Allthegobro

We have left Victoria Falls and found our way to Cresta Mowana, a lodge bedside the Chobe River in Botswana. Once we got going the road transfer took about an hour and a half. It involved a crossing of the border between Zimbabwe and Botswana.
Australians need a visa to get into Zimbabwe, but not Botswana. We had got a single entry visa for Zimbabwe before leaving Australia and had used it when coming in on the train from South Africa to Victoria Falls. It was a quick rubber stamp job exiting Zimbabwe.

Getting into Botswana did though involve a bit of paper and foot work. We had to complete a two page questionnaire to self declare that we did not have Monkey Pox symptoms, we didn’t seem to have any. We then had to walk through a shoe bath to disinfect for Foot & Mouth disease, as well as dunk the soles of any other shoes we had. We were told Botswana was a big exporter of beef to Europe and were somewhat focussed on keeping the disease out, ‘like you in Australia’.

The slight issue we had though was we did not have a visa to get back into Zimbabwe, we needed to do that for a flight from there to Kenya the next day. Told there were no worries in getting a visa at the border on the way back, just had to have $US60. We would have to wait and see!

The local Chobe tourist info centre.

’Mowana’ means ‘tree of life’ (Cresta is a hotel chain) and there is a big boab in the courtyard of the hotel. An even bigger one is at the road entrance into the property. Our room has a great view out over the river and the Namibian flood plains on the other side. The Chobe River is a tributary of the Zambezi and forms the border between Botswana and Namibia.

The trip here is go go. On arrival we have a quick late lunch before departing on a sunset boat cruise on the Chobe River into the Chobe NP. Botswana has the biggest concentration of Elephants in Africa, in excess of 80,000 and a lot of them are here in this park. So we hoped to see some.

Crocodiles abound as does the Hippo, and we see one open its jaws, in the video below. It goes for a little while, the action is towards the end.

The Cape Buffalo is also plentiful. This Big 5 member is not a water buffalo like Crocodile Dundee subdued in the movie. The Cape Buffalo is considered the most dangerous animal in Africa.

Also quite a lot of bird life, this one is a bit like a sea eagle back home, but here by the river.

But, back to the elephants, here is a baby beside the mother.

The whole herd then commenced a crossing of the river. They all lined up and away they went. Why? The guide suggested it was to get to the other side to feed on the shrubs and trees, where they had been was all grasses and they needed woody stuff for their diet. It looked spectacular, about half way the baby decided to turn back and all the other elephants circled around and ‘encouraged’ him/her on! That is what all the commotion in the water is about. All made it to the other side!

After this performance we headed back to the lodge as the sun went down.

In the morning we have 5am rise to join a morning game drive in the Park.

We have had a couple of excursions at Victoria Falls to check out the local wildlife.

The first was boarding a river cruise on the Zambezi, above the Falls. It was one of those drifting experiences where you have anticipation of seeing a few animals but at the end it is the sunset that gets all the oohs and ahs! There were numerous boats out on the river, all shapes and sizes. Lovely warm weather.

We did get our first hippo sighting. Heads protruding out of the water away in the distance.

There were a couple of elephants at the water’s edge having a drink, their trunks can hold up to 15 litres of water. Quite a gulp!

A small crocodile lay on the river bank, blending into its space. Very easily trodden upon! And the sunset of course!

The water that the sun sets over appears to be slowly moving down stream to spill over the Falls, mist rises in the distance. Tempting to drift with the current, but no we head back to the dock before deep dark sets in.

Our second excursion took us out on a game drive in a private park. Hopefully, to see a fourth member of the Big 5. A Black Rhino.

Our guide can make no promises. But, away we go in the late afternoon. We come across a few of the usual suspects.

A stork was a magnificent colourful sight in the brown earthy background. Earthy coloured Guinea Fowl were also hanging around a waterhole.

We did have a couple of sightings of Rhinos in the scrub but couldn’t quite make any details out. We then came across a cleared patch of ground. There were two rhinos here. An old lady, thought to be 39. She showed her age with bony shoulders and hips pressing through her tough hide.

Our guide thought she was not long for it. Life expectancy is in the early forties.

Nearby, was the much younger son, far fitter! A great sight.

Our time at Victoria Falls has drawn to a close and our next stop is in Botswana at a Lodge on the Chobi River.

We have our last dinner at the Jungle Junction as the night draws in and bed beckons!

We strolled down from the train into the Victoria Falls Hotel, we are here for four nights, not far from the Falls on the Zambezi River that David Livingstone stumbled over on the 16th November 1855. There is much referencing of him as the ‘discoverer’ of the Falls. The reality being that he was the first European to see them. The local people have been here for generations and the Falls were spiritual places.

We are here to visit this special place, known these days (in local lingo) as Mosi-oa-Tunya, although there are variations, being ‘The Smoke that Thunders’. Livingstone named them Victoria Falls, after the then British Queen.
Livingstone was a bit of an enigma. He was largely unsuccessful in his Christianising efforts, which the locals vigorously resisted. But, he was a leading force in the anti slavery movement and was greatly respected for that by the locals.

Despite independence the name ‘Victoria’ has stuck, very much for entrenched tourism marketing reasons. The Zimbabweans, where Livingstone is not as revered, from time to time push for renaming. The Zambians are resistant due to his opposition to slavery.
The original Victoria Falls Hotel was built in 1904, largely replaced with the current central structure after WW1. Additions then followed and the Sables wing where we are was built in 1997.

Spacious rooms and colonial memorabilia adorn the public areas. Great big paintings of King George V and Queen Mary are in the foyer. It would have been an outpost for the very well to do.

We had a prearranged excursion to the Falls with a guide and few others. This was a 3km round trip along the rim of the Falls looking to the Zambia side. Took us about three hours, There are sixteen (?) view points along the way. Photographers dream! The water coming over the Falls at this time is much reduced, still plenty of mist and the rock formations visible. At its peak in May it is thunderous and difficult to see anything.

Back at the Hotel there is a great view of the Victoria Falls bridge, originally constructed in 1904 but strengthened and rejigged to take today’s rail and traffic volumes.

The food at the Hotel was good rather than being outstanding. Fed the hungry stomachs after a day out! Some energetic entertainment too! Homealone tackled the mini burgers, swapped the crocodile one for another beef one. Allthego stuck to a more traditional one, but did enjoy a warthog skewer one evening.

That is all for now, a long catchup and I will leave the next animal instalment to next time

Our train plodded on through the evening and into the early hours before stopping in a siding at Thompson Junction a couple of hours or so (as it would turn out!) to the south of our destination.

The Ravos Rail journey has been excellent. Travelling through a dry sun burnt countryside towards the end of the dry. During the wet it transforms into greenery and we are told views from the train are hampered by thick trackside vegetation.

The local kids are keen train watchers, appear from no where, wave enthusiastically and follow us down the line. The photo above shows a wavy track line. Zimbabwe is not great on maintenance and tends to fix problems rather than try to prevent them through maintenance!

In Hwange NP the wet also means that the animals roam further from the waterholes, the grasses are higher and it is harder to get close to them. In East Africa from mid August it seems is a good time to be here.

The meals on board have been as promised, locally inspired dishes, with some English trad thrown in, complemented by South African wines greet us each day for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Eggs on onion parmesan scones and stuffed chicken breasts were rather good examples.

In between a lot of looking out windows and seemingly endless chatter. Some are louder than others! Our cabin is big enough for us not to want to be in there all day, the sofa converts to a double in the evening.

During the early hours there is some shunting around a ‘triangle’, or is it a ‘bubble’ track (?), to allow the locos to swap train ends as the carriages ‘turn’ around. There is no facility at Victoria Falls to facilitate a carriage turn around.

So, we complete the journey into Victoria Falls with the locos pulling the carriages ‘backwards’ into the Victoria Falls station. Allthego needed a bit of paper and pen to see how this all worked, and even with the help of Homealone, still can’t work it out. Not an engineer.

The train station at Victoria Falls is a bit of a throw back to colonial times. An abandoned water tank symbolic of steam train days.

We alight here, to a welcome party of locals in traditional garb, and stroll the short distance down to the Victoria Falls Hotel for a four night stay in this ‘relic’ of bygone days.

The locos still point north but will again swap ends and leave at 5pm for the journey back to Pretoria with the observation car at the end, as it should be!

The journey north from Beitbridge towards Bulawayo passes through more baobab country before starting to transform into denser thickets of the acacia, extremely spiney. There continue to be the occasional small agricultural or grazing operations alongside the railway. Also, an occasional settlement. We finally reach the town of Mpopoma to the south of Bulawayo sometime late in the night (or early morning) and we go off onto a siding to see out the night. The train set off at sun up with a lot of shunting and backtracking in order to change lines for the journey beyond Bulawayo. Bulawayo is the second largest city in Zimbabwe after Harare (the capital) and is the industrial centre of the country. Those who have read Wilbur Smith’s African novels might remember Bulawayo as an oft mentioned locale. We seem to bypass the city and travel past on its outskirts.
Further north, there is at 114km one of the world’s longest stretches of straight railway line. The longest is 478km across Australia’s Nullarbor.

This section of the track passes by the eastern edge of Hwange NP, the largest in Zimbabwe. It is estimated to be home to in excess of 40,000 elephants and to protect the other members of the Big 5, although Rhino numbers are small and infrequently seen. I have heard someone say that the rhinos have been moved out in order to protect them from poachers.

At 3pm we stop on the edge of Hwange and go off onto a siding near the town of Dete. Everyone alights the train and form groups to board game drive cars, converted Toyota Landcruisers. Our guide’s name was Divine, and he was! Great driver along the bumpy/sandy tracks and he knew his animals. We saw three of the Big Five (lion, elephant and water buffalo) and numerous others: giraffe, zebra, wildebeest, mongoose, impala and few other antelope species. Some birds as well for good measure.
Here are a few of the creatures of the plains….

We were back on board at around 8pm and set off for Victoria Falls which we would reach early morning and then disembark at 10am.

After a quick breakfast at Castello di Monte we transferred by a mini bus, with some other guests, to the Ravos Rail train station on what seemed to be the other side of Pretoria. We arrived around 8.30am for a 10am departure.

Plenty of time to look around the complex, including the railway museum. ‘Ravos’ is a contraction of the name of the fellow who owns the company…….Rohan Vos. The whole operation is based around the principle of ‘slow’ travel, no internet to distract from the late 1800s early 1900s train travel experience. Good food, conversation and wine in comfortable surroundings as the train and its carriages meander north to the Falls.

We had a quick look through the railway museum, a lot of colonial memorabilia of steam travel in southern Africa. Ravos has some short steam experiences but generally the locomotives are diesel, with some diesel electrics. The infrastructure for long distance steam travel has been dismantled. Along the way we saw a number of derelict water towers. Not unlike the Ghan in Australia , the operator owns the rolling stock and is charged for usage of the track infrastructure.

Rohan Vos is now in his late 70s but still performs an overview tour of the facility explaining various aspects of the operations.

The outfit has over 400 staff and runs tourist trains over various routes through southern Africa. Quite impressive chap and seems to have encyclopaedic knowledge of train engineering and operations.
We headed off north east a little late and made our way through the outer ‘suburbs’ of Pretoria and past light industrial complexes. All a bit messy with plenty of rubbish strewn around. We finally get away from the city scape and start the plod (the train does about 35km ph most of the time) north to Victoria Falls, about 1400km.
We are towards the end of the dry season and much of the thorny vegetation is leafless, boab trees are a common sight beside the track.

It is rocky sandy environment and looks a little like outback Australia. Small villages and some larger towns sit beside the railway line, small scale agriculture and cattle rearing the main activities.

We stop for some time overnight at Musina, not far from the Limpopo River. The Limpopo forms the border between South Africa and Zimbabwe and in the early morning we cross over into Zimbabwe.

We are reminded by the itinerary that the Limpopo features in Rudyard Kipling’s ‘Just So Stories’ when the ‘Elephant’s Child’ departs his family for the “great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever trees, to find out what the Crocodile has for dinner”.
I am sure my readers will remember this well so there is no need to dwell on it further.
After crossing the river we have a lengthy stop at Beitbridge for visa checking before we trundle further north towards Bulawayo.

Beitbridge has a very long platform so Allthego takes the opportunity for a head shot of the train, with the 500m of carriages disappearing into the hazy distance.

We now head for Bulawayo, where we will stop for the night, or at least for some hours before morning.

We have arrived without incident in South Africa and are staying the night on the outskirts of Pretoria at the Castello di Monte. The flight from Brisbane to Johannesburg via Dubai went smoothly, no turbulence encountered. The flight path from Dubai to Johannesburg first took us unevently over the troubled lands bordering the Gulf of Aden and the entrance to the Red Sea. It then turned south and tracked the African coastline before heading inland for Johanessburg.

In Pretoria the staff at the Castello di Monte, located inside an extensive gated community, proudly showed us to our room. Some room indeed! Spa, bathtub and shower, an extensive lounge and bedroom area. Fully stocked mini bar complimentary…..Allthego went to it and used the bathroom. He had an underlying feeling of unease though and examined the introductory letter carefully.

Two nights it said but we were only staying one. Mmm, the booking names were not right either. We had been mistakenly given the honeymoon suite! Our real room is below, pretty good anyway.

After being fixed up with the right room we enjoyed dinner and had an early night ahead of joining the Ravos Rail journey to Victoria Falls in the morning.

It’s 6pm and we are now sitting at Brisbane International awaiting the 9pm Emirates to Dubai, arriving at 5am their time. A wonderful night flight arriving at sunrise! We have a five hour wait there before leaving for Johannesburg, arriving there at 4pm.

There is to be no lurking around in Johannesburg as we have a quick bus transfer to Pretoria for our first night in Africa. The next morning we board the Ravos Rail train for a three night journey north to Victoria Falls.

Leaving Brisbane with the colours of spring in full bloom for the end of the dry season in eastern Africa. Until Pretoria!