The Adventure Begins

The start of a long 24 hours of travel begins and we're sitting in the relative calm of the Aspire Lounge at Heathrow T5, its considerably smaller than others we've been to and the wifi is pants so I'm keeping my fingers crossed this gets posted.  

Our flight to Johannesburg is exactly 12 hours although there may be a 1 hour time difference (must check that out) and the plane is absolutely jam packed solid.  I just hope that BA's Premium Economy gives enough room for Ian's dodgy knee and back.

After arriving at Jo'burg at 7am we then we have a 4hr 40mins layover before a 1hr 40 mins flight to Kasane in Botswana.

After that I don't have a clue what happens but according to Safari Consultants all transfers are included so hopefully there will be a little man waving a board with our name on it.  And he should take us to the first camp Muchenje Safari Lodge.

Haven't a clue what to expect ........................ excited!

Travelling Light

Deciding what to wear was a problem as colours are limited to earthy browns, greens and beige especially if we want to do walking safaris (which we think we do but someone said to us that when you actually come across a bull elephant you might not be so keen!).  Black is to be avoided as it attracts tsetse flies and white just gets too dirty.  Apparently we don't need too many clothes for the trip as there is free laundry at all camps but we still seem to have been buying constantly since we booked the trip.

Soft bags are the recommended type of luggage and whilst these new bags look very nice I imagine one trip and they'll be filthy and ruined.

Never travelled so light before !

Destination Southern Africa

We're heading off again, this time to Southern Africa - we decided a while ago that we wanted to go "on safari" and at the Travel Show at Olympia in February we got chatting with a specialist in safaris and they sorted a tailor-made trip for us (considerably blowing the budget we'd set).

So we fly via Johannesburg to Kasane in Botswana then transfer to the Chobe National Park for 3 nights, then we cross the mighty Zambezi by ferry and head to Victoria Falls for 2 nights.  After that a flight to Lusaka in Zambia and then light aircraft to Mwufe and the South Luangwa Valley where we have 2 nights at one camp and the 7 at another (hope that doesn't prove to be too long - Ian thinks he might get gamed-out!)

I don't think I've really understood the scale of this map and how vast Africa is