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THE OVERLAND "ADVENTURE"

Our 11 day Overland Tour began in Vic Falls (the Zimbabwe side) and took us through Botswana and South Africa. Our group included 13 Australians and 2 poor Brits that got stuck with us!!

The ATC truck - our home for 11 days, and Dumi, our very patient "Truck" driver for that time!

Zimbabwe and Vic Falls

So anyway i got a little distracted there. The story begins in Vic Falls (I've skipped the airport scenes, the duty free, delayed flights, shit seats and meals and the overall tiredness that goes with intenational travel. Everyone has a similar story so just retell yours for good measure!).

However, the Vic Falls airport does rate a mention, where upon arriving and paying the US 40 dollar entry fee (more exclusive than night clubs in Melbourne is Zimbabwe) we strolled passed a sleeping customs official to find our bags not on a carousel, but sprawled across the airport floor. I am generally a reasonable guy, but climbing over 50 suitcases to get to my backpack after 25 hours of flying i can get a little narky! So Vic Falls "international airport" is the size of the Whyalla airport and not in that good of condition. Subsequently we would have left pretty quickly but nothing in Africa moves that fast and we had to wait for fellow passengers to log their missing luggage, so our transfer guy could leave.

We passed the time staring at the ceiling and inventing new games, my personal favourite was "How many AK-47's can you spot?" while Mel played a lot of "Don't make eye contact so they wont shoot us!". Seriously though there was a lot of weaponary in the airport and it wasn't until we hit Jo'burg that we saw any more, but thats covered later!

When we eventually left the airport we began to remember the words of the Smart Traveller website which when boiled down basically says to you "Please don't go. If you like waterfalls and wildlife, have you been to the Northen Territory?", so we were a little edgy! "Next stop backpackers" was the thought that we and our fellow passengers had running through our minds... Not to be... First stop was in the middle of nowhere, the driver just decides to pull over at 80km/h into an area where the locals were just milling about, next to a sign that says "no stopping". Turns out they weren't there to rob us blind and sell my kidney on the black market, but a government ministers convoy was driving past and we had to pull over. Thankyou smart traveller - you owe me a pair of new jocks.

Once we took off again and my heart rate slowed from obese american school boy to mildly unfit 26 year old, next stop back packers........ Guess what thats not what happened. Apparantly next stop on our "airport to backpackers transfer" was a tiny little room with six chairs against a wall, "oh" i thought to myself "this is what smart traveller was talking about where western tourists go to die!". We sit down, the driver leaves in his car with our bags in it (and all of our possessions for the next 6 months) - Melissah's giving me a look that says "told you we should have listened to that website" I was trying not to return that look with one that said "1 day in and we lose all our bags and are probably going to die... We're fucked" instead i smiled. Turns out smart traveller was mind fucking us (thats for james king) - they were part of the tour company and were just selling us white water rafting, bungee jumping etc etc. Our van returned, they took us to the back packers. Smart Traveller your black listed.

So I could wax lyrical about the majesty of the falls, the white water rafting, the wildlife just hanging out in town, the happy people and the cool guys we met or changing US $10 and becoming a millionaire (literally) but i'm not. I am going to tell you about my taxi driver. Mel, two aussie birds that i can't remember the names of and myself were heading home for a night cap, so we were waiting for a taxi at the local camp. The cab arrived with a backfire that woke the neighbours and sent security guards scrambling for their guns. When the security guards lowered their weapons we all piled into the car through its one working door and before anyone had time to sit down properly, we were off. Hands launched sideways looking for a hand rail, door handle or seatbelt -not to anyones surprise they had all been removed / fallen off / were broken. That should have been the end of it there especially when 25m down the road Graham (not his real name but you wont attach to the character if he doesn't have a name and i can't remeber his actual name) pulled over, opened the boot and started tightening the lid of his 2lt coke bottles full of petrol. When Graham jumped back in he said there was an elephant wandering through the village destroying houses like godzilla, it was probably the petrol fumes spewing into the car but it seemed like good idea to all of us to try and find this elephant.

Before too long we were driving around the dark bushes of Vic Falls town using the one working headlight to spot a 4 tonne creature with a boot full of what i like to call flaming death. Someone (I don't know who, but they have a sick sense of humour) said this is probably what Ivan Milat did in Australia - took people looking for Kangaroos. Deathly silence except for one person snickering and then everyone had the sudden need to be at home... good news for me cos i am too pretty to die in a flaming car crash. Upon arriving at the backpackers we bypassed the bar and went to the grass outside trying to breathe in fresh air and heal our petrol soaked airways.

The following morning we met the rest of the cast, left Vic Falls, nearly ran over an endagered African Wild Dog and breathed a sigh of releif crossing the border into Botswana.

Vic Falls - "The smoke that thunders" ... amazing ... so undescribable that Al decided not to mention it, but we did spend an afternoon at Vic Falls National Park marvelling at the beauty (and dodging the many wild baboons that also choose to walk the paths). Paul - you would be impressed, there were no McDonalds or Hotels in sight!!

Chobe National Park

So we skipped some down time, some early morning starts, a bizarre practice called flapping after every meal (this isn't as fun as it sounds) and bonding with our with our co-tennants on the big yellow taxi.

We arrive at Chobe National park for a jaunt around the grounds in an open top jeep. Seems fairly straight forward to me, keep your arms and legs in the vehicle while its cruising around and they'll let you out so you can get a view of the animals in the distance. Turns out there are hungry kitty cats that have a taste for human not tins of tuna (i had tuna for lunch that day so i was doubly screwed) so you cant alight from the vehicle and your tray's have to be in the locked position the whole journey! I thought Africa would be lax on these types of laws as they are with other things like keeping time, moving quickly and getting things done turns out getting a whitey killed brings a lot of people looking at places so they try not to let it happen. At least we have a decent zoom on the camera so we would be able to see the animals at a distance and when our first stop was looking at a couple of black blobs on the horizon and getting told they were buffalo I was beggining to question how many pula this was costing me.

Then an elephant nearly trod on the bonnet of the car and i couldn't pull the zoom of the camera back far enough so it just looks like a photo of a grey wall! It was worth the pula. No kitty cats here though, even with me banging a tin of tuna with a fork as we drove along. The impala's and wilderbeest were giving me look that kind of said "Are you serious? Those kitty cats eat us. What are you trying to do?" but all i could think of was the photo op!!

I felt like a member of the paparazzi chasing the newest white trash celebrity around looking for them to pick on a poor kid or mistreat a $100 note in a rolled up kind of way. After this we went for a cruise on the River Chobe. It was beautiful, it was magnificent, it was photo op city. I invented a game which was called "How many tourisits are prepared to climb over the top of an elderly person in the hope of getting that one Kodak moment?" turns out the answer to this is all of them. I am surprised we didn't capsize the boat with everyone rushing from one side to the other having wet dreams about the slide show they are going to bore everyone with when they get home (we saved you some pain, ours are in the photo albumn on the side). Then came the sunset. Africa doesn't do things by half, and in terms photgenic sunsets they have one a day, guaranteed.

It was at this point i decided to black list something else, the sound of a digital camera beeping as it focuses. It's almost as bad as a camera rewinding while on a walking safari and you're all being quiet (digital camera time Matt!). The sound of fifty beeps at differing intervals interrupting your queit beer on the river, steals a little from the moment. Still worth it though sometimes instead of seeing the glass half full or empty i notice the glass is a little dirty with a crack on the rim and someone hasn't put a coaster under it.. But it was tops.

Giraffe casually strolling across the road in front of our jeep!

We thought he was upset with us, but if you look closely, it turns out that there's a croc at his feet!

Okavango Delta

So after what seems like thirty days in the wild, hallucinating thanks to the sleep deprivation, shaking uncontrollably due to the withdrawels from coffee (that's me) and prepared to suffocate someone in their sleep if it means some hot water for a shower (most other people), we arrived at the Okavango Delta.

Upon arriving, we should have had a relaxing three days, getting poled out into the woods in a hollowed out tree, camping, drinking, telling scary stories, getting the guns out for a tan and generally Peter Pan style happy thoughts. The rules are simple - take a warm change of clothes, one sleeping bag and one sleeping mat and enough to drink. It was cold so everyone had their warm change of clothes on. This gets better ... bear with it. In the hollowed out tree they put your sleeping bag and sleeping mat to sit on so you don't get a prickle on your arse and your bag and you sit in, then your poler pushes you along (not singing ala venice but a similar theory). This is where it gets funny to me and makes Mel mad. The ONE mokoro (as the trees are called when they are hollowed out), the ONE mokoro that fills with water soaking the warm clothes and sleeping mat, saturating the only pair of jocks/knickers that came for the ride is ours. Oh happy days, the water was physically boiling as it sat around melissah's waist ... seeing the lighter side of life can be life threatening sometimes! Since i stopped work, I've gained a few kilo's but to sink a bloody boat? I ain't that fat yet!!

When we arrived at our campgrounds (after changing mokoros) set up our tents, hung our clothes up to dry, hung the sleeping mats out to dry and hung the sleeping bags out to dry, we were finally ready to relax and enjoy the sunset.... Well kind of. They took us for a walk out the back of the camp. About twenty metres from the back of the camp they showed us elephant footprints, the girls (not me i never worry about anything, i am big and strong after all) a tad worried asked are there any animals on these walks?
Yes was the reply.
Do we see these animals on the walks ?
Yes ... even lions and leopards...
At this stage people are looking at the mokoros trying to work out if they could get back to the trucks.
What do we do if we see these animals?
Run down wind and try and keep up with me is what Nelson the guide replied, or if its a leopard "just don't look him in the eye and a lion .. well give him a look of dismissal". I think the setswana to english is mis interpriting some clicks somewhere because giving a lion a look dismissal rather than a look of abject terror (also known as the "I just crapped my pants") is the last thing i would do. I reckon the guides want you to look at the lion so they have time to run, don't look at the leopard so you cant see it coming and they have time to run. There was some other dicey advice involving elephants, buffalo and rhinos but it all boiled down to the same thing ... you get eaten before them. These guys have it sorted, whatever happens you die first.

So when we coaxed the girls out the trees (they went up there when one of the guides said you have to run every walk.. that whole setswana to english thing again) we finally strolled around. Check the hippo on the right over there for some photos. Saw elephants and some zebras and some wilderbeest. The wilderbeest were just standing around in some long grass chewing the fat, standing very still and in my mind all i could think was "i've watched national geographic channel, in 20 seconds one of these guys is just gonna get ripped down into the long grass, children of the corn style. Another wilderbeest is gonna look over and go "Has anyone seen Ken? Anyone? No? Ok" and they'll all take off like bats out of hell. "RIP ken." This didn't happen but it would have been sweet if it did.

So on day 2, I tried to push one of the mokoros around. White guys can't jump or pole is the updated version of that saying. At least i didn't sink it although i did my best. That night all rugged up beers in hand we went out on the mokoros again to find a nice place to watch the sunset. All the luggage was out of the mokoro, just Mel and I and a new Mokorro, you would think we would be sweet. You would be wrong. We sunk another one and had to get another boat. 2 from 2. We are starting to get a complex about our weight! Some of the photos were worth the wet arse, some not so much. Mel dominated the African "what beast sir?" game around the campfire that night. I sucked.

Al and Zeph attempting to pole a Mokorro

Mel's Note: Al has neglected to mention that this night around the campfire is probably our most memorable and best night in Africa. The polers (all local guys) spent the night singing us local African tunes ... including crowd involvement ... even the local's had to take a step back and admire Matt "dancing to the African drums" and then played African and Australian games around the campfire.

Day 3 we packed up. Alls well that ends well. Hugs all round, pack up the tents, the bags, the mats. Breakfast goes down well the sun is shining, birds singing aint nothing gonna break my stride (as the song goes). Load into another new mokoro. Get 5 minutes down delta, things are going swimmingly. What did you just say? Swimmingly? Damn right. 3 from 3. The fucken thing fills with water again. Thank god the poor poler couldn't see our (Mel's) face, little Alaska would have turned to stone. Overall, i rated it. Because if we didn't sink the boats, we'd have nothing to talk about except whateveryone else talks about, it was pretty, it was beautiful, blah blah.. Still would do it again.

Al's fancy shot of Steve, Eve and Lee in their Mokorro

Krueger National Park

The "Big 5" - aptly named not because they are the most dangerous animals in Africa, but when hunting, if you wound an animal, these are the 5 most likely to kill you for a bad shot. (yes mum, we took all of these photo's ourselves.)

Tales to come ...