My husband and I are just back from a wonderful family holiday to Zambia, Botswana and Namibia with our two children. It was by no means our first safari/bird watching holiday. With both son and daughter living so far away, it’s a great way for the four of us to get together to celebrate special anniversaries and ‘big 0’ birthdays and spend time together.
I was lucky enough to have a window seat and, as I plane came into Victoria airport, I had a great view of the spectacular Victoria Falls. A trip to the falls was our first excursion. It’s impossible to capture their full magnificence in a single photo!
Our first week we stayed in river lodges along the Zambezi and Chobe rivers which meant that we had several very enjoyable boat trips.
As you might expect, the rivers were full of hippos and we had goods views of the animals on the banks.
Our fellow travellers – there was sixteen of us in total – were all keen birders and though I must confess, bird watching is not one of my passions, there were some stunning birds. Though the others raved over some of the LBJs (little brown jobs) I much preferred the gloriously coloured ones that I could spot more easily.
There were plenty of animals for me to enjoy, some of which we could see as we sat having breakfast and lunch on the deck at the lodges and on our game drives.
Though we had excellent close up views of a lion family at the side of the path, the highlight of the trip for me was probably the cheetah that we watched for some time as he walked nonchalantly through the grass, crossed the path just in front of our van, through the grassland to the left and eventually disappeared into the trees.
That said, I did have a soft spot for the cute elephant calf who came down to drink at the river’s edge with his mum. We all feared for his safety when mum decided to take him up a steep path rather than take the easy route they’d used to come down. We were all worried his little legs weren’t long enough and he would fall. There were a few tense moments when he slipped, but he made it in the end.
Our two guides told us that the previous weeks had been very wet though we had no rain for the first week, once we reach Namibia, it came down in torrents. More rain than Nambia had had in living memory! As we tried to pass through one of the larger towns on the way to the next lodge, even our two four-wheel-drive vans could not get through the major crossroads, so we had to backtrack and take a longer route through the countryside.
Our lodges in Namibia were located inside the National Parks and each had extensive grounds where various types of antelope, zebra, mongoose and tiny tree squirrels roamed freely between lines of our cabins. I must confess, my heart rate went up several notches when a group of play-fighting kudu emerged jumping up on each other’s backs as they charged across the grassy area in front of our room as we sat outside. One looked as though he was making straight for us!
One of my writer friends asked if I’ve ever thought of writing a new ‘On Safari’ travel mystery series. I have to admit, I did come back from our tiger safari in India several years ago with a complete plot – minus the actual murder. An Australian doctor had brought along her young PA to accompany her. The two had a major fall-out halfway through the trip and the problems that resulted would have made a great story. I did for a short while consider writing ‘Tiger, Tiger,’ but being realistic, it’s hard enough to find time to write books in my three existing series without adding a fourth.
P.S. As always, many thanks to my photographer husband for these wonderful pictures.
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