Joining Jeff and Joe on the Zimbabwe and Botswana Game Tracker 16 day accommodated tour (ZBa16), I (Tara-Lee) embarked on my first ever safari with Sunway, and first real time leaving South Africa.
I am writing this first part of my blog while enjoying the peace and tranquillity of the Okavango Delta while the clients are out walking.
Day 1 saw us heading towards the Kruger National Park, our first destination on tour. While enroute Jeff gave us lots of information on Johannesburg and Pretoria, and the many smaller towns we past through.
Driving through the Magoebaskloof pass outside of Tzaneen was amazing, the scenery is beautiful. The many farms in the area produce various different fruits and veg, from banana to mango, to avocado's. All of which are sold along the road by the locals.
We stopped for lunch in Letsitele near Phalaborwa before heading to Kruger for our first game drive. Our first sighting was a lilac breasted roller, followed shortly by some kudu, these majestic antelope are the logo for SA Parks (South African National Parks) who run Kruger, Mkuze, Addo, etc. to name but a few of the parks that Sunway visits on various tours.
We also saw 3 of the big 5, large herds of buffalo, a pride of lions that had a kill, a single lioness that had been separated from her pride and was looking and calling for them, many elephants in small family groups. The leopard and rhino at this point remained elusive. We also saw a vulture who had managed to get a piece of the lion kill, and 2 hyena, 1 of which was lying in a storm water drain trying to keep cool and have a sleep.
On arrival in camp we were allocated our tents by means of "grab a key out a hat", we settled in and then assisted Jeff and Joe with dinner which was Chicken a la king, super delicious. While having dinner a very young steenbok decided to investigate the group.
After a briefing by the guides and showers, we all retired to our respective rooms.
Day 2 had an early start as we had a full day game drive ahead. While having breakfast we had the honour of some local wildlife joining us before we climbed aboard the "red elephant" to enjoy the game drive.
Our first sighting, just outside the camp gate was a lone male giraffe, a short while late we ran into a herd of giraffe grazing on the trees. We soon added more buffalo to our tally, as well as baboons, warthog, impala, crocodile, water buck, grysbok and bush buck.
As we drove toward our lunch spot we were greeted by a large herd of Hippo enjoying the sun on the river bank. These large herbivores are responsible for many human deaths annually, they do not kill humans to eat them, they kill to protect there young or if they feel threatened themselves.
After lunch we continued our game drive, spotting more buffalo and warthog. We came across a very recent and partially eaten kill, but failed to locate the owners, the scavengers, hyena and vulture, had yet to arrive.
Driving on we were greeted by a small shy herd of Roan Antelope, they weren't too keen on posing for photos unfortunately.
There are a few bridges located in Kruger where you are allowed to get out of your vehicle, on one such bridge we spotted some Nyala, buffalo, baboons, a water monitor and a terrapin all enjoying the water in the river below. We then headed to the gate to make our way to our next destination, Awelani.
We were lucky in that the weather experienced so far had been cool and comfortable for traveling.
On arrival at Awelani, we were greeted by the staff, given a short briefing on meal times and allocated our rooms, unfortunately due to the windy weather we were not able to have our dinner in the cave as hoped, but we did have an awesome dinner in the dinningroom.
I was rather amazed that the ground was soft "beachsand" instead of the expected hard soil from home. It was here that I learnt that the soil was like this for the remained of the tour.
Waking up on day 3, we enjoyed a lovely breakfast provided by the lodge before making our sandwiches for lunch, boarding the truck and heading to the Zimbabwe border at Beit Bridge.
We stopped in the border town of Musina for some shopping before tackling the border formalities at Beit Bridge. Thankfully we managed to be ahead of the rush and got through the South African border within 15 minutes, crossing to the Zimbabwe side we completed the necessary forms, paid the required fee and waited patiently for the Visas to be processed. Thankfully the entire process took less than an hour, we were then able to continue our long drive to our next destination, Great Zimbabwe Hotel.
As Joe so rightly called it, the road from Beit Bridge to Great Zimbabwe is "an African massage". The road is extremely bumpy in this part of Zimbabwe, however you pass through some of the most beautiful landscapes and scenery I have ever seen.
On arrival at Great Zimbabwe Hotel, you are transported back to a time of British Colonial elegance, the hotel is set in beautiful gardens, the buildings are well maintained and the staff are extremely friendly and hospitable. We were shown the restaurant where we were to have dinner and then we were shown to our rooms.
Dinner was a buffet of local produce all deliciously prepared. We were even offered a taster from the chef’s pot, goat meat. Some of the more adventurous clients tried it, I think its tastes a lot like lamb.
Rising early on day 4, we enjoyed breakfast prepared by the group at the truck before making our way to the Great Zimbabwe Ruins. I have written a separate blog on the ruins, as I feel that they deserve their own special detailed blog instead of just touching on it here. The ruins are steeped in a rich history that dates back so many thousands of years it’s hard to comprehend. You can only image the grandeur that the ruins may have been.
After the guided tour of the ruins, we enjoyed a lunch of freshly prepared burgers before heading off once again to our next destination, Matopos National Park.
We arrived at Hermits Peak at 16:45, we dropped everything in the rooms and headed to the hide to view the animals at "feeding time", the local guide walked out onto the veld to be greeted by the waiting wildebees, warthog, zebra and giraffe. More giraffe arrived as we sat and watched the animals. The rest of the evening consisted of dinner and relaxing.
Day 5 arrived amidst excitement and some nervousness, the weather had turned very cold and we were about to embark on an open vehicle game drive into the Matopos to find the elusive and endangered rhino's. Armed with blankets we set off.
After driving for a while in search of the rhino, we were greeted by one of the men in the anti poaching unit, these guys patrol the whole of the Matopos National Park on foot in order to protect the rhino, they have a policy of “shoot to kill, no questions asked” should they find any person within the park boundary with a gun.
He advised that there was a family group of rhino just over the ridge and that he would take us to them, we all got off the vehicle and "trekked" to find the group. We were not disappointed at all, a group of 5 white rhino's were lying peacefully in the grass. This brought the big 5 tally to 4.
All of the rhino's in Matopos have been dehorned for their own safety, the removed horns are then stored in a high security facility in Harare. The guys in the antipoaching unit are basically the caretakers of these beautiful creatures, they advise the dehorning unit when a rhino/group of rhinos is in need of dehorning, this happens roughly every few months as the horn continues to grow. After saying good bye to the very peaceful group of rhino we made our way back to the vehicle to continue the day’s activities.
Enroute we spotted a herd of Sable antelope, a klipspringer, and a family of Tawny eagles.
Next stop was the cave paintings, after climbing up to the top of the rocky outcrop, we made our way to the cave paintings, these paintings are thousands of years old. The views from the top of the outcrop were amazing, you felt like you were on top of the world.
After climbing down the outcrop we made our way to the final destination in the park, Rhodes Grave and World's View. Climbing yet another rocky outcrop, you come to the grave of Cecil John Rhodes, he chose to be buried on this particular granite outcrop facing England, his home.
The grave of Leander Starr Jameson, Rhodes's right hand man is also located there. There is so much history in this particular location.
Here we spotted the Southern flat lizard and some elephant shrew.
We then headed back to Hermits Peak for lunch and some free time for the clients, I did some site visits of accommodation in area. The early evening saw the clients enjoy a sunset game walk before dinner.
Day 6 breaks with the first sign of the hot weather to come.
After breakfast we board the truck and head off to our next destination, Hwange National Park.
Enroute we stopped off at the Painted Dogs Conservation Centre, just outside of the National Park. At the Visitors Centre we were introduced to the story of “Eyespot” before the group was given the option of seeing the current painted dog family group of 10 being housed at the rehabilitation centre. We enjoyed lunch prepared by the group at the red elephant before heading off to Miombo where we were to spend the next 2 nights.
The clients enjoyed the free afternoon, some just relaxing, some in the pool. The cool weather of the past few days was all but a memory.
Day 7 begins with the clients and Joe heading off for a full day game drive with local guides, as Jeff and I head off for site visits in the area. I was so excited at the one site visit as they have a waterhole out front and while we were there various herds of elephants came to the waterhole to drink. We saw no fewer than 100 elephant at the waterhole, each herd given space and time at the waterhole before moving on and the next herd moved in. It was truly amazing to watch.
The clients managed to see no fewer than 16 lions while on their game drive, but sadly the elusive leopard was yet to be spotted.
That evening once everyone had returned from the game drive, we enjoyed a meal of "drunken chicken" prepared by Jeff and the group.
Day 8 saw us enjoy breakfast at the truck before heading off to Victoria Falls. The drive was pretty uneventful but extremely hot. On arrival in Vic Falls we stopped to book activities for day 9 before heading off to the Falls for our guided tour of "Mosi O Tunya" the "smoke that thunders" with a local guide. All I can say is "wow", the water levels may be low at this time of year but the falls remain absolutely beautiful. The walk was long, 1700m, the sun was hot, 32degrees Celsius, but the views were worth everything.
On leaving the falls we stopped for lunch at In Da Belly, I just love the name. The menu is varied, offering many local dishes and options of venison and fish. I was too hot to eat much so settled for pancakes.
After lunch we made our way to Rainbow Hotel, our accommodation for the next 2 nights, to relax and enjoy the pool or catch up on some very needed sleep.
Day 9 broke with me having once again to get up early, the clients had a "rest" day where they could do various own expense activities, I had an 8am pick up for a helicopter flip over the falls, this is one activity all clients should do, it was absolutely fantastic, I even forgot to take many photos, but I did make a small video.
After my helicopter flip I was dropped off at the hotel to be immediately be collected by Brent of Adventure Zone who had graciously agreed to be my chaffuer for the morning and drive me to various accommodation establishments for site visits. He then dropped me at the Zimbabwe/Zambia border so I could cross to Zambia and do a site visit there too.
On arrival in Zambia I got to surprise some of the Sunway guides, Shadreck and Bryan, who were starting a Namibia and Botswana Southern Circle 21 day accommodated tour (NBa21) and Patrick Page and Rochelle, who were starting a Namibia and Botswana Desert and Delta 21 day camping tour German departure (NBg21), was super to meet the guides and clients all ready for their adventures.
After lunch I returned to Zimbabwe for my final site visit before retiring for the evening, it was a very interesting, busy and super hot day.
Day 10 broke to a group breakfast at Rainbow Hotel where I again bumped into guides, Moses and Simba, who were finishing a Cape Town to Victoria Falls Grand Explorer 21 day accommodated tour (CVa21), before leaving the beautiful country of Zimbabwe and heading off to the second chapter of our adventure, Botswana.