This morning we got the early wake up call (5.15am) for the morning safari. After coffee and toast, it was into the open trucks again. They think of everything at our lodge, and sent us out with hot water bottles and issued lined capes with hoods to keep us toasty while we ventured out in the freezing morning. Unfortunately, we were still frozen to the bone when we got back, but I’m sure it would have been worse without the capes and hotties. Being out and about in the park as the sun came up was beautiful. We saw more groups of elephants, zebra and giraffes. Our mission was to find some lions, and our guide (we had Nick this morning) was good at tracking. He spotted lion tracks across the sandy road, and we searched for ages for the lions, but all to no avail.
We departed from Muchenje Lodge after breakfast, and I regret not spending a few more days here to sit on the deck and take in the view and the animals, looking over the Chobe River valley to Namibia.
First we visited the village of Muchenje, where we went to the home of a ‘local’. One of her 10 children is a laundry maid at the lodge. It was a great visit, and humbling to see up close the difference in our circumstances.
We then drove in to Kasane, which is quite a crowded tourist spot, with heaps of lodges lining the river. We boarded a houseboat which will be our home for the next two nights. It travels up and down the Chobe River, and usually the Zambezi when the water level is higher. The border between Namibia and Botswana is a line down the middle of the river, so we did the passport stamping thing twice again – that’s out of Botswana and into Namibia.
The boat has 4 double rooms, and we were joined by four ladies from Sydney (a bit like Sex in the City on tour) who were great company. They seemed to cope well with sharing their peaceful boat cruise with two children. They were all grandmothers, and enjoyed having our boys teach them how to use their cameras.
We cruised up the river and moored opposite a popular spot for elephants to drink in the evenings. John and the boys went fishing in one of the speedboats, and the ladies went cruising too. So I sat on the deck in the silence of Africa, and watched as up to 100 elephants came and went at the river’s edge, drinking and bathing, playing and shoving each other, licking the ground for mineral salts, and then flicking dust all over themselves. It was different to a safari drive where you move on after a short time. Here, I watched for at least an hour and a half.

Our fantastic view.

At the local village, this is Emanuel and Jimmy with their push cart – African style!

Harry having a kick with one of the kids.

A splash in the tub on the house boat, with bonus elephants in the background.

This one’s for Sam and the team at RA. Taken soon after John checked his email. True!

Another friendly croc, way too close for me!

Tiger fish galore in the Chobe river.

A leisurely start to a beautiful day. We leave the lodge about 9.30am and the kids decide they want their own truck again, so it’s kids with guide Nick, and parents with guide KB. We go to a different region of the park this morning. Today is dubbed “elephant day” as we come across herd after herd of them. They are so serene, and have great character. One encounter was so close we could have leaned out and touched them. We saw them mourning around a deceased elephant which was quite moving. It’s amazing to watch them using their trunks to get foliage from the trees. And there were heaps of baby elephants too cute to describe. We also saw a big group sleeping. There were a lot lying around on the ground, as though they were all dead. Some sleep standing up. A few pics below.
The giraffes are elegant, and look so inquisitive as we drive past. We saw dozens throughout the day, including some young ones. The females are a much paler colour than the giraffes you find in Kenya, like those we would remember from the zoo. And the males are a dark brown.
I hadn’t bargained on such a variety of bird life here. The vultures were like watching a movie, and the Fish Eagle also amazing. There’s a bird caller a Roller, which had many pastel colours and electric blue wings when it flew.
We saw a group of mongoose (or should that be mongeese?), buffalo, impala, kudu, warthog, hippos, zebra, (including a genuine zebra crossing, pausing our vehicle while they trotted across our path), several different antelope species, huge scary crocodiles, monitors………but no lions. Maybe we’ll see them in Kenya.
We passed a lot of campers in the park. Apparently the animals leave them alone! We stopped for a picnic lunch and a kick of the footy with the other family, and then continued to Kasane where we boarded a small boat and spent a couple of hours getting up close with crocodiles, elephants and not so close to hippos.

The kid car – no parents allowed.

Ferg holding a very heavy elephant femur.

Yep, it’s a zebra.

My favourites.

A kudu – his horns are all curly due to calcium deficiency.

A young warthog. He grows whiskers that look like horns till his horns actually grow.

An impala, with Namibia across the river.

Our first hippo sighting.

Right next to the sleeping elephants.

Fast asleep!

See the baby underneath the mum! And there’s another asleep in the background.

I love them!

The banded mongoose.

Elephants mourning the carcass on the ground.

Ferg and Harry with their Chobe mates, Hugh and Will.

The lion tracks, but no lion to be seen.

And then we really saw some hippos!

Ferg with a croc behind him.

And he was a big one!

Ferg took this one. And below, outlook from our lodge with impalas and zebras everywhere.

It looks simple on the map. Google Map it if you like. You just zip from Livingstone in Zambia to Muchenje in Botswana. Right? Doesn’t look far.
But this is Africa! So we leave the Zambezi Sun resort (could have stayed there for a month) with a driver called Collins. He takes us to the river crossing by ferry, across the Zambezi river, to Botswana. We do the passport thing, then he sends us off on the ferry (takes about 3 minutes to cross), where we then meet Stanford, who takes us to the customs office. More passport business here. There’s a queue about 50 people long out the door, but we go to the foreigners window and miraculously get many stamps in our passports in very few minutes. There are some countries where the whole stamp thing has been left behind with the advent of new technology, like Australia where you don’t actually get a stamp in your passport. Then there’s the “stampers” . These include: India, Zambia, Mexico, Botswana – in fact anywhere that wields a bit of power at the border, and might just not be called a first world country. Thump, thump goes the stamp.
But I digress.
Stanford takes us about an hour’s drive to Kasane Airport for the “handover” . One could easily feel like a kidnappee! Here we are met by Nick, who works at the lodge we will be staying at here in Chobe National Park. Nick drives us the final 50 minutes or so and we arrive at the beautiful Muchenje Lodge, just outside the national park. We are greeted by our delightful hosts, Joy and Robert, and could not feel more at home in this spectacular place. We are perched on a rise above the Chobe River, with views across to Namibia on the other side of the river, and housed in two person bungalows. The lodge takes a maximum of just 22 guests. So good bye crowds.
After a huge lunch (I’m currently looking at dieting for a year after this trip) we head out for an afternoon safari drive. See photo below of Ferg taking the front seat.
Our truck is just for us, and two others head out too. The tracks are sandy and bumpy but before long we come across herds of impala, we see giraffes just cruising through the bush, there are vultures, warthogs, eagles, and my all time favourite – elephants. Photos below…..I have more elephant photos than you can imagine. We saw a family group having a mud bath and blowing dust all over them selves. It was quite amazing. I never really imagined it would be this good. The guides are just great. There is nothing they don’t know about the animals and the area. They have eagle eyes, and will stop the truck and turn off the engine to show us tiny birds perched among the trees that they spied, or a rare antelope camouflaged in the bush.
The whole area is so dry, it looks dead. The elephants have ravaged everything edible and it’s hard to imagine anything can survive. The boab trees are spectacular. Just huge, and leafless.
We stop about 5pm for sundowner drinks (photo below) where we get to know a family from Sydney in one of the other trucks. They have two boys about the same age as ours, so all of a sudden it is kid city. They get along like a house on fire, and after a couple of wines for the parents, we head back to the lodge with the kids in one truck and the “grown ups” in the other.
Some of the guests head out after dinner for a night safari, but we call it a day as we have a full day safari tomorrow.

The sun set with a glass of wine in hand. Baboons scared the birds into flight as I took the photo.

One of many beautiful boab trees.

Ferg up front in the truck, helping spot for wildlife.

An ugly warthog.

Elephants at the mud bath.

The vultures lie in wait.

What a fantastic day it’s been! John started with his usual run around the area, I visited the falls again and the boys relaxed. The resort is adjacent to the posh Royal Livingstone Hotel, but they share the same grounds. There are giraffes, zebras and impalas wandering around within the grounds, as well as the ubiquitous monkeys. It was quite surreal to see zebras nibbling on the grass by the pool!
After waffles for breakfast, we were taken to the helipad for the biggest buzz so far.
In a six seater helicopter, we had a 30 minute flight starting below the falls, dropping down into the gorge and banking round the bends. Then upstream to circle the falls. OMG! It was better than Discovery Channel! It gave perspective to the way the falls drop into a crack and then squeeze through a gap in the next zig zag of the river.

Here’s Ferg up front…..

And this is the amazing sight of the falls from the chopper:

It really takes your breath away.
We went further upstream to Long Island and happened to see some elephants there:

And we haven’t even gone on safari yet!
I have dozens more photos, and love them all. The boys faces were lit up the entire time we spent in the air, and Harry never stopped talking on the headset about what he could see. I think their adjective was “awesome” but I’m sure it meant more than the average awesome.
Time for a dip in the pool before wandering over to the Royal Livingstone to take a speed boat to Livingstone Island. This is where Dr. David Livingstone first saw Victoria Falls in 1855. He got there in a dugout canoe. I was happy with 80 horsepower to beat the current.
It’s the big island you can see towards the left of the edge of the falls in the photo above. Once there, you go barefoot (very muddy) to the absolute edge of the falls. No joke. No guard rails. Just a few billion litres of water streaming past you. I’m running out of superlatives, but it was great.

Here’s John near the edge. He got way closer than that. So did the boys.
We had a gorgeous lunch under a tent top to keep the spray off, just metres from the edge of the falls. Rainbows abound here.

We met some lovely people there, some Aussies, some Poms and Americans. We all traded stories of our travels so far. We headed back, impressed by the experience and what Livingstone had done all those years ago.
Next up, while wandering back to our hotel, we came across some giraffes including a 3 month old.

And then came the really random activity of the day! Here in Zambia, you can go for a ride on a Segway! I’ve never heard of these before, but they sure are fun.

We cruised around on these for an hour, and – you guessed it – Ferg and Harry want one. Each.
While the boys jammed in their third swim for the day, I nipped over to the falls for my third visit. Call me obsessed. I don’t care.

And here’s one last shot. One of the zebras hanging around the hotel.

For the second time in 10 days, we arose at an obscene hour. We left delightful Port Elizabeth on a 6am flight to Jo’burg, and another flight to Livingstone in Zambia, arriving mid afternoon at our hotel. We’re staying at the Zambezi Sun, which is the only hotel where you can walk to and from the falls. The township of Livingstone is 10km away. This is the Africa I remember from travelling in Egypt and Morocco – dusty and dirty, run down, everything needs a paint job, much idleness, no gutters, a “bargain” on every corner, at least half a dozen locals jammed in the back of a ute, pot holes in the roads that may never be fixed, and lots of happy faces.
I have dreamed for years of seeing Victoria Falls. It’s definitely one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. No matter which source offers a list, they’ll never leave out this one. We chilled by the pool while Ferg and Harry chilled in the pool. It’s a huge pool, and if we were here for a week, they wouldn’t get bored. We made a plan for tomorrow. This isn’t just seeing a water fall. They have every activity option available here from fishing to bungy jumping. Then we grabbed the raincoats and wandered over to a Natural Wonder if you don’t mind! Can’t believe I’ve finally made it.
You just pop out of the trees and there it is:

It’s noisy and it’s wet. The spray flies up with the force of the updraft from the water crashing down constantly. It’s really amazing. It’s 1.7km wide of continuous water fall. You can view it from just at the edge before the water tumbles down, and then walk around to the eastern cataract (in your raincoat) are see it face on through the spray.

There’s an entry fee you have to pay to visit the falls, but they don’t put it towards new signs! I guess that’s part of the colonial charm about the place.

And then the sun set over the Zambezi! Sounds like a cheesy movie hey?