Hello everyone, We last left you with our mountain experience. Our last week at Karongwe was spent doing visibility drives as well as regular game drives. The visibility drives are a part of prey count and it is used to help judge how well you can see the game from the road. Based on the information we gather, the park management put together a formula to derive how many prey animals there are in the reserve. It all sounds quite tedious but it was fun to get out of the truck and run into the bush with the tape measure. The way this works is one volunteer holds the tape while the other heads into the bush until they are not visible from the truck and a staff member accompanies you with a rifle in case something were to happen.
Most of the time it was uneventful but on our last day Anton and Ken went running into the bush and literally "ran" into a rhino. It was great to see this rhino so calm. After they crept back to the truck Anton took Kelly on foot to get a better look. After this rhino decided to head north so we all got back to the truck and followed him in hopes of a better view. We had to continue our work so we headed off to finish the survey and returned on he way home to seek another audience with "Lucky the rhino."
This was our last week spent on the reserve, we decided to leave a week early as we felt that we had more than enough of dorm life and wanted to see more of this part of South Africa. We rented a car and plan to drive the Blyde river canyon including its waterfall tour. The first set of pictures included a few of the views on this drive; new pictures have been added for this email update. It was so beautiful and we were so happy to be free, we definitely made the right choice. After this scenic drive we spent two nights in Nelspruit. There we visited the Lowveld National Botanical Garden which we enjoyed very much. It was winter so there were not a lot of flowers in bloom at the time. We have decided we are quite passionate about trees and there are so many here to admire.
One of my favorites is the Jackalberry tree, this thing defies nature in the way it grows. Its branches can grow in a curve like a snake or the “Y” of a sling shot; or the branches might spiral out from the trunk in all directions. Other favorites here so fare are the Marula, Knob Thorn and the Baobab. We found the Baobab to end all Baobabs and later found out from a South African familiar with this tree it is estimated to be over 4000 years old!!! There is another Baobab tree near Tzaneen, South Africa that contains a bar and is thought to be much older (we will have to go see this tree next time).
We enjoyed a few days drive in Kruger National Park where we were almost attacked by an elephant. This massive animal was only feet from our tiny car (a VW Chico) when it turned and lunged at the car. Needless to say we were both a bit shaken and put the VW peddle to the meddle to make our escape. Our drive through Kruger (which is the oldest national park in SA and is the size of Israel) gave us an appreciation for the intimate experiences we were able to enjoy with the wild life at Karongwe.
As our time in eastern South Africa ended we drove west to Johannesburg to set off on our next adventure Zambia. Zambia…….. Oh my goodness I do not know how more things could go wrong in one trip. The travel company that we had booked everything through messed up all of our plans. A) Our lodging B) our safari and C) our rafting. Needless to say we spent our first few days scrambling around trying to fix all the problems. By day three we had obtained new lodging, booked our rafting and a different safari. I am just glad we made it through because both of us were ready to bail on Zambia at any time and quite honestly the place is still very low on our list of countries to revisit.
Once we settled in and began enjoying the beauty of Victoria Falls we started to relax. The falls are absolutely breath taking; the sheer volume of water and expanse is amazing. The spray is so strong it is like being rained on when you are walking on the opposite escarpment to the falls. We took two separate walks around the falls, one was the dry version and another day we geared up for the soaking wet tour. We enjoyed a nice sunset cruise on the Zambezi just above the fall break. We did the infamous Zambezi white water rafting, it was fun but the trek in and out of the canyon was grueling. Unfortunately we were there during the high water season so we were only able to do 12 of the 23 rapids.
The greatest highlight of our trip up north was our safari into Botswana. This was a day trip that took us across the Zambezi river right at the meeting place of four countries; Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia. Once we crossed the river into Botswana, we started our tour of Chobe National Park with a river cruise on the Chobe River. This was the first park we went to that did not have fences and the wild animals truly roam free. We watched elephants cross the river from Botswana to Namibia. We also enjoyed the best birding so far.
This is another note of mention how much Don and I realized we are quite the “twitchers.” We were so fascinated with the bird life we had to purchase a most comprehensive southern Africa bird book which includes over 950 species. I could go into quite the diatribe about my theory about the birds of Africa vs. the birds of the Americas, but alas I will spare you all. Back to the safari; I really appreciated the different perspective we had seeing the wild life from the water. It was fun to see the game come down to take a drink, elephant’s splash and play. We were even so lucky as to see 4 giraffe come down to the water to drink, such a wonderful and funny sight.
In the end if all our plans had not gone wrong I don’t think we would have been as lucky as we were to experience what we did in Botswana. So even though the best laid plans may go astray it all works out for the best in the end. Not to be out done by others through all of our mishaps of Zambia, we messed up our departure day and we went to the airport one day early. Thankfully for a small fee and our mutual need to leave all went well and we headed to Cape Town on the 29th of June instead of the 30th as our extensive itinerary states.
As with our theme of the past few weeks one might be cautious to follow that itinerary as we are planning some other major changes as I write this email. Since we are back in civilization with electricity and internet access we’ve add a few new pictures for your enjoyment. Until our next update, we wish you all the best. Big hugs and Kisses to Emily, Hayden, William and Olivia!!!!! Kelly and Don
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