{Random unrelated photo}

The flying was uneventful. There’s not even any sleep to mention. I flew Johannesburg to Hong Kong, and Hong Kong to Sydney and that’s all there is to it. Arriving in Sydney (which was just yesterday now) was the eventful part.
My old mate Lyndal picked me up, took me on a brief tour of Bondi and the eastern suburbs, brought us back to her place and went to bed. I picked up my sim card, stuffed around to get it enabled, and then tried to call Zimbabwe to find my lost video tape. This exercise was almost as fun as calling Australia from Botswana, but in the end I was successful in getting through, though nothing came up locating the tape. Steve (a good mate I’m travelling right through New Zealand with) SMSd me to whinge about the backpackers’ accommodation and then it was off to bed.

Lyndal and her roommate were up early and so was the freeloader crashing on the floor (that’s me). After they’d left I went for a wander to the beach, and along the way grew into quite a funk. Even at 8am people along the paths were quite unfriendly, without even looking at you, let alone saying G’day. Even older folk who, in my experience, are among the most talkative refused to make eye contact. On top of this I discovered I’d left my spare camera battery in Pretoria with Anrie’s family, and my current battery was dead. The weather was overcast and so Bronte beach wasn’t as pleasant as I’d hoped, and I was just feeling really down. The clincher for my funk was yet to come. On my way back to the house I came across what looked like the start of a bar-room brawl up on the road ahead. As I approached I watched as three people walked completely past without even looking, and as I got right close I saw that it wasn’t even two blokes, but one of them was a woman! As I stepped off the kerb to butt in the buy ripped the rear wiper off the back windscreen of the woman’s car, thrashed it against the car and threw it at her legs before grabbing her to man-handle her again. I said “Look stop it mate, you’re beating on a woman” to which he said “I am not beating a woman” but let go and started to back away cowardly. At the moment’s silence the woman started yelling that he never cares about anyone and such and such that make me think she perhaps wasn’t the best at avoiding violent confrontation. I looked at her while she got in the car and drove off, and the guy picked up some other plastic once-was-car-appendage off the road, muttering to himself.
I turned and left, feeling terribly depressed at the world as a whole being so contrasty. I’d just arrived from Zimbabwe where the “high people” were destroying families, communities and slowly the country, but the people as individuals were collectively the entirely friendliest I’ve come across {or did come across in the whole trip}. To see this then in my home country where the whole place is one great opportunity and this sort of activity happens openly in public just put me in such a massive rut. (Though sleep deprivation doesn’t help I’m sure.)

On my way over the hill from Lyndal’s place to the Post Office to mail some no-longer-useful stuff home I came across a Catholic church with lots of little old ladies on their way in for the beginning mass. In my state of mind I thought “why not, it can surely only help” so in I went. The service was far from simple, with lots of sayings (or mutterings) and mini-rituals all over the place, but it was somehow comforting and I left feeling somewhat refreshed and revitalised.
I mailed off a large box home, and went to a nearby Internet café to update these blog entries online. An hour later I thought to check my flight to see if it was delayed. To my sock and mild horror I found I’d made a terrible mistake.

Before I’d left I didn’t have a proper itinerary sent to me; the only info I had on my Sydney-Auckland flight was a flight number and a time. I took this time to be the departure time, but it was actually the arrival time, and so I’d missed my flight! In no time I was on the phone to my travel agent for another flight and as fate would have it the cheapest option was for me to fly through Brisbane! So ironic that I’d just sent mail there.
Oh well, nothing else for it. I got to see the family at least (and leave again soon too), the worst part wasn’t the inconvenience so much as the extra cost. Serves me right for not checking my proper itinerary while I was in Africa.

Well now, for the first time in quite a while this journal is up to date! We’re just approaching Auckland too, so here’s to a whole nother holiday in NZ!

After some administrative work, I was off again on the road to the airport to return to Jo’burg and ultimately on to Sydney and New Zealand. Along the way I stopped at to buy some souvenirs and ended up getting rid of … er, exchanging a broken watch, a pair of pants, some mini-toy koalas, two pens and some small cash for quite a few wooden trinkets – only animals that I saw in the wild though.
Before long I was down in Jo’burg once again, the flight made all the more palatable by an extremely pleasant steward with a vibrant repartee and an open yet velvetly seductive voice. Even when he sprayed the cabin with toxic fumes as per South African regulations he did it in a manner that made you smile and feel warm inside.
At the airport, Anrie and her mother greeted me and we were straight back to their place. It was here that I realised I’d lost my first video tape! This was a crushing blow, I had about 50mins of great memorabilia on there, of stuff that I didn’t really take photos of too. Such a disappointment. I’ve since been calling hotels and tour companies trying to find it but I’m not holding out a whole lot of hope. {It has since been located, but it is at the discretion of Zimbabwe Post as to whether or when it might make it back to me}
Well the night did get better, we went out to a nearby bar to celebrate my imminent departure from the continent and we had an odd but great time. Anrie’s sister broke up with Anrie’s boyfriend on her behalf, and Anrie ended up getting with another old mate, and Antoinette came and left before I could really speak with her (not that I paid her a lot of attention), and Bryce came and drank with us all one last time, and we went to a seedier sort of place and I had a go at one of the guys with us for getting sleezy with Marisa (Antoinette’s sister) & some of the other girls, and I got with Marisa, and we finally left at 3:30am and Jana’s (Anrie’s sister; my ride home) boyfriend had a car accident and we went to help him out & calm him down and we finally got in at about 5am.
And we got up at 7am, but only briefly for me before rising properly after 8am. Over to the Sheraton to pick up my luggage that I didn’t take on tour, back to repack, put the boot into the girls and to the airport we go. Some short but heartfelt goodbyes, and I’m off.

That night was our tour’s last night wholly together, so we had a big one! It was also Colin’s retirement and also his birthday so he had a huge one! It was bucketing down at one point and I had my back-pack with me and Abbey was keen to leave as well as worried about staying at her campsite. So we left, I escorted her to her place with the deal of her being able to crash at my room in the spare bed if her power was out. Her power wasn’t out so she went on in and I went on to my hotel. Before arriving I felt that I’d like to not yet go to sleep so I dumped my gear and returned to the backpackers where the party was still kicking and people bought me drinks upon returning!

Eventually I did actually go back to the hotel and sleep, but soon enough I was off again – this time on my way to a large section of gorge so I could take the plunge of the largest free fall along the Zambezi (at least near Vic Falls). At 70m it was larger than the bungy jump and the gorge swing on the Zambia side, and I was really looking forward to it! The idea was a 70m free fall straight down the side of the cliff, then a 95m pendulum swing out from there. Fantastic, sign me up!
Lucky was the guy who picked me up and we got out to the gorge and he took me through it a couple of times, telling me the different ways to jump off. After I asked again the options (backwards arm crossed, forward sky dive & forward pencil dive) he mentioned another way – do a handstand and then fall head first. Alright, we had a winner! And before I really had any psyche-up time I was up on my hands (my feet held up by another bloke) and Lucky was starting to whoop in my ear to get me off. There’s no turning back when someone’s gripping you like that so I counted myself down from 3 and plunged.
I don’t really know what I was expecting before I fell, but what I was expecting as I fell was imminent death, and boy did my scream give it away! Hearing it on the video footage is really quite funny – it’s not a normal “woooo-yeah” sort of scream, it really sounds like the person making it is going to die. Lucky says on camera while I’m swinging “Have to ask him what the problem was… perhaps it was too much beer last night”. Maybe it was, but rushing at an oncoming cliff base didn’t help! Anyway it was a mad rush and I’d love to do it again any time!

Flight DJ188
Brisbane --> Auckland

The next day was big. 8am pickup, over the border into Zambia (incidentally where most of these farmers ended up thanks to the government handing out free land and free loans. Guess who sells Zimbabwe most of their maize now?). We were promptly decked out in life vests and helmets and sent with our paddles down a gorge and into the mighty Zambezi River for some white water rafting.
I’d opted to do half of it river-boarding, so two others and I were at first given two flippers and a board, and in we jumped! Before we even went through a rapid I was getting really stuffed just kicking around in the open water getting through currents. Going through the rapids on the board was almost just like being sucked through a dishwasher, but it was quite fun to be put through the ride. After a couple of runs on the boards we jumped into a raft, and then back on the boards. I really enjoyed the raft more, and I was also dunked quite severely by one rapid (lost my board, sucked down and just when you think you’re close to reaching the surface again you still can’t see it). After that I was dragged over to a big side pool by a whirlpool that took absolutely forever to kick out of, by which time I was so stuffed that I didn’t want to do the boarding any more. Actually all three of us boarders had had enough by then, and hey, the rafting was more fun anyway!
The rafting was far better than what I’d tried before in Austria – lots of Level 5s (highest level commercially raftable) and a good long run too. Towards the end the rapids got easier and we started doing tricks, like all sitting in the back and leaning as far back as possible while going through the rapid, to try and tip it over lengthways. We were also allowed to swim through some of the rapids – which I thoroughly enjoyed; more freedom than the body board and as much fun sloshing around as being in the raft. You could dive down before a crest, making use of the downwards sucking to pull you down a little more, and then the lifejacket would help to shoot you up the other side. Great fun!
At its best time of year (mid-late October) the Zambezi is rated the best commercial rafting in the world! On top of that, it has one of the meanest hill climbs to get out of it at the end – taking some of the people well over an hour to make. But the buffet of food and beverages at the top made it entirely worth it. And I’m informed we were lucky to get in as the first third of the rapids were closed the very next day because of dangerous water.

Flight DT233
Sydney --> Brisbane

In Victoria Falls I had booked just the default accommodation that Kumuka used, the Sprayview Hotel, but for some reason almost everyone else on my tour had booked into Shoestring Backpackers. This suited me fine as I felt I could really use some downtime. I was quite low on physical cash; we’d been promised a stop in Kasane in Botswana before entering Zimbabwe but it had never actually eventuated. Money is important to get right in Zimbabwe, as you aren’t allowed to withdraw or change into any currency other than ZIM$ while there, but it is such a pathetically worthless currency that most activities and services prefer of even demand US$ or other major foreign currencies. I wasn’t aware of this either before arriving in the country so I found myself in a slight pickle. So, that first afternoon after seeing the presentation on the options for what adventure stuff there is to do I wandered down to check out the ATM facilities. The idea is to get out ZIM$, then change them either with mates or local money changers that get around, or if you want, the black market. OK, so at the ATM I find out that it only gives a maximum of ZIM$800,000 – that sounds like enough but it’s actually less than US$10. This was quite a blow because I needed millions of ZIM$ for what I wanted to do. I grabbed enough for dinner and left it at that.

I was really looking for a rest that afternoon, and was low on cash, but knew I’d be low on time over the following days so I pushed on and went down to see the falls. It was, of course, a great move and entirely worth the US$20 and all the time I had.
It was simply amazing to see so much water! At some place you could see the falls clearly and there was only a slight mist-fall in the air, but at most vantage points of the mail fall there was just a swirl of mist and spray that soaked everything. If only I’d been warned earlier I’d have brought wet weather gear, but oh well, being wet is a very minor complaint to have when you are walking around the Victoria Falls!
The falls are just magnificent to see and an absolute must to view if you are ever anywhere near them.

Dinner was at The Safari Lodge. The setting there is just fantastic, out overlooking a waterhole and plains, and in our case a sunset. I ordered Guineafowl Hors Dervs and the Warthog Fillet with some quite nice imported wine, and a coconut ice-cream sandwich for desert. I very highly recommend warthog as a meat, it really is one of the best meats I’ve tried – quite gamey, and with a wonderful texture. But everything else about the meal was great too, and all ten of us there (our tour plus some starting the next tour) had a great time until the bill came. We knew it would be some outrageous number, and it was: about $18,600,000.00 – but it took us literally 45mins to put the money together and count it up. It seems crazy to say “ah whoops, we’re still $400,000 short” but that’s how it happened. And even with pills of $20,000 each and some payment in US$ the pile of money was depressingly large. IT really highlights the problems of the country, and is quite the shame.

In Zimbabwe you do not speak out openly against President Mugabe if you don’t appreciate a quiet evening in a prison cell. But still I found chatting to taxi drivers and other locals they are openly sad about the current situation. About six years ago Mugabe kicked out of the country all the non-african farmers. They had the option to pack up and burn down their own homes, or to have them burned down for them. Within 12 months of the farmers leaving, the country was already importing maize (the staple); those to whom the land was given had no training or experience working land.
As the farmers left, they sold everything they could, and converted all their cash to hard US$ so they could take it wherever they went. This caused a massive devaluation of the ZIM$ (which not long before was stronger than the South African Rand), but one that Mugabe refused to recognise. He froze the conversion rate of US$->Zim$ despite the rest of the world and the black market having insanely different values – in the order of magnitude of thousands of times greater.
This absolutely screwed the country financially, and apparently most of it is still fairly inaccessible to cautious tourists. Many people, Colin noted, and himself among the first will be celebrating a very large party the day Mugabe dies.

In Victoria Falls the upshot of all this is mostly that everything is quite cheap. It is a wonderful little town – I didn’t feel threatened by anyone I passed on the street, even when walking alone in the early evening. And I got on just so wonderfully well with all the people I spoke to – from the concierge at the hotel to the security guards at the ATM to taxi drivers to random folk at the bar. If ever I wanted a good time to de-stress or find fun, I think Vic Falls is where I’d go first.

It was nice to sleep in a bed for a night, and I even snored a whole lot less apparently. It still was a late night though and we were all up early for the drive to Chobe (Kasane).

Ah yes, the drive to Chobe. A few hours in, the truck pulled up without us asking (we’d normally ring a bell from the back whenever we wanted a pit stop) and we all piled out. Colin, the driver, felt something strange, and checked the front tyres – they were shot completely. One of them had an entire half of it balded, the other had eaten through the rubber into the steel meshing of the radial, and in one place through that to the rubber below! The day prior, Colin had the truck serviced and the wheels “computer aligned”. A quick measure with some twine showed the alignment was out by just over an inch! So Colin and I got to it.
It was difficult to adjust the alignment without a pipe wrench to turn the bar, but we eventually got it. There was only one spare wheel, but another was taken from the back wheels which were doubled up on each side (one wheel on the back could easily handle the bearing load of the truck in its current configuration). The spare wheel was up above the kitchen area at the back of the truck, about 2.5m above the road. To get the spare down we just climbed up and pushed it off and waiting for it to stop bouncing and rolling. Getting the dud one up – that was a mammoth job. We’d already spent over an hour under the truck, bolting and rebolting these great big wheels, but for Colin and I to lift this one, well, even the girls all stood up to engage in the spectacle. Just think about how heavy a wheel must be to bear the weight of and steer a 20 tonne truck (with load). Nat climbed up to the platform, Colin and I took deep breathes and hoisted. Getting it to shoulder height wasn’t too bad, but getting it above my head was really tough. As we’re both standing there, trembling under the weight on our heads Colin says “right, now we have to lift it right above our heads”. I told him that I was pretty darn sure that I couldn’t manage that, and we still wouldn’t reach. We called the girls to bring over some chairs (small camp stools that fold in half to pack down) but I told Colin I wouldn’t be able to climb that either (and he was quite a bit shorter than me anyway). Hmm. After a bit he hoisted his end a little to put it on an edge on the truck, climbed up on a stool and then came the big moment – it just had to go up.
1, 2, 3 and with a big surge of energy, sure enough I did manage to hoist the tyre high enough for Nat to get half a hand on it. Colin scrambled up the back and finished the flip and lift, but the day was mine, with steel mesh splinters in my hands and small but vicious ant bites all up my legs the girls clapped and cheered and swooned, and I was the hero from then on. (Until I accidentally burped out loud over dinner one night and lost every piece of noble standing I had).

On the road again, and an hour later we made a pit stop. I was just unzipping my pants when Abbie called from the truck to look up – there was an elephant not 30m away! At first I thought “Oh wow, that’ll be a nice view while I’m going” but it very soon dawned on me that I was in quite a bit of danger, as he was staring right at me and actually started to move towards us. I yelled over to Nat who was making a quick dash for a bush, and she skedaddled quick smart, as did I. Plenty more bush down the road.

And so it came to pass that we reached Kasane, quite late, it was all we could do to throw some foodstuffs together in an esky and jump on the truck that was taking us down to the safari game cruise along the Chobe River.
It was a really nice cruise, we saw bachelor packs of elephants mucking around in the river, a large group of hippo, a mother crocodile nesting, lesothos, fish eagles, pied kingfishers, other sea birds and some cattle. Yeah cattle: along one side of the river is the Chobe national park in Botswana, and along the other side is private land in Namibia. There’s even an island in the middle that the two countries are still arguing over.
That night was our last in tents for the tour, and I can’t say I was disappointed about that either. Up early in the morning we went on a game cruise through Chobe National Park in a safari truck. Our guide was great, Leash and Loz sat up front and worked on him to see if we could find some big cats (there are lion and leopard in the park apparently). So in between the copious numbers of baboon, impala, hippo and elephants he’d stop the truck whenever he came across paw tracks, and even followed them back and forward. Right towards the end as we were heading towards leaving the park we stopped next to another group who’d found one of the two lion prides in the park. After finding out where they were we were off, and off the beaten path too, in 4WD mode and all. We found them soon enough, and we were all stoked to see wild lion. They certainly weren’t phased by us at all though, which I found slightly odd; they looked right through us as though we weren’t there. This was great though, a real highlight of the trip. We found out on the way back that the driver wasn’t actually supposed to leave the roads, so we tipped him quite well at the end.

That was it for Chobe for us, we jumped on the truck and off to Zimbabwe we went.
The border was interesting, after leaving Botswana and just before going through the gate into Zimbabwe, some guy off to the side in some home-boy jeans and dodgy shirt hassled us to see our passports and receipts for the visas we’d just bought. This guy had no ID or even official pose or demeanour. We followed Colin’s lead though, and did what he asked. He slowly but properly checked everything was in order and asked us what was in the truck. Colin answered not untruthfully, but didn’t mention the blank CDs and DVDs that were being taken into and through the country because they would be taxed of seized or some such weak excuse. He and Nat said to us it wasn’t really smuggling though. Hmm. At any rate this guy was too lazy to check for himself and he waved us through. “Let’s go throw ourselves off things!” Colin cried as we climbed back into the truck.
CX748 Johannesburg --> Hong Kong

We didn’t’ take the early morning walk option the next day; soon after we woke and ate it was pack up and ship out time. Another two hours in the mokoros and an hour and a half in the safari truck and we were back at Camp Sitatunga in Maun, just long enough to settle our bar tabs and reload the truck for the drive to Gweta.
I sat up front with Colin (the driver) to escape the girls and enjoy some male company and an FHM magazine. That night we stayed in a nice campsite in Gweta, and most of us upgraded our tents to a nice cabin. In the bar before dinner I had drinks and conversation with a couple of racists.
They were the owners of the campsite, originally from South Africa, and we started up with some friendly talk about Moreton Bay Bugs which he just loved. What did raise my ire was them telling us about the “blacks”. She told us the story of how their daughter in Australia met a random woman on the bus whose daughter and friends were travelling to South Africa. Of course the campsite owner’s daughter dobbed in her own parents to offer accommodation and a base for them there. She told us frankly how when these Aussies arrived they were upset to hear terms like “the blacks” but how at the end of the trip they themselves were cussing them and using all sorts of terms themselves.
I shortly excused myself politely and went to find more wholesome company. I pondered the obvious open generosity of these people and how it contrasted such a dark streak.
It was nice to sleep in a bed for a night, and I even snored a whole lot less than in the tents apparently. It was still a late night though, and we were all up early in the morning for the drive to Kasane.

Later in the arvo I had another crack at the mokoro and in another 15mins I could go further than where we were allowed to go, in a straight line without hitting any reeds, and do manoeuvres like U turns in open water and parking on the shore. Great to have another skill to add to my resume.
In the late arvo West and Frank took three of us on a mokoro cruise. It had just showered so the other girls didn’t want to come for fear of getting wet (…). It was great – soon we spotted a single bull elephant and West took us towards him. We pulled up and stood in the boat and watched him drink and graze and wander right across our field of view hardly 50m away. As West was explaining about single bulls that somehow know where to roam to find females and how agitated they usually are when they do, the bull decided he wasn’t going to let us watch him any more, and he turned to face us, and opened his ears at us. West quickly called “get down!” and we all dropped in the boats, Frank and I first because we were wearing white and yellow – not good to wear in front of an elephant. At this the bull was satisfied and he turned back around, resumed munching and strolled away. A memorable first encounter with a wild elephant!
We pulled back into camp and not an hour later the sky fell. It was great thunder and lightning and masses of rain that just wouldn’t let up, so we had to make a run for the tents in the rain and try to best sleep through such a storm in a tent. I think someone said it stopped at 3am, but the campsite was flooded in the morning. Welcome to the Okavango Delta.

Sprayview Hotel, Victoria Falls
Zimbabwe