching elephants moving around literally just outside our roof tent as we went to sleep, we were a bit disappointed to wake up with no elephants, one of our thoughts was to have breakfast watching the sunrise from our campsite over the elephants. It is safe to say the drive this morning started off fairly slowly, the elephants had all vanished to wherever they were sleeping, and it. Read the full article…

Overlanding Day 16: Chobe National Park (Savuti-Ihaha)

Alastair BegleyBotswana, Wildlife Short Link

We got up for a sunrise game drive, which was very successful, as we saw a pride of lions twice, the first time in the golden hour in the morning and the pride had a very young cub. To top if off, we were able to be on the perfect side of them to take advantage of the light. It has to be said that the rest of the drive was fairly uneventful, with just some bok, a few elephants and a few giraffe. Sadly, the leopard at leopard rock remained elusive. We then drove out of the are we were in and up to the Chobe Waterfront area, for our next night, in another wild unfenced campsite. En-route to the campsite we did another self-drive, although there aren’t many photos due to the midday light. On our evening drive we saw so many elephants, it really was unbelievable, some water buffalo (a first in the wild) and some giraffe. Our evening was spent at camp, watching elephants no more than 50m away from us, and listening to lions roaring. We had a decent campfire, to, hopefully, keep them at. Read the full article…

Overlanding Day 15: Entering Botswana and Chobe National Park

Alastair BegleyBotswana, Wildlife Short Link

Sadly today was the day where we left Namibia, but we headed deep in the Chobe National Park to make up for it. After an early start, where we had breakfast as soon as we could, we got on the road to make the long journey to Savuti campsite in Chobe National Park. The journey was all pretty easy, if slightly slow going at times, much better than the horror stories of deep sand that I had read about. When we arrived in the national park we did a self-drive safari, where we had a wonderful time seeing lots of wildlife, the highlights being seeing elephants bathing in the water and seeing two very small elephants playing together. The day finished watching zebra walking across the plain in the beautiful golden hour light. Unfortunately we did not see any cats, which was a shame, fingers crossed for tomorrow morning.  Entering Botswana and the Drive Soon after leaving we crossed the border into Botswana, which was all very quick and easy, surprisingly we didn’t even need to open our fridge to show we were not importing any banned items (meat, dairy,. Read the full article…

Overlanding Day 14: Camp Kwando to Chobe River Camp

Alastair BegleyNamibia, Wildlife Short Link

Today we started the morning with a river cruise at Camp Kwando before making the drive to Chobe River Camp, right on the border with Botswana. Confusingly we started the day with Botswana 50m to our west, and finished with it 50m to our east. The drive was very easy with tarmac, not all of which was good, all the way to the turn off for the camp. We stopped en route to do a bit of shopping and to try and get some Botswanan currency, we succeeded with the shopping, but again failed with the Botswanan currency. As we arrived into Chobe River Camp, the look of the chalets overlooking the river was too much, so we paid more money than was probably sensible to upgrade. This was however well worth it for the wonderful view from our bedroom, as the sun was setting we were watching a memory of 70 elephants in the setting sun over the river, wonderful. Morning River Cruise We started the day with another river cruise, this time it was just us and the guide on the boat, which made for a very peaceful. Read the full article…